by Craig Dirkes
That was true. Everyone knew flight security was lax in the YK Delta — and most everywhere in rural Alaska. What Sheriff Berger had said in his email only confirmed that fact. The main thing you had to worry about was getting past Kusko security. After that, you were basically home free in whatever village. Although village public safety officers — known as VPSOs (every village employed one) — would drive out to the runway and greet the passengers of every airplane that landed, they only checked the bags of folks who looked like they might be smuggling something. None of the villages had funding for sophisticated security measures.
“I really need some money,” I explained. “I’ve got to get the hell out of here.”
“Since when do you want to leave Kusko so bad?” Finn asked.
“Since Saturday,” I said. “Taylor denied me.”
“Ouch,” Finn said, scooping another mouthful of beaver.
“That’s not all,” I said. “There’s all this other bullshit that’s been building up, and all I do lately is work and pick up dog shit and work and pick up dog shit and work and watch you eat beaver.”
Finn laughed as he chewed.
“I mean, I’m eighteen,” I continued. “I can’t take this anymore.”
He nodded, and I kept on talking. I explained why I couldn’t just up and leave: I didn’t have time for a second job to pay for a flight and shipping my truck, I couldn’t sell my beloved truck, and my dad was too poor to help me — which he probably wouldn’t do even if he had the money, just to teach me a lesson.
“But if I sell some weed,” I said, “I could be back in Anchorage in just a few months. I could pay my way out of here and reenroll in college — or move back to Minnesota.”
“You want to sneak pot onto an airplane, but you’re afraid to try beaver meat?” Finn said.
I rolled my eyes and stood up to get myself some beaver meat. I forked a leg the size of a chicken breast and dropped it onto a plastic plate. I hacked off some meat with a knife and took a bite. It tasted like an overly rich and ultragreasy rump roast. Not bad.
I continued my previous line of questions. “So, how much would I have to pay for an ounce through whoever you get it from?”
“Probably three hundred.” Finn didn’t even look at me. He just spoke flatly and cut up the remaining beaver on his plate.
“So I could buy it for three hundred, charge nine hundred, and net six hundred?”
“Sounds about right.”
I thought about the numbers I’d crunched on Yute Cargo’s website earlier in the day. Shipping my truck to Anchorage would cost around three grand — a fee that, in retrospect, underscored just how badly Dalton had needed a reporter when he hired me. He was willing to pay three thousand dollars to ship a truck he knew I wouldn’t really need. I thought I’d been lucky to land the job; turns out he was seriously desperate.
I did the math in my head: three thousand divided by six hundred is five. Five marijuana deals if I moved an ounce each time. I could do that before the end of summer.
“What do you say, Finn?”
He took another bite of beaver. He chewed slowly, then took a second bite.
I knew he was buying time, and I wasn’t in the mood. “Well?”
“Yeah, bro,” Finn said. “I’ll hook you up. But you better know what you’re doing.”
CHAPTER 12
GLOWING FISH
The buzz of my electric razor woke up Dalton through the paper-thin bathroom walls. That didn’t surprise me. Drop even the faintest, cutest little girl-fart in there, and the whole house would hear it.
Dalton stirred in his bedroom across the narrow hallway. “The hell?” he muttered to himself, half asleep in his bed, annoyed that I’d ruined his last half hour of shuteye. A minute later, he clunked around in the kitchen, brewing a pot of coffee. “Eddie, want any of this?”
“Sure,” I replied, still shaving. “Sorry about the noise.”
“Yeah, well what’s taking so long? You barely get a five o’clock shadow.”
True. But I wasn’t shaving my face. I was shaving my ass. Puberty might’ve arrived late, but it left me with an exceptionally hairy ass, a fact known by just a handful of people, including five girls in Zimmerman and two girls in Anchorage.
“I’m shaving my pubes,” I said, figuring Dalton would assume I meant my bush.
“Remind me to never use your shaver,” he said.
I stood naked in the shower, on top of a pile of my own short-n-curlies. I’d cut down the trees but still had stumps to grind. I lathered with shaving cream and used a proper razor to glide through the stubble. Once finished, I turned on the water for a quick shower.
“Make it fast,” Dalton said through the wall. “We’re almost out of water.”
This was another Sucktown reality I’d come to know: only a third of Kusko homes had piped water. The rest of us had water tanks — three-hundred-gallon tanks were typical — that the city filled once a week. Run out, and an emergency refill set you back an extra hundred bucks.
I finished showering in less than thirty seconds, dried off, and got dressed in my bedroom. I put on a green T-shirt underneath baggy, blue-jean overalls. After almost five months in Kusko, I’d conformed to the local male fashion trend of wearing overalls more days than not. When in Rome.
Dalton had a cup of hot coffee waiting for me on the kitchen table. He watched the news while seated on his couch — a maroon L-shaped sectional with a musky odor just shy of offensive. Every other piece of furniture in the house looked like it’d been discarded by a secondhand store. The home itself was decent, but the furnishings were not.
I sat down at the table and sipped the coffee. I only had time for half a cup because I needed to be at Finn’s house so he could drive me to the airport.
“Where you headed today?” Dalton asked.
“Unalakleet.”
Dalton’s coffee almost blew out his nose.
“Unalakleet?” he blurted. “What the hell for? You do realize Unalakleet isn’t in the YK Delta, right? The Patriot isn’t even sold in that village — it’s fifty miles out of range.”
Dalton had worked out a deal with Yute Express, the YK Delta’s largest passenger airline. He paid a flat two thousand dollars that allowed me to travel standby to almost any village in western Alaska, up to two times per month, through October.
“I know Unalakleet is too far north,” I said, smiling coyly, knowing he’d love my explanation. “But I’ve got a juicy lead. Everyone in Alaska is going to want to read this story.”
“What’s the story?”
“Glowing fish.”
“What do you mean, glowing fish?”
“I mean, the king salmon are lighting up like freaking glow sticks. Finn told me about it. He knows a guy who’s seen it with his own eyes.”
The kings had just started running. Generally speaking, Alaska’s salmon runs work like this: kings in late May and June, reds in July, silvers in August. Finn had explained all that too.
“The fish are glowing in the water?” Dalton asked.
“No, no. Nothing like that. You’ll just have to read the story. Trust me on this one.”
Dalton paused and took a swig of coffee. “Fine, Eddie. Go for it. Just make it good.”
* * *
I heaved my backpack over my shoulder at the doorway. Dalton said I needed a backpack full of gear for every village trip because the volatile Alaska weather can halt air travel for days at a time. If I was going to be stuck in a village overnight, I needed a sleeping bag, a change of clothes, pilot crackers and Spam, toiletries, toilet paper, and a good pair of boots.
The dogs detonated — howling and barking — the moment I walked outside. They hadn’t been fed yet. “Easy, guys — breakfast is coming,” I assured the pack, knowing Dalton would soon fill their bowls with dog food and a scoop of
chicken fat.
I went up the steps at Finn’s and let myself in. Knocking was no longer necessary.
Finn sat at his kitchen table with a stupid smirk on his face. On the table rested a vacuum sealer, a cellophane baggie, duct tape, and what I assumed to be an ounce of marijuana. Finn gestured toward the weed like a beautiful game show model presenting a new car.
“I still can’t believe you’re doing this,” he said. “You’ve got serious balls.”
I couldn’t totally believe it, either. Especially considering how big a pile of weed stared at me. It looked as big as a head of lettuce. “Will all of that, um, fit?”
“Yeah, it’ll fit. It’ll shrink down when we smash it and vacuum seal it. Watch.”
Finn held the baggie near the edge of the table and dumped the weed off the ledge, into the bag. He placed the bag back onto the table and pounded the weed inside of it with a closed fist.
After that, he inserted the open end of the baggie into the vacuum sealer and turned it on. (Everyone in Kusko owned a vacuum sealer, a necessity for storing meat.) The machine hummed loudly, sucking out every last molecule of air and sealing the bag tight.
The sealed package was narrow and eight inches long, about the size of a large banana.
“Drop your drawers,” Finn said.
I unbuckled my overalls. I slid my gray boxers down to my ankles, and Finn slapped my bare ass as hard as he possibly could, just to be a dick. The imprint of his palm and fingers burned into my butt cheek like I was a cow he’d just branded. I almost punched him.
“Easy, Eddie,” Finn said between laughs. “I’m just messin’ with you. Now, spread ’em.”
I held my butt cheeks, and Finn crammed the package inside my crack. Once it was lodged in there well enough, I held everything in place, sidelong, while he cut strands of duct tape and stuck them across my ass.
“Good call on the shave job,” Finn said. “This tape is still gonna hurt coming off.”
I put my clothes back on while Finn hurried into his bedroom and gestured for me to join him. A full-length mirror hung on the wall near his dresser.
“Profile, please,” he requested.
I turned sideways and looked at my reflection. Everything checked out. My overalls were baggy enough that the package was undetectable. I took a few short steps forward and backward, like people do when trying on new pairs of shoes.
“How’s it feel?” Finn asked.
“Not great, but I’ll live.”
I plopped down on his bed to test what sitting felt like. That wasn’t horrible, either.
I stood, looked in the mirror again, and bent over. That posed a problem. If I bent with straight legs, the package broke the plane of my crack enough to reveal a bulge.
Finn looked concerned. “If you have to pick something up, remember to bend your knees.”
“I won’t forget.” I took a few deep breaths and told myself to stay calm. “Who am I meeting again?”
“His name’s Casey Cotton — one of my high school buddies. He’ll pick you up in Unalakleet. You’ll like him.”
It was a quarter past six, and we needed to hurry to the airport. The plane was scheduled to leave in forty-five minutes.
* * *
Finn fired up the FJ and we motored away. He loved the truck almost as much as I did, so sometimes I let him drive it.
The ride to the airport was about as long as any trip we could make in Kusko — meaning about five minutes. Finn wasn’t playing my wingman. He had to get to work at the airport.
During the drive, every emotion I’d suppressed came bubbling up. I’d previously done an outstanding job of fooling myself into thinking that selling weed wasn’t a big deal. I wasn’t a drug dealer. I was a good guy who just happened to have a small amount of marijuana, who would just happen to give away the marijuana if someone just happened to give him a few bucks for it. And I barely ever smoked the stuff, which seemed to make selling it more okay.
I thought of how disappointed my dad would be if he knew what I was doing. After all he did to keep the family afloat after my mom died, this was a slap in his face. And what if I got busted? What then? How long would the offense be on my record? A year? Three years? Seven years? Was all of this even worth it? Was I really this anxious to get out of Kusko?
I thought of Taylor and the pain and embarrassment I’d feel seeing her around town from now until I left Kusko for good. Um, yes, I thought. This is definitely worth it.
I dreamed these things with my eyes open, in a trance. Then I remembered that I needed three thousand dollars and had zero, and I heard a voice in the back of my mind. “Own this,” it said. I heard it again, and a third time.
“Own this!” Finn said a fourth time, practically shouting.
I snapped to. “What?”
“Own this, dude,” Finn repeated, driving with one hand on the steering wheel. “I can see you tweaking in your head over there. Don’t. You have to own this. You have to walk inside that airport like you’re the shit, like absolutely nothing is up. You have to own this.”
Yeah, own this, I thought.
We pulled up to the front of the airport. “Get your backpack and do this,” Finn said. “Don’t think. Just do.”
I got out, opened the back door of the FJ, and grabbed my backpack. Finn dropped the truck into gear and pulled away toward the employee parking lot. Then he hit the brakes. He backed up the truck and motioned for me to open the passenger door. I did.
“Look at me,” Finn said.
I did that, too. Right in his eyes.
“If you get busted, remember something.”
“Okay. What?”
He paused for dramatic effect.
“Remember to suck it, nerd.”
* * *
As I walked into the airport, my confidence was solid. It drained the moment I got in line to check in for my flight. Three people waited in front of me. A dozen others sat in the dirty blue waiting chairs to my right — Natives young and old, and some construction workers, some of whom were also Native. I was positive they were all on to me. Not only did they know, they knew that I knew they knew. I was sure of it.
I patted my ass to make sure the tape was secure. I did so unconsciously, then caught myself and stopped. As I thought of how patting my ass was the absolute last thing I should be doing, I realized I was doing it again, like a nervous tick. I jammed my hands into my pockets and kept them there.
Drops of sweat beaded at my temples. My right leg shook. One of my eyelids fluttered.
“Next,” the ticket lady said.
I stepped up to the counter. The lady was Peggy Paniptchuck, my neighbor from across the street. Her eyes were glued to her computer, which she was almost too short to see over. She asked, without looking at me, where I was going and whether I needed to check any bags. I told her Unalakleet, and one bag to check.
“Are you carrying any explosives, firearms, or illegal drugs?” she continued, still with her head down.
Own this, I thought.
“Other than the ounce of weed I’ve got shoved up my ass, no,” I replied.
Peggy’s eyes shot up at me. Her mouth was agape, like I’d just announced I had a bomb strapped to my chest. Then her startled expression dissolved into a pleasant smile.
“Good one, Eddie — you had me going for a second!” she said, blushing.
“Got you!” I said.
I had forgotten that Peggy might be working the counter. Had I remembered, it might have chilled me out a little more during the drive to the airport.
Peggy cleared her throat. “Now Eddie, don’t hate me for this, but FAA rules mandate that action be taken in the event of an affirmative response to the question I just asked. I’m going to need you to come with me for a moment.”
“Seriously?” I said. “But I was only —”
Frantically, I surveyed every area of the airport, jerking and twitching my head around, looking for an out.
“But,” I said. “But I’m going to miss my plane.”
“Got you!” Peggy said. She laughed, shook her head, and added, “Next time don’t mess with me.”
I exhaled longer than an old man blowing out his birthday candles. “Dammit, Peggy — you got me just as good! But you know what paybacks are.”
“Bring it, Eddie.” She was already gesturing for the next person in line. “Now go have fun in Unalakleet. I’ll be anxious to read your story, whatever it’s about.”
I wanted to tell her about the glowing fish, but I figured I’d best get out of there.
“Now boarding for Unalakleet,” the flight’s pilot shouted near the door leading out to the tarmac.
I got in line. The two people in front of me put their bags on a conveyer belt and walked through a metal detector. The security officer, a Native kid not much older than me, waved them on. No pat-downs.
I was next. I took my first step forward, wondering: Do I smile at the security officer?
“Have a nice flight,” he said, waving me by.
“Thanks, bro,” I replied, using the word “bro” to say, without explicitly saying, that I was a solid dude, and that I thought he was a solid dude, and that solid dudes don’t try to bust other solid dudes.
Home free. I strutted toward the glass door leading outside, where a yellow six-seat bush plane warmed up to fly me and a couple others north to Unalakleet, two hundred fifteen miles away.
* * *
Soon we were airborne, and I tried to relax. The fat, middle-aged pilot wore aviator sunglasses and chewed on an unlit cigar. I sat kitty-corner behind him, in front of the other passengers — three old ladies wearing lightweight summer parkas called kuspuks.
The pilot looked over his shoulder and shouted above the sound of the roaring front propeller, “You okay, young man?”
I wasn’t okay. Five minutes in, and the flight was scarier than everything I’d just been through at the airport. I hadn’t thought the flight would be scary. Dalton said bush planes don’t fly much faster than one hundred miles per hour, and they’re never much higher off the ground than a mile or so. In theory, even an engine failure seemed survivable. But in reality, every tiny gust of wind felt like the beginning of the end.