Sucktown, Alaska

by Craig Dirkes

  I recalled what my Ethics professor, Dr. Lavin, had said during one of her lectures.

  “Look around you,” she said, wearing a headset, speaking to a nearly full University of Anchorage auditorium. “Where you are, right now, is the product of all the decisions you have ever made.”

  That was the only class I almost didn’t fail; it was at three o’clock in the afternoon.

  I sat up on my cot. Doing so disrupted the air enough that I caught a whiff of myself. I reeked. I hadn’t showered since Monday night. My underwear clung to my jock, all sticky and gross.

  I wondered what my life would be like in a year. Would I be in jail or a work camp or some damn thing like that? Would I be free? If I were free, would I be living in Alaska or Minnesota?

  Not Alaska, I thought. I’m done with this state.

  I recalled some comments Nicolai had made in September while I helped him paint rooms inside his church. As we worked, I’d admitted to him that I’d had problems in Anchorage and that I didn’t like Kusko.

  “Remember, Eddie, you can’t outrun your mind,” he said. “Learn to bloom where you’re planted.”

  * * *

  I awoke to pounding on my cell door. The deep thumps hung in the room like an echo chamber.

  “Hands out of your pants, Ashford!” Buzz said through the door. He opened the door and set a red lunch tray on the floor.

  “Whatever,” I said, rising from the cot. I walked four steps and picked up the tray.

  “Eat fast,” Buzz said. “My shift’s about to end. I need a damned nap.”

  I’d found out Buzz worked three sixteen-hour shifts per week, splitting each shift between his patrol car and the jail.

  Today’s lunch: chicken thighs, green beans, and mashed potatoes, with no eating utensils. For breakfast I’d been served oatmeal, also without utensils. That meal had gotten so messy, dried oats still stuck to the insides of my fingers.

  “You were right not to give me a spoon, Buzz. I would have dug my way out of here.”

  “Watch it, smart ass. Eat your grub now.”

  Buzz started closing the door. I piped up before he could shut it. “Any chance I could use the phone for a quick minute?”

  “Nope, no chance. You already used your call.”

  I had made a call to Dalton the night I landed in jail, but he didn’t answer. I wondered where else he possibly could have been on Christmas Eve.

  “Please?” I asked.

  “Let me think about it again,” Buzz said. “No.”

  What a prick. I really wanted to call Taylor.

  “Hey, Buzz, remember when I helped you bust Bronco?” I asked. “Remember how I risked my life, and how if you had shown up a minute later I might have been killed, and how you always wanted to nail Bronco, and how I’m the only reason you were able to do it?”

  Buzz cocked his head sideways.

  “Remember when I asked to use the phone a second ago?”

  He nodded.

  “Can I now?”

  He stroked his chin and thought about it. “All right, captain skinny dick. You can make your call. Two minutes.”

  Buzz led me into the visitation area, next to a black rotary phone mounted to the wall by the door to the intake room. He sat down at the metal table while I dialed. I didn’t care if he heard my conversation with Taylor.

  Funny, I wasn’t even that nervous to call her. I’d been through so much in the last couple days, it’s like my emotions had developed calluses. I couldn’t feel much of anything, good or bad.

  I dialed.

  “Oh my gosh!” Taylor said. “What happened? Are you okay?”

  “I only have two minutes, so I’ll need to boil this down,” I said.

  I told her I did something really stupid, that I’d be in court a few days from now. I didn’t know what the judge would throw at me, but I doubted it’d be good.

  When Taylor asked what I did, I said I didn’t have enough time to get into it.

  “Wrong answer,” she said. “Tell me.”

  I sighed. What could I say other than the truth?

  “I, well, the deal is I tried selling some weed, then some stuff happened, then I turned myself in. I was going to put the money toward reenrolling in college.”

  I held my breath. I knew the idea of my selling weed would be just as shocking to Taylor as it was to Dalton. I feared the next minute of my life.

  Taylor gasped. “Where did you get it?”

  “Where’d I get the marijuana?”

  Buzz joined the conversation. “Yeah, Ashford. Where’d you get the marijuana?”

  “Sorry, Taylor,” I said, shaking my head at Buzz. “I can’t say right now. But think about it.”

  “Oh right,” she said.

  I told Taylor there were some things she didn’t know about me, things that happened over the summer. But I swore that it was all in the past.

  “It’s killed me having to hide anything from you,” I said. “But I was worried that if I told you, you wouldn’t want to be friends anymore.”

  Buzz pointed at his watch and mouthed, “Thirty seconds.”

  “Half a minute, Taylor,” I said. “Please tell me what you’re thinking.”

  “I’m thinking I don’t know who you are.”

  “Don’t say that! This is me, Taylor. It’s always been me. But I had to make some mistakes in order to understand how to be the person I need to become.”

  Taylor remained silent. Buzz mouthed, “Fifteen seconds.”

  I took a deep breath. I had never outright told Taylor how much I liked her. She knew I thought she was hot, but little more. If this was going to be the last time I ever spoke with her, I wanted her to know.

  “I would have stayed in Kusko for you,” I said.

  “What?”

  “If you would have become my girlfriend, I’d have stayed. I’d have done anything to be with you. I’d do anything now. I’ve never liked a girl more.”

  Buzz tiptoed toward me with his index finger held high, smiling a meddling smile, threatening to hang up the phone.

  “Five seconds, Taylor.”

  “I thought you were a man, Eddie. But a man doesn’t — ”

  The line went dead.

  CHAPTER 28

  JUDGMENT

  My sixth day in the clink. I wanted a teardrop tattooed below my eye. Not because I’d killed a person, but because I’d murdered my chances of living any kind of normal life in the foreseeable future. Last I talked to Buzz, he said I could be looking at as much as a couple years for the weed, plus an extra year for the dogs, but since I didn’t have any prior offenses, he thought I might get the weed knocked down to six months or so. Still, with the dogs, that could be well over a year in prison.

  It was confounding to think I could be locked up that long, and worse knowing Bronco would be one of my peers if the judge hit me with a long sentence. Bronco was inside the big prison down the road. I bet he knew half the inmates and counted them as friends. I’d be a rabbit thrown into a cage of wolves.

  Someone rapped on my cell door. I heard Buzz’s muffled voice say through the door, “It’s go time, Ashford.”

  I stood up from my cot and put on my shoes. I no longer wore my smelly T-shirt and overalls. Two days prior, I’d traded them for an orange jumpsuit. I didn’t mind the disgrace of wearing the jumpsuit because the stink of my other clothes was even more humiliating.

  Buzz paraded in. “Turn around, kid. You know the drill.”

  I placed my hands behind my back. “What time is it?” I asked.

  “Noon,” Buzz said.

  After he cuffed me, he led me outside to his squad car in the frigid December air. I shivered in the back seat, without a jacket.

  Just as the vehicle began to warm, we pulled up to the courthouse.

 
Buzz pushed me in through the front door of the building, where Misty Livermont stood behind the front desk.

  “Eddie?” she asked, perplexed. “I saw your name in the police record. I thought it was a misprint.”

  I was embarrassed, but I did well to mask it. “Long story,” I said assuredly, trying to maintain the confidence I’d need in front of the judge. “Will my name print in the police blotter?”

  “This week,” Misty said.

  “What charges?” I asked, walking past her, through the doors to the courtroom.

  “Two felonies — drug trafficking and criminal mischief,” she replied.

  Wonderful, I thought. Soon the entire YK Delta will know.

  I now understood why people would rather hang themselves than see their names in the police blotter. I wanted to dig a hole in the tundra and stick my head inside for a thousand years.

  The courtroom was a bland, oversized conference room with maroon carpet and freshly painted walls of off-white. The room smelled like latex. I walked down the center aisle, past three rows of wooden chairs on both sides of me. Three people were seated in the gallery — a young Native couple in the middle row to my right, and an elderly white man in the back row to my left.

  The sheriff and I moved through the swinging, waist-high doors separating the observation and hearing areas. Buzz led me to the defendant’s table on my left. I sat down as he retreated to a seat right behind me, in the first row of the observation area.

  We were early. The judge, clerk, and court reporter were still out to lunch.

  Sitting alone in that cold courtroom, wearing prisoner’s clothes, awaiting my fate, was surreal. In a weird way, I almost savored the moment because I knew it would never happen again.

  I heard the courtroom doors creak open behind me. I turned around and saw Nicolai and Dalton walk through. Both wore suits and ties. They sat down together in the back row. They didn’t make eye contact with me.

  I couldn’t stop looking at them. I wanted them to see me, Dalton especially. His eyes would speak volumes about the level of his anger. He had to know I was staring at him, but he still wouldn’t look. I desperately wanted him to know I tried calling him to apologize and explain myself the night I was arrested. I wanted him to know how sorry I was.

  I shifted my eyes to Nicolai. He winked at me but remained straight-faced. I didn’t know what the wink meant.

  When I heard the door to the judge’s chambers open, I swung my head around and faced forward. Buzz got up from his seat, marched to the front of the judge’s tall oak bench, and bellowed “All rise!” as Judge Jack Warfield entered the courtroom. He, the clerk, and the court reporter filed in and sat at their posts.

  The judge told everyone to be seated, then grabbed his reading glasses. “I’ve read your case, Mr. Ashford.”

  His voice sounded deep and ominous. A fat scar, traveling from below his left eye to the corner of his mouth, punctuated his rugged face. He probably got the scar mixing it up with a bear or a knife-wielding drunkard. The old Native radiated justice and authority. Mercy, he did not.

  Judge Warfield put on his glasses and flipped the pages of what I assumed was my file. “From what I understand, you’re pleading guilty, but you haven’t been very cooperative?”

  I rose to my feet. “That’s correct, sir.”

  “You’ll address me as ‘your honor,’” the judge replied sternly, looking up.

  When our eyes met, my dink shriveled into my stomach. “No disrespect, your honor. I’ve never been in this situation before.”

  “Back to the question, Mr. Ashford.”

  “Yes, your honor. I haven’t been cooperative. The mistakes I’ve made could get people I care about into trouble.”

  “‘Mistakes’ is putting it mildly, Mr. Ashford.”

  I heard the courtroom doors open again. I turned my head for a split second and saw Bristy and Hope walk through. What were they doing there?

  Judge Warfield recited several items from the sheriff’s report, which detailed how I tried to sell a large amount of marijuana, and in doing so, two of Mr. Dalton Pace’s dogs were killed.

  “Why did you do these things?” he asked.

  “I needed money to get back into college in Anchorage.”

  “You should have worked for the money.”

  “Yes, your honor.”

  Judge Warfield sighed. “I know your name, Mr. Ashford. You’ve written about assaults and abuse, all kinds of brutal crimes. All of those tragic events have two foul things in common: drugs and alcohol. If your marijuana delivery would have been successful, your actions would have propagated more of the same garbage. As a reporter, you have an intimate knowledge of the evils that go on in the YK Delta, and still, you chose to contribute to them.”

  I couldn’t muster a response, so I merely nodded. Judge Warfield asked if I had anything to say for myself.

  “I think I do,” I said nervously.

  “Well say it, before I come down on you with the force of an Oregon log splitter.”

  I heard giggling and turned around to scan the audience. Bristy and Hope, sitting directly behind me in the second row of the observation area, had their hands over their mouths, failing to hold back their laughter. When I made eye contact with Hope, she mouthed, “Oregon log splitter.”

  I laughed on the inside. It loosened me up before my big moment.

  Judge Warfield cleared his throat and glared. “Well, Mr. Ashford?”

  I cleared my own throat and began. “Your honor, I came to Kusko a year ago as a boy. Today, I stand before you as a man. If I had committed these crimes even a few months ago, I’d be making excuses to you right now, blaming others, unable to see past myself. Today, I admit that the situation I created is nobody’s fault but my own. I’ve learned that lies lead to more lies. I’ve learned that the most important thing in my life is the people I love.

  “Your honor, I will readily accept whatever judgment you levy, no matter how severe. The harsher your sentence, the stronger I will emerge on the other side.”

  I could tell Judge Warfield wasn’t going for it, even though I sounded sincere and really did believe what I’d said.

  “You’re not a man,” the judge said, smirking, like a war-torn combat veteran talking down to a tenderfoot soldier fresh out of boot camp. “Being a man means more than owning up to your mistakes. It means being proactive with the gifts God has given you, at all hours of every day.”

  I wanted to tell him that I’d begun to realize that fact, that I had the volunteer hours to prove it. “Yes, your honor.”

  Judge Warfield took a moment.

  “I know this is your first offense, Mr. Ashford,” he finally said. “And whether you know it or not, there are people in this courtroom who believe a harsh sentence will do more harm than good as you matriculate into your so-called manhood.”

  I smelled a trace of hope.

  “Because you won’t say what happened to Mr. Pace’s dogs, I have no choice but to assume you killed them yourself.”

  I no longer smelled hope.

  The judge hesitated, to allow the weight of his words to sink in. I stared into his eyes, afraid. In my head, I saw visions of myself getting pummeled in prison. I saw Bronco leading the beatings, standing above me, opening his dastardly little mouth to call me his bitch. But in the vision, Bronco’s words didn’t come out like that. Instead, he said, “Mr. Pace has indicated he does not want to press charges against you.”

  I shook my head and snapped to. Did the judge say what I think he said? Was Dalton going to let me off the hook?

  “Which leads us to the marijuana,” the judge said. “For that, I sentence you to time served, plus one year of probation.”

  I shook my head again, this time in disbelief. The judge should have thrown the book at me. Not only because five ounces of weed is a shitload, b
ut because for all he knew, my supplier was still out there, distributing more of the same stuff. The judge should have punished the piss out of me to send a message to Finn, the shooter, and others like them. His decision didn’t make sense.

  “May this be an earsplitting wakeup call to you, Mr. Ashford. It’s clear you have a promising future. People make mistakes. But should you ever make a similar mistake, you can expect to be behind bars for a very, very long time.”

  I wanted to kiss Judge Warfield on the mouth and hug Dalton so hard his guts exploded onto the wall.

  * * *

  I looked for Dalton and Nicolai, but they were already out the door. They must have been waiting for me in the entryway. I wanted to thank Dalton as soon as possible, but Bristy and Hope stopped me by the swinging doors.

  “What are you two doing here?” I asked.

  Bristy said, “We all wanted to see what was going to happen to you.”

  Hope pointed to my left, where Taylor had taken a spot just in front of where Nicolai and Dalton had been. I rubbed my eyes to make sure they were working properly.

  “She snuck in during your lame little speech,” Bristy said. “She took a cab here.”

  Taylor stood up and walked toward us. She wore tight blue jeans and a yellow flannel button-down. Her hair streamed down from beneath an ivory-colored winter hat. She looked like an L.L.Bean model. I wanted to suck the lip gloss off her mouth.

  “Wow, that was intense,” Taylor said, smiling a little bit. “Looks like it’s your lucky day.”

  “Seriously,” I said, trying to play it cool. “Thanks for coming down for this. All three of you.”

  “You’re welcome,” Taylor said as Bristy and Hope nodded.

  Hope said, “Now that you’re free, are you headed back to Anchorage?”

  “No clue,” I said, frazzled from the courtroom surprises. “I missed the flight Dalton paid for, and I’m almost positive he didn’t ship my truck out. I owe him so much money it’s not even funny. Finn, too. I need to talk to both of them. Everything’s a mess.”

  Taylor asked if I needed a ride somewhere.

  “Sure,” I said. “Let’s pick up my stuff at the jail, but I just need to stop in the bathroom first. I might have shit my pants.”