I wanted to find Judy’s team, and a little edge of curiosity and impatience crept into my serenity. I tugged at Gayle’s sleeve. She turned to me, smiled, and lifted my hand away. “I’m soaking it in,” she insisted. “Like you said to do.”
“Uh-oh, what did I say this time?”
“You said,”—she smiled again—“think of your head as a big wad of flypaper, let things stick to it, as if you’re writing notes to yourself without even knowing it.”
I put my hands behind my back. “How can you remember stuff like that?”
“It’s good advice. Well, anyway, it stuck. That’s all.” She laughed like she was having a good time, too.
I caught a glimpse of Felix among the wanderers. And then Tad Suliman, holding a tray of coffee and nachos from the concessions shack, caught up to us, grinning.
“This way,” he called. “Good going on the timber bill, Gus. You’ll catch flak for it, I bet. Come on, Judy is over here.”
We followed him to Judy’s site. Two women lay on the ground scoring a block of ice with a rotary tool. Judy crouched above us like a cat, on an elevated platform, her fuchsia helmet and blond curls frosted with white. She knelt nose to nose with the ice while her black-gloved fingers chipped and then caressed the surface. Those blue eyes seemed to be drilling right through the transparency, as if she expected to find something.
Gayle studied the drawings one of the crew showed us. “What is a griffin?”
“A fabled creature,” said the crew member, shyly. “Alice in Wonderland? Sort of a wise guardian.”
“Ice inspires the fabulous,” Judy called down. “I think because it is a young medium.”
“Young?” said Gayle, writing in her notebook. Judy ignored challenges when she wanted to, I already knew that about her. She went right ahead.
“The griffin has appealed to me since my first visit to the Philadelphia Museum of Art when I was twelve years old. There are stone griffins there, like the gargoyles at Notre Dame. They are filled with the masculine energy of the intellect.” She pulled off her neck warmer and shook it out. “They are gatekeepers of the shadow side.”
The crew member on our level added, “We were looking for something to combine solid with graceful.”
“Can I come up on the platform?” Gayle called.
“There’s only room up here for one person, dear,” Judy said.
Tad set the Styrofoam cup next to her on the platform.
“Don’t forget,” he warned me, “these guys are on the clock. Lots of crazy critters going to be showing up out of the ice in the next few hours.”
“What is man without the beasts?” Gayle said.
“How’s that?” Tad asked.
“Chief Seattle said that,” she said. “Where would our imaginations be without animals?”
“Now you have a point,” said Tad, putting a handful of nachos to his mouth. They had been hot and bubbling a few minutes earlier. He bulldozed them into his mouth with a bare palm before they froze. Orange cheese spotted his mustache.
“You learned this in Montana?” Gayle called up. “How long have you been carving?”
“Buffalo,” Judy replied. “I’m from Buffalo.”
“She apprenticed in the Russian far east,” Tad said proudly.
“I’ve been sculpting for twenty years.” Judy called down a correction. “If all goes well, we’ll have time to create a small girl standing next to him, to show, as you said”—and with a sudden unexpected warmth she looked down at Gayle—”the relationship between human and beast, male and female.” Her mouth remained open a minute as if she’d like to say more; her cheeks were red with cold. She smiled at us, pulled the helmet back on, and resumed chipping.
I could hear Buffalo in her voice, then, not an accent but an assertiveness, as if her self-presentation was the product of an urban school of hard knocks. You learn to shove to the front whenever a gap opens. So Judy Finch was human, too, shaped by her environment like all of us.
Tad was heading back toward his machines. I left Gayle to her interviewing, promising to pick her up later at the main gate, and followed Tad.
“Something I want to ask you,” I murmured.
“You have that muckraker look to you now.”
“Who did buy that land from you? The riverbank next to the highway?”
“Dumped the whole thing on North Spur Construction finally, didn’t you know that?”
“No regrets? Just curious. Have you seen the cabins he put up?”
“What’s your problem, Gus?”
“It’s a major change, what’s happened down there.”
“Gus, I didn’t put up the damn cabins and I didn’t make this town look the way it does. People change things. It’s what we do. Christ, look at dogs, the way they wear out the ground around their doghouses. People need territory, just like dogs do. The landscape takes a beating sometimes, right around the doghouse, okay?” He took a few steps, then turned. “You and the borough, Gus, with this new junk ordinance. It’s getting so a guy can’t store his own junk around the place. Realtors don’t think it looks nice.”
“Now pull out, Tad. I’m trying to follow something up. The lady across the river’s a friend of mine.”
“I’ll let you in on something, Gus. There’s going to be tourists coming here if we make it worth their while.” He wiped a gloved hand over his mustache. “So what is your question about it?”
“I listen to borough meetings on the radio, but I don’t remember any public testimony on that construction. No impact statement, no zoning change required?”
“There was not a whisper of opposition, far as I know. Look, go down the river twenty minutes more and it’s nothing but trees. So we live in an ugly town. Is that news to you? But there’s plenty of trees out there. And you know, we’re working to keep it that way, aren’t we? Isn’t that what you all are doing, over at the paper?” He took a few more steps. “Besides, if I hadn’t sold it first, Shelley would have got half the money. I saved myself a hell of a lot by selling that. Once I cleared it to open it up, sold it right away.”
“Damn.”
“It was the only disposable thing I had at the time, you fucking Catholic priest. Satisfied? I confess, gimme three Hail Marys, I’m going to move ice.” He walked away, his body language easy as ever.
I admit the skinned riverbank didn’t sadden me, like it did Gayle. But it irritated me, like I ought to pay attention. Then I got to thinking about those chips he was eating, and I realized I was hungry. There was time to drive down College Road, check the mail, and grab a bite. I had promised this story to Gayle; I ought to leave her alone to do it. I headed out of the maze of ice tunnels and arches that guarded the park.
A semi hauling a flatbed trailer piled with ice blocks parked off to the side, and two forklifts, one of them Tad’s, approached it like drones approaching the queen bee. Nearby, watching this, I saw the lanky slouch of Felix Heaven, wheeling his bike. I called to him.
“I’m going to grab a bite,” I said. “Any interest in some lunch? You can throw your bike in the truck.”
We walked among the parked cars while he gave me his opinion of the Ice Art.
“A bit daft,” he said. “Adds to the fun of it, that they’ll melt away in a couple of weeks. Better if more monuments were like this—if they’d just melt away.”
“Pure fantasy,” I said. “That strikes me—no politics, just pure children’s literature. Not like, say for instance, the Family.”
“Which family is that one?”
“Downtown on the riverbank. You’ve missed that? A giant bronze mom and dad and two-point-five kids, and a couple of dogs sort of jammed together back to back, huge thing. The Unknown First Family.”
“Sounds political, all right.”
“No, no,” I said, “it’s not the president or anything. They are supposed to be pioneers. Or maybe a Native family. The door is wide open. Though the size and attitude of them, they don’t look like Native people
. These guys are behemoths, Nordic types, defiant, heroic. Very traditional. That is, to our tradition. Yours and mine. Or at least mine. I mean this country’s.”
At that moment we passed an idling Subaru. The driver, waiting for someone, was reading the Mercury. I recognized last week’s issue. This sight I never took for granted. I swiveled my head to take in any bumper stickers he might be sporting, a clue to my readership. “Proud Parent of a McGuire Middle School Honor Student” and “Question Authority.” Sort of didn’t go together, did they? A family man with liberal values, proud of his kids, but not quite ready to give up on the promise of the sixties. So, we’re a family paper!
“Native people,” Felix said. “That means Eskimos?”
“Indians and Eskimos. Athabascans, like Gayle Kenneally’s family, they lived in the interior, and Eskimos lived mostly near the coast, but the term is general.”
“Sure, I understand.” He smiled. A smile I was coming to understand, with Felix. It meant a thought, held in reserve out of politeness.
“You do, huh.”
“Like the Irish. The indigenous people.”
“Aw, come on.”
“Sure. To a new arrival, it jumps out.”
“This Family, this statue, it’s just stupid. Because they represent no one, in particular, except maybe the stone and cement industry.”
“But when there is a history, a very particular history, and public art ignores it,” said Felix, “that’s a political statement, isn’t it?”
“You’re going to fit right in at the Conscious Palate.”
We had nearly made it to my car when a woman’s call lassoed me. “Gus Traynor!”
It was Shelley Suliman, Tad’s ex-wife. Realtor of the Year, cochair of the Visitors Bureau. Shelley was a good-looking, highly kinetic woman, all energy and ideas.
“Gus, could we get an extra two thousand copies of the next couple issues or so—for a mailing outside? I called and talked to your sister, but here you are. Don’t you love that about Fairbanks, you’ll see everybody you need to sooner or later just by getting out. We’ll pay in advance. We want to send some local color to travel agents. Especially of wintertime activities.”
“With pleasure, Shelley.”
“But Gus, one thing. Let me know what’s going to be in it. Or maybe I could see a proof beforehand, you know?”
Maybe this wasn’t a bizarre request, but I realized it was a private request. I felt uncomfortable with Felix nearby. It must have sounded like she was asking to approve editorial content. He wouldn’t understand.
“Gus?” she said.
“Shelley, we never offend. We’re the soul of the community. I’ve never even run any dubious ads, no showgirls or clubs.”
“A thousand copies. Just let me take a peek at what’s brewing. Let me pick the issue.”
Sure thing. No way. Can’t do that. Fifty cents a copy, she’d pay me. I could have introduced Felix in order to change the subject, but that unusual name would get her attention, and I didn’t know if he had a work permit. Where was he, anyway? Moving away between trucks, making himself invisible.
“I’ll catch up to you,” I called to him. “Now, Shell, what you’re asking me hardly sounds kosher.”
“Oh, Gus, look at it this way. Maybe one issue would serve our needs better than another. This is a pot of money for our little group to spend, after all. Are you covering the ice show? That would be just the ticket, that issue, will it be the next one? I’ll just swing by Thursday or meet you downtown. I love this time of year, don’t you?”
“I’ll give you a call,” I said. “And, uh, thanks.”
Felix didn’t say a word when I climbed into the cab.
I decided to drive him up to the First Family, our heads still freshly packed with images of monsters, dancers, and ice castles. I parked on First Avenue and we studied the thing for a while. On its pedestal of stone it rose above an acre of hardpacked snow.
“It’s very much a pyramid, isn’t it,” said Felix. “Very stable, I guess. The sculptor is taking no risks with the material. Why aren’t they doing anything?”
“That was part of the dissension when it was put up. What’s with the craziness of standing out in the wind? That’s no way to survive.”
“You don’t suppose it’s the Holy Family?”
“Not in this country, Felix. I assure you no one’s ever suggested that.”
“What was here before?”
“Well, that’s an interesting question. Grass, trees. A riverbank. Drunks sleeping it off, meeting each other.”
“So that’s why all the concrete? To keep the drunks away? Make it easier to clean up?”
“You know your monuments, Felix.”
“It’s always the way. Gus, you’ll pardon me, but every village at home has its statues and monuments, and this is one of the least attractive ones I’ve ever seen. How would you even disfigure it?”
“Disfigure that thing? You mean, make it worse?”
“Week I arrived in Alaska, reading the Anchorage paper, they had just put up this new statue down in Sitka of the Russian trader…the man who founded Sitka? Who am I thinking of?”
“Alexander Baranof.”
“Very week it was put up, someone cut off his nose.”
“Well, now you mention it, the Russians invaded Tlingit land, why should they welcome a statue in his honor? But who could think of doing such a thing to the Family—where’s the insult here?”
“Besides the aesthetic one?”
“Sure.”
“As you said, if it isn’t the Holy Family, whose family is it? I mean families—that’s an idealized situation right there.”
I decided to lighten up a bit.
“Or maybe someone just objects to all this concrete,” I said. “It’s hot now, in the summer, in this spot. How about that? Now let’s eat.”
“That Baranof story in the paper,” Felix said as we drove away, “caught my eye because it reminded me of Nelson’s pillar. You know that story? In Dublin 1966, they blew up Nelson’s pillar, a statue of Horatio Nelson on top of a hundred-foot column. And no one got hurt. A couple of days later in the street, as the army was hauling the rubbish away, a thousand people sang ‘A Nation Once Again.’”
“And no one got hurt?”
“They did it at night, with explosives and a timer, at the wee hours, and Dublin in those days was not the center of drug trafficking it is now. Things actually shut down at night, or so I’ve heard.”
In my mind’s eye I saw shards of bronze flying in slow motion over the Chena River.
The Irish are dangerous people. Or is it just Felix? I thought. The way he’s on the edge of things. Decent fellow, thoughtful, I’d trust him with almost anything. But he does stand on the outside, looking in. Something about him, a touch of something unique. Days would go by and he’d be a perfectly predictable young man with an enviable young man’s appetite, and the usual hanging participles and odd Britishisms: “daft” and “whilst,” for Pete’s sake. Then suddenly you’re aware again that an illegal is hanging around, witnessing everything you do, and where in hell did he get the moral advantage?
As for Shelley Suliman, her request, tell the truth, was a gift horse, almost a miracle. We sure could use that money. If I had to sort of lay low with this issue and the next, I could do it, up to a point; no one would know. There’s plenty of leeway.
They have these great mixed-berry muffins at the Palate; I decided to take one down to Gayle. When I saw her that afternoon, coming toward me—her slight bowleggedness, her bright parka and caribou mukluks, that mild excitement of incipient composition in her face—I felt quite happy. I stopped walking just to let her come up to me.
She said, with a giggle, “Gus, there’s something loony here.”
“That’s what Felix said.”
In my truck she ate the muffin down from the top, sugary crust first. Crumbs fell onto the blue sleeve of her parka. Like Tad she was not a tidy eater. But her presen
ce was a great relief, somehow. People like Judy and Shelley made me feel dizzy, like I was riding a small boat on a rapids.
I thought that when you really liked somebody, you’d be called out of yourself. I had been expecting that, but Gayle made me feel kind of good inside, like I was already home.
SEVEN
JUDY FINCH’S TEAM WON SECOND PRIZE IN the large-block competition. Far from exposing Tad Suliman as a waster and ruiner of the natural landscape, I pleased him by running Gayle’s photo of the griffin all lit up by halogen lamps, Judy in her belted jumpsuit nearby in fetching silhouette. It took up half of page three.
Shelley Suliman praised the Ice Art issue, and her well-timed check paid some of our bills. I felt like the servant of two masters, which in my case would be truth and solvency. This was a tricky situation, one that required dexterity. Or should I say ambidexterity—two hands able to function independently.
TWENTY YEARS I’VE LIVED IN FAIRBANKS, AND THIS KEEPS HAPPENING: I get a handle on this place, but then another layer comes off and I’m looking at some unexpected monstrosity, the worst thing about America. The wrong side of town.
Barely room enough in Fairbanks for a right and wrong side of the tracks, but people here sort themselves out that way, just the same. The haves and the have-nots. In Fairbanks, the haves live on south-facing hillsides, among fat birch trees and gentle aspen groves. The solar radiation coming at their homes is like the difference between trying to stay warm with a dinky space heater, or having central heating. Solar radiation in the hills means everything.
The have-nots get the Southside, a flat, shrubby floodplain south of downtown, along the highway. It’s a vast, featureless neighborhood studded with boxy fourplexes, churches, vacant lots, and warehouses, small family homes with playsets in the small yards side by side with crack houses and double-wide trailers on hundred-foot lots. A hard, high-density grid of streets stretching from the arterial, which becomes the Alaska Highway, all the way to the silty banks of the Tanana River. On the gritty flats of the Tanana you find the burned-out cars, the dangerous litter, one time a girl beaten to death with her head wrapped in duct tape. If every community has its dumping ground, its Nevada, you could say—that territory set aside for desperate pastimes—ours is the Southside.
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