Big Dead Place

by Nicholas Johnson

  After the meeting I stopped at the store to see if Rosemary’s Baby was in the video collection and to buy some Skoal. The McMurdo store is miraculously well-stocked. Though someone is always likely to complain that this or that item has run out, the store has Pringles and Rolos and jars of hot salsa. There are a half dozen kinds of beer, most common types of liquor, and a considerable selection of red and white wine. (Every fourth bottle will be rancid by the end of the winter, because the wine is stored upright and the arid air will have ruined the corks.) There are hundreds of videos for free checkout just by giving the liquor clerk the last four digits of your Social Security number. There are windscreen facemasks for sale. There are aerial posters of Ross Island, a few kinds of soap and shampoo, nail clippers, and anti-fart medication. For years there have been hundreds of unsold postcards of a velvet Elvis painting that someone photographed at the Pole. When the Navy first opened the store, they stocked mosquito repellent that no one bought because there are no mosquitoes in Antarctica.

  Much of the souvenir merchandise in the store is contracted for manufacture to a company in Denver. The souvenir t-shirt selection is large, but with two basic varieties. The first and most common variety centers around the penguin. These shirts may also include icicles or the sun, and their style staggers toward stark romance. They might say “Wild Antarctica” or “The Last Frontier” on them. The second variety may also include the penguin, but the styles imitate tired surf or snowboard designs. These designs include men in parkas with surfboards, or “Antarctica” written in the style of the Ford logo. They refer to Antarctic “powder” and say things like “eternal sun” and “chill out.”

  Some of the goods at the store are depressing, like the bumper sticker that says, “Antarctica: Been There, Done That,” and some are confusing, like a cap embroidered with a colorful bass biting a fishhook and the text “Bite Me—Antarctica.”

  At the counter I browsed the Antarctica pins that I never buy, and scrutinized one that depicted the Antarctic continent flanked by American flags. The clerk told me that last summer NSF, which usually has little to do with the running of the store, instructed her to remove the “Made in Taiwan” sticker from the backs of the pins before displaying them.

  The next day, in the middle of a Sunday afternoon, on a dark road coming down from T-site, Bighand flipped a truck. He came down too fast and went over the embankment by the Cosmic Ray Lab, launching the acetylene and oxygen tanks into the air from the back of the pickup. The truck rolled but landed on its wheels, and Bighand drove it back to town after gathering the pressurized canisters of volatile gases. He hid the truck behind one of the orange fish huts where scientists in summer stay warm while fishing for specimens (there are no Antarctic bass) through the sea ice. Then he found his boss at the bar and reported the incident.

  The Heavy Shop assessed the truck’s extensive damage. HR summoned Bighand for questions as to why the cab of the truck smelled like beer, and he said that the mechanics must have poured beer in the truck to frame him.

  The grapevine lurched into action. At dinner the next day someone said, “Shit, I didn’t even hear about it until after lunch.” Bighand was in and out of the HR Office all day, and at break we speculated on the company’s strategy. We determined that since Bighand was a foreman he wouldn’t be fired straight away. He would stay on to work and would probably be sent out at Winfly in August. Had he been in some menial position, he might have been made an example of and put on minimum wage until he could be flown out, but since he was a foreman and necessary for construction of JSOC, he would be kept on until someone new could be brought in. HR would give him the impression that he had been forgiven, but he would be fired just before the first flight out.

  The next few days were marked with investigations by HR and Safety. Both of those departments this winter totaled two people. They brought in everyone who was at T-site on Sunday and pumped them for information with which to convict Bighand.

  T-site is the hub of all radio transmission in The Program. The road up to it is long and windy, with signs along the way warning of exposure to hazardous doses of radiation should you stray into the garden of transmitters. Because of the importance of uninterrupted communication around the continent, a couple of people, one of whom must always remain on-site, live at T-site in swank and roomy quarters. They have a pool table, a band room stocked with instruments, supplies for brewing beer, a well-stocked pantry and kitchen, and comfortable couches. Just off the ordinary living room lie corridors lined with banks of transmitter components: some of it state-of-the-art, some of it antiquated but reliable gear from the early Cold War era.5 One can get up from the couch in the warm and carpeted living room, pad in one’s socks down the corridor full of vigilant technology sprouting bundles of wires and silently ricocheting voices or strands of data around the continent, and seat oneself on another couch by the pool table in the equally comfortable rec room. Looking out the window in the summer, one’s view weaves through the dozen or so enormous spidery transmitters nearby for an otherwise clean view of the Transantarctics and of White Island and Black Island, where another transmission outpost stretches the range of communication from T-site. Going to visit the comm techs at T-site brings a change of scenery, where the relentless sound of loader back-up beepers in town is faint.

  Bighand had been driving down from a band rehearsal held that afternoon in the T-site rec room. Franz, the new Station Manager, and the HR Guy called everyone who had been at T-site that day into the HR Office one by one to sign a “warning” acknowledging that the signer had violated an NSF policy by using government vehicles to enter a restricted area; presumably this aimed to fill a hole somewhere in the documentation of T-site’s restricted status. Franz told Nero that HR was “just going to shred them up at Winfly anyway,” but Nero didn’t see why he should sign a “warning.” Many people did sign it, but many refused.

  By the time he flipped the truck, Bighand was already notorious around town. His drink of choice was a tall glass of Jim Beam topped with Wild Turkey and a splash of Sprite. Then several more. When I wore a skua’d priest shirt to the bar one night, he got down on one knee before me with his eyes rolling back in his head and began babbling incoherently, so I blessed him and howled “Demons be gone!” When he tried to leave, he walked into the door and almost fell over before going outside. I didn’t think he would make it home, so I followed him outside, where he was just getting up from a fall on the ice, and walked him to his dorm. One time Bighand filled a truck with diesel instead of mogas. That’s a pain in the ass for the Heavy Shop, who must then drain the lines. Now that he’d also flipped one of the new red trucks, he was a bona fide public buffoon. Trying to blame the Heavy Shop for the beer in the cab had also created enemies, as well as a potential rift between Ironworkers and Mechanics. Perhaps this was why someone crept into the JSOC job shack one night and took a shit in Bighand’s hardhat, wiping their ass with a piece of the project’s blueprint.

  Aside from “Been there, done that” and “We need to touch base,” managers are particularly fond of the phrase “It’s a harsh continent,” which has two uses. The first meaning is that of the manager speaking of some hassle or burden on himself. In this case, the manager says, “But hey, it’s a harsh continent,” expressing a noble resignation. In the other case, the manager, awed by the big decisions coming down from someone more powerful than herself and fantasizing about making such decisions herself, says, “Well, it’s a harsh continent,” which translates as “Tough shit for all of you.” Though these uses may seem opposed, they really express different shades of the same sentiment: submission is survival. To work hard and increase one’s competence is nearly irrelevant. The most important things are to occasionally seek decisive assistance, to mimic the mannerisms of the immediate superior, and to occasionally let out a squeak or yelp of fear or pain.

  Managers also like to joke about “putting out fires.” Fire is the direst threat at an Antarctic station, where th
e dry air makes the buildings tinderboxes that can crumple minutes after the first flame. In manager parlance, though, “fires” are problems of any kind, and the manager knows there is no end to the fires, so he usually follows the reference to extinguishing them with a fatigued sigh. Once a fire is put out, he moves onto the next fire. Each new flame is addressed as a unique problem, unrelated to anything that came before it. He rushes around the room extinguishing isolated flames, emphatically smothering anything in the vicinity of the smallest wisp of smoke, lest the snoozing overhead detector be aroused and its shrill scream betray his failure to control his sector.

  A band called Monkeybox had an upcoming weekend show at Gallagher’s, for which they hung flyers on the recreation board during the week. The town mole reported to HR that she was offended by the word “Monkeybox.” Franz determined that the band could no longer be called “Monkeybox” or put the word “Monkeybox” on their flyers. (“Monkeybox” was an anatomical epithet from the controversial Vagina Monologues performed at the beginning of the winter.) He told someone that if people could name their bands whatever they wanted, the next thing you knew they would be nailing babies to the wall. A righteous fury swept the community. Now people were putting up flyers of the First Amendment around town, and pictures of monkeys with boxes were everywhere. People were angry enough to discuss a work stoppage.

  Monkeybox was an isolated flame that needed to be extinguished, and Franz was surprised when the standard tried-and-true and universally practical method of restriction made the flame even bigger. Creating a bigger flame threatens to trigger some shrieking overhead authority, so he thoughtfully assessed this unsettling public grease-fire. Alert and intelligent, he decided that continuing to douse the flames with more restriction might create an inferno, so he tried a different approach: the Monkeybox censorship was revoked, and the public outcry died down.

  Thus did Monkeybox become authorized.

  The Chapel of the Snows at McMurdo has burned down twice: in 1978, and on the evening of May 18, 1991, the same day that Denver released a memo—in mid-winter—saying that wages and bonuses would decrease and that the retirement fund for contract employees was being cancelled.

  God has a tough gig in Antarctica. The few Catholics, Protestants, and Mormons are surrounded by drunks, scientists, drunk scientists, and other assorted heathens who hold yoga classes in the Chapel, sweating and groaning in skin-tight clothing and assuming positions, such as “Downward-Facing Dog,” that sound as if lifted from some ritual of fire and semen in praise of Baphomet. There are no sandy sunset beaches to depict in inspirational calendars, and no majestically soaring gulls; only variations of merciless frozen waste, and dirty brown scavenging skuas that eat their own kind, their bills and feathers crusted in the summer with lard and the juices of spoiling meats.

  It is tempting to conclude that McMurdo’s secular character stems from Antarctica’s image as a place of scientific research. One might imagine that a concentrated contingent of scientists would naturally emphasize reason, logic, and observation over faith, hope, and obedience. But after a while one notices that everything religion was once good for—encouraging sacrifice and devotion to a higher power—has been recalibrated to fit the new science and technology theme. The National Science Foundation acts like fat papal bureaucrats in distant Rome; policies have replaced commandments, “inappropriate behavior” has replaced sin, the leverage of Heaven has been replaced with the withholding of a substantial percentage of wages as a year-end bonus, the threat of Hell has been replaced with the more immediate threats of termination and exile, and blessings take the form of Antarctic service medals, issued by the government, that read “Courage, Sacrifice, Devotion” and fetch about 30 dollars on the Internet. There is already enough hocus-pocus in the mix without all that obsolete hoodoo about angels and bleeding saints and magic underwear.

  Though one can still believe in spirits and not be considered as insane as if one believed in aliens, the religious ceremony is sparsely attended, and its consecrated ornaments dusty. The Erebus Chalice, a communion goblet sealed in a case in the Chapel, was first brought down in 1841 by a lieutenant on Sir James Clark Ross’ vessel HMS Erebus, for which the volcano and chalice are named. In Greek mythology, Erebus is the son of Chaos, the embodiment of primordial darkness; he shares his name with the gloomy part of Hades through which the recent dead must pass on their way to darker counties. That the holy cup is so old, has so much goth snazziness, and sits forbidden behind a barrier, unavailable for slamming tequila shooters, lends it a certain mystical air and makes the Chapel not a bad place to move in on your date.

  The Chapel is inviting because in the summer it always has hot water on for tea, and the Chaplain (only present in the summer) doesn’t mind if you watch horror movies on the TV/VCR as long as no one is trying to pray in the meditation area. An attractive stained-glass window inside depicts the trinity of a penguin, the Antarctic continent, and the Erebus Chalice. The space is warm and offers a good view of the Transantarctics from the window behind the altar, where there’s always a pair of binoculars on the window ledge. One time we asked the Chaplain if we could film a scene for one of our movies in the Chapel, and he said it was all right with him, as long as we didn’t mess with the altar. We respected his wishes, of course, but reportedly the altar in this “southern-most house of worship in the world” (as described in a Chapel of the Snows brochure) has at least once been defiled by copulating rascals.

  The Chapel’s spiritual significance was explained to me during my first summer, when a military chaplain sitting across from me in the Galley said my tortellini soup looked good. It certainly was, and with that we began chatting. He had a sharp nose, a chronic smile, and small hard eyes. His manner was confident, strong, and friendly, but with the practiced air of one who demands firmly that no door be closed on the friendly. He wore full camouflage fatigues marked with his name and a small cross sewn onto the breast.

  He had an office in the Pentagon with four or five other chaplains, he told me, all working for the Department of Defense, known as the War Department in the days of Little America. His job was to visit areas of national emergency, natural disaster, or remoteness and “assess community needs.” I apparently didn’t ask the right questions, because he never explained what “community needs” meant or why a chaplain was the right person for the job, but he did explain the difference between a military and a civilian chaplain.

  A military chaplain, while a man of the cloth, holds rank. A lieutenant colonel chaplain holds the same power as any other lieutenant colonel, with the exception that while a lieutenant colonel can be subpoenaed to testify in a military court against a subordinate, a chaplain—of any rank—cannot.

  The Pentagon Chaplain gave me an example of religion’s place as a political amnesty clause: “A pilot confides in me that he’s using marijuana, or has some other substance abuse problem. I have the rank to command his superiors to reassign the pilot without telling them why. They obey me because I have rank, and the pilot is saved from embarrassment and disaster.”

  Civilian chaplains are not bound by nondisclosure policies, he told me, except under the flaky and tenuous standards of their own whimsical brands of faith, so the soldiers don’t trust them. Regardless of their faith or promises, they have no place in the political hierarchy. “The soldiers won’t invite a civilian chaplain to their social events,” he said. I could understand why. I felt a warm filial feeling for the candid Pentagon Chaplain, and I wanted nothing to do with those other blabbermouth friars.

  While I was talking with the priest, Ben walked by and shoved his salivated pinky in my ear, as he liked to do. I flipped him off and called him a motherfucker as he walked away smiling and victorious. This reminded me that I had been swearing as heavily as usual even while talking to the Chaplain. Perhaps the Pentagon Chaplain registered my brief flash of hesitation.

  “The main point,” he continued, “is that a civilian chaplain is mainly concerned with
the chapel.” He leaned across the table, glancing around to see who might be nearby before whispering, “We don’t give a shit about the chapel.”

  On Saturday, the night Monkeybox was playing, Jeannie held Ghost Stories night in her room.6 When I arrived with a gift of a Spring Rain douche priced just that evening at a quarter for clearance, she was lying on the floor with her face painted white and her eyes open as if dead. I put in a Burzum CD, which we played all evening. Each new arrival bore a different variety of douche (none were able to pass up the low, low price) and asked what the music was. Burzum was a Norwegian heavy metal guy with a keyboard recording his neo-pagan pre-Christian tribal fantasies while in prison, apparently for stabbing his friend Euronymous in the head and burning down a 600-year-old church. We crowded on the beds and floor and told ghost stories, of which a few were local.

  One time Nero was in the food freezer, where, he says, you can hear the door opening from any location within. You can hear anyone walking or talking from anywhere inside. There was a request for seven cases of cheese danishes, so he climbed to the top of a stack of pallets, opened a new crate of danishes, pulled out seven cases, and tossed them onto the floor below. He descended immediately, and there were only three cases on the floor. He figured maybe he somehow only pulled three cases, so he went up again, opened the crate, and saw that he really had pulled seven cases. He thought he was losing his mind. He went down again and looked around, finding nothing. Then he saw the other four cases. Though he had thrown the cases toward the middle of the warehouse floor, they were now neatly stacked in a pile between two pallets of food off to the side.