Looking for Alaska

by Peter Jenkins

  She asked, “Do you know what they call a ten in Talkeetna?” But she didn’t wait for me to answer. “A four with a six-pack.”

  She put her arm around me and got her face just a bit too close to mine. “Where is your picture and bio?”

  “I’m not for sale.”

  “So what are you doing here then?” She didn’t seem disappointed at all; she was a player.

  “I’m writing a book about Alaska, traveling all over the place. I get to observe all this.”

  “Really.” She squeezed my waist. “Well, I’m from around here, just became available again last month when my boyfriend moved back to California.” She leaned her head on my shoulder. I didn’t say anything. “Okay, then; well, answer this: What does a Talkeetna bachelor use for birth control?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Personality.”

  If in the middle of the United States you were a woman who was considered average on the physically attractive scale, in Alaska you would, if you wanted, have long lines vying for your attention, your companionship. You could feel like a goddess. There is a major shortage of available women in Alaska, especially in the bush. Alaska actually has a magazine whose whole purpose is to promote available Alaskan men. There are unfulfilled, masculine males loaded with testosterone, bouncing off every snowbank and mountain peak, howling from every remote village and fishing port. For all these lonesome men, though, most women who have taken advantage of their amazing Alaskan popularity seem to come to the same conclusion. I heard this saying at least fifty times, referring to Alaskan males: “The odds are good but the goods are odd.”

  Tonight, all this rational thinking about the odd goods, and good odds, would be thrown into the closest yellow-stained pile of snow. Hope, among other things, filled the air.

  A different blond woman, her hair short, her gaze intense, opened the door into the auction room and said, “Okay, you all can begin to come on in and be seated.” The place was decorated with cutout snowflakes. On the stage were a podium and the flags of Alaska and the USA.

  Two men, original members of the Talkeetna Bachelor Society, walked up onstage. One was the bachelor called Grog, the other was Gary. Grog had long hair with natural blond highlights and a long brown beard. He had on a clean, fringed suit made of moose hide and looked as if he could run out into the wilderness anywhere in Alaska with a hatchet and survive for a year. His face had a glow, either natural or induced. If a person could have stayed at Woodstock since 1969 and kept the festival going, that person might have the same expression as Grog. He was handsome if you liked the mountain-man look, and he was obviously a character, used to living his own way.

  Gary, who said he was fifty-plus, has those eyes that stare into you and want to bring something back with each look. He was bear-size and slow-moving. His beard was so thick that it could only be trimmed with hedge trimmers. He answered the question “What do you do for entertainment?” with “Love, listen, and rescue women.”

  Grog and Gary were here to tell the story of how the auction had come into being. They had been sitting in the bar together in 1981, and after a while, someone looked around and asked, where are all the women? Someone suggested they should have a party or maybe even an auction to bring some fresh females to town. Grog flashed way back to that instant and said, “Wow, man, it was like we suddenly realized maybe we could actually get some woman to pay money for us. Whoa, man. That was cool.”

  A few rows of women behind me suddenly howled, clapped, and whistled. Longtime bachelors Grog and Gary instinctively knew not to waste the desire as it rose.

  “Hey, let’s get this party started, huh, Gary?” Big-bearded, sad-eyed Gary nodded and they both walked off the stage.

  The president of the society, Robert, the guy originally from Iceland who entertains himself, and Ed, the vice president, who had been in the moose suit during the Wilderness Woman Contest, came out dressed in tuxes. They were trim and classically handsome. The way these two looked they could have been walking out on any stage anywhere in the world to accept their awards for being leading corporate managers. That they were here at Talkeetna’s Bachelor’s Auction in Alaska showed how really deceiving looks and first impressions can be.

  A woman in a red-sequined, tight-fitting dress in the row behind me told her friend loudly, “Ed’s mine.”

  Robert and Ed delivered some polite official greetings. They both appeared shy, and Robert stuttered slightly. Before they could get out from behind the podium, some female yelled out, “Wow!” from the back.

  Someone turned on a song, a tune that would give even Al Gore the flexibility and rhythm of James Brown.

  “My son is going to kill me for being here,” said a lady, at least fifty-five, sitting directly behind me.

  I turned to see one of the bachelors, dark-haired Daryl, thirty-two, covered only by tattoos and foxtails, making his way—no, snaking his way—into the room. His tattoos were Native American designs, his foxtails from a gray fox. He weaved through the women; some petted his foxtail. They were ready to bid, but he was just the first of this entertainment meant to raise as much money as possible for charity.

  A local folksinger named Steve Derr wore a once-preppy sports coat. Instead of leather as elbow patches, there was gray duct tape. He came out and sang a few songs. One was “Wilderness Woman,” which went something like this:

  She leaves man-sized tracks. She has a double-bit ax.

  She has a house of logs. She has thirty-six dogs.

  She’s rough and ready and safe and clean.

  Don’t mess around no more, she’s got a .44.

  Most Alaskan men want their women to be good with firearms. One never knows in Alaska when a whole year of meat—a moose—might become available or when a bear might break into your cabin or try to eat your dogs.

  Daryl attempts to stimulate the auction crowd in Talkeetna. PHOTO BY PETER JENKINS

  After Daryl’s shimmy, the women wanted the bachelors brought to the auction block as quickly as possible. A hundred women seemed to be in this room.

  The auctioneer was Robert Forgit, the weatherman for an Anchorage TV station. A weatherman?

  “Let’s get it on,” someone with money to spend yelled out.

  The president of the club, even in his tuxedo, went for only $35. Maybe he came across as too shy.

  The next guy went for $38. A man with a gray beard, the local refuse collector, went for $65. The woman next to me said, “Oh, he is such a nice man.”

  I was surprised at the low prices these men were bringing, based on the lusty bragging I’d heard from women as they looked at the pictures and read the answers of the bachelors. Especially since all the money goes to the Valley Women’s Resource Center. But I suppose it was like any auction where flesh is for sale—get what you can for as cheap as possible.

  The eighth-grade teacher, the cute one from New York, walked out to whistles. I would not have been surprised if he’d brought this tux with him from a past life. But he stalled at $45.

  The weatherman, a fine auctioneer, pointed out to the ladies, “Listen, now, this guy is worth more than forty-five dollars. I don’t know for sure, I’m just guessing.”

  Two women, on either side of the hall, the one in the red sequins and one of the three in the tight black dresses, bid him up to $69, where he stalled again. But this guy was the type who always has something planned. He opened the shirt on his tux to reveal a T-shirt underneath that said, “I like hot…” I couldn’t see the last word.

  The woman in red sequins bid $75.

  The next guy was young and obviously strong, able to handle any wilderness moment.

  The weatherman shouted, “Look, ladies, at this strapping lad. He can haul your wood. He can haul you all winter.”

  He brought a few whistles and $50. I’d been hearing since we’d moved to Alaska that the economy was slow. Based on these prices, I guess it was true.

  Something was going to have to happen to raise the price
s. The something did—call it chest hair. Some guy revealed a thick crop on his muscular chest. A gray-haired lady bid him up to $200. Someone said she was a doctor from Anchorage.

  Daryl, back in clothes, his foxtail not even stuffed in his pants, sold for only $40 to the young Wilderness Woman contestant from San Francisco.

  “Look here,” said the auctioneer, “this guy’s a master mechanic on the North Slope, he makes all kinds of money! Bid high for him, he just bought a new Ford truck!” He went for $35, cheap, especially considering the new Ford.

  The rowdy, all-powerful women were calling out the names of men they wanted to bid on. None of the real rugged, older guys, the ones who probably needed the attention most, were being summoned.

  One of the other young guys was brought out. He was only twenty-nine and was the one who answered “What do you do for a living?” with “as little as possible.”

  The bidding did not even begin before the lady who was running the show stepped up to the microphone.

  “Listen now, see this guy. This summer we were having trouble with birds flying into windows all over town. I saw Doug, here, pick up a pretty little songbird that was knocked out and give it mouth-to-mouth. He brought it back to life. Now, ladies, come on! He must be worth at least twenty dollars.”

  He went for under $50.

  Then came a guy named Mark. I recognized him from bingo. He appeared nervous, almost ready to run. This apparent fear, or something about him, I couldn’t tell, seemed to excite some of the bidders; he shot up to $115.

  The auctioneer, sensing some possible competition, put his hand on Mark’s shoulder and yelled out, “This is USDA Choice!”

  Mark then unbuttoned three buttons on his shirt and began making his ample chest muscles move. A woman twice his age came out of her chair and bid $150.

  Someone whispered, “She lives in Hawaii and Alaska. She’s loaded.”

  She then walked up to Mark and took off his shirt. The place went wild.

  “If he will take off more, I will up my bid to three hundred dollars.”

  Mark, now so bold he might have been a dancer sometime, looked as if the fearful look was only for effect. He took off his shoes. He then stepped behind the podium, bent over, and off came his jeans. Nothing was really visible but his head and neck above the podium. She put her arm around him, back there. He smiled a contented smile and then looked tired, as if he needed a nap.

  The auctioneer asked if there was anyone else the ladies wanted to bid on.

  “Come on, ladies, there are many more big-time men back there just waiting for you to want them. Who will it be?”

  There is a stillness, a waning of interest; it must have been a sad silence for the bachelors in waiting. The auction appeared to be over.

  Then someone says, “What about bachelor number thirteen?” I quickly opened my catalog. Number thirteen was Grog. His birth name is Robert Petersen, born in Milwaukee. He’s forty-four. How do you get the name Grog?

  His hair flowed to his ears, obviously specially washed and combed out for tonight, his nineteenth year on the auction block. His dress-up moose-hide, pullover shirt and pants had no stains. He looked as if he could snowshoe for fifty miles without stopping. But there was something about his eyes; they seemed closed, almost swollen shut.

  As he walked to the stage, he began to talk. “I’ve been livin’ around here twenty-two years.… I’m nervous, this is late in the show, are there a couple shekels left for the Grog?”

  He walked up onstage, where the log walls are covered with a deep blue fabric and hand-cut snowflakes. Sparkly little Christmas lights blink.

  The bachelors in the tuxedos seemed able to come to this Alaskan world, yet step right back into the other, more detached outside world. Grog probably couldn’t go back there anymore, or wouldn’t.

  The auction was all supposed to be funny, ha, ha, yet it was sad that Grog had to auction himself off. He’d been doing this for almost twenty years.

  What was he looking for in a woman? “Someone that wants to live remote for more than one night.” Obviously, for all the partying and beer and bars, his love was living in the bush and he wanted someone to share that with. Now, he was hoping that someone would bid something, anything. And too, there were all his old-time friends, the guys with the longest beards, the men considered real Alaskans, who would not even get bid on.

  Maybe the bachelors who waited expectantly and would not be bid on were now joking about getting too old for this, that their gut was too big. This rejection had to hurt. And besides, the several women here their age were bidding on the younger men.

  The auctioneer was working hard to get a bid on Grog. Whoever called Grog’s number was either mistaken or upon seeing him in person had decided not to bid.

  “Look at this Alaskan man. Just look at him. He is everything any woman could want.”

  No one said anything. Grog hung his head, then regained his pride and just stared out at all of us.

  “Remember the great cause your money goes for here, ladies. All that you’ve got to do is buy this man a drink, and if you want, a dance. Come on, who will give me twenty dollars? Twenty dollars.”

  I’d seen great Tennessee auctioneers keep a silent audience going until you thought your brain would explode, but then the bidding would begin, with ferocity, for something like an old woodstove. But how long could he stretch this out for a man? There was nothing tongue-in-cheek about this. It was painful. In those brief moments I relived the times I had been chosen last for some sports team, or not chosen at all when the girls could choose a dancing partner.

  I yelled out, “Fifty dollars.”

  Grog jerked his head up at the sound of my voice and head-butted the wall.

  The whole place was stunned. There was a bulging silence, then a roar of whispering. What had I done? Surely no one thought I was bidding on Grog because I was gay. But then again, no one knew me here. Who cares, anyway? I’ve got $75, I’ll get it started, and the women will take over.

  The whispering and the stares to the back of my head intensified. Grog walked back and forth, shaking his head, his long hair flying. “Oh, man what the…”

  An almost overly polite little female voice said, “Sixty dollars.”

  I looked back; she was a slight woman in the row behind me. She looked as if she ran marathons.

  “Oh, great, we have sixty dollars,” the hard-to-stun weatherman said.

  Stop now, I told myself, that’s enough. But it quieted again. I’ll give all my cash to the cause and stop, I decided.

  “Seventy-five dollars,” I yelled. Grog stared at me and kind of smiled. Uh-oh, what’s he thinking?

  The little lady behind me immediately countered, “Eighty-five dollars!”

  The weatherman looked at me and shrugged, as if to say, it’s a free world. I shrugged back; I had no money left. Then someone tapped me on the back and handed me $20.

  I looked back and the generous lady directly behind me gave me a thumbs-up sign.

  “Ninety-five dollars!” I said, loud and clear.

  I looked back to my competition, winked, and smiled a you-ain’t-gonna-out-bid-me grin.

  She was talking to the woman behind her, counting her money now.

  “One hundred and fifty dollars!”

  There was a gasp from the audience; she was trying to smash me into submission.

  Suddenly, hands filled with five- and ten- and twenty-dollar bills came at me from all over; one of the tall beauties in the short black dresses actually stood up and came across the aisle with a twenty for my next bid. The last guy who brought that much had had to take off his clothes. So far, Grog had not removed any of his moose hide. I counted the money; I had $75 more.

  “Two hundred and twenty-five dollars,” I said.

  “We have two hundred and twenty-five dollars from the gentle—uh, man in the third row,” said the weatherman.

  My competition shot back almost instantly, “Two hundred and fifty dollars.”


  More hands reached out with more money. I told them to keep it, let’s let the little lady get Grog. And she did.

  I stood up and saw the reporter, Donna, from the Anchorage Daily News jotting down words as fast as she could write. Oh, man, what if this somehow makes it into the paper, which we subscribed to, and Rita read it before I got home.

  “Ah, Donna, I’m a happily married man, okay?”

  “Sure.” What did she mean by that inflection?

  “You understand, right?”

  “Sure, I do.”

  I walked over to my competing bidder and thanked her. Then I tracked down Grog, who was surrounded by bewildered friends and curious women.

  “Hey, Grog, you don’t know me but, ah, I didn’t mean to embarrass you or anything, hope you understand.”

  “Yeah, when it first happened, I was shocked, look at my head.” There was a scrape where he had head-butted the wall. “But after a minute when the shock wore off, I looked you over and you looked like you were all right, no problem.”

  The story and some flashy pictures did make the paper. I called Rita and alerted her to what I’d done, which was accurately reported in the Anchorage paper the next morning before I got home. One of the main pictures in the piece was of Grog. Rita knows I love auctions and I sometimes get so carried away I buy things I would never use.

  14

  On the Way to Coldfoot

  It was one of those superdark winter nights in Seward. The seeping darkness had a power over the people because it stayed so long this time of year. I was reading Fifty Years Below Zero, a book about an early white man who lived among the Eskimo. I felt someone near me and noticed Julianne standing behind the borrowed chair that I had claimed and now sat in. The chair rocked.

  “Daddy, where are we going?” she asked.

  The sweet and completely trusting tone of her voice made me want to change my answer. Should we really be going where I’d planned? Maybe I should take this risk without them? Rita had told Julianne when she got home from school that afternoon that we were going to spend her spring break in the wilderness of the Brooks Range. I’d certainly heard of this place, but until I’d looked at a map, I had had no idea how far it was from here. Julianne liked to plan and pack days in advance, just like her mother. Did I really want to take her, even Rita, to live with some eccentric family I didn’t even know, sixty miles off the nearest road in one of the most isolated, coldest places on earth?