Clouds like puffs of endless smoke. The air redolent of quaking aspens and white spruce as he sipped his boiling coffee, the sludge warming. He held his breath when he arrived.
The docks are full of life unlike the barren roads. Fisherman hauling out for the start of the season that picks up even more once summer blossoms. The winter a time of packag-ing, smoking, and shipping off the catches of the year. He visualizes his fish shack for a second, a beacon off the docks. Full of regulars like at Elson’s. Bisques and fresh catches of the day with Callie either cooking or waiting tables and Travis getting together the menus, his role the face of the place. Eli coming in after school, munching on his favorite fish sticks. He lets the vision go, whipping himself enough.
Smitty’s all smiles when Travis gets to the boat. A small affair but enough to get the job done. Smitty with his stringy hair, bushy eyebrows, a hooked nose, and a swirl of a beard. Fingers always slicked with oil and palm lines blackened, hands pink and raw.
“Ready to bust your ass, greenhorn?” he asks Travis, his voice gritty from a lifetime of cigars. One already chewed down, tucked between his bottom teeth and lip, a thin line of smoke blowing from the cherry.
The waters are choppy and Travis’s stomach unused to the abuse. The black coffee sloshing around. He helps with letting the skiff go to set the net. Waits for the skiff to close the net. Piles the web while not letting it tangle up. Uses the hydraulics to haul the catch onto the deck. Rather paltry bounty, not being fully in season yet. Repeats the whole chain. Sifts through and tosses all the garbage, cans and plastic bottles, refuse and gunk. Hands smelling of salt and sewage by the second go around, fingernails black.
“How’s Papa Clifford been doing?” Smitty asks, still at work on his cigar even though it’s no longer smoking.
“Much the same. He’s moved in with my folks.”
“That’s probably for the best.”
“He’s ninety-three.”
“Oh, God bless. That is a life. And all his time in Alaska. He’s a sourdough.”
“Doesn’t see much, hearing’s pretty gone. But he’s still sharp. Mind clearer than most.”
“Fought in World War II, didn’t he?”
“Yup, front line. Shot in the ass and actually kept going. Had the bullet taken out, stitched up, and then went right back.”
“Different generation they were. Built of brick. Not a pansy among them. Kids these days so sensitive. Got a nephew who makes crying his job. Wouldn’t be caught dead out on a boat like this. How’s your son by the way?”
“Eli’s great. We’re all great.”
“C’mon, help me pull this in.”
They hoist in the net, a few salmon flapping in the grooves. Travis hunches down to sort away the flotsam. His stomach roiling, doing backflips.
“I think I might puke, Smitty.”
“Do it over the stern.”
Travis crawls to the back of the boat, focusing on a lighthouse along the horizon to keep him grounded. A swell of bile creeps up his throat but manages to stay intact. He spits it out, leaning over the edge, the waves rollicking below. This ocean that brings the town life, but has taken it away too. The final resting place for his brother who went out high on bad shit. He never stood a chance, not even from birth. His body missing for the longest days ever experienced.
Now Travis vomits tar-black due to the coffee, sour on the back of his tongue, watching it break apart and float away into the void of the Arctic.
The workday moderately successful. Cooler full of cleaned fish. Travis tired in his bones.
They dock the boat and crack open beers, Smitty getting froth all over his beard. Travis blinking away any queasiness. Feeling good, worthy, semi-formed again. Stu had been right as usual.
“Got a few fish packed away for your family,” Smitty says, nodding at a tiny cooler beside the giant one.
“You don’t have to, Smitty.”
“I know. You earned it.” He clinks his bottle against Travis’s. “So tomorrow again at the ass crack of dawn?”
Travis grins. “Yeah. Cool, man.”
“I tell ya, you’re a lot more reliable than Old Charlie and smell a ton better.”
Travis sniffs his collar. “Woof, jury’s out on that.”
“Finish your brew so I can get these salmon to The Angler in Nome.”
Smitty raises his nose with his dirty finger at the mention of the place.
On the way home, the inside of the pickup full of a wafting fish aroma. The winding road empty like in the morning, but not lonely, simply still. Travis’s fingers stiff on the wheel, blistering pink. His eyes swelling with tears, the alien salt stinging. Not tears of sadness, this he decides. He won’t let them be anything more than a body’s way of letting go.
9
For two days now, Wyatt has developed a pattern for studying the Barlows. He leaves the abandoned goods store long before dawn. The trek through the dark woods a contemplative meditation. Fingernail of the moon guiding the way. From behind a thicket of bush-es, he watches Travis parting before sunrise. When he’s ready, he’ll follow to see where he goes. But California and the child are the immediate spotlight.
The child joins her in bed once the father has gone. She’s more loving with him, extending her arms to the boy as opposed to curled up in the fetal position with Travis present. Maybe Travis make loves to her at night, but never in the morning. If she were Wyatt’s, he’d make love to her at all times.
Mother and child remain in that haze between sleep and reality until the sun makes its presence known, careening into the bedroom and bathing it in a glow. They snuggle for a while, the child usually with his eyes closed, California running her pale fingers through his hair. Wyatt wonders if his own family had mimicked the same ritual in his absence.
They wake and separately urinate. She makes eggs and uses an instrument that browns bread, smears it with butter. Fruit sits in a type of cold box, always fresh, a daily miracle.
She clutches a steaming cup, allows the aroma to enliven her senses.
The first day he waited until they came back with the sun about to set. He decided he’d use the sun as a marker, giving it another day to be positive that their absence for many hours isn’t a fluke. The second day became a duplicate of the first. Now on the third, he takes a chance and enters.
From studying the house, he assesses its penetrability. A back door with a screen.
Sometimes she leaves the door open with only the screen as a blockade, but only when home. If she’s gone, it stays shut and locked. The dog could pose a problem, but instead of barking it barely acknowledges him at the door, more interested in its flavored bone.
He’s aware of his putrid smell so he must be careful. California disappears into the room where she urinates, the child occupied in front of the box with moving pictures. He slides in, slithering down to the basement. Knowing she has never gone down there before, at least on his watch. He lingers until the water rushing through the pipes settles.
Her bath is done. She puts on music. He hears the sound of footsteps across the ceiling, then a door slam and lock and the pitter-patter of their car starting. He has learned this word when he asked about it to someone in town. The man responded with a curious eyebrow, thought he was joking. Wyatt feigned drunkenness and so the man explained about a car, a magical vehicle that uses gasoline to move people around. Horses seem to be no longer necessary. The future—a wheel spinning through everyone’s palms. It both scared and excited Wyatt, unsure which feeling affected him more.
He ascends from the basement. The home beams the after-scent of her perfume, not lilac like his beloved, even sweeter. California douses herself in candy. These past few days he’s lost Adalaide and Joe more and more, desperate to get them back. This intru-sion necessary for his sanity. Swearing to be as careful as possible, he attempts his first move. A bath of his own. Wanting to rid of the stench he’s carried for too long. He carefully strips naked, placing his clothes in the machine h
e’s seen her use. She always adds some type of liquid, and in a half an hour, the clothes are washed then put it a different
machine to dry. He presses a few buttons until it whirs, the echo of his old rags slapping around.
In the bathing room, he decides it should be called an in-house since all he knows are outhouses. He tests out the spigots that pour forth water. First too hot, then too cold. Finally, just right. He slides his battered body in once the water reaches a level to his liking.
Instantly soothing, his muscles relax, stress dissolving down the drain. He squeezes the bottles surrounding the rim into the water and delights at the bubbles arising. Washing every nook and cranny. Washing away the last hundred years of immovability.
Drip-drip from the faucet, no clue how long he’s pruned. Imagining he could stay here in this home of bubbles, California returning to witness all of him. Standing up with his manhood swinging from side to side, her eyes fixated, tongue lapping—this simulacrum who looks like her husband, kept on ice and alluringly revealed. She’d join their never-ending soak, nipples pink and upright, skin like cream, vagina a lighthouse bringing him in from the dark. “I love you, Wyatt,” roaring from her songbird lips. A new Joe incubat-ing in her belly afterwards.
A bell rings and startles, breaking his fantasy. Wrapping a towel around his waist, he searches for the source. An instrument bleats, attached to the wall. He’s seen her talking into this like a madwoman. Eventually, it stops. The wash is complete so he moves the clothes into the drying machine, wet towel included. He paces the house naked, envisioning himself as the owner of these walls. On the mantle, a photograph of the family begs to be stolen. He removes it from the frame to find a duplicate copy, which he’ll keep.
That way he could be transported back to his era at any moment. He bends the picture so Trav isn’t visible anymore. The dryer finishes and he takes out his clothes, cotton-scented clean. Even caked snow and gunk no longer on the rubber boots.
The dog joins him on the rug, curl of its tongue hot against his cheek. Does it believe him to be Trav? Regardless, the first contact of any kind sets him afire. Blood running warm again. He tickles the dog behind the ears and it goes crazy. Pawing at him, wrestling around. He hugs it for security, for sanity, weeping at anything that shows love, this other species who sensed his blues.
He ends the day in their bedroom, a quick nap on the bed, the sheets heaven. Outside the sun bobs lower, indicating that it’s time to go. He curses at its insistence but knows it’s wiser than he. Retracing his steps, he makes sure he has not left any sign of his intru-sion. He gives one last look at the Barlows’ lives, avowing that soon he’ll be invited inside so he can truly work at infesting.
The door slams shut as if only the wind had knocked it closed.
10
Miss Evelyn’s craftsman home has a heavy-columned front porch, front-facing gables, and overhanging eaves, a nod to the early twentieth century. To Callie, it always appears cozy, another reason she approves of Eli spending half the week here ever since Travis started working again. For the other two days, she drops him off at the Huskie Day Center where he gets to socialize with a dozen other toddlers. But Callie likes Miss Evelyn better since she watches him free of charge.
Miss Evelyn’s been widowed as long as Callie has lived in Laner, her husband having a debilitating stroke he never quite recovered from before passing. Her twin children go to the university in Anchorage but only visit on breaks. She lives off Harry’s pension, the mortgage on the home already paid, a lifestyle far from lavish. If Callie ever felt Eli becoming an imposition, she’d insist on paying. But Miss Evelyn appears overjoyed to babysit so she assumes it a fair trade.
“There’s my little monster,” Miss Evelyn says, as Eli marches inside like he owns the place.
“Grrrr,” Eli says, turning his hands into paws.
Callie finds Miss Evelyn has a gracious aura. Cheeks like a gopher, permanent stretched smile, hair sometimes in pigtails like a small girl. When she chuckles, her whole body seems to roll. And she chuckles a lot.
“I made a boo drawing!” Eli says, whipping out a piece of paper that looks like dark smears instead of an animal.
“Caribou,” Callie tells her. “We’ve been eating it all week. Travis hunted one.”
“Oh my!” Miss Evelyn chuckles. “What a boo! Was it yummy?”
Eli rubs his stomach while humming.
“I have a new book to read to you that came in the mail yesterday, Eli. It doesn’t have a caribou in it, but it does star a wolf!”
“I like wolves too. Chinook is a wolf.”
“Oh, precious,” Miss Evelyn says, tousling his hair.
“Thanks as always, Miss Evelyn.”
“Nonsense. Can I make ya a coffee for the road? Seem tired this morning.”
Callie nods at Eli who’s already running around the area rug pretending he’s a wolf.
“Every morning.”
“Ah, he’ll be as tall as you before you know it. Then gone.”
“I know, I know. Thanks for the coffee but gotta run.”
“Bye, Mommy!” Eli howls. “I’m a wolf!”
“Bye, my wolf,” she says, blowing a kiss.
Pizza Joint does a barebones breakfast but has its regulars. Callie likes the early shift, home by no later than six. The tips might not be as good as the dinner rush but it’s easier on her feet. They do an egg sandwich, or a bowl of oatmeal, sometimes pancakes if the cook is feeling generous. Mostly catering to fisherman in after their first haul for a hot coffee, or some of the elderly townsfolk eager for conversation.
Lorinda’s owned the Joint for a decade, long before Callie arrived in Laner, Lorinda’s family going back three generations here. Everyone in Laner seems to have a story of their Alaskan heritage except for Callie. In some ways this causes people to be drawn to her, but it also keeps her at a distance. Always seen as a Cheechako. She’ll never quite be one of them.
“Girl, we need to talk,” Lorinda says, grabbing Callie’s arm and whisking her away from the cook at the counter. Roy’s old and mostly mute, keeps his head down and his eggs and pizza dough fluffy.
“What is it, Lor?”
She finds herself enraptured by Lorinda’s jet-black hair, so silky smooth, straight out of a shampoo commercial. Lorinda always ready for the runway, as Callie would say.
“This requires a cig,” Lorinda says, squeezing her eyes closed. “Roy, we’re taking five.”
Roy waves them away without looking up from the eggs on the grill.
Outside the wind whips, Callie chilly in her fleece since she left her coat inside. Lorinda in a tank, impervious to the cold. Alaskan blood, Callie thinks.
“Grayson was texting me all night!” Lorinda cries, frustrated from being unable to light her cig.
“I got you.” Callie cups her hands around the lighter as the flame finally sticks. The cherry glows and Lorinda inhales hard.
“Stalker much?” Lorinda laughs, and Callie knows that Lorinda enjoys complaining about something. Lorinda holds up the phone as evidence, bubbles of never-ending texts one after the other. She flips through them. “I love you, I want you, I need you. You’re making a huge mistake. Blah, blah, blah. Like this is my fault.”
“You never told me why he—”
Tuck and Jesse appear as if invoked out of thin air.
“Didn’t mean to startle,” Jesse says, hands shoved in his pockets, never able to meet Callie’s gaze.
“Well, go inside, fellas,” Lorinda snaps. “We’re talking girl things.”
She kicks Tuck in the butt as the two men scooch inside the Joint.
“That Jesse has eyes for you,” Lorinda says.
“Travis would murder him.”
“I don’t doubt it.” Suck, blow, ash, repeat. “So, I caught Grayson at that…house of ill repute. The one all the police boys go to.”
“Was he just there or did you catch him…in the act?”
“Girl, I don’t give a hard r
at damn. I’m older than you by almost a decade and I got about six years on Grayson. Things are starting to go south.”
“Lorinda, you’re a knockout.”
“Every girl at that place is in their early twenties. Asses you can bounce dimes off of.
Even if he only entertained…”
“You don’t think the two of you can work it out? You guys have had ups and downs before.”
“Exactly,” Lorinda says, poking the cigarette at the breeze. “Too many hills and valleys with that prick. And just so you know, his prick ain’t all that. He’s all bark.”
“Travis says he’s distraught.”
“I’m surprised Gray even knows the definition of that word. Point is, that ain’t the on-ly time he was at that house. I was talking to one of the girls. Aylen. Pretty little thing.
Native American.”
“She lives with that sketchy cousin of hers on the mini reservation on the outskirts, right?”
“Whole family is a bunch of sketch. Anyway, for twenty bucks, she spilled. He comes in for hand jobs. I’m like, you moron. Who the hell even wants a hand job? I never even attempted them since I didn’t think we were in eighth grade. He could’ve just told me that’s what tickled his fancy.”
“It’s the thrill of the secret,” Callie says. “That’s what tickles him.”
“Well, it ain’t no secret that his clothes are in a snow heap on my porch. And he can keep his dumb cat too. That bitch is always giving me the side-eye.”
“Give me one of those,” Callie says, snatching a cigarette and relishing in a drag. Lorinda’s still cackling away but Callie has tuned her out. The snow coating the trees beginning to melt and Callie can finally see green. What she misses the most about California, if she’s honest. Alaska encased in white for too much of the year, the sensation of being trapped—like she’s been on ice too. The longer she stays, the more claustrophobic she feels.
“Girl, where has your mind gone?” Lorinda snaps, knocking knuckles against Callie’s skull.
“Travis went back to work.”
The Ancestor Page 5
