The Leaving Year

by Pam McGaffin

  “I don’t know why there’s a separate house and mess for Filipinos.” She shrugs. “Maybe because they’re mostly old timers and don’t want to be around us kids. But they have some young ones, too.”

  I want to ask her about Sam but think better of it. She might guess that he’s the reason I’m here.

  Jody begins my tour of the cannery building on the dock, where salmon are unloaded from the boats into huge bins, each the size of my bedroom. From there, the fish travel by conveyor belt into what she calls the blood and guts of the operation. I learn why so many canneries are built on pilings. The gurry—a gray waste of fish heads, tails, fins and guts—all gets dumped through holes in the floor directly into the water.

  “The seagulls have a field day,” she says. “Of course, everything’s quiet now. Fish’ll start in about a week, kinda slow at first so you can get used to it, then the fun begins. The chink’ll be spitting ’em out a mile a minute.”

  “Chink?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  She takes me to a squat machine that feeds the fish through a wheel-like guillotine. “This replaced the Chinese workers who used to do the butchering by hand. That’s why they call it the Iron Chink.”

  I remember the slur used against Sam even though he’s not Chinese. “That’s kind of—”

  “Rude?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I’ve heard worse,” Jody says. “I’m Indian. Tlingit, Eagle moiety, Killer Whale Clan, Moon House.”

  “Wow.” I could never remember all that, so I don’t even try. “That’s a lot to be.”

  She laughs and breathes out smoke from her cigarette. “It’s how we identify ourselves. A house is just an extended family. Of course, white people don’t refer to us that way. They just call us Indians or Natives, if they’re being polite. Drunks or bums if they’re not.” She waves her cigarette around. “Anyhoo, way more than you wanted to know. On with the tour.”

  We come to a long platform with a conveyor belt running between two troughs. A couple dozen rubber hoses hang from an overhead pipe.

  “Here’s where you’ll be working,” she says. “Normally, water would be running nonstop so you can hose out any blood and guts left in the fish.”

  So much for washing being an okay job. “What will you be doing?”

  She grins. “I got a dry job this year. Cooking cans.”

  She takes me to the can-making, cooking, and storage wing, which is attached on land to the cannery building like the smaller leg of an upside-down L. This is where the packed cans are sealed and cooked and stacked on crates bound for points across the globe. As we walk through the plant, I learn that dry and warm jobs are better than wet and cold jobs, and being a washer is about as wet and cold as you can get. The only possible exception to the dry-wet rule is the job of feeding the Iron Chink. Though the work is bloody, gross, and potentially dangerous since fingers can be lost, it carries a measure of respect because everyone down the slime line depends on how well you do your job. If the fish come out cleanly cut and gutted the slimers have a much easier time of it.

  “The egg sacs are saved and processed separately for the Japanese,” Jody is saying. “Roe’s a special food to them. Speaking of which, I’m hungry. You hungry?”

  “Um, sure.”

  We leave the cannery building. I’m just about to ask Jody if there is a public pay phone I can use—I still need to call my mother—when we’re both distracted by a group of guys moving big wooden crates into the area where the finished cans are stored. They look like the Filipino cannery workers back home, and my breath catches, searching for Sam. Several of the younger ones say hi to Jody and give me the once-over. But only one recognizes me.

  “Ida?”

  I turn around. I might have looked right past him if he hadn’t noticed me first. His upper lip is shadowed with the start of a mustache, and his hair is now so long, it’s in his eyes.

  “Sam?” I want to run up and hug him, but not with all these people around.

  “What are you doing here?” His eyes are bloodshot, like he hasn’t been sleeping.

  “I’m working here, or will be.” I’m proud of my job, no matter how gross.

  Jody clears her throat loudly.

  “Oh, sorry. Sam, this is my roommate, Jody. Jody, this is Sam, a friend from school.”

  “Small world,” she says. “Why did you call her Ida?”

  Before Sam can answer, I jump in. “Oh, that’s a nickname. Susan’s my real name.” Sam gives me a look like, What the hell?

  “I think I’ll let you two catch up.” Jody says. “See ya later, Ida-Sue.” She gives me a wink and walks off in the direction of the mess, leaving me to squirm under Sam’s gaze.

  “What was that all about?” Sam’s brows are knit in confusion.

  I lean over and whisper in his ear. “Susan Stone is the name on my fake ID.”

  “You came here on your own?” He studies me like he’s not sure who I am anymore.

  “Well, isn’t that what you did?”

  He shakes his head. “I had an uncle waiting for me. My mom arranged it. Your mom—”

  “Doesn’t know,” I say firmly.

  “You’re kidding, right?” He’s looking genuinely panicked now.

  I bite my lower lip and shake my head.

  Sam’s jaw falls open. “You mean you just ran away?” He says it so loud, I cringe.

  “Sorry.” He leans forward, his voice quiet. “Your mom, your family, they must be so worried.”

  “I left her a note. I said I would call her.”

  My skin prickles like I’ve been slapped. After all those hours on the ferry, spending almost half my money, risking everything, I actually make it up here and even get a job. Yet all Sam can do is make me feel like a schmuck.

  CHAPTER 20

  Above Board

  On or above the deck, not hiding anything

  My pocket weighed down with change, I pull open the folding door of an ancient phone booth and try to read the worn and cigarette-burned directions for making a long-distance call. A dozen quarters later, I hear a mysterious series of clicks, followed by a faint ringing, and then, finally, my mother’s “hello” through what sounds like a tunnel of candy wrappers.

  “Mom?”

  “Ida?” Her voice is a crackly shriek.

  “Yes, it’s me.”

  “… God … where … you?”

  “Mom, I can’t really hear you. I just want you to know I’m okay.” I say the words loud and slow into a receiver that smells of brine and cigarettes.

  “Wha …”

  “I said I’m fine. I got a job.”

  “…ere … you?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  The connection continues to pop and hiss. “In … ska?”

  So she’s guessed I’m in Alaska. No surprise, there.

  “Mom, I can’t—”

  The operator cuts in, telling me to deposit another twenty-five cents. I sigh and insert another quarter into the slot.

  “Please don’t worry about me. I love you.” I wait for her reply, but there’s only static. “Mom? Are you there?”

  Click. Dial tone. I’ve lost her. It wasn’t much of a conversation, but at least now she knows I’m alive.

  I go into the general store, where everything costs about three times more than normal. Turning through a rack of postcards, I pick out one of an Aleut girl. On the back it says, Colorful citizen of the 49th state in Native attire, Caribou Skin Parka trimmed in fur and beadwork. The girl is smiling into the wind with her right arm raised as if waving to someone far away. So what if it reveals my general location. Mom still doesn’t know where in Alaska, and it’s a really big state.

  I pay for the postcard and a can of spray-on bug repellent for the Alaska-sized mosquitoes. I better get paid soon, because I’m running out of cash.

  As I walk back to the women’s bunkhouse, I hear music. It’s a happy, simple tune that’s vaguely familiar. Eventually, it
dawns on me. The Beatles. “Hello, Goodbye.” Someone has set up a record player on the porch just outside the main door. After the Beatles, another 45 drops down from the stack and the needle lands on a wolf howl and Sam the Sham & The Pharaohs singing about Little Red Riding Hood.

  Pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-hsss.

  Someone down the beach is lighting firecrackers. The competing noise oddly complements the song. “Oooh yeah!” yells one of the guys setting them off. So much has happened the last few days that I forgot all about the Fourth of July. The celebration, such as it is, seems out of place until I realize that we’re still in the United States.

  The record player has been turned on as loud as it will go. Fuzzy base notes vibrate through the soles of my sneakers as I walk into the bunkhouse. The ratty couch and both chairs have been claimed by couples. The guys sit with their arms draped around their girlfriends or with their girlfriends on their laps. They’re passing around a bottle that’s half gone and taking turns sucking on something that looks like a small cigarette but smells like a slash burn of forest waste. I recognize one of the basketball players from earlier, the tall blond guy who told me where to find the office.

  The girls are my housemates, but Jody isn’t among them. There’s Pandora, who appears to be a real live hippie, or at least dresses the part. She’s from Eugene, Oregon. Jill is a petite blonde from Spokane with pink-frosted lips. And Valerie, who’s as tall as I am, is studying to be a large-animal vet. All are cannery newbies. I remember to introduce myself as Susan from Seattle, which Joshua, a small, elfish guy with no permanent address, keeps repeating because he likes the S sounds.

  “Susan of Seattle slaughters salmon by the seashore.” He bounces to the beat of it. “Susan of Seattle, you’re a tongue tweezer.”

  “That sounds painful,” says a girl to my right. I catch a flash of boob and underarm hair as her tank-topped torso swoops in for a pack of cigarettes on the table.

  Joshua topples forward laughing. “Twister. I mean twister.”

  “You’re stoned, Josh.” The girl lights her cigarette, introduces herself to me as Marlene, and asks if I’d like some of the bottle that’s going around, only a quarter full now.

  “No, thanks,” I tell her, hating how dainty that sounds. I don’t want them to think I’m a snob, or worse, a goody two-shoes, but my Halloween party experience kind of soured me on drinking.

  A rush of air hits my back. “Bear!” the couples yell in unison.

  I whip around, coming face to hairy neck with a big, ponytailed man. He slides around me and plunks a case of beer on the rickety table, which tilts so much I fear the weight will collapse it. “Fish tomorrow,” he announces, ripping open the top of the box and grabbing a can. Soon there’s a rush of bodies and hands grabbing for beers. The box empties in seconds.

  “About time,” Marlene says, popping open her can.

  “For the fish or the beer?” Bear asks.

  “Both.”

  “Load of pinks.” He takes a long, gulping drink then belches, rather like a bear, if a bear were to get hold of some beer.

  I think back on that Aleut story about the wife who turned into a bear, and a strange thought occurs to me. If every person in this room were to magically transform into his or her spirit animal, we would all see each other’s true natures, our weaknesses as well as our strengths. Wolf and rabbit, beaver and loon, otter and frog. What would my animal be? Something noble, like an eagle? Or lowly, like a snail? Dad said there were no good or bad totems, that they’re all respected, which strikes me as empty talk coming from someone who could change to suit his whims. He was like Raven, the trickster, turning from father and husband to fisherman, storyteller … and beloved friend of prostitutes? How did he keep all those roles straight? Yet one more question to ask Trinity, if I dare.

  I make my way to what is now my room. Opening the door, I expect to see Jody stretched out on her bunk, but all I find is her open backpack. Maybe she escaped for some peace and quiet. The music changes to the Rolling Stones, the beat thrumming through the thin wall.

  I only left Annisport a few days ago, but it seems like years. Amazing how so much can change in the space of a week. I’m in a new state with a new job. I could start a new life, become a new person. Isn’t that what lured Dad to Alaska in the summer and made him retreat to his basement in the winter? It wasn’t just the fish he caught or the tables he crafted. He needed to escape.

  I get the photo of us out of my suitcase and stare at his happy face. What else was that smile hiding? I put it back, get out my pen, and sit down at a small table in the corner opposite our bunks. I take out the postcard of the Aleut girl and begin to write.

  Dear Mom,

  Sorry our call was cut short. I am safe in Alaska (obviously from this postcard). I have a job and am making new friends. I’m doing well. Please trust me. I’m not a child anymore. I promise to be careful and come home. I will call again very soon.

  Love,

  Ida

  In the space that’s left, I draw a raven in flight.

  THE party ends. A cannery foreman finally comes by to break it up. The fish rumor is true, but it will be a short day. I hear all this through the wall.

  I’m in bed, trying to fall asleep, when Jody walks in. I sit up, bumping my head on the empty bunk above me. I rub the spot on my head. These bunks weren’t made for big girls like me.

  “Where did you go?” I ask her.

  “Who are you, my mother?”

  “No, I just …” I mumble, thinking of the one I left worrying.

  “Mind if I turn on the light?” she asks.

  “Go ahead. I couldn’t sleep because of the party. Now I just can’t sleep.” I squint in the sudden light as Jody takes off her jacket.

  “Get used to it,” she says. “Partying is how people here pass the time.”

  “But not you?”

  “Nope.” She slips off her boots, flips off the light, and slides into her sleeping bag still wearing her clothes. Just when I think she’s done talking, her words come floating through the dark. “Drinking makes it too hard to get up in the morning. Once the fish start, all you newbies will be too tired to party. ’Night, Ida-Sue.”

  I tell her good night back. In minutes, her breathing takes on the heavy rhythm of sleep. I wish I could drop off that easily, but I’ve never done well with strange beds in strange places. Nerves aside, I’m beginning to understand the thrill my dad felt coming here. Alaska is freedom, fear, and guilt, all rolled into one.

  CHAPTER 21

  Blood line

  A line of blood located along the backbone of a fish that’s removed in processing

  We get to sleep in, but the start of the day still comes way too soon for most of the girls in our bunkhouse. Pandora looks like the walking dead, her hands shaking as she cradles a mug of coffee to her lips. The bunkhouse common room smells like pickled cigarettes from all the beer cans serving as ashtrays. It’s enough to make me gag, and I don’t have a hangover, though I had a rotten night of trying to get to sleep, capped off by a weird dream.

  I was on a ferryboat in wildly swaying seas, like an amusement park ride where the centrifugal force keeps you from falling. Suddenly the ferry turned into a dinghy. Waves swamped my boat. As I sank under water, I was surrounded by fish. Big green ones, small orange ones, giant blue ones. They were beautiful and frightening at the same time. I tried to swim away, but I couldn’t. As panic set in, someone gave me a push. My arms and legs started working again. It got lighter and lighter. Finally, my face broke the surface, and I gasped for air. I didn’t see who helped me, but I somehow knew it was Dad.

  The aching haunt of the dream is obliterated soon enough. Cannery work is every bit as bad as Mom made it out to be. First there’s the smell, which starts out tolerable, like our waterfront on a warm day, then hits you like a rogue wave. The fish are fresh. You can tell, I’m told, by their shiny eyes. But the cumulative effect of so many fish at once is overwhelming. Their butchered bodies
release a thick, sickening stench, like life turned inside out. I don’t have the luxury of dwelling on it, though, because I’m too busy trying to keep up with the flow of carcasses Sam is sending our way. Turns out he has the all-important job of fish inspector, which sounds more impressive than it is. Standing behind the Iron Chink, he picks up each cut and gutted fish and turns it first to one side, then the other. If it’s clean, it goes directly to us. If it still has parts of its head, tail, and fins attached, it goes to the cutters. Using wickedly sharp knives, they chop off the unwanted bits—and sometimes more. Rubber gloves are no protection against a fine blade.

  Washers don’t use knives; we use spoons connected to jet hoses. We don’t risk losing a digit if we screw up, which is good because scraping and spraying out fish innards is a finger-numbing job. My first attempt slips from my grip and plops down hard in front of me, splashing bloody water. One of the first things I learn is to keep my mouth closed.

  The worst part of my job, however, isn’t the blood and guts, or even the smell. On my first day, it’s the cold that pains me most. The fish are half-frozen, the water slightly less so. Though I’m dressed like a fisherman in full rain gear, with wool gloves under my rubber ones, the cold spreads from my numb fingers up my arms and down my spine, making me even clumsier than usual. I usually fumble my fish while my supervisor is looking. Luckily, I’m not the only one. The belt stops and starts a lot that afternoon because of glitches and mishaps along the line. Each time I think about quitting, just walking away, but then there’s Sam, a stalwart at his station, and I tell myself to get to the next break.

  At long last, we get the signal to quit. Gloved hands mime slicing throats, with a motion to pass it along. The belt stops for the day. Human sounds replace the clank and clatter of machines. The talk is reassuringly ordinary, full of misery shared, as my coworkers go about satisfying their most urgent needs, whether it’s a cigarette, something to eat, or just a warm place to sit down. I seek out Sam and we fall in with the others, boots sloshing through the blood on the floor. Moving from standing on sore feet, I wobble.