Alaska! Up North and to the Left

by Steven Swaks

  Deborah lowered the box to the cherry wood floor. “The mail has the priority. They are talking about three weeks.”

  “Three weeks? I have nothing, no furniture, no car, I don’t have a table, I don’t even have a bed, I’m sleeping on the floor,” Lydia cried out.

  “I’m sorry Lydia, but there is nothing I can do.”

  “No, you have been very helpful, but I’m… it’s hard. Everything is so… different.”

  “I understand, be patient, give it a few days, it’s going to be easier. I tell you what; tonight we’re having dinner with a few girls from the hospital, nothing fancy, just a quick dinner in a restaurant. Why don’t you come with us?”

  “No, it’s ok, I don’t want to intrude.”

  “Intrude? On what? Our girly gossiping and the next garage sale? No, no, no, no!” Deborah shook her head to emphasize the negation. “You’re coming along! I’ll be here at 6:00. You have a clock right?”

  Lydia playfully frowned.

  “It’s going to be ok,” Deborah said before tapping Lydia on the shoulder. “Let’s go take care of those utilities.”

  They walked to the black Ford Explorer. Deborah backed up on the crackling gravel, and brought the gear handle to drive. Lydia was somewhere else. The rain was tapping on the windshield. The wipers were indifferent; going back and forth, endlessly, as told. Lydia glanced outside through the dripping window. Today was the first day of her new life; she did not know if she liked it. The street was gloomy and dark like a late autumn day -in August-.

  The small SUV pulled into a narrow parking lot for the first stop of a long series. “Alaska Connection” read on a sign of a small bungalow-like building. They walked in, talked to the clerk, and the phone was connected to the house in a few minutes time, internet would have to wait a few days. Electricity and water were next on the list. Electricity was easy, a few clicks on a computer, a name change and voilà, you’re all set.

  The water was another issue. The two trucks were scheduled to deliver water and pick up the sewage every other week.

  “Remember to keep the access to the tanks clear,” an older native woman with prominent cheekbones told Lydia in the small city hall office.

  “Oh, I don’t leave anything in the driveway.” Lydia said proud to have a neat house.

  The Eskimo woman frowned. “You have to clear the snow before the trucks come.”

  “Oh, is there anything else I should know about the delivery? Do I need to do something before they show up?”

  “Make sure the driveway is clear, and the pipe’s not frozen.”

  “Make sure the pipe’s not frozen…,” Lydia murmured. “Right… how do I do that?”

  The employee grinned. “You look at the pipe’s outlet…” She saw Lydia’s distraught expression, “it’s where the truck driver connects the hose, if you see ice right there…” she indicated at a ring she’d made with her right index finger and thumb, “it’s frozen.”

  Lydia looked at Deborah overwhelmed. “What am I supposed to do if it’s frozen?”

  The woman sighed. Deborah smiled. “A heat gun or a screw driver and a small hammer can do the trick. Don’t worry, if anything happens before Steven arrives, you can call Sergei, he will help you.”

  “Because you think Steven will be able to help?”

  Deborah laughed. “Then you can always call Sergei even if Steven is there!”

  Lydia thanked the clerk still embarrassed and walked out of the office, then onto the wet metal steps. She turned to Deborah. “So… how do I even know that my water tank is empty?”

  Deborah chuckled. “If you don’t have any more water, it stops running.”

  “What if I’m taking a shower?”

  “”Don’t worry, you’ll get used to gauging your water. You can always take a look at the tank, yours is opened on the top, some are see-through, the water level doesn’t just drop like that.” She snapped her fingers.

  “And… how do I know the sewage tank is not full?”

  “That’s why your water tank is 1000 gallons and your sewage is 1500. You should always have some room left in that tank.”

  “This is so strange; I have never dealt with that.”

  “Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it.” Deborah rubbed her on the back.

  They drove in relative silence towards AC. AC; it was not even Alaska Company anymore. Lydia was surprised to see how easily she was adjusting to that store. It was only a second visit and it was already part of the day, one stop among others.

  She filled her basket with reassuring moves. It was familiar; it was grocery shopping in town. There was no gloom looming outside, no water tank computations, nor concerns about piping. She walked down the aisles and mostly found what she needed. Deborah left her alone for a while to let her find her own bearings, it would take time but she could get used to this.

  That night’s dinner with the girls went well. The duo Lydia/ Deborah met Shirley and Saamiya in a rare exception to the Korean siege of the Bethel culinary industry. Takis was, of all things, a thriving Greek restaurant who welcomed its patrons in a warm atmosphere. There was nothing fancy, no attempt to recreate a pseudo Mediterranean scene, no frozen in time fish nets hanging on the ceiling or plastic sea shells nailed to the wall. The staff was friendly and discrete; the young waitress came to the table, took the order swiftly, and vacated to attend other customers. The two women across the table intrigued Lydia. Shirley was a Nurse Practitioner working in the hospital and was coming straight out of the hippies’ era where she would still be, if the rest of the world had not decided to move onto the eighties and thereafter. She was tall, slender, with the vitality of a teenager, the intellect of a post graduate, and the elocution of an old bourgeoise. The world was exquisite, life was a precious gift, politics were a waste of time and her kitchen garden was much more important. Saamiya was quieter. She seemed nice and almost shy. Lydia did not like to categorize and label people, but Saamiya was obviously Muslim, hidden under a black veil which only revealed her face. She was younger than Shirley, right at the edge where the kids are in the sweet spot between the end of the diapers and the dreaded teenage decline.

  The quartet sat for two hours at a wooden booth, which in itself might have seemed uncomfortable but it was not amid charming company and an irrelevant but pleasant discussion. Why did it have to be pertinent anyway? Why should there be a need for a tortuous French dinner filled with politics, global warming, and end of the world scenarios? The tone was light, the voices refreshing, and the laughter contagious. Man would be a species headed straight for mass extinction if it was not for women. Without them, the male kind would still be in a cave trying to figure out how to light their first fire. The Bethelian Homo Erectus was a step closer to its natural habitat and became true to himself, merciless hunter, hardly able to temper his cursing among women. Garage sales and bargain hunting took over the man teasing before hospital policies furnished some of the conversation. Saamiya stayed polite even if she did not belong to the health care crowd, but a deep mutual respect reminded them that they were not in a company meeting and Saamiya was drifting, uninterested by the latest rumors that did not speak to her. Other topics came and went, respective spouse (if applied) and their endless flaws, salmon fishing, and recipes for the delightful catch.

  Lydia did not learn anything about her piping or the water tank that night, the house was not so frightening anymore, it was only a house. She was moving on, and was discovering the other side of Bethel, the side that was not advertised, the side she had not seen on the video while attempting to figure out the hows and whys. She was digging deeper than the rain and the mud, she could see further than the fog and the misty days. For the first time, that night, Lydia caught a glimpse of the real Bethel and her life to come.

  Shannon

  September

  9:20 PM. The rain was endlessly striking the windows in a continuous drumming. When was the last time Lydia had seen the sun? Monday? She thought it was Monda
y. It had been raining for five days straight. The fog was coming in and out like a tide on the beach. Gloom was sinking in, enveloping the house in its dark veil. She turned to the phone, the magical outlet to somewhere else, another place far away from there. She dialed an old college friend’s number.

  “Hello?” A young woman picked up the phone.

  “Shan? It’s Lydia.”

  “Hi, Lydia! I didn’t recognize the caller ID number on the phone. I am so glad to hear from you! How are you? How’s Alaska?” The voice was upbeat and genuinely happy.

  Shannon was a West Los Angeles resident where she had been to undergraduate school. UCLA and the west side was the place to be, the hip town full of creative and successful characters, a step from the ocean and renowned neighborhoods. A decade ago, she had fallen in love with the Southern Californian charm, the moderate weather year long, the beaches nearby, Santa Monica Pier, the colorful malls, ethnic restaurants, and intellectual life. She could never get enough. Lydia’s move to Alaska had come as a shock, a misunderstood move to a corner of the map, relegated to a large parenthesis, a four year standby for her husband. Shannon could not conceive it otherwise.

  “It’s been… challenging. I received my furniture yesterday, finally!” Lydia rolled up her eyes.

  “What about the car?”

  “The 4Runner is here, too. Everything came on a cargo plane. Somebody told me that I need to winterize it, I don’t even know what that means!” She shrugged and peered outside. Still raining. “Now I need to unpack, but it’s not so bad, at least I won’t have to sleep on the floor anymore!”

  “How long has it been? A month?” Shannon was gliding throughout her apartment, bare feet, in a white summer dress.

  “I’ve been here for five weeks. It feels like five months! What about you? How are you?”

  “I am doing well. I went out last night to a vegan restaurant. You’d love it! I ordered a Caesar salad with tofu. It’s a new restaurant on Wilshire, right next to 3rd Street Promenade.”

  Lydia sighed. “I miss Santa Monica. You know what I did yesterday afternoon?” She did not give her time to answer, “I plucked chickens.”

  “Hum…” there was a silence. “How do you even pluck a chicken?” Shannon shook her head in disbelief. E! News was at El Capitan Theater on Hollywood Boulevard, playing a live movie premiere on the television.

  “We went to somebody’s house and she set up the living room to deal with the chickens.”

  “You mean… to pluck them?”

  “No, there was more than that.” Lydia said readjusting her cashmere jacket.

  “More?” Shannon stopped in front of the television.

  “Before we plucked them, we had to kill them.”

  “KILL them? YOU killed a chicken?” A journalist was interviewing a Hollywood starlet with hundreds of flashes crackling in front of her. The elegant golden evening gown highlighted her stunning appearance and floating blond hair over her creamy skin.

  “No, I couldn’t, my friend Shirley did. Six of them. She chopped their heads off with an axe. She even had blood splatter on her face,” Lydia chuckled.

  “Oh Lord, that is disgusting!” Shannon looked at the television screen to offset the gruesome vision. The actress was giving an interview. “All of that in the living room?”

  “No, the execution was outside.”

  “Then… you pluck them?”

  “No, we had to plunge them into hot water, then we plucked them.” She halted for emphasis, “and gutted them.”

  “How fun…” Shannon looked at a tree-littered park outside to forget the grisly scene.

  “You know, it’s harder than you think to pluck a chicken.”

  “I’ve never wondered about it. I am still into the boneless, skinless, frozen chicken tenderloins from the supermarket. You should try, it’s a lot easier! Hey, on a different topic, did you see Katrina?”

  “Katrina? Who’s that?”

  “It’s all over the news! It was a bad hurricane in New Orleans. Some levees broke and flooded the whole city. Many people died. How did you not hear about it?”

  “I didn’t get a chance to hook up the television yet, and I still don’t have internet. At the hospital we don’t have time to talk about the news, we’re swamped all day.”

  “How do you like working there by the way?”

  “I enjoy it. The patients are very nice, they don’t mind to come to the clinic. They’re not grumpy like some of the people I saw during my residency. It almost feels like it is a social place to hang out, a lot of them don’t really have a chance to come to Bethel, unless it’s for a medical appointment, so when they are here they take the time to catch up with friends and family.”

  “Where do they live?”

  “In villages around Bethel, within… I don’t know, two hundred miles.”

  “Didn’t you tell me there’re no roads out of town?”

  “They come by small plane.” Lydia looked at low clouds looming over the residential street.

  “Do they have to buy a plane ticket to go see a doctor?”

  “Sometimes they do, it depends on the type of insurance they have. According to their condition, the Health Corporation might cover the cost.”

  “Wait, most of your patients are Eskimos right?” An older man wearing a tuxedo was walking down the red carpet along with a beautiful young woman on the broadcast premiere.

  “Yes.”

  “This is neat, I have to say. By the way, how’s Steven?”

  “He’s fine, he’s finishing up his flight instructor training.”

  “The condo?”

  “There’s still some work to do, but we already have a prospective buyer.”

  “That’s good, I am so glad things are working out. Hey, I have to run to a Thai restaurant. I’m having dinner with a friend; we might go see a movie after in Century City.”

  “Oh, dinner and a movie, I miss that!”

  “I’ll tell you all about it!”

  “That makes me feel better… have fun! Bye!”

  “Bye.” Shannon hung up.

  Lydia looked outside. Still raining. She walked downstairs and prepared an instant noodle soup.

  Up I Go

  November

  The coffee sloshing in my cup was the first sign of impending turbulence. The catatonic passengers came as a useless confirmation that we were indeed on a rocky approach into Anchorage from Seattle. The Boeing was jerking in continuous tremors worthy of our Californian earthquakes, but it did not matter, I was not even there, I was in my own bubble contemplating a new season in my life. I attempted to look outside and see something, vainly. There was nothing but gray and layers of clouds entangled in a grotesque Picasso painting. The flight attendants did what they were trained to do; they prepared the cabin for landing with calm and professionalism. The pilots magically, at least for some passengers, safely landed the aircraft on the wet runway. We taxied to the gate and waited for the liberating ding dong from the switched off seatbelt sign like impatient teenagers at the end of a math class. A wave of passengers unclicking their buckles immediately ensued as if programmed by a subconscious reflex. We hurried and grabbed our cell phones to make that lifesaving call to somebody else probably waiting for us on the other side of security, or further at the end of another leg. We then waited, standing around crammed like old fish on a rack, or contorted beneath the baggage bins while the front passengers exited the cabin for their ultimate destination. I waited my turn to escape, then stepped out of the plane with a thank you smile to the flight attendant before walking through the gate into the terminal.

  Lydia had mentioned the grand view and the mountains spreading beside the city, which we had not seen during our nocturnal wintery escapade to Bethel in January. The expected eloquent sight did not speak to me with a curtain of fog drawn on the window hardly revealing a lifeless parking lot.

  I waited at the gate for the Bethel flight. For some naïve reason, I’d hoped to recreate the cha
rming and refreshing atmosphere I’d experience with Lydia a few months earlier. Today, I was by myself. The other passengers minded their own business reading a magazine, or eyes closed in their temporary MP3 world. I was wondering what Lydia had experienced when she walked the same steps. Was she excited? Concerned? I was going on conquered ground. Everything was ready for my arrival like a king walking into the freed city after the battle. The furniture was there, the car was there, the phone was working, and internet was plugged in for an ultimate outlook on our shrinking planet.

  I got up like everybody else once my flight was called, and boarded the same type of combi plane we had experienced on our first flight to Bethel. The 737 taxied, lurched down the runway, and took off bound for the rest of my life. I was sitting next to the window for a look on my adoptive state. When booking the seat, it’d seemed like a wise move, to be in the front row to see Anchorage in daylight, perhaps even enjoy the flight to Bethel from my aerial point of view. I was green and immature, a juvenile on the path of war, happy to see what the world was made of. I was so wrong; there was nothing to look at but the reality of my impending mistake. The fog hid the mountains and only showed me what it wanted. It was a twisted sight; unnatural gray figures piled on top of each other, shapeless clouds and dull white ice sheets floating over dark waters, frozen landscape and bitter desolation. The beast was welcoming the Californian for the second time. Come here my little friend, come and play, I’ll be watching you, I’ll be around, not far. I’ll give you time, don’t worry. I will come once in a while, I’ll stay beyond the window, you’ll be warm and comfortable inside. But do not come tackle me, do not fight me, or I will choke you, I will squeeze and watch you die like I did with so many. Go on my little friend, go and play.

  What was I doing? Why was I here? I could have been teaching in California. I was here for a bitter compromise, a bad prank played by a post med student. The Boeing dug into the clouds. I closed my eyes and braced for Bethel. There was no more turning back, aside from the cutesy little cliché, it was dreadfully true. At least, Lydia would be waiting for me at the airport to heal the wounds.