by Steven Swaks
I have never had a difficult passenger after turning around, most of them were locals and knew the caprices of the weather. As for the outsiders, they mostly understood that turning around was a safe move, the consensus was the same for all, we did not want to become a statistic, another war story told to the new pilots.
My little family stepped out of the plane. The mother turned around and looked at me, “Are you going back to Eek soon?”
“I am going to stay here for a while; the fog is spreading a lot faster than I thought. I’ll keep an eye on it and I’ll let you know on the VHF if I go back.”
She did not say anything else; she turned around and walked to our agent’s minivan, official Norton passenger shuttle in Quinhagak. Minivan was an overstatement, at one point it had been a Dodge or Chrysler of some sort. Now, it was a relic, an insult to the minivan caste. The vehicle was a shade of gray, a repulsing conglomerate of old paint, dirt, and rust. The shocks had probably not been changed for a decade and each load of freight or passengers was a new affront to the integrity of the vehicle.
Theresa stepped out of the driver seat and came towards me, she must have been in her early thirties with an extra few pounds available if needed, and shoulder length light brown hair. Fashion had not been a priority since high school, if it had ever been one. Her job did not really matter and she only looked forward to going back home and staying warm. I did not know much about her, she met me at the plane to help unload the mail and dispatched it to the village; that was all.
“Weather is bad over there?” She asked.
“The fog is rolling in,” I answered with a quick nod.
“What’re you gonna do? Are you going to wait here?” she inquired monotonously.
“I need to call my dispatch and secure the plane.”
“I’m gonna drop them off and I’ll come back. I’ll take you to my place if you‘ve to wait,” Theresa said blandly.
“Ok, thanks.”
The offer was nice, but I hoped I would not have to reach that extreme. The night at the village was the trap to avoid, the other side of a barrier never to be crossed. I did not want to be snobby, but pilots, like any other employee, just wanted to return to their quarters after a day of labor.
Theresa walked back to the minivan and drove away; I was alone on the large frozen ramp. The Sunday afternoon sky was a beautiful blue and highlighted the nearby snow covered mountains. I turned around and secured the plane. There was nothing much to it, I positioned the chocks under the nose wheel, covered the engine with a thick water proof blanket, dove under the engine and secured the bungee cords under the cowling. I picked up my extension cord and plugged the engine along with the cabin heaters to the only building on the ramp, a locked makeshift terminal. I stepped into the cockpit, gathered my headset, flight bag, and installed the control lock. I walked a few feet away from the plane and looked at Quinhagak two miles away. I had never been in the village. For me, Quinhagak was a cluster of houses around a main road, that’s all I had seen from the air. The Bering Sea was west of the village and the Kilbuck Mountain Range spread north to south twenty miles east of town. The Kanektok River ran from the mountains to the sea in a meandering ribbon of shallow waters over the tundra. During the summer, well off tourists flocked to nearby camps and played Alaskan adventurers for a few days until they reached the very spot where I was standing, but the summer season was not anywhere close, and I was standing alone in the winter cold.
I picked up my cell phone and called dispatch.
Jeb answered, “Norton Aviation?”
“Hey, it’s Steven, Eek is fogged up; I had to go back to Quinhagak.”
“Bethel is down, stay there and keep an eye on the weather. Let me know if you takeoff.”
“All right, see ya.”
What was next? I only had to wait for Theresa and get a grand tour of the town.
It only took a few minutes for the minivan to come back. In the midst of growing boredom, I saw its silhouette appear from afar. I have to admit it, from the distance it had earned its minivan label, but then again, it was still a mile away. The vehicle stopped by the Cessna; I opened the front passenger door in a creaking noise. I sat, and immediately started to capsize towards the left under the absence of a seat cushion. I instinctively grabbed the door handle in a survival reflex. Theresa was not there, it was Paul, her husband, or boyfriend, maybe brother? There was no ring on the finger either to really set a definitive title on the character, but who knew in this day and age? Paul was also in his early thirties and carried a wealth of extra calories around his waistline. A few years ago, his hair had decided that it was no longer worth staying on top of his skull and a massive exodus had followed. A handful of brave survivors had stayed to form what was left of his locks.
I had met him a few times when he occasionally came to assist Theresa. When she was unavailable, Paul took over the torch and helped out. He came out as a good man and was quiet, yet friendly. If he seemed of Yupik descent, he was very fair skinned and elegantly wore a lumberjack’s beard. His red flannel shirt gave the last touch to the truly Alaskan look.
“Hi Steven, what do you want to do? Want to come to my place?” Paul asked.
There was nothing else I could do here. “Sure.”
I was going beyond the ramp and its safety. Further, I did not know. I was the pilot in control; the village had been a postcard, a view from the air, nothing more. I was stepping out of my element to enter foreign grounds.
The minivan entered a long and slow curve to the right. At the end, the village was waiting for us. It must have been an instinct of self-preservation when I looked back to my right to catch a last glimpse of Five One Charlie. It was staying there, I was leaving.
The ride was not as miserable as I was expecting, the old ventilation system still provided a meager amount of heat in the endless and dull noise of the fan.
“I have to stop by the T.C. before we go to my place.” Paul said quietly without looking at me.
“T.C? What’s that?” I asked frowning.
“The town center, it’s kind of like a city hall. They play bingo in there; you can even get a scratchy.” There was a sense a pride in his voice. Deep down, I could feel Paul wanted me to see more than the airport. We were in his town, and his pride was showing the way.
We parked in front of a single story white building. We walked up a short wooden ramp and entered the town center into a narrow corridor. On each side, there were three or four rooms and what seemed to be a much larger one at the end of the corridor. The town center was fairly small; perhaps the size of a large house. I followed Paul to the larger room in the back, there must have been fifteen to twenty people, mostly older Yupik women sitting on the linoleum floor. The obvious lifelong friends were joyfully facing a bingo ball reader in an intense game. As we walked in, they merely glanced at us, waved and bowed their heads for the next number to be called. Here and there, a small giggle, a stifled laugh, and the anxiety of the upcoming call. Paul smiled, shook his head, and walked out of the room.
Paul entered the next room on our left; it was a small office with two crammed metal desks and piles of paperwork. A native woman with long black hair and generous cheek bones was behind one of the desks.
“Hi Darlene! What’re you doing in here on a Saturday?”
“John and the boys are watching the game, I don’t really care, so I’m catching up on some paperwork. You? What’re you doing?” She looked at me with an inquisitive expression.
“This is Steven, he’s a pilot for Norton. He’s gonna stay here for a while. The weather is bad in Bethel.” That was my story, my label glued on the forehead. Not that I minded, but I felt like a curiosity, the little gold fish flapping out of his bowl for the entertainment of bored kids.
I waved and threw a quick, “Hi, nice to meet you.” She stood up and shook my hand.
“Well, I hope you will make it back soon!”
“So do I!” I said with a smile before followi
ng Paul out of the office.
Paul stopped in front of yet another tiny room. This one was very different, it did not belong to a city hall, or even a town center… or maybe it did, I was so far out of my element that somebody was carving my sociological value system with a steak knife. The walls of the room were covered with advertisements for scratch cards, lotteries, and bingo. In the middle of the rectangular room, there was a wooden counter covered with scratchies and lottery games. A colorful hood hid behind one of the piles, and rose as we approached. A Yupik woman stood up wearing a beautiful kuspuk, the traditional and colorful hooded dress worn over a pair of pants.
“Hi Alice! How’re you doing? This is Steven, he’s stuck here, he can’t go back to Bethel, it’s all fogged up down there.”
“Hum” Alice grunted and arched an eyebrow.
I introduced myself again and looked around amazed by the array of gambling options.
“Do you want to buy one?” she asked.
“No, thank you, I’ve never really played.”
“Try, it’s easy!” Alice promoted with an upbeat voice.
“No, I’m fine, thanks.”
“Ah, we got to go anyway, see you Alice,” Paul said, saving me.
I waved goodbye again and walked out with Paul. The arctic cold assaulted us as soon as we stepped out of the town center. I vainly tried to keep some heat in and flapped my open jacket back against me.
The minivan motored down Main Street. The small town was fascinating, I had been to other villages before, I had seen the endless network of boardwalks floating a few inches above the spongy tundra, but Quinhagak was different. The boardwalks were not there and we were driving down a gravel road with small buildings on stilts on either side of the road. A small brown police station passed by, a blue post office, the village store, and even -o exquisite and rare luxury-a hardware store. A large two story brown building with blue trim and a few snow machines parked in front of it appeared on the right side of the road.
“What’s that building?” I asked Paul while pointing at the structure.
“That’s the wacheteria,” he answered.
“I’ve heard that on the VHF many times, it’s like a Laundromat, right?”
“There’s no running water in town yet, so people go there to wash their clothes or take a shower.”
“Yet?” I frowned. “What do you mean? Are they going to install it?”
“Oh, they’ve started already, but it is taking a while. My house is already set up for it. I have all the pipes and everything. The water main is already there but the workers have to connect all the houses one by one,” Paul smiled. I could see the excitement and pride in his eyes.
“That’s going to be a big change!”
“You bet.”
We turned on a surprisingly wide side street, with telephone poles and an extensive network of cables dangling in front of small houses dotting either side of the roadway. The small stilt houses were essentially all the same with gable roofs, blue or brown walls, and wooden stairs leading to the entrances. The satellite dish pointing towards the ground (courtesy of living on the roof of the world) was an awkward stain of technology, a glimpse of a new area in the middle of the past. Old snow machine carcasses laid half buried in snow, among timeless piles of wood, tools, and rusted fuel tanks which could have been there for decades and contrasted with the dish. Another house had drying clothes hanging on a wire.
“They have drying clothes outside in ten below?” I smiled.
“Why not? The moisture freezes in no time. After, you shake the ice off and it’s goot to go!”
We continued to Paul’s house down the street in silence. We stopped in a narrow driveway surrounded by piles of stuff. There was a mix of junk, snow machine parts, boxes, fishing gear, antlers, a rusted four wheeler, all on top of each other to form a mount of jumble. We stepped out of the car and climbed a few frozen steps to enter into an arctic way. The house was very small. Immediately to the right of the entrance there was a brand new bathroom with a bathtub and a sink, but with a lack of water supply, it was used as storage.
“If you need the honey bucket, it’s right there,” Paul showed me a small doorless closet on our left with a five gallon orange plastic bucket and a toilet seat snapped on top of it.
“Thanks…” I hardly mumbled.
I truly hoped I would not have to use it. I did not want to play spoiled but the fog in Bethel would soon lift and I would be on my way home after this nice tour.
After the bilateral facilities, we continued deeper into the house and crossed the few feet that made the dining room. There was a small table against the wall covered with books, boxes, and videotapes. Throughout the house the walls were bare sheetrock and piles of stuff highlighted the lack of space. A little further a small computer desk seemed to be the heart of the house, the cyber link to the outside. To the right, there was a tiny kitchen with fairly new cabinets and a small refrigerator, a stainless steel sink was one more sign that water would be coming soon. Paul entered a small bedroom without a door, barely big enough to fit a queen size bed with the mandatory plasma large screen television hanging on the wall. The separation wall with the living room was so thin, I wondered how it could support the weight of the TV. There was a second bedroom adjacent to the kitchen, this one was even smaller than the first one. There was a full-sized bed (which took well over half the square footage of the room) and four or five shelves screwed to the wall baring their load of VHS video tapes.
I took my phone and checked the weather in Bethel. “Bethel airport automated observation 01:17 Zulu, wind zero three zero at zero six, visibility less than one quarter, sky condition overcast one hundred, temperature minus two three Celsius, dew point minus two three Celsius, altimeter two niner six zero…”
“How’s that look Steven?” Paul asked.
“Not good, it’s getting worse, the ceiling is even lower,” I answered with a low -but not defeated-voice.
“Well, looks like you are going to spend the night here,” Paul laughed. I did not really find the humor, not that the situation was dramatic but I just wanted to get back to my base. “Where’s Theresa?” I asked.
“She’s with her sister. She might spend the night there if you have to stay here.”
“Thanks.” Again, I did not see that as a valuable option, the fog would lift up soon and I would be on my way.
The next few hours were a blur, an audacious kaleidoscope of small talk, lame jokes on my condition, browsing on line -including multiple weather cameras-calling Bethel weather and watching the clock. As the afternoon went into the evening, the darkening skies reminded me that yes, I might stay there tonight.
“Bethel airport automated observation, 03:23 Zulu, wind zero five zero at zero four, visibility one quarter, sky condition overcast two hundred, temperature minus two five Celsius, dew point minus two five Celsius, altimeter two niner six zero…”
My hopes and arguments shattered, one by one, my spoiled condition obliterated to the pagan level. The long and dreaded night at the village was coming to a terrible reality, how would I survive this? I was a city boy barely able to handle Bethel, how could I hit pause and change my cruel present? Better, how could I rewind and change the day? This was not meant to happen, the night at the village was for the others, not me.
“Bethel airport automated observation, 03:32 Zulu, wind zero five zero at zero four, visibility one quarter, sky condition overcast two hundred, temperature minus two five Celsius, dew point minus two five Celsius, altimeter two niner six zero…” It would change, soon, I knew it would.
“Bethel airport automated observation, 03:37 Zulu, wind zero five zero at zero four, visibility one quarter, sky condition overcast two hundred, temperature minus two five Celsius, dew point minus two five Celsius, altimeter two niner six zero…” My right thumb had a mind of his own. Dial, again, it would change.
“Bethel airport automated observation, 03:41 Zulu, wind zero five zero at zero five, visi
bility one quarter, sky condition overcast two hundred, temperature minus two five Celsius, dew point minus two five Celsius, altimeter two niner six zero…” Again.
“Did you want some frozen fish for dinner?” Paul asked.
Dinner? Why? I was about to leave! “Sure, thanks.”
Paul seemed to be enjoying this.
He turned on the oven, threw two dozen frozen fish strips on an aluminum cookie sheet and placed it inside. “What do you want to drink?” Paul asked.
“Water is fine, thanks.”
“Hum, we don’t have water. Want a pop?” Paul opened the small refrigerator and exposed an extensive collection of Shasta cans.
“Ok, thanks,” I muttered.
“By the way, I talked to Theresa, she is going to stay at her sister’s, so you can use her bed.” Paul glanced at the bed in the smaller bedroom. Was there any way out of this? Not that it was truly bad; I had a warm shelter, food, and a bed. The company was not bad either; Paul had been a wonderful host.
For the next few minutes I sat on an upside down five gallon plastic bucket while Paul was browsing on the internet.
“Do you need the computer?” Paul asked.
“Actually, yes definitely, I’m going to check the forecast for Bethel,” I said happy to escape my impending boredom.
It only took a few clicks of the mouse. The aviation weather site was unequivocal; the fog was there to stay through the night. There was no more need for useless and slightly pathetic negotiations with myself and a reluctant corner of my conscience. I mentally pulled the plug and moved on; the experience was not so bad after all.
The little ding from the oven timer brought me back from cyber space. Paul came out of his bedroom and opened the oven. A short puff of steam rose and scattered onto the small kitchen’s ceiling. Paul threw two plates on the dining room table, served the fish strips, poured some ketchup in his plate, handed me the bottle, and sat by the computer.
“Do you know anything about sport planes?” Paul asked.
“Hummm, I’ve never flown one… They’re lighter and it’s easier to get the license…” I humbly answered.
