Correcting the Landscape

by Marjorie Kowalski Cole

  It’s that part of town avoided by tour buses. Tourists ride the big sternwheeler down the Chena River, or go into the hills to admire old gold dredges and pan salted sluice boxes for souvenir flakes of gold, or stroll the part of downtown that’s popping like a new biceps with parks and statues. On the Southside people specialize in survival, and tourists have seen that already back home in Toledo, Flint, Bakersfield, Tacoma, Troy. Tourists aren’t explorers. Like grizzlies who really need a lot of habitat, tourists need a specialized environment and lots of it. Those tour buses have resulted in a lot of new pavement in Alaska, and a lot of official dissembling to create the illusion of Alaska.

  Southside has its vitality, though. The transient population, the small packs of kids, the community garden plots, the noisy little churches, the work of hanging on, getting by. It’s a neglected area, but I wouldn’t call it depressed. And there’s the Southside Community Center. Billy Green, former head of the vocational rehabilitation office in town, started the community center in a former church building. He is a solid man with neat dreadlocks and the looks of an actor, a bit of a local celebrity, the kind of guy who emcees events and serves on the ethnic committee of the school board, which is where I met him. I served on that committee as well, my appointment being political spoils from a board member whose campaign I had supported.

  During my tenure on the ethnic committee, we voted Alaska Native languages and black history into the curriculum. That was, I think, about all we did. We were a racial and cultural mix on the committee, but we shared a significant trait—the ability to move with ease between cultural groups. We were mainstream types, despite superficial differences, well spoken and warmly dressed. There was little reason to move away from a shared comfort zone, and since we did not allow the full ugliness of racism into our meetings, we couldn’t really address solutions.

  Right about the time the sculptures at the Ice Park had dwindled away to dripping horns, looking like sucked Popsicles out there, Billy Green announced Southside Cleanup Day. An ugly response from the community ensued. I was astonished. Billy had arranged for trucks from the department of sanitation contractor to cruise the streets all morning, so that residents would not have to haul refuse to the landfill nor pay for the disposal of broken washing machines, old batteries, and dirty crankcase oil. People in other parts of town fired off letters in protest. Why should taxpayer dollars finance special privileges on the south side? Why doesn’t landfill amnesty apply boroughwide? Why don’t trucks come to my door for my junk?

  I was astounded and appalled. Billy Green was forced to explain how the money came from the remnants of a block grant and to pose with the mayor at a press conference. I suspect that was a last-minute repair. The complaints stopped but damage was done. So I decided to give myself another field trip and to cover the event, which had ballooned into a festival, with a 5K Run Against Racism, free hot dogs, burgers, and pie, and a disc jockey from Wolf 97 holding his show outdoors in the community center parking lot.

  In spite of two bowls of Cheerios consumed at eight A.M., my blood sugar capsized by eleven, so my first impulse once I got down to the community center was to get hold of a burger. The smell of the grill pulled me across the parking lot to the table where burgers were disappearing as fast as Chester the Starfox, the d.j. and celebrity chef, could produce them on his double hibachi. A plate of fresh hot patties shining with grease appeared as I reached for a plate and bun.

  Sometimes plain food is the best. Low blood sugar times, for example. The meat and bread were heavenly; heat and grease are the best seasoning.

  I noticed that people were going in and out of the center with more food, so I inserted myself into that stream next. Inside I found a buffet loaded with beans, salad, squares of cake, and sweet potato pies in tinfoil pans.

  It’s odd to look at the world through stained-glass windows, holding a burger on a paper plate. A rambling, plain egg box of a church at one time with the usual three rooms (nave, kitchen, and social hall), the center had a new lease on life thanks to Billy Green. It drew people to community school classes, support group meetings, workshops. In the big room a half-dozen boys were slamming Ping-Pong balls at each other among signs that read “Easy Does It” and “Keep Coming Back.” A few women in the kitchen rinsed dishes and refilled a coffeepot. I ate my lunch in peace, walking past the stained-glass windows in the nave—simple geometric lambs, candles, a plain cross. Churches are the nearest that the landlocked get to the sea. This one was a fairly simple ship. Beams overhead created that feeling of empty space, as of a cargo hold gently rocking on calm water.

  Stepping outside again I heard the wheezing of the sanitation trucks and cheering. Blood sugar restored, it was time to pay for my meal by putting my face back in the crowd.

  I took an empty bright orange garbage sack from the pile at the edge of the parking lot and followed the Boy Scouts cleaning up the shoulder and runoff ditch along Twenty-fifth Avenue. There were balloons in the air above me; we were generating trash at the same time as we were retrieving it. Someone in a gorilla costume was waving traffic into the parking lot, and Chester the Starfox was now interviewing Billy Green, no doubt describing the scene in the most colorful language he could summon.

  I felt at peace, though suddenly fastidious, picking up butts and cans. A youngster in front of me picked something out of the ditch, waved and shouted to his friends.

  “Home pregnancy test! Never opened!”

  “Hey, Mr. Hulburt, here’s another untouchable!”

  A scoutmaster brought up the rear with a long metal claw.

  At the corner a small crowd milled around a pile of cardboard boxes and other junk, waiting for the garbage truck. A tall woman in a faded blouse and blue jeans, with black and bleached-gold cornrows spilling from a neon green clip at the back of her head, was backing toward me holding one end of a huge couch. At the other end, facing me as she took small steps toward the street, was Gayle Kenneally.

  “Can we jump on it, Lucerne?” a small girl shrieked, pulling at the jeans of the tall woman.

  “Wait till we get it set down,” Lucerne answered. Her long fingernails were the same green as her hair clip. “Now you go ahead and jump on this thing for the last time!” She and Gayle set it in the street, so that traffic would be forced to circle around. The upholstery was a mustardy print, white foam leaking out from many tears. “I’m one happy woman to get rid of this,” Lucerne called to Gayle. “He won’t know where he’s supposed to sleep next time he thinks to pay us a visit.”

  “There is no next time,” said Gayle.

  “Take the cake and dump the chump!” Lucerne said.

  “Look what’s under the cushions!” cried the girl.

  Lucerne grabbed at the exposed belly of the couch. “That’s mine, Destiny, you take the change there, but this here’s mine. Put the cushion back now, hon. This thing is dirty. You don’t know how dirty.” She stuffed something rescued from the couch into the pocket of her jeans.

  “Gus,” said Gayle.

  “Gayle,” I said, and then with complete obtuseness, “what are you doing here?”

  “I live here.”

  I looked at her and at the sagging dark brown rambler from which she and Lucerne had hauled the couch.

  Saved by the approach of the sanitation truck. What could I have said to make up for that question, the complete exposure of my stupidity, the world of assumptions it gave away? If I said nothing more, I might survive. With the growling arrival of the truck, nothing more needed to be said. The maw opened and everyone joined the garbageman in hurling boxes, bags, tires, and unrecognizable junk into the truck. Lucerne, Gayle, and a teenage boy picked up the couch. I hurried to lend a hand. We took a few steps back to position ourselves, then ran it toward the truck.

  “Let’s get this sucker airborne!” Lucerne called. As it rose into the air and then tipped into the truck, shouts of delight went up.

  Gayle turned to me with a smile. I struggled against a half
dozen stupid opening remarks, like Nice event, isn’t it? She wore a faded black T-shirt that read “Native Arts Festival,” and a pair of porcupine quill earrings. Nice earrings. I opened my mouth but words did not emerge.

  “Lucerne,” Gayle said, catching the arm of the tall woman. “This is my boss, Gus Traynor, at the Mercury. Lucerne Thompson, Gus, she’s my roommate.”

  “How do you do, Mr. Traynor.” Lucerne held out her hand, her green nails.

  “Lucerne and I go way back,” said Gayle. “She came to Allakaket ten years ago to take care of my great-uncle. Got on a plane in Mobile, Alabama, and got off in Allakaket.”

  Lucerne looked older, up close, than her first appearance suggested. She must have been over forty, with deeply set eyes, the skin underneath them darker, almost black. Her hair, pulled tightly over her head to the huge green clip, was pure black and hugged her skull. The spectacular fall of cornrows was a mixture of her own hair and a hairpiece, a glittering tangle of black and yellow ropes.

  “From Mobile to Allakaket is an unusual experience,” I said.

  “Mr. Gallette had Parkinson’s and I’d seen that before,” said Lucerne. “But oh man it was different all right. The people there treated me right, but we were aliens to each other at first. They are the best people, most of the time.”

  She and Gayle exchanged looks and smiles over “most of the time.”

  “There’s a barbecue going on back there, plenty to eat,” I said, and waved back toward the Southside Community Center.

  “I don’t dare go near that food,” Lucerne said. “My waistline is totally out of control. But where’s Jack, is he missing a good meal?”

  “Oh he’s not. I sent him over. I see you’re helping the Scouts, Gus.”

  “You need some work gloves,” said Lucerne.

  “I’ll get you some gloves, Gus,” said Gayle.

  “Now don’t trouble yourself, please.”

  Lucerne insisted. “Are you kidding? This is a public health situation. I don’t want to be giving you a tetanus shot, or worse. Come on up to the house.”

  I stepped inside after them and stood in a dark closetlike entryway while they went through a couple of milk crates full of winter things, caps and mufflers and mittens, giggling and encouraging me to have patience. It was close in there but exciting.

  “What’s going on?” The inner door opened and a pale young woman stuck her head and then half her length into the crack.

  “Cathy, time you woke up,” said Lucerne.

  “I feel good, I needed the sleep.”

  “Why don’t you go ahead and get yourself some breakfast,” said Gayle.

  The young lady sized me up with a flat stare. She wore a white thermal-underwear shirt, with several snaps undone, and her breasts were small, pretty mounds against the shirt. I looked away from the outline of her nipples and her thin waist. Her streaked light brown hair and pale skin contrasted with dark eyes.

  “Don’t think I’m hungry,” she said, and smiled. “How are you?”

  “This is my boss, Cathy. My cousin Cathy Carew, staying with us for a little while,” said Gayle.

  “How do you do.” I nodded.

  “Jack around?” said Cathy. “He like to go up to the store for me?”

  Gayle didn’t answer but turned and faced her.

  “He’s helping with Cleanup Day, Cathy. I don’t want him running errands. I’ll help you in a sec.”

  The girl shrugged and withdrew.

  The brief episode subdued the two women with me, but Gayle gave a victory shout when she unearthed a pair of leather work gloves with wide, stiff fingers. She pressed them into my arms. I’m used to women, but not this way, three of them for a minute and now two of them, formidable women studying me in this tiny, dim space as I tried on the gloves.

  “Cathy’s on the run from Allakaket,” said Gayle. “She wants to try something new.”

  “I remember you told me about her.”

  “Lots of us have to leave home to save our skins,” said Gayle.

  “I thought I was a wild young woman in Mobile,” said Lucerne, “but there was some serious hard living out in Allakaket. Too bad. It goes over the edge sometimes.”

  “I married to get out of there, and I don’t fault myself. Accomplished that much, anyway, it brought me to Fairbanks,” said Gayle. “The marriage didn’t take. Nor the next one. Not sure that babysitting Cathy is going to take, either, Lucerne.”

  “We’ll give it a few more days,” Lucerne said, her voice low and soft.

  We stepped outside as they spoke, and moved back to the street.

  “Going to go look for Jack,” said Gayle.

  “I’m going to bring these gloves back.”

  “No, you’re not, you don’t worry about those,” said Lucerne. “Mister Traynor, it was nice to meet you.”

  “You could probably teach me about culture shock,” I said. “If there is such a thing.”

  “Oh, there is,” Lucerne responded. “Anyone thinks this is all one country, doesn’t know the half of it.”

  I said good-bye to Gayle with some reluctance. With my gloves and a garbage sack, I felt obliged to tail after the Boy Scouts, but as I set off up the street, I carried with me the sensations of standing next to her in that entryway—she was almost playful, next to Lucerne, as if playing the younger sister. Except for the slight, odd shadow of the cousin’s presence. Gayle had seemed like a person who wants to play, to tease—a certain energy was on display that she kept subdued much of the time. She had seemed more certain of who she was and what she was doing. Well of course, why not, in her home with her longtime friend, rather than in the Mercury office, why wouldn’t she relax and fool around a little?

  I heard the garbage truck a block ahead. The cheers when that ugly couch sailed into the truck—where did those cheers come from, if not from a feeling that people were getting free of a bondage they despised but could not afford to think about most of the time? Or no—that was no symbol, was it? That was a real and hated couch, where a man slept who is not missed, whoever he was.

  I’m the one who lives among symbols.

  There’s an entertainment value in newspaper work, but lately the entertainment had started to wear thin, wasn’t enough. Journalism, the news of the day: it’s a form of writing that by its very nature spins deceit, because you have to start somewhere, and you have to have coherence in your story, and real life is not like that. Rarely does a beginning present itself when you’re covering the news, in all honesty. It all goes back farther in recent history than we can afford to pursue. A reporter steps into the mess and says Okay, I’ll start here, I’ll elevate this detail to the starting post. It begins with this.

  And once he’s done that, the need for a coherent narrative threatens to dictate the next detail, and the next. There’s so much left out.

  Readers need to read for what’s left out.

  Overhead a ragged line of sandhill cranes turned in the too-bright sky, hunting for the fields of barley out on College Road. They were like letters in the sky, Felix wrote in a poem: “Lovely serifs, their long necks and long legs.” He sometimes composed in the newsroom on the weekends. Cranes, he insisted, had inspired the alphabet, in ancient times. How does anyone know that?

  I missed a turn and outwalked the Boy Scouts. At the corner of Twenty-seventh and Wilson, I suddenly felt alone, a little overwhelmed. Too soon exhausted, I decided to drag myself around one more block. Past a small log home with a caribou rack above the door, a pickup with a camper shell in the driveway.

  As I walked past, a woman came out of the door and stood in the yard with her hands on her hips; she wore a loose pink housecoat and running shoes. She looked around the neighborhood in a sleepy, territorial way, and just as the indifferent sweep of her gaze took me in, she began a yawn, a big wild yawn that closed her eyes and made her shake her head in recovery. When she opened her eyes again she nodded at me and looked away, down her street.

  I couldn’t hel
p but smile, being yawned at like that.

  To get this business of writing the news to mean something, the way sticking a plow in the earth used to mean something—to make that much of a difference, to come up with a story that powerful, you have to tell the truth. You have to find the truth. The Mercury was a damned good idea, because I think it takes more than one person to get the truth out, and the newspaper made it possible—but I suddenly saw the danger that all my words over these years amounted to nothing more than, say, a tablecloth. Making Fairbanks look good to itself. Was that it? Was that all it amounted to, this sticking with the ongoing story through good times and bad, that I’ve become a sort of interior decorator?

  Someone Shelley Suliman might run after (“Oh Gus, Gus Traynor! Can we have a thousand issues?”), but that woman back there—she couldn’t stop an oncoming yawn at the sight of me. I wished I could yawn like that. Lose myself in it like a big old cat, because nothing’s going to interfere, certainly not some dreamer walking by with a garbage bag and someone else’s work gloves.

  EIGHT

  UNDER THE ONSLAUGHT OF PUBLIC TESTIMONY, legislators in the statehouse began to attach amendments to the infamous timber concessions bill—first one, then another: legislative scrutiny, local hire, how much this would cost the state. The effort to giveth away our resources and in the same motion taketh them back made the bill even more unworkable. At last, near the end of the session in May, the bill died a quiet death as a midnight bell struck for final considerations and it still had not come up for a vote.