by Building Fires in the Snow- A Collection of Alaska LGBTQ Short Fiction
“What did you say?” Robert set his pack down at his feet.
“We’re going most of the way down Turnagain Arm,” the driver said. “Raven Creek. Where are you headed?”
Tierney spoke up. “Seward.”
At this, the three other girls—all of whom were white—giggled. “It’s on the way,” one of them said. “Definitely on the way,” another chimed in. Like Tierney, these three wore hooded sweatshirts. More laughter.
Tierney and Robert glanced at each other. “Sounds good,” Tierney said as he nodded. The trunk of the car opened mysteriously and soundlessly on its own, which made Tierney laugh. They set their packs in beside an assortment of brightly colored paper shopping bags and stepped back, expecting the trunk to close on its own, too.
“You have to do it,” the driver called, so Tierney gave the trunk lid a good hard push.
Since the car’s four occupants were all crowded into the front seat, the cavernous back seat was empty. The interior smelled like marijuana, and everyone but the driver acted stoned, Tierney thought, judging from their continuing hilarity. Once Tierney and Robert had gotten into the car from opposite sides and shut their doors, the girls introduced themselves, but the only name that stuck in Tierney’s head was that of Pearl, the driver, who quietly concentrated on propelling them down the highway while the other three kept up an animated babble. All three girl passengers had their hair pulled back in ponytails. Tierney wondered if they were cheerleaders. Did Alaska have cheerleaders? Did it even have football?
The car glided silently out of town, descending toward a distant body of silty, gray ocean that was walled in between the flanks of steep, snow-spattered mountains. As they put the depressing city behind them, Tierney felt her enthusiasm returning. Soon she could see white birds flitting above a marsh, lots of them, swooping and darting at high speed. Here and there across the opaque dark water, she noticed chutes of dirty snow overflowing the gullies at the base of the sheer slopes. The setting reminded her of pictures she’d seen of Scandinavia. Fjords.
One of the girls ejected an eight-track cassette from its player beneath the dash and inserted a new one. Soon Tammy Wynette was belting out “Stand By Your Man,” and the threesome in the front were swaying together to the beat, bellowing the chorus.
“Only you would dance to that, Trish,” the blonde closest to the door said when the song ended.
“Beats dancing to ‘Wichita Lineman,’” the brunette retorted and even Pearl laughed.
“You know why I always pick Glen, don’t you?” the same blonde said.
“Why?”
“Because his songs are the shortest.”
“You never told me that,” the other blonde said, slapping playfully at her seatmate. “Shoot! I’m going to start dancing to it, too.”
“You can’t! I’ve got dibs. Tell her, Pearl.”
The marsh ended abruptly in a wall of rock cliffs on one side, ocean on the other, and the highway itself funneled into two lanes, with no shoulders to speak of. Tierney could see rock debris at the base of the cliffs, some of which had tumbled out into the roadway, and she realized for the first time that a set of train tracks ran a little below and parallel to the road on the ocean side.
The back seat was so roomy that Robert had reclined in his corner, canting his body. Now, looking at Tierney inquiringly, he laid both ankles atop her lap and stretched out. She crossed her arms so she wouldn’t have to touch him, but she didn’t push his legs away, and in a few minutes, true to form, he was asleep. How could he sleep at a time like this, when they were passing through some of the most dramatic scenery in the world?
Mile after mile, the sinuous road followed the contour of the coastline. The girls in the front seat kept up their banter until one of the two blondes turned around, and Tierney saw that she was not really as cute as Tierney had at first supposed. The girl’s eyes were set a little too close together or something.
“What’s your name?” she asked Tierney, and the others stopped talking to listen. One of them lowered the volume on the tape deck.
“Tierney.”
“What kind of name is that?”
“She was a famous movie star. Back in the day. My parents really liked her.”
“What about him?”
Tierney looked at her slumbering seatmate, whose mouth hung slightly open. “Robert.”
“Is he your boyfriend?”
“No! No way. We just decided to hitch together for a while.” Tierney lowered her voice. “I don’t even like him all that much.” Something about the weight of his legs on her lap changed, as if Robert had heard her. Well, so what? It was true, wasn’t it? Served him right for going naked on her last night.
“Where are you from?”
Tierney told them, then asked about each of them in turn, learning that Trish, the brunette, was the only one of the four who had actually been born in Alaska. Angela and Donna Sue, the two blondes, had moved north with their families when their dads were stationed outside Fairbanks with the military. They’d been friends since junior high. At nineteen, the three were still technically teenagers, but Pearl, twenty-five, was a recent transplant from Las Vegas.
“Pearl’s a celebrity,” Trish said seriously. “She’s an exotic dancer, the real thing.”
“You guys live together?” Tierney asked. “What do you all do?”
“We dance,” Pearl said matter-of-factly, catching Tierney’s eye in the rearview mirror. “At the Majestic. In Seward.”
In response to her blank look, the small blonde explained to Tierney, “Topless dancing. At the Majestic Bar and Grill.” She said it with pride.
Tierney recoiled involuntarily, immediately shaking her head to try to make it seem as if her reaction had just been a muscle spasm. When she glanced his way, Robert’s eyelids were scrunched closed.
“We live together, share a house,” Trish continued. “We take turns cooking, though some of us are better at it than others.” The two blondes pushed at her, protesting this assessment of their culinary skills.
Tierney wasn’t at all sure how to process this information. Did “topless” mean that they were prostitutes? But they were so young! And they seemed so healthy and happy.
“We’re not hookers,” Pearl said firmly. “And no one dances bottomless. Not ever.”
Tierney really needed Robert to stop faking sleep, so she pinched his calf. “What?” he said irritably, swinging both legs to the floor as he sat upright.
The girls turned their attention to him. “Hiya, Bob.”
It turned out that the group had gone to Anchorage on a shopping spree, in search of “costumes.” They explained that their boss wanted them to come up with sexy dance outfits, which they said really just meant two-piece swimsuits. “Pearl and Cleo sew some of their own costumes,” Donna Sue explained. “You should see them. Sequins and everything. But we,” she said, indicating the younger trio, “we basically just wear bathing suits.”
“Yeah,” Angela said. “Her and Cleo are the stars. They have real acts. The rest of us just dance.”
“If that’s what you want to call it,” Pearl said, shaking her head disapprovingly, which elicited objections from the others.
They were now on their way back home to Seward, with a stop planned at the Funny Bone to have a drink with their dancer friend Cleo, to show her the fruits of their shopping expedition. “‘Cleo’ is short for Cleopatra,” Pearl said. “Really. That’s what her mother named her.”
“She’s our queen,” Trish said, and Tierney wondered if she didn’t detect a note of sarcasm.
“You guys should come in with us and meet her and Gavin, her old man,” Donna Sue said.
“He’s a hunk,” Trish commented, “a steamroller, baby, ‘a churning urn of burning funk.’ Sorry, Bob. Girl talk.”
When they reached the Funny Bone and got out of the car, Tierney was surprised to discover how small Pearl was. Petite. But definitely what you would call stacked. Tierney saw Robert’s eye
s grow wide when he noticed Pearl’s Dolly-Parton bust. She was quite a beauty, Tierney thought, with her sparkling eyes and curvaceous body. Trish, the tallest and most slender of them all, was a looker, too, with her lithe figure and sprinkling of freckles. Her boobs, however, did not seem particularly noteworthy for a topless dancer, and although the taller of the two blondes was what you might call “well-endowed,” the other was essentially flat-chested. Shucks, Tierney thought, she herself had more up top than two of these girls did. Were they really topless dancers or were they pulling her leg?
The Funny Bone was a weathered log cabin with a sagging roof and unwashed windows; Tierney stood with the others immediately inside the entrance of the surprisingly crowded establishment, her eyes adjusting to the dim lighting, and realized that the floor was not a real floor at all, just hard-packed dirt littered with sawdust and discarded peanut shells. The place had a smoky, sweet-sour smell from what she supposed was years of spilled drinks and the residue of cigarettes. The crowd was almost all men, many wearing cowboy boots and a few even sporting Stetsons. A number of them were bellied up to the busy bar. Tierney noticed that the relatively few ladies present seemed to be all of a type: big hair, painted fingernails, lots of makeup, each one forming the hub of attention for a cluster of men. The women reminded her of Helen, her new stepmother.
“Notice all the pointy-toed footwear?” Trish said to Tierney.
“I had no idea there were cowboys in Alaska.”
“Not Alaskans—pipeliners,” Trish told her. “Most of ’em are from Texas and Oklahoma. The Funny Bone has suddenly become one of their favorite watering holes.”
Tierney now saw how the rear of the building opened into a newer, more spacious, more square, and better-lit addition that housed a couple of pinball machines, a pool table, a jukebox, and a dozen or so small tables with chairs. It had a real floor, covered with checkered linoleum, and the walls were unpainted plywood, as if the extension were newly constructed. At one of the tables, a statuesque lady with straight, dark, shoulder-length hair and bangs had risen to her feet, waving both arms overhead.
When their ensemble had entered the building, the men at the bar turned as one to check them out, the conversation momentarily subsiding. Now the patrons began to press toward the new arrivals, their voices clamoring, “Buy you a drink?” As they surged forward, Pearl deftly led her entourage to the waving woman in the back room, leaving the men to mutter surprisingly bitter comments: “What the hell.” “Don’t go bein’ like that.” A few straggled after them, but most turned back to the bar, murmuring, “Shit” and “Damn.”
Whether it was because her short hair made her look even younger than she was or because they assumed she was with Robert, the men ignored Tierney altogether. Uncertain whether to follow the others, she lingered behind with him. But Robert apparently felt no such corresponding allegiance to Tierney; without so much as a glance, he abandoned her in favor of making his way to the bar. She hurried to join the dancers.
Tierney saw that Cleo wore a thin, velvet headband across her forehead, accentuating the severity of her ruler-straight, dark bangs. She looked like she was kind of old, definitely over thirty, and resembled, well, Cleopatra. Tierney noted the lady’s stately figure and pointed breasts, wondering why she was wearing such outmoded attire: a long-sleeved ruffled blouse with a high collar and a full, floor-length skirt. A tall, powerfully built, red-haired man, sporting a Fu Manchu moustache, stood with his arm around Cleo, hoisting a mug of beer to his mouth. He wore a leather vest over a tight T-shirt, his torso and arms as muscled as a bodybuilder. Tierney had always thought the Fu Manchu was a really dumb facial hairstyle, but this guy pulled it off; no doubt it helped that he looked like someone you wouldn’t want to mess with. She wondered if he and Cleo were hippies.
When everyone got done hugging each other, Pearl introduced Tierney to the couple, who shook hands with her as Pearl explained about giving Tierney and Robert a ride to Seward. Gavin’s huge hand was coarse and calloused. “Old man,” it was now clear, referred to boyfriend or husband—not father. Drawing out his chair, Gavin insisted that Pearl take his seat, saying he would get some more beer.
“Gene Tierney?” Cleo said. “What a beauty she was.” She appraised Tierney. “And you, too, from the looks of it. Who does your hair?” Everyone laughed at that, and Tierney felt her cheeks flush. She hastened to explain about the dusty Al-Can.
“Are you going to audition?” Cleo asked her.
“For what?”
“We can put her in the Donna Summer wig,” Cleo said to Pearl, who laughed. “She’d look adorable in that leopard-skin pantsuit.”
Tierney saw the other three girls roll their eyes as they snugged chairs around the small table and urged her to pull one over, too.
Addressing the group, Cleo asked, “How do you like my outfit? I call it ‘The Schoolmarm.’ The skirt has snaps, so I can whip it off with a flick of the wrist.”
“What about the blouse?” Pearl asked.
“Snaps, too,” Cleo said, tugging on her ruffled collar to demonstrate how quickly she could disrobe.
The blonde girls shrieked with mock horror, and one of them reached over to stay Cleo’s hand, but not before Tierney had glimpsed Cleo’s impressive cleavage.
“Is that a corset?” Pearl asked, her eyes wide.
“The real thing,” Cleo said proudly. “I found it in that vintage clothing store. I figure we could set up the stage like a one-room schoolhouse,” she continued, refastening her snaps. “The guys’ll love it.”
“They’ll eat it up,” Trish said drily. She covered her mouth with her hand to direct a whispered comment to Tierney, “I swear, sometimes I think she gets off on her costumes more than the guys do.”
Donna Sue was telling Cleo in great detail about their successful shopping expedition. Cleo planned to follow them out to the car when it was time to go, so they could show her their new dance outfits. Gavin returned grasping two pitchers of beer in one hand and a stack of plastic glasses in the other. Setting everything down, he began to pour, while Donna Sue and Angela, whom Tierney now thought of as “The Blondes,” passed the filled glasses around the table. When she declined any beer, Trish kicked her leg lightly and said under her breath, “Take it. Be polite.” When Gavin proposed a toast to his “beautiful wife” and everyone raised a glass, Tierney was glad that she’d followed Trish’s advice.
“Can anyone stay over?” Cleo asked the assemblage. “Gavin has to go back to Valdez tonight. I could sure use a hand.”
The two blondes exchanged a look. “We really want to get home,” Angela whined, avoiding Cleo’s eyes.
Pearl addressed Cleo directly. “I promised them we’d go back tonight.”
“What about you?” Cleo asked Tierney. “Do you and your man want a place to stay for a few days? Room and board in exchange for chores?”
Tierney realized that she had never, not once, thought of Robert as a “man,” implying as it did a kind of maturity she thought he lacked. She looked around, but couldn’t see him anywhere.
“What’s his name?” Cleo asked. “He looks cute.”
“His name’s Bob,” Trish said.
“You and Bob can sleep in the new guest house,” Cleo said. “It’s got a double bed.”
“He’s not her sweetheart,” Trish said.
“Yeah. We’re actually headed our separate ways.” Tierney flushed. “Soon.”
“Splitting the sheets, huh?” Cleo said.
“It’s not like that,” Tierney insisted, flustered. She reached for her glass and took a long drink, successfully deflecting further conversation. She hadn’t realized how thirsty she was, and the beer tasted surprisingly good, so she drank some more, aware that Trish was watching her with amusement.
Tierney again searched the crowd for Robert, but again she failed to locate him. Maybe he was in the restroom? She relaxed a little when she remembered that their packs were still in the trunk of Pearl’s car; he had to be ne
arby.
“I’ll stay,” Trish volunteered. “I don’t work until Friday.” She raised her beer to Tierney. “What do you say? We can hitch down to Seward together.”
But what about Robert? Tierney was reluctant to voice her uncertainty. She’d already declared that he meant nothing to her, so why was she hesitant to make a plan that excluded him? “Sure,” she said, glancing from Trish to Cleo and Gavin, “I mean, if it’s all right with you.” Maybe she could do her laundry at their house. And call her dad in a couple of days on their phone.
“Cleo will work your fanny off,” Pearl warned. “But it’s fun if you like to get physical.”
Gavin was telling pipeline stories. It was hard to know how much of what he said was true even though he swore he wasn’t making up any of it. He told them about the unimaginable kind and quantity of food that was regularly available to the workers at the pipeline camps: steak, King crab, baked ham, roast beef, mashed potatoes, multiple flavors of ice cream, salad bars, homemade bread, muffins, cookies, pies, and cakes. Gavin said there was no limit to how much you could eat and that a lot of guys would take two steaks from the cafeteria-style serving line, but then, discovering themselves full after one, would slide the second off their plate right into the trash. “Unless they decide to use it for bear bait.”
Pearl said, “Bear bait?”
“Some of the guys from the lower 48 set out garbage on purpose, hoping to lure animals into camp so they can claim they had to shoot them in self-defense.” Gavin’s eyes flashed. “Don’t worry. Some of the rest of us make sure the assholes come to regret their actions.”
Resuming a lighthearted tone, he described how he and a handful of his pipeline buddies had tried to play football recently on the tundra above their camp, but after two of them sprained their ankles within the first few minutes, they gave up. Tierney felt the beer going to her head and soon enough, she was braying with laughter along with the others—especially when Gavin recounted how a friend of his, on a bet, had stripped naked to “streak” through their construction camp, wearing only bunny boots because of the snow and ice that still lingered on the ground. Bunny boots? Tierney pictured plush Bugs Bunny slippers, which made no sense. Gavin said his friend was five hundred dollars richer for his prank.
