by Building Fires in the Snow- A Collection of Alaska LGBTQ Short Fiction
“Here, Raven Creek? Or here, Alaska?”
“Both.”
Cleo smiled. “I’ve only been up to the waterfall once.”
“But I thought you said you’ve lived here for five years.”
Cleo shrugged. “Gavin and I hiked to it before we bought the property. Since then, seems like we’re always too busy.”
Tierney pondered this information, hoping that she would live the kind of life where there’d always be time for adventure.
“I guess you’re going to have to wake Trish again,” Cleo said. “Tell her to get her ass in gear.”
But Tierney returned shortly with the message that Trish wasn’t feeling well, that she thought she was PMS, and did Cleo have any pot she could smoke since that would relieve her cramps?
“That’s it,” Cleo said tightly, removing her apron and flinging it over the back of a chair. She pushed open the door and Tierney watched through the window as Cleo marched to the shed in her rubber boots. She decided to make herself useful by doing the dishes, and was ladling hot water into the washing pan when Cleo returned just a few minutes later.
“I asked Trish to leave,” Cleo said. “And she shouldn’t hitchhike alone, so that means you’ve got to go, too. Sorry. I’m counting on you coming back, though, because I’ve enjoyed your company, and you really are a good worker.”
“At least let me do the dishes.”
Cleo nodded, handing her the drying rack. Then she disappeared into her bedroom, and soon Tierney could hear the rhythmic percussion of the treadle sewing machine.
By the time she’d finished washing the dishes on the deck, Trish still hadn’t emerged. Tierney figured that her pride was wounded and that she had chosen to forego breakfast. “Okay if I take Trish something to eat?” she called to Cleo.
Cleo emerged from her bedroom to tear off a sheet of paper towel onto which she made a sandwich of two pancakes with three strips of bacon layered in between. She handed it to Tierney. “There’s something I want you to have,” she said, retrieving a paperback book from the sitting room. Tierney glanced at the title. Giants in the Earth. “It’s about the settlers in the Dakotas. I think you might like it,” she said. “Pass it on when you’re done.”
“Thank you for everything,” Tierney said. “I’m sorry about—”
“Don’t you worry,” Cleo smiled. “I’m already plotting how to bring you back here. I could really use a reliable worker.” She squeezed Tierney’s shoulder. Adopting a serious tone, she said, “Promise me you two will hitchhike together. If you get even the slightest bad vibe from any of your drivers, do not get into the car. And if you’re already in a vehicle, you demand that he put you out immediately. I don’t care if it’s the middle of nowhere, you hear?”
Tierney promised. By the time she reached the toolshed, Trish had already buckled the strap of Tierney’s backpack around her own waist and was waiting for her behind the building.
“Are you really on your period?” Tierney asked, handing her the food.
“No,” Trish said irritably. “Let’s blow this pop stand.” She ate hungrily while Tierney stuffed the book into an outer pocket of her pack and checked their sleeping quarters to make sure they hadn’t left anything behind.
Their hike out to the highway was uneventful; they got a ride within minutes, and the white-haired couple who picked them up decided in short order to take them all the way to Seward, since as they said, it would make for good sightseeing. Although they scolded the girls for hitchhiking, claiming it was unsafe, they also bought them lunch at the Sea Breeze café and waited while Tierney made a long-distance call from the pay phone outside the restaurant.
She had decided to call her sister rather than her dad, since the honeymooners weren’t due home until late that night. In truth, it was a relief to know she wouldn’t have to talk to her father, wouldn’t have to try to explain to him why she’d left without saying goodbye.
When Rita answered the phone in Rapid City, sounding as frazzled as usual, Tierney was caught off guard by the lump that suddenly formed in her throat. Her voice came out sounding a little strangled. “Hey, it’s me, Tierney. I need you to do me a favor.”
“Hello, dear sister. How are you and your family?”
“Yeah. Sorry. Everybody okay?”
“Do you have a cold? We’re hanging in there. Wes likes his new job. I’m still barefoot and pregnant,” Rita laughed. “Where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you. They’ll be home tonight, right?”
“That’s why I’m calling. I’m in Alaska. On a pay phone.”
“Very funny.”
“No, really.” Tierney tried to explain.
“Tierney, stop. It’s not funny.” Tierney could hear her younger nephew fussing, followed by Rita telling the older boy to leave his brother alone.
“It’s the truth, Ree. I’m in a place called Portage. It’s on the ocean. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
Rita was silent.
“Seriously,” Tierney continued. “It’s south of Anchorage.”
“How’d you get there?” Rita still sounded skeptical.
“Hitchhiked. I left right after they did. I’m telling you the truth, but I can’t talk too long because these people are waiting for me. They’re giving me a ride to Seward.”
“You’re serious, aren’t you?” Rita’s tone changed. “Holy cow.”
“We need to talk fast.”
“Geez, I can’t believe you did that. Just up and left. Didn’t think you and Helen were going to work out, huh? I didn’t either, tell you the truth. Even so, this is quite the statement, missy.”
“It’s an adventure, not a statement. Tell Dad I’ll get in touch with him once I get settled, okay? Tell him I’m doing fine. Better than fine. Tell him not to worry.”
“You know darn well he’s going to worry.”
Tierney felt like crying again. “Tell him it’s really beautiful here, really wild. He’d love it.” She swallowed hard. “And you guys take care, okay? Tell Gus not to pick on Ben.”
“Promise you’ll call me again as soon as you can.”
“Okay.” Tierney wiped her dripping nose with the back of her hand. “One more thing, Sis. Do we have Indian blood, you and me?”
“Sure do.” Tierney could hear one of the boys demanding Rita’s attention. “I thought you knew that. Mom’s mother was half Sioux.”
Tierney caught her breath. “Really? Okay, thanks. Gotta go; everyone’s waiting for me.”
“Love you.”
“You, too.”
Tierney was glad when Trish and the wife fell asleep in the car shortly thereafter, and their driver switched on the car radio. In no mood for talking, she pretended to snooze. She felt as far from her home and family right now as she thought it was possible for her to feel, but still lacked any desire to go back. Tierney also felt strange about knowing she was part Indian, one-eighth, and wondered why it should make such a difference in the way she thought of herself. But it did somehow. Wait ’til she told Cleo.
Mostly though, now that she was on the road again, Tierney had a lot of anxiety about finding work. She’d have to ask Trish what kinds of jobs she might be able to get in Seward—anything but topless dancing. A deep male voice on the radio stated that the House Judiciary Committee’s request for Nixon’s secret tapes and the White House’s countering claim of executive privilege were now going to be argued before the Supreme Court. What did that mean? She heard the driver sigh audibly.
Still feigning sleep, she followed their journey through the landscape between lowered eyelids: more nameless mountains and frothing glacial streams. The car slowed when they entered a small roadside community, at which point Tierney sat up and rubbed her eyes as if she’d just woken. The driver greeted her with a kindly smile in the rearview mirror. “Moose Pass,” he said, and pointed out a wheeled whetstone that stood beside a flume of water at the side of the road, a hand-lettered sign nearby declaring: “If you have an axe to grind,
do it here.” The road continued to wind its way alongside a serpentine turquoise lake, train tracks appearing and disappearing beside them, until they arrived on a kind of floodplain at the head of a long, narrow bay.
Seward was as green and pretty as a postcard, boasting the kind of charm that Anchorage had lacked. The town itself appeared to be arranged in a tidy grid; the small old-style wooden houses appealed to Tierney for their tidy sense of order. The entire community was enclosed on three sides by massive snow-smeared mountains, opening onto the ocean at its front. It felt to her like the opposite of flat, dry, land-locked Williston. By now Trish was awake, too, and directing the driver to the home she shared with Pearl, Angela, and Donna Sue, as his wife continued to doze in the front seat. When they drove down the main street, Trish elbowed Tierney to look left and she saw the marquee for the Majestic Bar and Grill, sandwiched between two other storefronts. Flashing red lights on one side of the entrance advertised “Girls! Girls! Girls!” while on the other, a spotlight was angled to illuminate the words “Exotic Dancers” painted in dark script on white signboard.
No one was home when they arrived at the two-story house in the center of town. The dwelling was old, but clean, and furnished with comfortable if slightly shabby furniture, carpet, and window coverings. Trish gave Tierney the tour: small kitchen, tiny downstairs bathroom, Pearl’s bedroom off the living room, the steep narrow staircase that led to the two slope-ceilinged bedrooms and bathroom on the second floor. Trish showed her the bunk bed in the smaller bedroom shared by Donna Sue and Angela. “They want it to look like they sleep separately, but they always sleep together,” she smirked.
“Maybe they sleep together because they’re lonely,” Tierney retorted. “Did you ever think of that?”
“What’s your problem?” Trish said, pushing open the door of her own bedroom, in which a frameless double mattress lay on the floor, flanked by a dresser on one side, and a single ladder-back chair on the other. Trish’s dirty clothes were piled on the floor in the corner. “You can sleep with me, or you can sleep downstairs on the couch. Suit yourself.” Tierney leaned her pack against the wall, retrieved the book that Cleo had given her, and without another word descended the skinny staircase to the living room, where she stretched out on the couch while Trish showered upstairs.
She woke up to the sound of many voices in the kitchen. Trish had gone shopping while Tierney was napping, and now she, Pearl, Donna Sue, and Angela were busily grating cheese, slicing onions, chopping lettuce, and cooking hamburger meat for a taco supper.
“Hi, Sleepyhead!” Pearl greeted her brightly when Tierney appeared in the doorway. “Feel like dicing some tomatoes?”
“Is it okay if I shower first?”
“I put a towel out for you,” Trish said without turning around from the stovetop.
“Thanks.”
They were all excited to show Tierney where they worked, so after dinner the group walked together the half-dozen blocks to the Majestic, Pearl and the blondes wearing their dance costumes under their clothes since, as they explained, they weren’t even provided with lockers, let alone any kind of dressing room. Tierney relieved Pearl of the bulky satchel she carried over her shoulder and found it surprisingly heavy. “What do you have in here?” she asked.
“Props.”
As Tierney soon discovered, the windowless interior of the grandiose-sounding Majestic was basic and plain, the walls largely undecorated, the lighting dim, and the bar, bar stools, small tables and chairs utilitarian rather than stylish. The “stage” on which the girls performed was nothing more than an eight-foot-square, raised plywood platform aligned against one wall, and it stood only a foot or so off the floor. At least the Majestic did have a real floor, Tierney thought, unlike the Funny Bone’s hard-packed dirt and peanut shells.
An old jukebox was backed against the wall a few feet from the stage, and when they arrived there was only a smattering of customers—almost all male. The lady bartender, Freddie, clearly adored the dancers, making each her favorite drink, whether it was cherry coke (the blondes), a Tequila Sunrise (Trish), or a margarita (Pearl). She poured Tierney a big glass of milk “on the house.”
The five of them took a table directly in front of the stage, and Trish entertained everyone with her version of the events that had taken place at Raven Creek, which included a description of Cleo as having “no sense of humor when it comes to her precious homestead.” The bar slowly filled; at nine, Donna Sue and Angela went to work serving drinks. Apparently, Pearl’s contract did not require her to wait tables, and Trish was still on her days off.
At ten o’clock sharp, Pearl beckoned to Angela, and the girl nodded, set down her empty serving tray, and plucking the wad of bubble gum she had been chewing from her mouth, she squashed it with her thumb and forefinger onto the rim of her soda before making her unhurried way in socks to the jukebox. She wore a faded T-shirt over her jeans, her hair in a long blonde ponytail. When Tierney peeked under the table, she saw Angela’s empty sneakers where they’d been kicked off. Without pausing to study the song menu, Angela proceeded to punch in some music selections and then, with a begrudging reluctance, mounted the small platform, unceremoniously removed her T-shirt to exhibit an orange swimsuit top that was not at all revealing, and stood slouched and seemingly bored, waiting for the music to begin. Even Tierney, who barely knew her, could see how uncomfortable the girl was.
Someone dimmed the house lights. A floodlight above the stage bathed the area in a garish tint.
Angela was not much of a dancer, doing little more than sway through Barbra Streisand’s “The Way We Were.” The music did not exactly fit the context, Tierney noticed, not that the audience seemed to be paying the performer much attention. When the song clicked off abruptly at its end, Angela came to a standstill. Continuing to avoid eye contact with anyone, she took off her socks and affected boredom again while waiting for the next song to begin. Tierney noticed that the conversations in the bar had become somewhat more subdued and expectant.
At the first strains of “Seasons in the Sun,” Angela stepped out of her jeans, seemingly with as little fanfare as if she were getting undressed for bed in the privacy of her own room. After dropping her pants to the stage, she used her foot to push them over toward her socks and T-shirt. Now she wore only the orange bathing suit—top and bottom. As before, there was nothing about either her posture or facial expression that could have been construed as even remotely sexy or suggestive, Tierney thought. As Angela continued to sway back and forth, some guy at the bar emitted a piercing whistle followed by a loud, “Yeah, baby!”
At their table, Trish laughed. “You’re slaying ’em, Angela,” she called to her housemate. In return and still without expression, Angela flipped her middle finger at Trish. The audience laughed appreciatively. Tierney noticed that Donna Sue, waitressing alone, had gotten busier as more customers arrived.
Finally, while the jukebox recalibrated for the next song, Angela unceremoniously unhooked her bathing suit top and dropped it on top of her other clothes, standing with her hands at her sides looking pale, vulnerable, and rib-thin under the unflattering spotlight. The tips of her nipples resembled the erasers on new pencils. If I really am a lezzie, Tierney thought, shouldn’t I be attracted to Angela right now? But all she felt was sorry for her. It was true that Tierney’s skin had prickled with goose bumps when Angela removed her top, but it was only because she wanted to protect her.
Again she “danced,” this time to the strains of Eric Clapton’s “I Shot the Sheriff.” The customers loved it, or at least responded to this topless number more noisily than they had previously. As soon as the song ended, Angela, still without expression, took a bow to widespread applause then turned her back as she hastily pulled on her T-shirt. She bundled her other clothes and carried them with her to the table her friends shared. Tierney smiled at her, with both sympathy and respect. “You were great,” she said. As artless as the performance had been, Tierney was pretty s
ure she could not have done what she’d just watched Angela do.
Angela pulled on her jeans and laced up her sneakers, picked up her serving tray, and resumed the work of clearing empty glasses from tables and taking orders for drinks. Donna Sue was up next, and Tierney was surprised to discover that the small, somewhat mousy girl was at heart an exhibitionist. In contrast to Angela, who had never looked at anyone the whole time she was on stage, Donna Sue’s eyes never stopped surveying the crowd, seeking approval. When she found it, she fixed the person with a gap-toothed grin and gyrated her hips in poor imitation of a striptease artist. The fact of the matter was that she was a young girl who danced like a bouncing teenybopper, but her energetic performance made Angela’s seem even more wooden and awkward in hindsight.
Was it possible that Donna Sue actually enjoyed this? When she unhooked her bathing suit top, she swung it around her head, causing the audience to clap and hoot. “Take it all off!” some guy yelled, and Donna Sue wagged a finger at him like he was a naughty boy. It was too bad she was so flat-chested, Tierney thought, because she might have had a real future as a topless dancer had she been better endowed. Still, Donna Sue knew how to connect with the crowd; when she finished her set, the audience whistled and cheered loudly. A few men even rose to their feet in a standing ovation. Tierney thought that maybe, just maybe, she might have been able to fake her way through the kind of performance Angela had offered, but knew she could never convey enjoyment, as Donna Sue had done. “You were really good,” she told Donna Sue when the girl returned to the table, took up her serving tray, and joined Angela to serve drinks.
There was a fifteen-minute break before Pearl went on, the main act. Pearl left to use the restroom to make adjustments to the costume she was wearing. When she returned, it was in a silk chiffon robe that barely concealed the fact that she was scantily clad underneath it. The bar was almost silent when “Let’s Get It On” by Marvin Gaye began to play and Pearl started to slink and dip, slowly and sensually. If Angela’s and Donna Sue’s dancing were leagues apart, Tierney thought, Pearl’s was in a class of its own. She was clearly a pro—from her sequined bikini to her precise, well-rehearsed, and impeccably timed movements. Tierney felt the atmosphere in the bar shift into a new gear. Unlike Angela, Pearl didn’t seek to avoid eye contact with her audience, but unlike Donna Sue, she was not soliciting anyone’s approval. “What I do is an art form,” her movements seemed to say. “I offer it to you as a gift.”
