South Pole Station

by Ashley Shelby

  “You have my blessing.”

  “Don’t need it, Mom,” Cooper half-sang.

  “Sweetheart, for me, a blessing is not approval.”

  “Then what is it? Because it sort of sounds like you’re giving me the okay. I don’t need an okay.”

  “Well, for me a blessing is a sincere wish that you get what you want out of this experience. When will I see you again?”

  “Next September.”

  Dasha seemed genuinely surprised. “A year?”

  “That’s what I signed up for.”

  Dasha placed her fingertips together and looked up at the ceiling. “Blessing or not, I need to say this before you leave or else I won’t have done my job as a parent: you are an exceptional talent, but you are also a thirty-year-old woman who has never held a long-term professional job in her life. You’re thirty, Cooper. I need you to hear the starkness in that. At thirty, routes begin to disappear. And at some point you have to answer for what you are—whether that’s a success or a failure.”

  “What if I’m a Seeker?”

  “I’d like to be validated by hearing an answer from you,” Dasha snapped. The tone of the conversation—the way it resonated like a faint echo of the kinds of conversations Cooper had had with her mother before the Seeker had absconded with her—soothed Cooper’s nerves.

  “Let’s see what it looks like when I return,” she said. Dasha’s face fell. These words must have been lodged in some capsule in Cooper’s brain, ready to be deployed at exactly the wrong time: David’s parting words to them on Christmas, when they’d let him drive himself back to the group home because he’d been so good about his medication, so lucid, that it was almost like he was restored. (“Louie DePalma is back!” Billie had shouted after two glasses of Shiraz.) He’d asked about Cooper’s painting, about Billie’s writing. He’d been funny, brilliant—beautiful. Cooper had felt guilty tailing him in her Tempo until he got to the intersection of Forty-sixth and Blaisdell, a couple of blocks from the Damiano House, the group home where he’d been living since his last 5150. When David’s counselor had called Bill and Dasha to let them know he hadn’t come home that night, and later, when the police put out the “Missing Vulnerable Adult” flyer, Cooper realized she’d failed him a million different ways.

  “I know you and Billie choose not to talk about him with me,” Dasha said, her voice brittle. “I know you blame me for not being more in tune with what was happening, and I think—”

  Cooper felt her stomach begin to churn. “Mom—please.”

  “Honey, at least let me say this—”

  But Cooper couldn’t. She couldn’t hear this, just as she couldn’t forgive her mother for telling mourners at his funeral service that David had been a “bleeding tree.” Cooper stood up and walked out of Dasha’s office, and it was only when she was in the lobby and saw Billie’s face that she realized she had her hands over her ears.

  * * *

  “Gimme a minute,” the station doctor called out to Cooper from behind a dirty white vinyl curtain. “Okay, so—that sound fair?” she said to a patient.

  “Yeah, that works,” the man said. “I can’t, like, get lice or anything, can I?”

  “Friend, if we had a lice problem on station, I’d be the first to hear about it. Wash the pillowcase if you’re nervous.”

  “I don’t want to use up my water ration.”

  “Then go, live on hope.”

  The curtain slid back to reveal a man clutching a pillow. The doctor emerged from behind the curtain with a half-empty bottle of Robitussin. This, Cooper knew, had to be Doc Carla, a weathered, lean woman in her late fifties, with thick brown hair pulled into pigtails, a wind-chapped face, and lips that glistened with Vaseline.

  “Bartering for the return of unused medication is the work of saints,” she said to no one. Then she glanced at Cooper, and cringed. “Well, you look like hell. Come on in, lady.”

  When Cooper had awoken in her cell-like room in Summer Camp that morning, she’d discovered her right eye was Super-Glued shut and her eyelashes had become a petrified forest of dried pus. She felt like shit. One of her nostrils was stuffed up; the other was flowing freely. Her bones ached and her skin felt clammy. Her South Pole handbook indicated that she should visit the station doctor at the clinic—a place Cooper now knew went by the name Hard Truth Medical Center.

  Doc Carla pointed to a metal exam table that looked like it had come down on the Terra Nova. “Take a seat.” As Cooper shimmied her way onto the table, she surveyed the room: two ward beds, a red standing Snap-on “Intimidator” toolbox, two green oxygen canisters, and an enormous gawking army-issue exam light.

  “You probably got the Crud.”

  “The Crud?” Cooper asked, squinting like a deranged pirate.

  “An illness found at the outposts of civilization,” Doc Carla replied. She opened an industrial-size tackle box and began digging through piles of medication. “It’s like the flu. Most Fingys get it when they arrive.” She shook her head in disbelief. “You’d think they’d tell you guys this stuff. Until the doors close for the winter, those human petri dishes from McMurdo are going to keep me in business.” All sickness, it seemed, came from McMurdo. This was one reason Polies hated McMurdo-ites, but only one.

  Doc Carla tossed a box of medicine on a small metal tray on wheels, then came at Cooper with a penlight. “Probably a bacterial infection of the soft tissues,” she said as she peered into Cooper’s right eye. “I’m going to give you a course of antibiotics and some drops for the eye.” She turned around to fish the drops out of the dorm fridge. “Don’t feel nauseated, do you?”

  “No.”

  “Stiff neck?”

  “I don’t think so,” Cooper said, rubbing her neck, which suddenly seemed a little sore. Doc Carla handed Cooper the eyedrops and the box of pills. “Take these so it doesn’t turn into meningitis. And lay low for a few days. No sex until the eye gets better. And if you start puking or you can’t move your neck, get yourself over here tout suite. I might not be able to save you but at least your family can’t sue me.”

  After leaving Hard Truth, Cooper started to meander up the tunnel toward the main station when she was almost run over by a forklift. “Open your eyes, dumbass,” someone shouted at her in passing. Cooper watched as the forklift careened up the tunnel, stopped suddenly, and unceremoniously dropped its cargo of crates onto the snow with a crash. Immediately, a crowd of people materialized around the boxes. By the time Cooper arrived, a scuffle had broken out between the forklift driver and the attendant crowd. Several Polies stared sadly into one of the crates.

  “You just pulverized an entire case of Cabernet, dickweed,” one of them snapped. Cooper recognized the angry Polie as Kit, the DA from the galley. By this time, the driver’s insouciance had been replaced by unmistakable fear. He stammered an apology, but it went unheard. Cooper had the feeling that punishment would be meted out later. For now, the group had moved on to more important matters, like getting the crates of booze into the station store before it froze.

  “You,” Kit shouted at Cooper. Cooper hastily slipped her goggles over her eyes in order to disguise her disfigurement. “Be a pal. Take this Coors Light to the store.”

  The South Pole Station store was located on the second floor of the comms pod. At McMurdo, the station store offered souvenirs, scented soaps, and New York Times best-sellers. Here at Pole, nearly the entire inventory was 90-proof. Besides tampons, chocolate bars, and toothpaste, the stock was comprised of Jägermeister, Crown Royal, and Jack Daniel’s available for purchase—and below cost—along with Apple Pucker and Stoli vanilla vodka. Cases of Budweiser were stacked atop cases of Red Stripe. Rows of pale Chardonnay and scarlet Merlots lined the walls, while silver kegs haunted the corners.

  Cooper maneuvered her way around the frantic cargo handlers, who were desperate to keep the new shipment from freezing, and deposited the Coors Light next to a crate of sambuca. A Polie elbowed past her and fussily set three
vials of angostura bitters on the shelf above her. When he noticed Cooper looking at them, he shrugged. “For the fancy drinks,” he said.

  * * *

  Cooper was relieved to discover that wearing snow goggles inside the galley was the kind of eccentricity that could go uncommented upon. She pushed her tray through the cafeteria line, regarding the steaming metal tubs of gelatinous Salisbury steak suspiciously. She recalled Pearl’s assertion that many Polies claimed the eats at Amundsen-Scott were second to none.

  As she stood at the exit point of the lunch line, a reedy man in glasses and a T-shirt that read “Denialism: Science for Morons” dropped a note onto her tray. “Could you give this to that guy over there, the one in the Confederate-flag bandanna?” Before Cooper could ask him why so many Polies wore bandannas, he’d slipped away and rejoined a group of other bespectacled men wearing the same shirt. She glanced down at the folded note on her tray, then back at the men, two of whom now clasped their hands and shook them in supplication. She sighed. The possibility that anything other than sexual disappointment and second-rate computer labs might become familiar to her seemed remote.

  “What’s this?” the man donning the Stars and Bars growled when Cooper handed him the note.

  “They asked me to give it to you,” Cooper said, trying to make out his face through her goggles. “Those guys over there.” The man leaned back in his chair and looked behind Cooper at the knot of scientists. After a beat, he smiled and, without reading it, handed the note back to Cooper. “I know what this is about. Tell them to fold it up lengthwise, roll it into a tiny tube, and shove it deep into their asses. Tell them to pass it like an ass-joint.”

  As Cooper walked away, she pushed her goggles onto her forehead and read the note. It was a plea to join a pool tournament, addressed to someone named Bozer—presumably the proud son of the South with whom she’d just spoken. She shrugged at the scientists, who looked crushed.

  Across the galley, the scientist she’d rescued back in fire school during the partner exercises sat alone at a table, studying a book without turning the pages. Around him, guys in Carhartts and feather boas wolfed down mac-and-cheese casserole and talked about how the load of grade beams that had arrived on a flight the day before had maxed out the vertical cargo space.

  “Can I sit here?” Cooper asked the scientist. He looked up, startled, then gathered in his utensils as if they were taking up too much room.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “What’re you reading?” Cooper said as she attempted to cut into the rubbery Salisbury steak. The man gently closed the book and placed his hand over it, but Cooper had spotted the title: Alarmism and the Climate Change Hoax.

  “I find reading as I eat relaxing.” He slid the book off the table and dropped it into the bag at his feet. “One has to eat, right?” he continued. “It’s inconvenient, this need to eat.” He finished off his juice in a long gulp. “You look familiar.”

  “Yeah, I saved you from the burning synthetic fires of hell, remember?” He looked at her for a moment, as if he were translating her words into his native language. Cooper marveled at the utter strangeness of his face: too long to be comprehended at a glance, and too finely cut to be traditionally handsome. Red patches marred the pale skin of his cheeks.

  “Yes, that’s it,” he finally said. “I failed fire training.”

  “I thought they DQ’ed everyone who didn’t pass.”

  “Not everyone, apparently,” he replied. “And you—you’re an artist Fellow, correct?”

  Cooper was surprised. “Yes. Though it’s been implied that we’re parasites that contribute net zero to the station.”

  “Scientists say that because they can only quantify the value of a Monet by giving you a rough estimate of how many quarks might be in it.” Before Cooper could process this, the man gathered his dishes onto his tray and then departed with an awkward wave. Cooper turned to call after him, but realized she didn’t know his name. It was as if they’d both silently agreed not to bother with them.

  When she turned back to her tray, Cooper found a flyer lying atop her mac and cheese. She looked up to find Sal staring down at her.

  “Pick a side, Fingy,” he said. Cooper lifted the flyer off her food, and shook toasted bread crumbs from it.

  Sal hovered over her, one hand gripping the back of her chair, the other palming the table. Cooper returned the flyer to him. “Yeah, I’m not signing this.”

  “Why not?”

  “There’s no box for Sasquatch Studies,” she replied, shoving a forkful of meat into her mouth. She looked up and met his eyes, which had widened in disbelief. Luminescent hazel, with depth. Not like Forrest’s, whose mud-brown eyes seemed affixed to his face only because they were required to be there. “Seriously, this is dumb,” Cooper said. “You scientists really put too fine a point on things.” Sal looked amazed for a moment, and then he laughed. It was a nice laugh, Cooper thought, and the dimple sweetened the pot. Still, he was a little too pleased with himself. Cooper piled her tray with her dirty silverware and headed for the dish pit.

  “You are strange,” Sal called after her. Everyone turned and looked at her. Pearl took Cooper’s plates with a pitying smile, and whispered, “Everyone here’s strange.”

  * * *

  Armed with her South Pole Station handbook and map, and her painting supplies, Cooper made her way to Substation B, the trailer near the elevated dorm, where the artist and writer studios were located. At the top of the metal stairs leading to the door was a large sign that read Off Limits/Restricted Access. She pulled the door open anyway and nearly ran into Tucker. He seemed unsurprised to see her, and peered into her face.

  “I heard it was the Crud,” he said. “How bad is it?” Cooper slid the goggles onto her forehead. Tucker recoiled and began laughing behind his closed fist.

  “I’m overwhelmed by your compassion,” Cooper said, sliding the goggles back down.

  “I have nothing but compassion for you, having been afflicted by acne and facial tics for most of my life.”

  “Well, I’m already on antibiotics, so don’t worry yourself sick over me,” Cooper said.

  “Antibiotics. Well, you are now officially a Fingy.”

  “God! If I hear that term one more time I am going to rub my infected eye all over you—sorry, that was bitchy.”

  “It’s okay. I like bitches. I seek them out. You have a ways to go, though.”

  “I’ll do better next time,” Cooper said, thinking that would make for a very accurate tattoo.

  “Come on, I’ll show you to your studio,” he said, ushering her down a short hallway. “By the way, I hear you’ve already become enmeshed.”

  “Enmeshed?”

  “You ferried a note between Beaker and Nailhead at lunch.”

  “What the hell are Beakers and—you know what, never mind.”

  “Beakers are scientists. Nailheads are construction. But if anyone asks, the Beakers are the prophets and the Nailheads are the patriots.”

  Cooper growled at Tucker.

  They stopped at a door. Someone had taped a postcard portrait of Foucault’s cheerful face just above the doorknob. “I’m so glad Denise is back,” Tucker said. “You’ll like her!”

  “Who’s Denise?”

  Tucker began whistling ominously and sauntered back the way they had come.

  When Cooper unlocked the door to her studio, she found it was a small, square room with no window, just a desk, a couple of chairs, and an old easel lying on its side. Someone had carved Don’t eat the yellow snow into one of the legs. A web of frost grew on the south wall of the room, and in the corners, clear ice collected like tiny frozen waterfalls. The lighting, Cooper noted with disappointment, was abysmal—On the Waterfront without the symbolism. On the desk, someone—Denise?—had left a green canvas bag and a pile of books (The Sociology of Isolation, Sociological Materialism in Remote Communities, Achieved Status in Areas of Limited Resource). Cooper let her roll of canvas fall at he
r feet and began unpacking her supplies.

  As she was examining her palette knife, the door opened and a dark-haired woman walked in. “Hi,” she said. “Just popped in to say hello. You must be Cooper.”

  “Yep, that’s me,” Cooper said. The woman’s eyebrows arched questioningly over her cat’s-eye glasses.

  “Interesting name for a woman.” She paused, and turned her eyes to the ceiling. “Cooper. Barrel maker. Lunar crater. D. B. Cooper.” She glanced at Cooper. “I’m making associations. Not a mnemonic device, exactly, but I lay these associations down in my memory palace, which should lead me to your name, Cooper, if I become toasty over the course of the winter. I’m Denise. We’ll be sharing a studio for the duration.”

  “Toasty?”

  “It’s a slang term that covers a whole range of psychological disturbances brought on by the extreme environment here.” Seeing Cooper was confused, she added, “I’m a sociologist by trade.”

  “I thought this was the Artists and Writers’ Annex.”

  Denise shrugged. “Well, this is where I was assigned. I’m not offended by being housed with the artists, if you’re wondering—though it does suggest that my field of study is viewed as one with less precision than, perhaps, cosmology. But then that idea would be offensive to artists, wouldn’t it? As if they are not precise in motivation. But is art about motivation?”

  Cooper wanted to roll her eyes. Of course it was about motivation. But she only said, “I don’t really think about those things.” Denise, Cooper learned, was on sabbatical from Columbia and was supposed to be in a favela in Rio, living among transitioning transgendered men who injected industrial-grade silicone into their bodies to give themselves hips and breasts. She’d received institutional encouragement to delve deeper into this point on the gender matrix, but here she was, at Pole, four thousand miles away from her research subjects.

  “I take it there are one or two transitioning men here to study in isolation?” Cooper asked.