Some cracked, but most got it, and when the bodies started coming, we were a well-oiled machine. We didn’t talk about what happened to this aircraft—not our concern—but it was hard to miss the people crowding the pier every evening when our shift ended. The families. Second day into the operation, I was walking to the hotel shuttle bus when someone shoved a photograph in my hands. Before I had a chance to look away, I saw it was a picture of a smiling man, all messy black hair and a mustache. “This is my husband.” The voice was gentle—not accusing, like the others. It was almost as if she were introducing us at a party. I looked up and saw a short lady with frizzy brown hair and a pretty mouth. She wore a purple polka-dotted scarf ’round her neck. Her glasses made her big brown eyes look even bigger, and I noticed those eyes were dry. “Have you come across him yet?” she asked. I glanced down at the photo again before handing it back to her, and she told me his name. Didn’t want to know his name, but now I knew it: Kevin. She told me he was on his way to Cairo, that he was a journalist. “For a very prestigious periodical,” she told me, but I’d never heard of it. She seemed disappointed when I said this, but I told her not to worry, that I barely know how to read. That made her smile a little.
Gluck passed by with two of the divers and gave me a funny look. I knew I should leave, but I asked her name. I don’t know why I did. I never ask. But I wanted to know her name, even if I didn’t want to know her husband’s. She told me, “Denise,” and she asked mine. Before I knew what I was doing, I told her my Christian name, because suddenly Bozer didn’t sound good enough. She told me mine is a nice name, but when I told her everybody calls me Bozer, she said that it was “more fitting.” That’s when the shuttle bus driver laid on the horn.
Next morning, Denise was there at the pier, with a cup of coffee for me. Gluck gave me another funny look when he saw us talking, but I ignored it. I knew what he was thinking, that I’m going soft, and later, on the ship, he told me just that. Said I was setting a bad example for the rest of the team, talking to the families during a recovery operation, making it personal. But when she was there that evening, too, I knew Gluck was wrong, because I was feeling strong as a bull ox.
I took her to one of the chowder houses on the wharf, and let her talk about her man. Guy sounded pretty regular to me but to her he was a king. So I listened. But then she noticed my tat—the one on my forearm, of Antarctica with a roofing nail shot through the middle—and asked me about it. So I told her about Pole, that I’d been there since Floyd and me cleaned up Kuwait City—six years and counting. I tell her I’m a lifer.
“If you’re a lifer,” she said, quick as a flash, “what are you doing here?”
“I’m here to find your man.”
She needed time, and she had places to go. She told me what sociologists do and why they need to move around. At first, she wanted to go to Cairo, to see if she could understand why an Egyptian ex-military pilot would send a passenger plane into the Atlantic. “Perhaps he was traumatized by war,” she told me six months later, when I called her from Comms to see how she was doing. By that time we were talking every week, and I could feel my heart winging around in my chest as it got closer to Monday, when I knew I’d hear her voice. “I learned that many members of his squadron were killed in the Yom Kippur War,” she told me of the pilot who’d killed her husband. “I imagine there are many ex-military men grappling with the same awful memories.” I told her not to go to Cairo. I told her to come south. “If you want something to study, study us. Won’t find a weirder bunch of people anywhere else on earth.”
It took a season to convince her—she went to Brazil first to work with streetwalking trannies—but she came down, and when she came down, everything fit. I knew that was all she needed: a place where people don’t fly planes into the ocean just because. Me, well, I just needed her.
When I showed her the Man Without Country that day, she looked at him for a good long time. It had been five years since that day Floyd and me found him a mile off the skiway. He hadn’t changed a bit. For a minute, I worried I did the wrong thing. We never found her man—only a shoe, which she had to identify in an airplane hangar in Newport. True, no one knew who this man was, but at least he was whole. At least he was here.
When Denise got up from her knees, that beautiful smile was still on her face. I asked her what. She smiled wider. “He is everyone anyone has ever lost.”
That’s what I need to get Cooper to understand. We’ve all got our shit—me, Denise, the Man Without Country, who’s got the worst shit of all ’cause he’s stone-dead and ain’t nobody wants him. Everyone’s got it, and it don’t make you special. Still, she won’t walk in.
“You think I’m gonna go Dahmer on you?” I say to her. “Get in here.”
Now she’s in and it’s pitch dark, as it always is. I wave the flashlight around the room so she can see the four plywood walls, get oriented. I take her arm, and we walk toward the far wall, and she’s not asking questions—usually they’re asking by now. The flashlight ain’t hit him yet, but when it does, she stops short. I let her eyes get used to him. The drop-kick lands, and she backs up into me—her boots get tangled up with mine, and I have to catch her arm so she doesn’t fall.
Now she’s asking questions. “Bozer, what is this?”
“Go ahead,” I say, holding the flashlight on him steady.
“Go ahead, what?”
“Go look. He’s perfectly preserved.” She turns around and puts her face in my parka. No one’s done that before. I let her do this for a minute, and then I peel her off and set her on course again, and this time she walks toward him. He’s set on the berm we made back when we found him, snow and ice we scraped from the floor and walls. It was me who thought to wrap him in sheeting from Logistics, and it’s held up good.
“Who is he?” she asks.
“This here’s the Man Without Country. He ain’t got a home so we’re leaving him here in the Tomb until we get word.” She don’t understand, so I explain. “We found him about a mile off the skiway. He was wearing a Vostok parka, but the Reds said he wasn’t one of theirs. China, Chile, the Kiwis—nobody. The Program can’t claim him because he’s not a U.S. citizen. So here he lies.” She walks closer to him now, looks at him. I can tell she notices that he wasn’t wrapped hasty; it was done right. “You can see his beard,” she says. She asks me why I’m showing her this, and I tell her the Man Without Country is here to tell her something. She looks at me with those sad dark eyes and asks me what he wants to tell her. “He says you don’t come down here to commit suicide, honey. You come here so you don’t.”
* * *
I’m about to head to Skylab to look at the pool table next morning when I remember what the girl said about leaving something out there. There’s already been a lot of drift overnight, and I probably won’t find it. Hell, I don’t even know what it is—she won’t tell me. But I’m on my knees at the entrance, sweeping snow away, looking for something that might not even be there. A couple of machinists walk by and make some smart comments; I only have time to flip them the bird before I spot it. A pill bottle. Size and shape of a Tylenol bottle, but the label’s been taken off. I almost leave it where I found it, except the container’s got that greasy look to it of having been searched for again and again in a pocket, or held tight like it was the only thing keeping a person alive. I pop the top with my thumb, expecting to find more scratch, but that’s not what I find. I know as soon as I see it. Everything is clear as the new day.
When I get to Skylab, Floyd and a field engineer named Randy are looking at the pool table, beers in hand. “One drop on that felt and I cut off your balls,” I say, and they step away from the table. There’s already one here, in the game room, but it got brought down during Reagan’s first term. Worse than that, the table ain’t level. I been shipping materials down to build this one during my downtime—bundle it up with the three-quarter-inch plywood and snuggle it under a saddle truss or something. The delicate shit—the fe
lt, the netting—used to come down with a cargo coordinator named Jose, but then Jose went Elvis one day on a toilet back home in Tulsa, and I had to start bringing it down myself. Anyway, this table is for the good old boys: no Beakers, no admins, just Nailheads.
I pull Floyd over to the table. “Get me a three-eighth-inch bolt and a Fender washer. You put the rails on crooked.”
“They look all right to me.”
“Just get me the bolts and the washer,” I say. Floyd mutters something and leaves. If the Beakers see that anything about this table is off—and they will—they’ll sneak into Skylab late at night with their laser levels, and we won’t hear the end of it.
“I heard they’re sending that girl back,” Randy says to me. I take a piece of sandpaper from Floyd’s toolbox and start working the edge of the rail.
“Which one?” I say, though I know.
“The finger girl. The artiste.”
“They ain’t,” I say.
“Why not?” Randy asks. I shrug. I don’t know how the feds work down here. “Probably has something to do with the fact that Frank Pavano is the one who cut off her fork.”
“Yeah, I hear we’re getting a visit from Washington,” Randy says. “They’re all up in arms about the Beakers. They’re saying the Beakers bullied him. Fucking Beakers.” I brush the wood dust from my hands and then blow it off the rails. Randy looks at the table like he’s gonna cum all over it. “She’s a beaut, Bozer. When will she be ready?”
“Soon. Sooner if that asshole will hurry up with those bolts and washers.”
I hear the sound of bunny boot on metal staircase, and extend my hand behind me, but someone, not Floyd, says, “I hear there’s a pool tournament at Equinox.” I turn and see it’s a Beaker, that Indian one without the accent. Sri.
“There might be,” I say.
“Is this going to be a station-wide event?”
“Huh?”
“What I mean is—is this going to be open to the entire station? Can anyone enter?” I just look at Randy and smile. He’s new to all this. He needs to learn how to make the Beakers squirm. That’s how we keep the equilibrium around here. Sri shifts his weight onto his other leg. “Is there some kind of entry fee? A case of beer?”
“I don’t drink microbrews.”
“I can get you more Schlitz,” he says.
Although this does sweeten the pot, I don’t budge. “Look, you guys can keep buying me beer, but the tournament ain’t open to Beakers.”
“But that’s not fair.”
“What’s not fair about it?” I say. “This is my table. Use the one in the game room.”
“You know that one’s ruined,” Sri says.
“Well, you Beakers shoulda been more careful with your Shirley Temples.”
It’s hard to get a Beaker upset. Sri keeps coming up with reasons why he should be allowed in the pool tournament, like logic has any bearing on my decision. Floyd finally shows up with the washer and bolts. He’s out of breath, huffing like a steam engine going up a mountain pass. “Jesus, Floyd. You fat fuck.”
“Karl Martin’s here,” he eventually coughs out. “He wants to talk to you.” I don’t care for Martin. He’s fussy. He wasn’t the one who hired me, either—that guy was an ex-military man who’d spent years in El Salvador doing shit that was neither sane nor legal. He was pushed out when VIDS decided to merge with a robotics manufacturer in ’98, and that’s when Martin, this former diplomatic pouch slinger, took his place. I will say that Martin mostly lets me do my thing. He’s never come down and stuck his nose in between any steel girders. But still, I don’t relish the opportunity to talk with him.
All-Call screeches on, and Tucker’s voice comes through the speakers: “Bozer, report to A3 ASAP. Bozer, report to A3 ASAP.”
I find Martin waiting for me in the garage. He’s trying to play it cool, even if he’s made the fatal mistake of wearing the red parka of McMurdo. I can see the crew giggling at him, but he can’t, and that’s all that matters.
“Bozer, sir, good to see you,” he says, slapping me on the shoulder with his mitten. “The new station looked great on the flight in.”
“Just the bones, but we’re set to put the last steel beam on B3 in ten minutes,” I say.
Floyd pulls up on the snowmobile. Martin gets on like he’s getting onto a stallion. This is a big moment. B3 will be the comms and admin pod for the new station.
We motor past the tourists cheesing for pictures in front of the Pole marker, and that’s when I see the girl again, Cooper. She’s standing alone, facing the opposite direction, her hands hanging at her sides. I pull up to where she’s standing. She looks good—healthy, sober—and she smiles at me. I tell her we’re putting the last steel beam on B3. “First of the new pods to get enclosed,” I say. “History in the making.”
“Where?” she says.
“Come on, I’ll take you. All the bigwigs wanna take pictures.” I feel Martin lean in behind me to make room. She hesitates, but when I gun the engine, she allows Martin to pull her on. We’re at the site in no time.
There’s a small crowd by the Mantis crane. The sun glints off its steel body. All around me, I see cameras pointed in our direction, little ones, the kind that Polies brought down in their luggage. All of them snapping a photo that no one else will understand, a photo that will always have to be explained to people who weren’t here: installation of the last steel beam on B3—a state-of-the-art comms hub built at the world’s baddest construction site.
Floyd moves away from the minder so that I can run the crane. The line is taut, and as I move that steel beast atop the structure, I feel as happy as a pig in shit.
Once I jump off the crane, Martin slaps me on the back, hard. He’s giddy. He slaps me again, not so hard this time, and I can tell he wants to talk business. “How much faster can you move on this construction, sir?”
“We’re moving as fast as we can,” I say.
“No doubt,” he says. The words come out as two separate clouds of frozen air. I wait for the rest. “We got a problem, Bozer. You been keeping on top of the news?”
“Two Fingys and a stolen ice-corer on the Antarctic Divide ain’t never gonna end well,” I say.
He leans in. I smell Pearlie’s onion-fried hash browns on his breath. “They’re gonna try to shut this show down, Bozer.”
“I’m listening.”
“Pavano’s got two congressmen who are riding Scaletta hard. They can hold up the appropriations bill.”
I shake my head. “Simple workplace injury, I’ve seen far worse.”
“It’s a shitshow, Bozer. It’s politics. It’s messy.”
I don’t need him to spell it out. I’ve been through budget cuts before, but there have always been ways around them. There’s nothing a congressmen can throw at a Nailhead like me that I can’t turn into a solid plan of action. I tell Martin this, but he shakes his head. Tells me this time they’re going after the agency as a whole. They want to shut the whole place down in the middle of the research season, want to kill the experiments, kill the construction, put the station into caretaker mode until the Beakers and their bosses at the NSF cry uncle.
“You stop construction now, the entire thing’s gonna be under snow in a month,” I tell him. “They’ll have to put up twice as many dimes to rebuild this bitch when they finally get their heads out of their asses.”
“I know,” Martin says. He looks like he wants to cry. “I’m calling a meeting tonight. Please be there.”
Floyd pulls up and Martin climbs on the snowmobile. He waves as they pull away and head toward the station. It’s lunchtime. I look around and see I’m the only one at B3 now. I take a long look at the site. Martin’s right. This is a shitshow. But it’s my shitshow.
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
4201 WILSON BOULEVARD
ARLINGTON, VIRGINIA 22230
Dear Ms. Gosling:
Please review and sign the attached addendum to your Release of Liability and Ind
emnity Agreement and Covenant Not to Sue contract, and return both to your Station Manager at your earliest convenience. Countersigned copies will be placed in your personnel file. I wish you the best for the upcoming winter.
Sincerely,
Alexandra Scaletta
Agency Director, National Science Foundation
a known issue
2004 January 31
09:11
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: MIA
C.,
Saw on the news there was some accident in Antarctica at a place whose name I’ve already forgotten but which isn’t Pole. I trust this is far from your strip mall at the bottom of the earth.
B.
* * *
2004 February 1
16:10
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: MIA Redux
So … now they’re saying that the accident involved a South Pole scientist and an NSF grantee, which leaves me wondering. I keep remembering you saying that if you died down there, we wouldn’t know. Dad has been calling NSF on the hour every hour and is getting nowhere. Something about HIPAA and privacy. Mom has resorted to burning sage in the bathroom at work. Be a pal and write back, or at least have NSF send us your death certificate so we can collect your death benefits.
* * *
2004 February 3
21:02
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: RE: MIA Redux
B.,
Sorry. I’m alive. NSF said they contacted you guys. Right hand, index finger, down to the proximal phalanx, which basically means I lost the whole thing. I don’t remember much, but I’m told that I was palming the ice in order to get a better look at Pavano’s core-hole, and god that looks bad when typed. Pavano lost control of this massive ice-corer and apparently my finger was in the way. At first they were going to send me home, but because of some political algorithm, it’s better for everyone, self included, to keep me at Pole. I’m glad I’m staying. No offense. I like it down here. Anyway, it looks like this thing has set into motion some political crisis where Pavano is being framed as the exiled “minority-views” scientist using inferior tools because of the “culture wars,” and now we are prepping for a visit from some Washington dignitaries, who will land at Pole in a week.
South Pole Station Page 24
