Cold Storage, Alaska

by John Straley

  He was in a situation where he was spending money to recover money. This was not something he enjoyed. He considered making another call to this shit heel of an investigator and telling him to get back on it, get him a name of a relative or something. Jesus! How hard could it be?

  But he didn’t want to bring on any more unnecessary stress. So he took some deep breaths and a sip of fresh orange juice and opened the paper. It was there on the third page of the second section in a two-column AP story that Jake found the answer to what he was looking for. His eyes widened, and he started smiling in a grateful kind of disbelief.

  “I’ll be a son of a bitch!” he said, reached for his orange juice and knocked it over in his excitement.

  IT WAS THE first week of June, Billy was in the middle of his third cruise of the season. He was standing on the bandstand up in front of the band, singing, “Do Nothing Until You Hear From Me.” He was singing more and more solos on each trip, and he loved it. He loved standing in front of the band with his eyes closed and his hands gripped around the mic stand. Billy sang, and he felt the ship sway under his feet. As he sang, he imagined the Universe flying through the green water of Dixon Entrance north of Vancouver Island; he imagined the flat, sandy bottom of the ocean three hundred fathoms below his feet. He felt his mind unspooling as he sang. He glimpsed the dancers, felt the sway of the ocean in his legs. He imagined the waves, and the whales swimming through the gloom beneath the ship. He imagined his lost gear—the kayak, the packet of money for the Dalai Lama—floating over the north Pacific, and he felt no yearning, no loss, only a sense of lightness as if the top of his head had been removed and his mind were able to rise up out of his body.

  So it was more than a surprise—it was almost a collapse of his imaginative world—when he went to the Vancouver Post Office three days later and opened an envelope that contained his battered passport, The Tibetan Book of the Dead and a letter.

  THERE ON PAGE three of Jake’s copy of the Seattle Times was a somewhat overexposed picture of some people jammed together around a table. In the center of the group was a goofy long-haired man being given some money. Two things struck Jake immediately: the first was that the man handing the money over was Clive McCahon, and the other was that it was his fucking money Clive was giving away.

  The headline above the article read: “Lost Donation Finds Its Way to the Dalai Lama.” Above the first photo was a larger one of a smiling Tibetan described as “a secretary to his Holiness the fourteenth Dalai Lama happily displaying the watertight package found in the Pacific and forwarded to Dharamsala, India.”

  A quote in a box next to the article said, “Good fortune has allowed this small package to survive a dangerous and uncertain journey. His Holiness is grateful to Mr. William Cox of Cold Storage, Alaska, and to the person who sent his generous donation on to India.”

  The article described how the package appeared in Dharamsala with a postmark in Kodiak. Some anonymous fisherman had apparently found the waterproof pack and sent it on to the Dalai Lama. The reporter noted that William Cox had been located and was working as a shipboard musician on an Alaskan cruise ship. He had not been contacted for comment. The photograph represented friends and well-wishers from the small fishing village, and one resident, the local health care provider, Miles McCahon, was quoted as saying, “We’re happy that Billy is all right and glad that the money found its way to His Holiness.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Jake said once again and reached for his telephone.

  IN COLD STORAGE, it was a beautiful summer day. Clive was finishing up the painting on the outside trim and playing an old vinyl record of Spike Jones. He smiled, bounced on his feet in time to the bicycle horns and slide whistles squealing out from the rattling big band panic. Little Brother lay on a piece of tin roofing, soaking up the heat of the day, slowly raising his head as a raven hopped along the railing of the boardwalk with a brown strip of a potato peel drooping out of the side of its beak. The raven strutted along the rail and teased the big earless dog.

  “Ugly. Ugly. Ugly,” was all the bird said.

  Clive waved his paintbrush at his dog. “You’re scaring the customers, you know.” Little Brother glanced over at Clive, saying nothing, then went back to languidly watching the big black bird.

  “Your job is to throw them out when they get rowdy, not keep them from coming in.”

  He put his brush into the paint can and walked over to Little Brother, came to within three feet and started to put his hand out. But the brindled dog stood up. He backed away, the heavy roofing underneath him buckling. He didn’t growl or show his teeth, but he stared at Clive with eyes that burned like cigarettes.

  “All right, all right. I was just asking you to consider the options.” Clive turned to go inside.

  At the bar, unofficially open now, five men sat and talked about Billy’s amazing rescue; dance music loped in and out of the open windows. It was a fine sunny day in rain country.

  “The lucky bastard was flopping around out there in the dark, and he gets scooped up by a cruise ship.”

  “How’d you hear that?” asked Clive.

  “Are you kidding? Reporters have been calling all over town. They’re loving this story. Haven’t you talked to any of them? They’ll talk to anybody who will pick up the receiver.”

  “Reporters?” Clive watched the raven outside; it stood barking at the big dog, taunting him with his prize potato skin.

  “Yeah, reporters. They’re loving this story about how the money you gave to Billy found its way all the way to India.”

  “They asking about me?” Clive asked tentatively.

  “They don’t know your name, but they want to know who was in that picture. But you know, we don’t say anything about you or nothing. We just say the money was raised by the community. That’s okay, don’t you think, Clive?”

  “Yeah … yeah … sure, it’s okay.” Clive watched the raven drop the potato peel, bark twice at the woofing dog, and fly up into the blue summer sky, saying, “Bye. Bye. Bye.”

  “Yeah, that’s fine,” he repeated.

  “Good, now can we try some of that new tap beer? You know, for quality control purposes.”

  “Absolutely.” Clive reached down for the hose attached to the rusty keg beneath the bar. Little Brother came back inside and sat on the sleeping bag laid out in the spot where Mouse Miller had died.

  BILLY READ THE letter from the Dalai Lama’s secretary with a mixture of panic and amazement. Billy had been living on the ship for the last forty-nine days like a man who had been born again into a life of satiated desire. He had been pulled from the sea by a woman who wanted to love him; he had been eating his fill of rich food and telling stories of his old home, embellished stories to feed his ego, and they had started to become almost like fables in his mind.

  But now here was his old passport—his old identity—and it smelled like home. He held the passport up to his nose, picked up a whiff of sulfur water and fuel oil. He flipped through the pages and inexplicably felt as if he had been taken prisoner by that village. The stories in his mind sank away into his chest, where the reality of that place—the rain, the bickering, and the depression—seemed to have always resided. Unlike a cruise ship, Cold Storage was well-suited for the life of denial.

  In the letter, the secretary explained that he’d gotten Billy’s new address in Vancouver from a member of the press; he’d assumed that “Mr. Cox” would want his official papers and reading material back. The secretary thanked him for his kind donation and wished him health and good fortune on his journey.

  Inside the book, the secretary had placed a small photograph of His Holiness. It was a postcard-size official portrait of the Buddhist monk in his robe sitting and staring at the camera with an expression of dignity and intelligence. But staring at the photo, Billy knew the Dalai Lama had been suppressing a laugh, as if he knew exactly how silly Billy looked in his tuxedo. He slid the picture back into his book and, with a heavy heart, took the
longest possible route back to the ship.

  ON THE NIGHT after Billy had recovered his passport, the fabric of his new life began to come unraveled.

  There had been dissension in the band before this. The cruise director, a perky Australian who had been a singer in a dinner theater company in Key West before signing on the Universe, felt directly responsible for the enjoyment of every single passenger who came up the gangplank. She took her job very seriously. For the last two trips, she had been forwarding complaints about the band to Rick and saying that the “contemporary” music was getting “a bit wild.” There had been reports that they’d done a version of “Roadrunner” by Jonathan Richman.

  “Do you really think that was appropriate?” she’d asked the band leader.

  “Roadrunner” had been Nix’s idea. She was going stir crazy. On each cruise, she made friends with the two or three younger passengers and encouraged their requests for newer music. She’d tried everything, even ska versions of rhythm and blues tunes and playing Richard Thompson’s waltz time numbers with horn accompaniment. She watched couples in knitted Irish sweaters and deck shoes happily dancing, not paying the least attention to the twisted lyrics about red hair and black leather. But the cruise director heard.

  Billy and Bonnie’s cabin had become the unofficial club room of the band, and it seemed the best place to clear the air, even though Bonnie was in bed trying to recover from a cold.

  “Listen, Rick, I never signed up for this kind of gig.” Earl threw a stick onto the dresser. “You told us there would be a variety of material. You told us it wouldn’t be a painful boom-chuck–Imperial Room–cocktail lounge-off-the-interstate kind of scene. Christ! It’s way worse. You said we would have one set a night where we could choose the material. If that’s not the case anymore, I want to know right now.”

  “We signed a contract,” Rick sighed. “We work for the cruise director, and she told me we would have one set, but she also told me the music had to suit the audience, that we couldn’t play free jazz or experimental music.”

  “This is hardly Sun Ra,” Nix said. “We’re just talking about something with a few different rhythms. They could have gotten a polka band if that’s really what they wanted. Besides, there are plenty of people who like Richard Thompson.” She sat beside Bonnie, who rolled over and put a pillow over her head.

  The argument sprayed out. They discussed the subtleties of the tunes in their repertoire; charges and countercharges were laid, the trumpet player threw some cheese curls at Rick, and Rick’s face darkened in anger.

  Outside, Dall’s porpoises played in the wake of the ship. They pushed through the water like torpedoes and burst onto the surface, their black and white bodies shooting into the sunlight. Passengers on deck cheered while the musicians argued about the changes in their arrangement of “Stardust.”

  “Listen, Rick!” Nix said. “I’m not saying Hogie Carmichael isn’t a fucking genius. I just want to play some different tunes.” She bounced up and down on the bed, her arms held tightly to her sides, like a child about to break into tears.

  “Wait,” Billy said from the upper bunk. He had not said one word so far throughout the entire argument. All the players stopped, stared up at him. “I know exactly what we can do.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  BY LATE JULY, the salmon were starting up into the rivers to spawn and die. Once in fresh water, they became humped and hook-nosed, their bodies already beginning to rot. But out in saltwater, these late season fish were bright and quick. These were the fish Miles was determined to catch.

  Miles had heard nothing from Trooper Brown, but he knew that there was a visit coming. Clive had been making too many things happen not to be noticed. There was the liquor license, and the business license, and money changing hands. And Weasel seemed busier than usual: talking on the public phones at the head of the dock, using the one computer at the library, even taking his old wooden boat out past the inlet. Each day that he didn’t see Trooper Brown walk into his clinic, Miles felt lucky; each moment that he didn’t need to be in the clinic, he wanted to be out in his skiff, if for nothing else than to be somewhere else when Brown did blast through his door.

  Besides the occasional prayer made to Japanese outboard engines, Miles was extremely practical when it came to fishing. He was good with all manner of salmon but king salmon, and this flaw was irritating him. Lester had told him that Tlingit elders believed that the fish only came to those who were worthy of catching them. This, Miles believed, was a faith promulgated by a core group of successful fishermen. He was beginning to wonder if there was a religion for the consistently unlucky.

  He rounded the point and ducked into the lee of two small islands out near the northern opening of the inlet. He could feel what was left of the swells moving from the outside; these little swells were lifting his boat up and down, but there was hardly a breath of wind on the water. Miles went about rigging his gear and lowering it into the water; he set the engine on the lowest possible idle and started pushing along at a moderate trolling speed.

  It was then, with the motor geared down and his line taut against the pull of the flasher, only then that he forgot about his brother’s criminal enterprise. He forgot about his mother’s sudden absence from this world, and he had finally forgotten his bad luck as a fisherman. He was just sitting in the sunlight, empty headed, and here, as if empty headedness was the one element that was necessary for his good luck to come, was the exact moment when it did.

  The line pulled tight as hard and fast as if the whole world were on the other end. He jerked back on the pole. He cranked on the reel, and the pole bowed. He reeled, and the drag spun, letting the fish run; he tightened down the drag and pulled harder. Thirty yards off, the salmon broke the surface of the water and flashed in the sunlight. Miles breathed hard, his knuckles white from the pressure he was putting on the pole.

  The line twitched and jerked, and Miles leaned back. The salmon dove under the skiff and for a moment Miles thought it was off, but he kept reeling, putting more and more strength into his grip until he saw a flash of silver close to the rail. He reached over carefully with one hand for his net. He held his pole up high and gently pulled his net toward the head of the tired fish from behind.

  There was a flash, and a tug, and all of the shaking, silver energy of the ocean teetered on the lip of the net. With one arm, he tried lifting the big fish. He struggled. He lifted again, but his line went slack and the hook flipped out of the lower jaw; Miles dropped his pole and lunged with the net.

  But the fish was gone, the pole was in the water, and all of the earth’s slippery energy dissipated into the dark.

  “Fuck it!” Miles said, and threw the pole out of the boat. “Goddamn son of a bitching motherfucker,” he swore. He slapped his hands against his thighs. He looked at the engine and slapped the housing. “And you shut up!” he threatened.

  But then, of course, when he pulled on the starter cord hoping to recover the pole floating thirty feet from the boat, the engine would not start.

  “I’m sorry,” Miles said. His voice had the faint quaver of a man who was either going to find religion or give up fishing.

  “I’m sorry,” he repeated and sat there waiting for forgiveness.

  THE OPENING DAY of Mouse Miller’s Love Nest took on the atmosphere of a solstice festival in Cold Storage. Flags flew from porches all around town, and from the flagpole in front of the bar flew both an American and an Alaskan flag. Clive had given six tours to groups of citizens, including one group of kids from the school.

  Into this atmosphere, Trooper Brown arrived for a second visit. The plane landed just after nine in the morning, and Miles had come down to pick up some clinic supplies arriving from Juneau. The pilot was handing Clive his three boxes from the cargo hold when Ray Brown stormed down the ramp in his blue uniform.

  Clive looked up, smiled and put his hand out. “I’m Clive McCahon. I bet you want to talk with me.”

  Trooper Brown
skidded to a stop, and all the creaking leather on his utility belt became silent.

  “Yeah, well, I have a federal subpoena for you to appear and produce records for the US attorney in Tacoma, Washington.”

  Clive looked at the papers. He looked down at the ground around him. “What do you think, Trooper? Are we above mean high tide?”

  “What do I care?”

  “Just wondering,” Clive said as he fished into his own jacket pocket. He pulled out some old paperwork sealed in the kind of plastic bag that one might freeze salmon in. “It just means that as long as we are above mean high tide we are on Township land, which is good for you on one hand but bad for you on another.”

  “Cut the crap, McCahon. The US attorney in Tacoma wants you down there pronto, and I don’t have to waste any more time with you.”

  “Now that’s true, Trooper. But have you ever met Willa Perlmutter in Anchorage, Alaska? She’s a lovely woman. Are you single, Trooper? Willa Perlmutter is single, I believe. At least she was when I went into the joint. Lovely woman, the mind of Voltaire and the body of a Brazilian swimsuit model.”

  “I’m married, wise guy.”

  “Too bad. A runner. Very spirited. Hardly rests in the pursuit of the interests of her clients. Willa Perlmutter of Anchorage, Alaska, is my attorney.”

  “Listen, I don’t really care.”

  “I realize this. But for one thing, you have no fucking authority to be serving a federal subpoena on township land, flat foot. And for another, if you can read, which I doubt, the US attorney has been notified by the lovely Willa Perlmutter, as noted and acknowledged by the US attorney himself, that she herself—the lovely W. Perlmutter—would be the point of service for all legal notices and subpoenas for said Clive McCahon in perpetuity or, as far as your fat ass is concerned, until hell freezes over.”

  “Bullshit, McCahon, this is a Washington case.” Trooper Brown started frowning now so that great deep furrows of fat curled above his nose.