Impasse

by Royce Scott Buckingham

  “Thing is, you can get out of here sooner than three weeks.”

  “Really? When do you think?”

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  “What?”

  Blake took a long swig. “When I found you, you couldn’t boil water without a microwave. But you can take care of yourself now. You don’t need me. You can walk the fifty miles to Fur Lake, as we call it. That’s an easy five-day hike for you. The shape you’re in these days, you’ll knock that out no problem. And you have the best damned clothing of any amateur woodsman I ever met. A floatplane checks the lake once a week for trappers coming out, starting about now. It’ll take you to Fairbanks in trade for a pelt or three.”

  “I can’t take your furs.”

  “Sure you can. You did your part. I’ll send what you need along with you. Although the pilot would probably take your credit card, too.” Blake knocked back another slug and shivered like he was starting to feel it. “But I got a question for you before you go.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Did it make you feel like a big man putting guys in jail?”

  “What?”

  “Did you enjoy it?”

  “No. I mean, I don’t know. It was my job.”

  “Driving a truck is a job. Doing people’s taxes is a job. Trying to put a man in prison is a battle. Man against fucking man.”

  “I didn’t look at it that way.”

  “Huh. Well, you got fired. So maybe you should have.”

  Stu took a long drink, choking it down. “They put themselves in prison. Made their own luck. It’s a parade of dirtbags. After a while I didn’t even remember a lot of their names. I was just a cog in the machine. A highly educated cog, I suppose. But it’s like processing widgets.”

  “Naw. A man’s not a widget. You challenge him like that, it’s personal.”

  “Not for me.”

  “Maybe not for you, but maybe it is for them.”

  “How would you know?”

  Blake shrugged. “Just how it seems to me.”

  “My turn.”

  “My turn what?”

  “For a question. You had a question. I’ve got a question.”

  Blake snorted. “What is this, truth or dare?”

  “No dare. This trip was my goddamned dare.” Stu laughed and drank.

  “Go on then. Out with it.”

  “You know I’ve got a wife, right?”

  “You’ve mentioned it. Every day.”

  “Were you ever married?”

  “You know what they say. You don’t lose your wife in Alaska, just your turn.”

  “That’s crude.”

  “And funny. And true.”

  “It doesn’t answer my question.”

  Blake suddenly found his bourbon interesting. He swished it around with his finger, drank, then swished again. “I had a wife. But not up here.”

  “You split up?”

  “Yeah. It was a totally fucked-up thing.”

  “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

  “She wanted to go back to school.…”

  The fire crackled between them, and Blake stared into it.

  “She was classified as a mature student, you know? Which means she was about the same age as her women’s studies professor. Only thing was, this prof was a guy. A guy! Teaching feminist stuff! What kind of guy does that? Anyway, she came home talking about all kinds of historical oppression of women, which is apparently still going on, mind you; we men just don’t see it. She started treating me like I been an asshole my whole life just because I’m a fella.”

  “And this killed the marriage?”

  “No. I was okay with that. I listened to her big new words. I told her it was great and I hoped she felt empowered and shit. I really wanted her to be educated. Who wouldn’t want a smart wife, right?”

  “So what happened?”

  “She got empowered, all right. Trouble was, I was still me. We had always fit so well together, but suddenly we didn’t match up anymore, it seemed. I went to one of those college tea-and-fucking-crumpets parties at the campus once, and I could tell she was embarrassed by me. She had me shake her guy-teaching-chick-stuff professor’s hand. She actually made me shake that little bastard’s hand. He asked me what I did, and when I told him I was doing my welder’s apprenticeship, he says, ‘Oh, so you work with your hands,’ like the trades were some punishment for people who couldn’t go to college. And when I complained about him after we got home, she takes his side. Said I was reading things into what he said. I should have seen it coming then.”

  “People grow apart. At times my wife and I have been—”

  “She grew apart all right. He filled her head with feminist shit. He asked her if she was being subjugated by her man. He made me out to be a Neanderthal, told her how she needed to be her own woman, get independent, think for herself, try new things. Then her legs grew right apart.”

  “Oh.” Stu kept his mouth in his cup, trying to think of something else to say, but nothing seemed right.

  Blake spat in the fire and waited for the sizzle to subside. “He was the same as any other caveman, you know. He just wanted to mount up. Had a different pitch, is all. She didn’t understand that. Still doesn’t. Guess she wasn’t as smart as she thought she was.”

  “So you confronted her?”

  “I confronted him. He’s the one who did it. I went to his goddamned office, just like she was doing. He offered to shake my hand again. Can you believe that? He wanted to talk it out. He talked a lot. A lot like you, actually. Only in circles. Always ducking the issue. I was, like, ‘Did you stick your dick in my wife or not?’”

  “That’s fairly direct.”

  “I know, right? But he keeps yapping about her evolving and making her own choices, like that’s going to postpone the inevitable.” Blake paused for a sip. “When I finally hit him, he went straight down. He was weak. Hundred and forty pounds soakin’ wet, I’d guess. Soft. Desk jockey. A real man wouldn’t have crumpled like that. My public defender said I was in worse trouble just because he was such a pussy.”

  “They call it an eggshell victim.”

  “Whatever. It would have been just a misdemeanor, but I guess I broke his nose.”

  “Making it a felony.”

  “Right. I don’t know why that’s a big deal. I’ve broke my nose. I think it looks better.”

  Blake drank. Stu sipped too, letting the story settle.

  “That can’t be the only reason you came to Alaska,” Stu said.

  “The prof’s college had a lot of pull in town. I would have just pled out, but the prosecutor told my public pretender ‘no deals.’”

  “It still can’t be more than a couple of months in the local jail with no weapon involved.”

  There was silence. The crackling of the fire took over the room.

  Stu looked up. They rarely made eye contact when they talked. As with dogs, it felt too much like a challenge. Or else kind of gay. But Stu looked now, and he saw that Blake’s eyes were damp. At first Stu thought it must be from his fiery drink or stray smoke. But then Blake’s voice cracked.

  “It got worse.”

  “Worse at home with your wife?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What happened?”

  “I hit her, too.”

  Stu sat back, stunned. “Oh.”

  “In front of our little girl.”

  “Ohhh.”

  “Mary was going on and on about what I had done to the fuckin’ woman studier, saying it just ‘validated’ everything professor pussy had said. Can you believe that? After she started it all, she was blaming me! Then she said I wasn’t as good a father as he would be, either.” Blake took a breath. “And I just got so mad that I went ahead and proved her right.”

  Stu didn’t comment. He’d prosecuted men like Blake before. Dozens. They beat their wives. They went to jail. Some got out and did it again and went to jail again. Others just faded away. Some went to Alask
a, apparently.

  “You think I’m a piece of shit,” Blake mumbled.

  “No,” Stu lied. He could think of nothing else to say.

  “It’s okay. Everyone does, even me. It happened while I was out on bail for the busted nose thing.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Six years.”

  “You could go back now, clean this up.”

  “I can’t undo it. I was everything bad the guy said about me come true.”

  “People forgive.”

  “Prosecutors don’t, do they? The warrants for my arrest are still sitting there in the DA’s computer, along with a count of bail jumping now. I’m nothing to them but another dirtbag in the parade, right?”

  Stu winced. “They listen to reason and the law. Your charges are pretty stale. They’ll make a deal now if you return voluntarily and haven’t been in any trouble in the ensuing six years.”

  “I been clean. I been a ghost.”

  “I could help you.”

  Blake looked up at him for the first time in the conversation, for the first time Stu could remember. “You told me you don’t work with criminals. I think your words were: ‘Thank God, I don’t have to represent those pukes.’”

  “I’ve shared a room with you all winter. You’re not a puke. You obviously have a bit of an anger problem, but we could get some counseling or therapy as part of your sentence to offset jail time.”

  “I don’t have a mental problem.”

  “Acting out physically is deviant behavior for dealing with relationship frustrations. It’s a symptom of several diagnoses in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.”

  “I think it’s more normal to punch someone.”

  “Oh yeah? Well, I don’t punch people.”

  “You ever had your woman cheat on you?”

  “My wife? No.”

  “Don’t need to be your wife to know how it feels. From the way you limited your answer to your wife, it sounds like you had a girlfriend do it to you.”

  Stu frowned. “Maybe, but we were in our twenties. People don’t own each other at that age. It was just dating. She was free to do what she wanted.” He looked at his cup. He could see the bottom. It was probably a good time to stop drinking and shut up, he thought. Instead he held it out for more.

  Blake poured. “I’ll bet when you were a twentysomething yuppie type, you didn’t think she was free to do who she wanted.”

  “Thanks for your middle-aged blue-collar perspective.”

  “You don’t have to tell me.”

  “No. You told me. I’ll tell you.” Stu drank. The relatively cheap whiskey was going down more smoothly now. “Okay, it was my wife.”

  “Oh.”

  “But it was before Katherine and I were married. She had this old boyfriend from back in college. He was the guy who got her into photography.”

  “Art guy. Shit.”

  “She and I had been dating for about a year, but still living at separate apartments. One weekend she got busy, and I didn’t see her for a couple of days. Then this cardboard box shows up on my porch. I had no idea what it was. So I open it up, and right on top is a photo of Katherine in college. She’s wearing a UMass sweatshirt, posing in some sort of studio. There’s a stack of these pictures, sort of in chronological order. The next shot is her with her sweatshirt off, bra and jeans. Then no bra and jeans. Then less.”

  “Birthday suit?”

  “Yeah, toward the bottom. They were mostly classy and mostly from college. Mostly. But the last one…”

  “Your girl doing him a favor,” Blake guessed.

  “A what?”

  Blake made a crude motion with his hand and mouth.

  Stu winced. It would have been rude and offensive if he hadn’t been exactly right.

  Blake continued. “From that previous weekend, those days you didn’t see her.”

  “Yeah.”

  “What did she have to say about her little portfolio?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You make her burn ’em in front of you?”

  “No. I didn’t even show them to her.”

  “What the hell did you do?”

  “I packed them up and put them on her porch so she’d think he left them for her. She doesn’t know I ever saw them.”

  “Jesus! You’re kidding.”

  “Nope.”

  “What did she say about the guy?”

  “She said he was ‘passing through town’ and looked her up. She said they met for lunch, but he got jealous when she told him that she was seeing me.”

  “I take it she told him that after the cocksicle photo op.”

  Stu cringed again. “I guess so.”

  “And he left you a present to show you who the real man was.”

  “Apparently.”

  “Did you go find this asshead?”

  “No. He didn’t owe me anything. She was the one who impliedly promised herself to me, then made this choice.”

  “So you told her she was a cheatin’ bitch and she begged you to take her back?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “How not?”

  “We didn’t get into it.”

  “Did she admit she favored him?”

  “I didn’t ask.”

  “But you knew.”

  “So why ask?”

  “To let her know she can’t walk all over you.”

  “She doesn’t walk all over me. The problem took care of itself, drove itself right out of town. Why perpetuate the conflict?”

  “Are you kidding? You are such a pussy!”

  “I’m not a pussy. I’ve faced down murderers and rapists. You said so yourself.”

  “Another man does your girl, rubs your nose in it, and not only can’t you confront him about it, you can’t even face her.”

  “Well, then, what does the great relationship therapist in the stupid fur hat suggest I do?” Stu was mad. His anger and the bourbon allowed the words to tumble out before he could stop them. “Hit her?”

  Blake went silent, and for a moment Stu thought that the big man was going to take a swing at him. The bearded welder took a deep breath and flexed his large fingers in and out of fists to calm himself, something it looked like he’d been practicing for years. In the end he spoke in a measured voice. “You and I both handled our shit like shit. But I admitted I’d do mine over differently. And you should too.”

  “I’m pretty confident my handling of my shit was superior.”

  “Slightly better than terrible is still bad. At least I stood up for myself. Grow a pair, for Christ’s sake.”

  “I’ve got a successful marriage. My wife is devoted to me. Res ipsa loquitur.”

  Blake chuckled.

  “What’s funny?”

  “The lawyer stuff you spew. What the hell does that even mean?” His chuckles turned to machine-gun laughter, and he had trouble stopping it.

  “It means, ‘The thing speaks for itself.’”

  “What thing?”

  “I don’t know. The successful marriage thing nullifies the photo thing.”

  Blake was still laughing. He slapped Stu on the back and downed the last of his third cup of whiskey.

  “You have a messed-up view of the world, brother. There are insults in life that you can’t reason away. You can fight, you can forgive, but you can’t just absorb them. It’s a poison that lodges in your manhood and permanently shrinks your balls.”

  “Colorful. But life’s not about the size of your balls.”

  “Maybe not in the courtroom, counselor, but when two bucks go head-to-head in the field, yes, it is.”

  CHAPTER 31

  Stu woke early with a headache and a smile. He started a fire for them and took his trip to the latrine. Packing five days’ worth of supplies, a pile of marten pelts, and his few remaining belongings into the Great Beyond pack took less than half an hour, then he and Blake sat down for one last game of cribbage. Stu pegged past his host with a three-card
run and a “go” in the last hand to win, which brought them to even.

  “A-fucking-mazing,” Blake grumbled.

  They ate deer sausage and buckwheat pancakes, then Stu chopped his wood for the day and checked the water barrel. It was the first day that there wasn’t a layer of ice on top.

  “Guess it’s time,” he said.

  Blake stood in the cabin door, looking uncomfortable. “Guess so.”

  Stu retrieved his pack.

  Blake caught him by the shoulder. “Hey, all that stuff we said last night. Can we just forget that?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m sorry I called your wife a cheating bitch. I’m sure she’s very loyal now.”

  Stu nodded. “She is.”

  “And hey, take the hand ax. I’ve still got the full-size.” He handed Stu the homemade antler-handled hatchet. Then he pulled one more small fur from his own pack. “Take this, too, if you want.”

  “What is it?”

  “Deerskin.”

  “A bag?”

  “A hat.”

  “Oh, like yours.”

  “Well, yeah. It’s the only kind I know how to make.”

  “You made me a hat?” Stu took it and turned it over in his hands. He recognized the coarse fur. “This is from the deer I shot.”

  “Sorry. I made it before you called mine ‘stupid.’ If you don’t want it, no big deal. It’s not a Valentine’s gift or nothing’.”

  “I’m touched.”

  “Aww, shut up. Just take the damn hat or don’t. I don’t care one way or the other.”

  “Thank you.” Stu knew what he had to do. He slid the hat over his head and pulled it down around his ears. “Tell me one thing,” Stu said.

  “How you look?”

  “I know how I look. Tell me why you don’t trap wolves.”

  Blake put a pine needle toothpick in his mouth and slid it around with his tongue for a bit. “Most animals I trap know the game,” he said finally. “They run and hide and you try to catch them. But not wolves. They still think they’re an apex predator. Their pack has an alpha male that thinks he’s apex-apex. He shows his dominance by being tough, and he’s the only one who breeds with the female. He takes challenges head on. It’s a simple system, one I can understand and respect.

  “I used to trap them until I caught this big black alpha. A proud animal all rippled with muscle. I found scars from all his victories under that valuable fur when I skinned him. Defeat wasn’t the problem for this guy. He would have been ready for that. He would have faced it, looked it right in the eye, and accepted it, even if it meant his life. But he couldn’t stare down a hidden, spring-loaded alloy metal contraption that clamped onto his leg. After it grabbed him, he just limped around it, confused, until he died. When I found him, there was a big circle of red, like a bloody snow angel. The sad thing wasn’t that he lost; it was that he didn’t understand how to fight.”