The Ego Makers

by Donald Everett Axinn

  “Well, Mum? I said with a mock British accent, “glad it’s not the same old fishcakes again,” I pulled her to me. “Now here. Mum. I got you some nice, fat bear meat. Had to hand-wrestle the sonofabitch for three hours.”

  “Mum, is it? Eat this here grub, because it’s all I could steal. Spuds in the oven and veggies from Susan.” We kissed. “Eat heartily, old boy. I have big plans for you later.”

  I resisted the frequent temptation to call the office, though I couldn’t help wondering whether Cal, Ken, and Ari were making the right moves. They probably needed my input. I had hoped to escape all that, but never imagined I would succeed so well. Thanks to Julie. I was smitten, like some schoolboy. Even if I was talking to someone else, I would find myself trying to overhear what she was saying.

  We discussed moving on, talked about our choices, and realized we’d never get as far as Minchumina. The week was rapidly winding down.

  “Okay,” Julie said, “stop overnight in Juneau, then down to Ketchikan. Things I want to show you. I can fly to Minneapolis from there. Len will pick me up.”

  "I'll drop you off. Unless I can convince you to come back to New York with me.”

  “New York? Not for me, Henry. Sounds exciting, but it’s not fair being away any longer.”

  “C’mon, Julie. Ifs not as if you’re going to get fired,’ I said, annoyed. She stared at me, without comment.

  We packed, I paid our bill, and walked over to Summit Air to settle up for the sightseeing flights and say good-bye. Jerry was about to make a flight to Skagway, pick up hunters in Juneau, then drop them off at Ben-My-Chree, a village near Mount Swizer. He told us they were a group of attorneys and doctors, some from Atlanta, the others from Chicago. “They always talk trophies,’ he said. “Here more to compete than to learn.”

  “Look, Henry,” he counseled, pulling me over to the map on his wall. “In that jet of yours, you could bomb over to Juneau in probably thirty minutes, but I promise you terrific sights if you fly this other way. Now, pay attention. I don’t care how many instrument approaches you’ve shot. More experienced pilots have bought it in Juneau than most anywhere. It’s all off NDBs. You make damn sure you don’t mix them up — Elephant, Coughlan, and the last one at Mendenhall. You got that? That plane of yours is too pretty to crunch up. And I have too much to do here to come and bail you out.

  “Julie,” he said, turning to her, “you keep swatting him to make sure he stays awake. Altitude! You’d better have enough.” Jerry put his hand on my shoulder. Sue came over and kissed us both.

  We climbed into Jerry’s pickup truck, with instructions to leave it at the airstrip. After a thorough pre-flight and the other mandatory inspections, we took off, dipped low over the seaplane base, wiggling our wings in farewell.

  Jerry was right. I flew down the channel at about 200 feet, next to the beautiful glacier we had seen from lan’s boat, its melting waters cascading over boulders to pour into the lake. Then up the vast, unfolding Llewllyn Glacier, its gigantic tongue of fissured ice, the peacock blue and turquoise in the paralleled gashes so bright it was distracting. Wide brown bands, speckled with dirt and rocks, continued down the frozen flow as far as we could see. Jerry had told us that glaciers pick up debris as they move on their inexorable journey down from the heights where they are formed.

  We turned past Lake No-Lake, a small body of water. In August, when the temperature rises to a particular number, the lake drops as much as 800 feet in just a few days. Enormous amounts of water bottom into the Taku River, leaving towers of ice several stories high on the lake’s bottom. We followed it and dropped down quickly to that roaring river, browned with mud and silt. The Taku is one of the largest salmon rivers anywhere. Chinook, Cohos, Sockeye, and Pinks all take their turns swimming back upstream to spawn in small tributaries. It’s almost incomprehensible how a salmon leaves that precise location, travels thousands of miles in the Pacific or Atlantic for years, and then miraculously returns to the exact spot where it was born. Provided, of course, that there are no dams in its way, no men or bears to terminate its run.

  We passed into Alaska from Canada. Fortunately the weather had improved over the forecast, the ceiling nice and high, around four to five thousand feet. I called the tower, observed several seaplanes flying in the same direction I was. Juneau has a long, single runway for landplanes and a water runway adjacent to it for seaplanes. Strange for flatlanders like me, but a common arrangement in Alaska.

  I followed an Alaska Airlines 737 over the hill that rises sharply a short distance from the end of the runway. An amazing setup for an airport; there wasn’t any other area flat enough. Jerry hadn’t mentioned it, but it was clearly marked on my instrument approach plate.

  We parked, grabbed a cab, and headed into town. Julie had been touting the Alaskan Hotel, a former brothel from the early days, replete with small rooms for men and their favorite prostitutes. The current owners, who were from New York, had refurbished it, and each room had a sink and toilet. The nineteenth-century lobby was restored, social rooms, bar, and halls looking exactly as they had during the Gold Rush days.

  We checked in, walked on Franklin Street through town, past the dock where seaplanes were resting alongside. At this time of year there weren’t many people. Later, cruise boats would unload tourists who would crowd the shops. I had seen a documentary once, not a very flattering one —- squat, short-haired women in slacks, potbellied men in shorts, cameras slung around their necks, throwing away money on mementos of their trip to the rugged north. Early the following morning, after a night during which we had heard every groan and grunt, every squeak of the bedsprings from the other rooms, I said, “Let’s get the hell out of here. Unless you don’t want to get any sleep.” Julie readily agreed.

  “Sorry, Henry. I remember it as better. Maybe because I was young and impressionable.”

  The previous afternoon we had passed the Barinhof, a first-class hotel. After a sumptuous breakfast, we checked in. We signed up for a rafting trip, plummeted down the Mendenhall River over a short but exciting series of rapids. Drinks at the bar, a cozy dinner, and luxuriant sleep. But in the middle of the night I woke up in a sweat. Only three more days.

  We packed after a full breakfast in our room. “What about a pop over to Sitka on our way down?” I asked Julie. “See all that Russian architecture. Wasn’t Sitka Alaska’s first capital?”

  “The Kiksadi, a branch of the Tlingits, occupied the area first. My people, my mother’s, around Ketchikan are Haida and Tlingit. Gets a little complicated. You interested?” she asked.

  “I really am. Sometime I’ll tell you all about my screwy Italian-Jewish amalgamation.”

  “You mean you’re not purebred either?”

  “An affiliation of disparate tribes,” I said. ‘What about your mother’s?”

  She ran her hand through her long black hair. “It would be easier to take you into the museum in Ketchikan. After that well go to Saxman, the Tlingit village. Quite an array of totem poles, each with its own tale.” She kissed the tip of my nose.

  We left Juneau, heading south down Stephens Passage. The tree line was at about 3,000 feet. Fishing boats dotted the channel like toys in a bathtub. We turned west at Frederick Sound, and near Point Gardiner I spotted what I had hoped to see: a whale. “Look at that!” A huge slap of a tail on the water, its splash impressive even at our altitude. “He dove!”

  “Circle the spot. He’ll surface.” And surface he did, for another impressive and graphic display. “He could be playing,” she said.

  The Sitka weather was going down, so we turned south. We crossed Kuiu Island, Sumner Strait, Point Baker, and Prince of Wales Island, the third largest island in the United States, after Hawaii and Kodiak. Large swatches were cut into the deep green forests on the hills, not quite clear-cutting, but enough to become concerned about excessive timbering. Farther down, in Clarence Strait, near Thorne Bay and Kasaan, tugboats were towing endless rafts of logs.

  Eventuall
y, we caught sight of Ketchikan. At Julie’s suggestion, we did a fly-by, with permission from the tower at the airport. What a beehive! Everything comes and goes through the Tongass Narrows: cargo barges, floatplanes, ferries, fishing and logging ships. Houses hung off steep slopes, interspersed with splotches of evergreens. The airport, I quickly learned, consisted of a single runway that was higher than the terminal, requiring a taxiway up the hill from the terminal below. We landed, and I asked the FBO to top off the gas tanks.

  After we passed through the terminal to get transportation into town, I was struck by the unusual set-up. “What’s this, Julie? You have to take a ferry to get over to Ketchikan from the airport? Is that the way they make money around here? Get you by the ferry?”

  “No, by the souvenirs. And in the old days, our sporting women. Creek Street. Really quaint.

  “We’ll stay at Cape Fox Lodge,” she continued. “A short tram goes up to it. You overlook the harbor, and the food’s excellent.”

  Two more nights and days, I thought. I felt a rock in my stomach,

  “What’s the big sigh for, Henry?” Julie asked.

  “Not looking forward to Sunday.” I squeezed her hand. No response.

  I registered us as “Mr. and Mrs. Martin” and made a point of saying “my wife and I” to the clerk at the desk. We had a quick bite, then checked out the Five Star Cafe bookstore. At the museum, Julie explained how the southern Alaskan Indians differed in custom and development from Alaskan Indians from other areas in the state. Some thrived on salmon and goods they made, others did less well.

  At dinner, over a second order of succulent oysters, Julie said, “I want to say something to you, Henry. Despite myself, I’m beginning to see us as a possibility.” She paused. “But deep down, I believe that marriage is just plain wrong. Or any kind of permanent commitment. At least for certain people. It can destroy a good relationship.

  “Tell me I’m wrong, Henry,” she went on. “Tell me how you and I would make it, for God’s sake. We’re so different. Different values. Different goals. Different backgrounds. That’s the truth regardless how we might rationalize it.”

  “I think you may be confused,’ I said gently. “About freedom. Unless you’ve convinced yourself that freedom means not making a commitment. From making that flying business of yours a lot better.”

  “You mean bigger, don’t you?” she replied. “You easterners always think bigger is better.” I flagged the waitress down and ordered another ale. “What else are you thinking?” Julie asked. “1 mean, aside from the business.”

  “How about a contract, renewable every five years?”

  “How about annually?” she said.

  She was right. We were so different, I thought. I knew that Julie didn’t care about money and power. New York would be the last place she’d want to live. And I knew that when I returned to New York I would be fighting for my life. So I wasn’t quite sure how to answer her.

  “Well?” she asked. “My go-getter, my problem-solving Henry Sabatini Martin is stumped?”

  “Not stumped. Pondering.”

  She sighed. “Henry, we’re shadow-boxing. You lunge — I back off. I lunge — you back off That’s not good.”

  “Okay, I do have something on my mind.” She was looking directly into my eyes. “This is a little sensitive, but I have to mention it.”

  “Now’s the time.”

  “Julie, you described some of your close calls up there in your flying machine. Could it be your reactions were too slow? You know what I mean. Your drinking. Every pilot is taught in ground school that liquor does not make you quicker. Anything but.”

  “Martin, I can cut it out right now if I wanted. I may drink, but I fly sober. Okay? Why don’t you get off my back?” She got to her feet. “I’ve lost my appetite.”

  “Sit down,” I said quietly. “Please!” Julie turned and walked out.

  I ordered a scotch, picked at my dinner, and walked back to the Cape Pox Lodge an hour later. The rain was coming down horizontally, but only a fraction of the average of 300 inches a year. I walked to the window and watched it. Julie was fast asleep. After several minutes, I undressed and slipped quietly into bed.

  When we awoke, neither of us brought up our exchange at dinner. Better that way, I decided. It was our next-to-last day.

  Julie took me to the Tlingit village, just south of Ketchikan.

  “Big time totem poles, Henry. Originals collected from abandoned villages and cemeteries on Tongass, Cat, and Pennock islands. And from Cape Fox. Plus reproductions made from cedar logs in that building over there,’

  The poles stood like sentinels, their dignity and bearing commanding reverence. Each was expressive in its striking detail. And each carried its precise message. I didn’t have the faintest idea what they symbolized.

  We sat on a bench in the center of a dozen of the denizens, each thirty to forty feet high. “Displays of spirit power and wealth were critical to my people,” she began. “I won’t take you though all the history, about tools, food and diet, and hunting methods. Their winter dwellings were very significant. Four to six families, twenty to thirty people. A single hearth and smoke hole plus low-rising platforms used for living quarters. You get pretty friendly with your cousins.

  “Only the Tlingit and Haidas carved totem poles. Now get this — totems were not images of deities, as those self-centered missionaries wanted to believe. They generally memorialized a man’s personal history and also signified his wealth. The Raven was central to Tlingit and Haida beliefs. The raven was supernatural, a trickster in their myths and legends.

  “You see other animals and bears. Also the Thunderbird. The Tlingits were divided into thirteen units, not ‘tribes,’ because there was no political unity. Their shamans were powerful communicators with the spirits. They could foretell future events and had healing powers. I’m going to be one in my next life.

  “That’s the essentials,” she said. “I could go on for hours, but class is over for today. Now can we get smashed in our room, make love, and eat if we get hungry?”

  “Roppel, you continue to amaze me. I suddenly realized how little I know about either of my parents’ cultural histories.” I stopped abruptly.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked. “So you’ll learn about them.”

  “No, that’s not it. It just made me think, here I am forty-five and I don’t have any children.” I hesitated, then moved my face closer to hers. She gave me the hint of a smile but didn’t say anything.

  We followed her plan point by point. Several hours later we decided we were at last hungry. Over a candlelit corner table m the Cape Fox restaurant we ordered several appetizers instead of entrees, capping them with a bottle of champagne. I raised my glass, she matched me, and we touched.

  “A spectacular week, Henry. One I can’t expect to have ever again.”

  “Just a taste,” I said.

  She looked out through the large window. The rain had slowed to drizzle. She turned to me and leaned across the table.

  ‘While you were showering, Henry,” she said. “I was sorting out our week together. Analyzing. It’s what I’ve taught myself. First, you should know that I’d never try to change you. Maybe have some influence, that’s all.” She took a sip of her champagne. “But, if you were to ask me what it is about you that concerns me most, I’d have to say it’s your priorities. They’re all backward.”

  “Oh,” I said, “if that’s all….”

  “I’m not sure you understand how this relates to us,” she continued. “But it does. I don’t think you’ve ever learned, when you come right down to it, to put anyone ahead of yourself.”

  “If that’s what you think, nothing I say is going to convince you otherwise. But for whatever it’s worth, I remember doing a lot of things this week with you first in mind.”

  She took another sip, then laid her hand on mine. “Yes, you did. I’m sorry. I went too far.”

  “Maybe things went too far too fast,
” I said. “I don’t think so, but clearly you do. I’d like you to come to New York, but you’re not ready. Not to stay; just to see if your prejudices against me, against us easterners, stand up to the light of reality.”

  “Sounds like a good idea,” she replied. “But we need some time off. From each other.”

  “So you can forget me and pick up your other relationship with the ancient mariner?”

  “I didn’t think you were the jealous type. I misjudged you.”

  Just as I felt I had finally made an inch of progress, she finished her sentence.

  “He may be a mariner, Martin, but he ain’t ancient.”

  7

  OUR last day.

  “You’re not talking,” Julie said. We were level at 22,000 feet, winging down from Ketchikan high above a solid but variegated deck of gray clouds. The GPS indicated three and a half hours to Seattle. Refueling. Julie flew from the right seat. I had been quiet, but not because I needed to concentrate on the weather or navigation. We had passed over Prince Rupert, tracking an invisible path that followed the inland waterway toward Vancouver Island. The plane was doing fine. I wasn’t.

  “I feel like shit, if you must know.”

  “I do too,’ she said. “All this week, there was always more time, more days to look forward to, and now …” I glanced over and noticed a few tears creeping into her eyes. “I will miss you,” she said. “You know I will.” She ran her fingers gently over my lips. “Call me when you arrive back in New York, Henry. That you made it all right,’

  “I was hoping to stay over in Wausau.”

  “Can you? I’d love it.” She reached over and took my hand. I wanted her to put the plane on autopilot, but reason prevailed.

  Julie made a smooth landing on one of Seattle’s parallel runways. Planes continued to land and take off, scattering in every direction. The mammoth airliners seemed to be tolerant of our Lilliputian aircraft. I knew the pilots would be talking to each other about how gorgeous the plane looked, its sleek design, winglets, unique paint scheme.