Becoming Frozen Page 4

  Tuesday at noon was our cutthroat deadline, and the newsroom staff reserved Tuesday afternoons for a complaint session over margaritas at Don Jose’s, the local Mexican restaurant. Sean, who was usually polite and reserved at the office, let his rants flow free after a few ounces of tequila. At the center of his tirade was something we all agreed on — Jane was working us all to the point of indentured servitude for pauper wages. Her unrealistic demands only were achievable because we all feared her temper when we failed to meet expectations.

  Still, we didn’t exactly have a say in the matter as long as we wanted to remain in Homer and work as journalists, which all of us did. I especially enjoyed interviewing painters and nibbling on exotic appetizers at art galleries. Long hours for low pay seemed to be the price I paid for the privilege of living in this beautiful place. There were many reasons why it was worth it, and I often voiced this opinion to my disgruntled co-workers over baskets of chips and salsa. Carey laughed and said my youthful idealism would eventually be crushed by cold reality.

  “That, and you have yet to make it through an Alaskan winter,” she added. “Just wait.”

  I wanted to point out to Carey that she wasn’t much older than me — early thirties, when I was twenty-six. But she did have a young son, a mortgage on her Trail Court home, a husband who fought wildfires in the summer, and more than a decade of Alaska residency behind her. She grew up in a small fishing village in Nova Scotia, and came to Alaska when she was still a teenager. Carey was full of entertaining stories about waiting tables at crowded restaurants in Anchorage and chasing moose out of her garden with a shovel. She had earned her cynicism, although she appeared to truly love her adopted home and remained an advocate for all things Alaska. She encouraged me to purchase a pair of cross country skis and take the time to explore the trails around town.

  “Otherwise,” she said, “the long, dark winters will drive you nuts.”

  Margarita Tuesdays usually wrapped up early enough for me to squeeze in a ride out the Homer Spit before making the slow climb up West Hill. The road switchbacked steeply up a bluff, with open views to the south. When I climbed high enough, the roiling whitecaps of Kachemak Bay flattened out and the water took on the appearance of silver glass — a mirror that seemed to reflect the universe just beyond a thin film of atmosphere.

  Across the hillside, autumn was emerging. Birch trees erupted into a blaze of gold, with bark as white and delicate as paper. The last cottony puffs had blown away from fireweed stalks, which had become withered and brown. Another stocky plant, cow parsnip, had faded from vibrant green to a sinewy beige that looked as though it might disintegrate if I touched it. The spruce were more timeless, with twisted branches that held strong through all of the wind and snow that punctuated their long, hard lifetimes. A few of the suburban moose were always nearby to greet me along the ride home, which was six miles long with twelve hundred feet of elevation gain. The commute from the office usually took about forty-five minutes, and an hour-forty-five if I tacked on a jaunt out Homer Spit Road.

  “I thought I was going to lose all this fitness when we moved here, but this bike commuting is a tough workout,” I announced to Geoff after I wheeled my mountain bike through the door.

  “No kidding,” Geoff said. “I rode into town yesterday to pick up groceries. Made the mistake of buying a gallon of milk. I thought my back was going to give out on that hill.”

  After two weeks in Homer, Geoff had developed a steady routine of managing his home business during weekdays — surfing eBay, placing orders, packaging his wares, and responding to customers. Twice a week, he drove into town to process packages at the post office and shop for groceries and supplies. He mostly dealt in bicycle racks and bicycles, buying the whole product and breaking it down into pieces so he could sell the parts individually. Even with Alaska’s higher shipping charges, he was still able to bring in enough profit to cover half our expenses, if only just. The oyster boat job with our next-door neighbor never panned out. Mike never picked Geoff up for work as he’d promised, and conveniently ducked into his house the couple of times we had seen him since. For all of the friendliness he displayed the first day we met, Mike was equally reclusive every day thereafter. We didn’t know whether Mike was avoiding us because he couldn’t keep his promise to Geoff, or just strange. Either way, Geoff wasn’t too miffed about it. We figured insincere job offers were just another quirky custom in Alaska.

  Because Geoff had free time at home and apparently an unlimited supply of scrap wood, our handmade junkyard furniture stash grew at an impressive rate. He built towel racks for the bathroom, a large bookshelf and three small ones, a side table, a desk for his computer, and a full-sized kitchen table, with each board sanded and polished to a bright sheen. Diamond Ridge had no garbage pick-up service, so Geoff made regular trips to the dump to drop off trash and recyclables, and then scavenge reusables. He often returned with lumber or wooden crates, and what he couldn’t use as building material, he chopped up and stacked in the backyard for future camp firewood. He found an unmarred set of plastic deck chairs, so they took up position on our back porch. We had to prop the chairs against the railing to keep the wind from blowing them away. I’d occasionally spend Sunday mornings lounging on the porch, drinking coffee until my fingers were numb from cold.

  We also were becoming regulars at the Salvation Army thrift store, where I made a handful of contributions to our nesting routine. My treasures included a rotary dial phone that was at least forty years old, an espresso machine, and a juicer. The espresso machine was one of my winter survival tactics, and Geoff vowed to make economical use of the juicer even though strawberries were shriveled and oranges cost upwards of four dollars a pound in Homer. I also scored a television stand for two dollars. It had one of those fake wood veneers from the 1970s, so I peeled off the plastic paneling, sanded the surface, and refinished it with a can of rust orange paint that I found in the shed. It was the same color as the walls, so it blended perfectly into the decor. Because we had a television stand, I figured we might as well get a television, which I found for five dollars at the thrift store.

  We purchased a relatively nice couch, with only slightly pilled, cream upholstery and an oak frame, at a local garage sale. The hardware store provided a beige carpet for the corner of the cabin we designated as the living room. But we struggled to find a bed. None of the local garage sales had mattresses, and any that were listed in the classifieds were snatched up before we even had a chance to call. For weeks, we slept on inflatable camping pads covered with sheets and a down comforter — until my cat clawed a number of holes into my air mattress. After that, my side of the bed was a pile of blankets.

  Finally, we saw a listing for a queen-sized mattress and box springs in Ninilchik, a Native village thirty-seven miles north of Homer. We were so desperate for a bed that we made the hourlong drive, even after the homeowner told us he wouldn’t make any promises about holding the bed. “I already had six calls, ya better hurry,” he grunted into the phone.

  In Ninilchik, a surly man with long, stringy hair and a white tank top led us into his cavern of a home, which was clogged from floor to ceiling with an unbelievable amount of clutter. The bed itself was covered in sheets and buried beneath a stack of boxes, books and newspapers that towered over our heads. The owner didn’t even bother to remove the trash after we said on the phone we were on our way. There was one uncovered corner, and I peeled back the sheet covering the bed with the same trepidation one might feel when pulling a cloak off a dead body. The mattress itself was an older model, but the fabric was clean and looked brand new. This bed had possibly never been slept in before, as the dust on the boxes indicated a long career as a storage platform. The house reeked of cigarette smoke, but our need for a real bed was urgent, and we had driven nearly an hour just to look at it. Geoff suggested the trip back to Homer on top of my car might air it out at least a little. We strapped the mattress and box
springs on the Prism’s roof rack with nylon cords.

  When we arrived at home, the initial shock of that unrighteously messy house had faded, and we caught our first full whiff of the hoarder’s bed. It smelled as though someone had thrown it on top of the smoke stack of a slaughter house and left it there for years. We sprayed two bottles of air freshener into the fabric and left it on the front porch to air out for nearly a week. There was little improvement. We attempted to sleep in it one night, and the experience was horrifying. During the few hours I actually did sleep, the smell of scorched pig carcasses crept into my dreams. The next morning, I listed the mattress as a free item in the Tribune classifieds, warning that it had come from the house of a smoker. Someone else took it off our hands that same day. A week later, Geoff discovered another bed set in the classifieds. It cost a hundred and fifty dollars that we were more than happy to spend. Years later, the distinct aroma of the Ninilchik bed still penetrated my memory, haunting me in moments of sickness and pain.

  Geoff cooked nearly every night. Because he enjoyed cooking, he often served up elaborate spreads of salad, bread, and homemade chili, or Thai curry and rice, or on a really good day, Indian lentils, saag paneer with homemade cheese, naan and pakoras. Indian food was Geoff’s specialty, and I believed it tasted as delicious as anything I had ever been served at a restaurant. I had spent the past year in Idaho locked into a structured weight loss plan, working out at the gym five days a week and limiting my calories in an effort to lose the thirty pounds I had packed on after Geoff and I returned from our cross-country bike trip. But in Homer, where the September air already held a stiff chill, and riding a mountain bike uphill every day was truly exhausting, I felt justified in devouring a half dozen of Geoff’s fried vegetable dumplings. Each bite evoked bliss — another savory reminder of the partnership Geoff and I were building.

  I was in awe of the way our lives moved so flawlessly through the transitions, as though the path had been set for us all along. Sure, there were a few bumps — my stressful job, the approaching winter and the unknowns that came with it, Geoff’s lack of full-time work, and the fact that our combined incomes still barely covered our expenses. As night settled in, and I once again found myself lingering over a long e-mail to the family and friends I left behind, I still questioned whether moving to Alaska was the right decision. But in the mornings, when the sun rose over the distant mountains and cast warm light across our spacious back yard, I knew I was home.

  ______

  Into Winter

  October 9, 2005

  I’m just thawing my face after a brisk (to say the least) 25-mile bike ride. Every time I go riding, I think “this is the last one of the season.” On Tuesday I skidded out on a patch of black ice and hit the pavement. Today I rode down the ridge, into town and out to the end of the spit through a fierce west wind. I was getting sprayed by surf from the other side of the road. When I got home my toes were numb and my outdoor thermometer read 12.8 degrees. I think this may be my last ride of the season.

  Everyone in town says it’s unseasonably cold. The pictures I posted today are from our trip to Crescent Lake last weekend. Driving there was downright brutal. We stopped at a gas station shortly after sunrise (about 9:30 a.m., as this was still one day before the clocks set back) to get some coffee. The thermometer on the door registered vaguely in the single digits and every branch and blade of grass along the highway was coated in thick frost. I was anticipating a painful death by frostbite, but once we got out of the car and hoisted our backpacks, the whitewashed landscape seemed beautiful and benign.

  We hiked in about seven miles to a little cabin on the lake. We spent the first couple of hours there gathering wood in an area picked pretty clean. There was a lot of hauling and cutting with a small saw, but at least the effort kept us warm for a while. We stoked our small stove and set out in a rowboat on the lake – still not frozen over, but just barely. In the space of 40 minutes we caught a couple of big grayling. But because we couldn’t bear the thought of cleaning fish in ice water, we threw them back and had burritos for dinner.

  When we returned the next day there was a fresh half-inch of snow that had been wiped nearly clean from Geoff’s car. On closer inspection we saw distinct paw prints in the mud on the side of the car, and the roof was dented in. Footprints in the parking lot indicated that a fairly large black bear had plopped itself right on top of Geoff’s little Civic while we were gone. It’s a wonder nothing caved in. I remember that this kind of bear behavior is pretty common at the Mount Whitney trailhead in California. There, the black bears will smash in your rear windshield if they see so much as a plastic bag in the back seat. Then, when you get back from your hike, you have no food, a broken window, and a $100 fine from the forest service for tempting the bears. I think, in Alaska, the bears are still the ones who get in trouble.

  *****

  The first snow came on October 9, not even a full month after we moved to Homer. The previous day, the Tribune’s graphic design intern Emily invited Geoff and me to join her on a sea kayaking outing in Kachemak Bay. She arranged to meet at the harbor at nine, but the sky was still black when our alarm clock woke us up at 7:45. I leaned against the loft railing and scanned the landscape windows for hints of sunrise — a morning routine I cultivated as daylight diminished in significant increments. The upper windows were so fogged that I couldn’t see anything, so I descended the cold stairs barefoot and went to the back porch. Amid the shock of cold air and delay in focusing sleepy eyes, I stepped directly into a snow drift.

  I recoiled and rubbed my face. A thick layer of fluff carpeted the back yard, adding startling contrast to the dark morning. The graying landscape of autumn transitioned overnight into winter.

  “Snow!” I called out to Geoff. “It snowed last night!”

  “Awesome,” Geoff said. He ran downstairs to join me at the door. “Wow, there must be at least five inches. We don’t even have a shovel yet.”

  “Bummer,” I said. “Guess this means we’re not going sea kayaking today.”

  “Why not? Did Emily call?”

  “No, but I mean, it snowed,” I said. “Snow and sea kayaking don’t usually go together.”

  “It’s no big deal,” Geoff said. “We already knew it was going to be cold. It probably only rained in town. I think we should still go.”

  “But what will we wear?” I asked. “Cold rain and sitting in a boat … I don’t know.”

  “We’re not going swimming,” Geoff said. “Wear a coat and gloves. Dress like you would if you were going for a bike ride.”

  “I hope we don’t go swimming,” I muttered under my breath. Accidentally rolling a kayak into the frigid waters of Kachemak Bay seemed to be one sure way to die quickly. I had a phobia of water — cultivated over several years of whitewater rafting mishaps and overly ambitious canoe trips with Geoff — that I was loathe to admit. Sea kayaking was supposed to be fun. Sea kayaking was an Alaska tradition. Real Alaskans were hardcore enough to go sea kayaking in the winter. I pulled the box labeled “winter clothes” out of the closet and began sifting through my gear.

  I settled on my snowboarding uniform — snow pants, a fleece pullover, a Burton shell, ski mittens, a fleece hat, hiking boots and a thick pair of cotton socks. Neither the snow pants nor the shell were waterproof, but they were the best I had. Geoff had a pair of neoprene gloves left over from his rafting days, but otherwise his gear wasn’t much better than mine.

  As we eased Geoff’s Civic down the road into town, gentle snow intensified to sleet, and then pounding rain. Emily met us at the dock wearing a lot more neoprene, and a professional-looking kayaking jacket with tight cuffs and an attached skirt to drape over the kayak’s opening. We helped her unload the boat from the roof of her Subaru Outback. It was a tandem sea kayak with three seats and a wide wooden base. “I figured the tandem was better than individual boats,” Emily said. “These are almost
impossible to tip.”

  Wind-driven rain battered my hands as I removed my mittens to put on a life jacket. Geoff was right that it wasn’t snowing at sea level, but cold rain was even worse. We dropped the boat into the harbor, which was roiling with gray seawater. Bile gurgled in my gut. I scanned Emily’s face for any hint of concern, but she seemed supremely unworried about the weather. Emily grew up in Anchor Point — a community just outside of Homer — and had lived her entire life in this region. Emily was a “real Alaskan,” so I figured she knew what she was doing.

  Emily was also only eighteen years old, with a round pixie face and brown hair that she occasionally wore in a Tinker Bell bun. Her voice was gruff and she often spoke in terse sentences through a half-smile. Emily was the only employee at the Homer Tribune who seemed untroubled by the pressure. She invited us to a few social gatherings and Geoff immediately took a liking to her because she was easy-going and adventurous. In Salt Lake City, Geoff lived in a communal setting with anywhere from six to nine other people, and was constantly surrounded by his friends. After he left to spend the summer in Alaska, he traveled with friends and stayed in friends’ homes. Then we moved to Homer, and abruptly it was just Geoff and me, alone most of the time. I understood his desire to branch out and meet new people, even if it meant the occasional Sunday morning outing into terrifyingly cold waters.