“Mind Like a River” by Bridgette Geurzon Mills
By Judith Howe
June, 1984
Home: Ester, Alaska. A dilapidated turquoise blue trailer with an avocado green refrigerator, a matching greasy stove, grimy orange cupboards, no plumbing, no electric, and no outhouse.
Neighbors: Shorty Zucchini and Don W.
March, 1984
“Hey Judith,” says Fred, my husband of 12 years, calling from north of San Francisco, 3000 miles away from me, in New Hampshire, finishing the school year as a high school guidance counselor. He’s a carpenter, spending a few months helping a California friend build his house. And I detect suppressed excitement in his voice, which makes me nervous. It always makes me nervous. For while I grew up accustomed to the comfort and security of a plan, he has always thrived on spontaneity, devoured adventure. Which captivates me. And makes me crazy.
“I have a great idea for this summer,” he says. “I met a guy on the bus headed to Alaska. I could do carpentry and you could probably waitress.”
I don’t say no, though I barely say yes. My stomach tightens, I clench my teeth, take a deep breath. I always take a deep breath. And then, I say yes.
May, 1984
He finds a construction job in Fairbanks, interior Alaska, living for a month at a hostel. Then, while perusing notes thumbtacked to a bulletin board at a grocery store, he spots a grimy scrap of paper that says, in wobbly handwriting, Caretakers wanted in Ester in exchange for free rent. See Shorty Zucchini.
Ester, population around 600 in 1984, 5000 in the gold rush days, is 12 miles out of Fairbanks. Everyone knows everyone, and the tiny post office is never locked, so 24/7, you can grab your mail out of your box and take a free paperback off the bookshelf.
Fred pulls out the thumbtack and stuffs the note in his Levi’s back pocket.
June, 1984
“Hey Judith,” Fred calls from Ester, now 4500 miles away from me, in New Hampshire. “It’s not the most scenic setting we’ve ever lived in,” he says, “but it is free. It’s Shorty Zucchini’s salvage yard. He’s heading north soon to search for gold, and he needs someone to watch his place. It’s free, Judith,” he repeats, hoping I won’t notice the part about a salvage yard. “It’s free,” he says again, hoping I won’t ask too many questions.
I’m sitting on our New Hampshire bed, half asleep, four time zones apart, legs folded under me. T-shirt and undies. Messy long brown hair. I scowl. I roll my eyes. I’m often rolling my eyes with this man. I take a deep breath.
I shake my head no.
A big… fat… no.
Yet my mouth says, “Oookaaaay.” But what am I saying okay to? I don’t know. I never know.
Late June, 1984
I wear my cute guidance counselor dress on my 13-hour journey from Boston to Fairbanks. Small red and black checks with a black belt, a short skirt, short sleeves and scoop neck. Small silver hoop earrings and low-heeled leather sandals. My hair’s pulled back from my face with two clips. At Fairbanks International Airport, I’m greeted by a towering stuffed polar bear standing on its hind legs. And my husband, looking very Alaskan, as now, in addition to the faded Levis, worn work boots, and flannel shirt he was wearing two months ago when he left, he has a short beard and his scruffier brown hair is pulled back in a stubby ponytail. He blends in with the airport crowd better than I do. I should have worn jeans and carried a backpack.
Fred does not yet have a car, so an electrician from Seattle, older than us, still looking for work in his field, drives us to Ester in the airport taxi, accompanied by his overly-perfumed blonde wife who’s visiting for a week. It’s nearing 10 at night, 2 a.m. New Hampshire time, but the sun won’t set until 11:30 p.m. Kids are running around outside and riding bikes, like it’s afternoon playtime. I stare out the window as we leave flat Fairbanks, population about 25,000, with its paved orderly grid of streets, some historic houses and old miner’s cabins, newer, bigger homes and smaller, cozy bungalows. We eventually leave the pavement and turn off onto dirt roads. Now, I feel like I’m in Alaska.
And do I see majestic snow-capped mountains in the distance? No. Do I see magnificent whales leaping, splashing out of the ocean? No. Do I see tourists beaming for a photo, standing next to their man-size freshly caught halibut, hanging from a hook, the crew cleaning up smelly blood and guts on the deck behind them? No. I do not see any of these coastal postcard scenes, for I am now a 6-hour drive north of Anchorage. And all I see is flat, gravelly, dusty land with scrubby bushes and the emaciated black spruce trees that would never appear on a Christmas card. With the city behind us, I’m starting to see more recent subdivisions, large log homes with deer antlers over the door, rocking chairs on the porch, and then the farther out we get, closer to Ester, I also see mixed in the pot more scattered, tacky shacks and old trailers that look like they have a permanent yard sale. It’s a mishmash, and I’m starting to get edgy. I glance at Fred, but I don’t know what to say. He’s oblivious, looking straight ahead, unless he’s consciously ignoring the stab of my eyes that’s impaling the side of his head.
And then, he cheerfully says to the electrician, sounding like a proud husband about to carry his bride over the threshold, “Turn in here please.” The van turns. The van stops.
We’re home.
The electrician’s wife, in the front seat, looks over her shoulder at me and we exchange glances. I know she pities me. She gets it. Me, in my cute red and black checked dress with the black belt and short-heeled sandals; I do not fit in this picture. I never want to fit in this picture.
And the men? They don’t get it. They never get it. They think this is a grand adventure. Life in Alaska. With free rent thrown in. What a deal.
The van leaves and we’re standing in a cloud of dust. Sandwiched between my husband and my two suitcases, I look this way, and I look that way. No people, no real houses, just junk piles, two shacks, and an ugly turquoise-blue trailer.
And does husband say to me with a grin, “Well, honey, we’re home. How d’ya like it?”
No.
He can tell I have no sense of humor.
He can tell there is no threshold here that I want to be carried over.
And he can tell that words will not help. No, not at all.
Home. Shorty’s salvage yard. It looks like a town dump in Arizona, minus the cacti. Fred says there isn’t any soil here because of the dredging done during the gold days. Like this makes me feel better. No. Low, scraggly bushes, emaciated trees, a few acres of dry, gravelly land full of old machinery, aging bulldozers and excavators, dead cars, overflowing rusty barrels, scrap lumber, oily, smelly, crumpled cardboard boxes, trash and more greasy broken stuff. Fred tells me Shorty might have gotten a lot of this equipment cheap after they finished building the Alaskan pipeline. This bit of history also does not help. A few grizzly, greasy-haired guys in a banged up pick-up, eager to peruse these treasures, drive by, whirling up clouds of dust in this otherwise dry, still landscape. I’m coughing now, and there’s grit in my eyes.
And home for us? The ugly, dented two-bedroom turquoise blue trailer with the white trim. The one that had a fire in the back room a few years ago, so that door is covered with plywood. The one that has a rusting avocado green refrigerator next to the matching greasy stove next to the grimy orange cupboards. The one that has no plumbing, no electric, and no outhouse. Just some good-sized bushes out back. And a little creek, with a little water.
And the neighbors? Our trailer is in the middle of two shacks, each about 40 feet away, inhabited by Shorty Zucchini and Don W. I meet them both after a short night of sleep on our mattress on the floor of the bedroom that didn’t have the fire, though I still smell ghost smoke. And with almost 20 hours of daylight in July, it’s a little tricky getting your body to surrender to sleep.
I am, however, slightly refreshed in the morning. And it’s time to meet the neighbors, so I take my first tentative steps into the acceptance phase of this experience. Husband knows I’ll surrender to this adventure. I always do. This is our dance.
I’m 5’2” and I look down on Shorty. Salt-and-pepper crew cut and leathery skin that crinkles around his eyes when he smiles. I guess he’s between 70 and 80. Shorty’s wardrobe consists of two baggy old grey sweatshirts with oily splotches, and two pairs of stained green work pants that have patches on the knees. Both, being too long, are rolled up about four turns each, and held in place by quarter-inch thick rubber bands made out of sliced inner tubes. On laundry day, Shorty takes one set of his clothes to the creek, washes them, then carefully drapes them over the scrawny bushes to dry, as if they were fine silks.
He’s very concerned about whether or not I like it here. “Now tell me, Judith, tell me honestly,” he says, looking me in the eye, “do ya really like it here? It’s kind of like camping out, huh. Tell me the truth, Judith.” I smile, and what starts out as a lie, eventually, as the days go by, turns into the truth. “Yes, Shorty,” I say, “I’m having a good time here in Alaska.”
Shorty never leaves to go gold mining. I don’t know why. It doesn’t matter. He’s like the neighborhood chipmunk. Always scurrying around. Here to there, there to here and back again. And like a devoted cat dropping off dead birds and mice at its owner’s door, Shorty drops off little goodies from his collections that he hopes will make my life easier here in his salvage yard. They greet us on our doorstep at the end of the day, when Fred comes home from his carpentry job and I’ve finished my daytime shift waiting on locals and tourists at The Blue Iris Café in Fairbanks. A disintegrating box of mismatched chipped dishes and silverware, a banged up vintage toaster with a frayed electrical cord that I have nowhere to plug in, even if I wanted to, an old stained porta potty he pulled out of one of his piles, no thank you, and another flimsy cardboard box full of folded, faded fabric that spews dust when breathed upon. “Here, Judith,” he says, handing the box over to me. “Just in case you want to make curtains.” Another time Shorty comes over and says, “Here, Judith,” and there, cradled in his outstretched permanently stained and cracked thick hands, and wrapped in a once-white paper towel scrap, is a necklace strung with tiny white shells. Probably made in China, though Shorty presents it to me as if it’s from Tiffanys. I drop it over my head; it hangs down on my t-shirt and I tell him it’s so pretty.
He never mentions any family or friends, and we don’t ask. Someone tells us he spends the winter in Yuma, Arizona on the Mexican border, and that he’s an ex-hobo from Chicago who came here to search for gold many years ago.
Maybe.
One morning, Shorty honors me with a tour of his shack. From the outside, it looks like it belongs in the slums of a third world country. A box, maybe 10 x 20, built out of a patchwork of plywood scraps, some black and greasy, some washed-out blue, some stained a natural color. Free stuff. The flat roof is covered with tar paper and sheets of plastic that flap in the breeze where they aren’t held down by rocks. A stove pipe sticks out of the roof. Inside, there’s one room, with a small extension for his woodstove. I see one lumpy single bed, covered with a dark blue pilled blanket. I see a white formica table flecked with glitter and full of scratches with a rusty metal edge…home to one pot, one pan, and a bit of silverware. Also, one metal folding chair and a dusty three-shelf bookcase filled with stuff. Some yellowed newspapers, cans of oil, two stained touristy coffee mugs, a conch shell, pens, pencils, and receipts. A small refrigerator, too. His home is neater than I had expected, unlike the piles of garbage outside, though probably permanently filled with a smoky aroma. Shorty’s house has all he needs, and probably all he wants. An Alaskan geezer’s version of Thoreau’s cabin on Walden Pond.
And I am ashamed of myself. Ashamed for how I judged Shorty and his salvage yard the day I arrived, for he is a good soul, a very good soul.
And then there’s Don. What to say? A beefy, six-foot, lovable bag of hot air.
Don slobbers his words. Don slobbers his food. And Don slobbers his chewing tobacco, the juice dribbling out the corner of his mouth and rolling into his scraggly, maybe 8 inches long, copper-colored beard with streaks of wiry gray popping out. His hair, which strings down to his shoulders, is rusty colored and greasy, like Shorty’s machines. I think he has one set of clothes. I never see him wash anything. His two essential wardrobe items are his heavy-duty, aromatic and stained tan overalls, with one strap always unclipped, hanging down on his bare, spongy chest, and his dirty red hat that says “Sea Alaska Products.” I don’t even know if he has hair under that hat. It’s part of his anatomy. His arms, his legs, his head, and his hat.
And I never do see him with a shirt on. Probably because he’s so proud of the large ship tattoo on his chest, about a foot wide and six inches high. Each saggy upper arm also has a tattoo. A ship’s steering wheel with a fish going through it, and an anchor with numbers on it. Don’s pride and joy. A retired merchant marine, he lives off his pension and money from trapping. And Don never stops talking. At you. He crams about 20 different tales into every half-hour segment. He breaks down when he talks about how his ex-wife left with their three boys 20 years earlier. He couldn’t find them for two years. My eyes water too, every time I hear this story. And then he snaps out of it, smears away his tears, spits some snuff out of the corner of his mouth, and starts all over again. Yak, yak, yak.
Don’s battery radio is always on, sitting outside amongst his collection of stuff piled on a table thrown together with Shorty’s scrap wood. His favorite station is KJNP. King Jesus North Pole. And at 9:20 most evenings, he ceases all activity, plops down in an old, dirty green plastic chair, stops talking, and tunes into Trapline Chatter. Serving non-telephoned people in the bush, this station relays messages amongst friends. A plugged-in carrier pigeon. “Bob and Donna. Hi from Al and Betsy. Everything’s fine. Baby girl Anna born last week. See you in town next month.” “Joe, hold off on your visit. I’ll be away at a job for a while. Back in September.” “Mary, happy birthday, eat a piece of cake for me.” Don loves this. He makes so many friends over these air waves, and not one of them knows he exists.
One afternoon, when Fred and I walk into the compound, as we now affectionately call our community, after work, Don hollers at us in his scratchy voice. “Hey you guys,” he says, “I got supper here. I made a big pot of soup.” And there, bubbling on his outdoor fire, in a big dented aluminum pot, probably picked out of Shorty’s trash, is dinner. Filled to the brim with sliced onions, zucchini, and cabbage, the vegetables as slimy as dead fish washed up on the shore. Boiled to oblivion for nearly two hours. Turned white and limp. With no salt, no flavor, no aroma. But my, is Don pleased that he cooked for us, and we tell him it’s delicious.
Summer ends, and I fly home to my counselor’s job, wearing jeans. And I miss those two old geezers. But I don’t show their photos to many people, because they won’t get it. They’ll think that Shorty and Don are a couple of Alaskan bums. Like I did, when the electrician and his wife dropped me off, a little more than two months ago.
Come November, we get a letter from Shorty, written on Thanksgiving Day. It smells smoky, like his house, like his clothes. And in his wobbly handwriting on this smudged and wrinkled scrap of paper, he writes, “Don and I are going to wash and clean the messy pots and pans that the Rescue Mission is using to cook Thanksgiving dinner for all the comers.” He closes with, “and while no decision has been made, expect Don and I to be knocking on your door one of these days.”
We hope they do. But we never hear from them again.
2022
Writing this, I wonder about our friends. What happened to them?
I search obituaries and find that Shorty died when he was 87 in Ester in 1998. That’s it.
When he was born, when he died. No relatives. Nothing. Two lines. Did he die alone? Did one of those guys who came to pick through his junk find him sprawled out on the dusty, gravelly ground? Or lying on his lumpy bed? Was Don there? My eyes are watering.
And Don W.? His obituary says he was 81 when he died in Tucson, Arizona in 2009, survived by two of his three sons. He proudly served his country in the U.S. Navy during WWII and later became a Chief Electrician in the Merchant Marines. Donald was a 1960 Graduate of Paul Smith Forestry College, Paul Smith, NY and went on to work as a U.S. Forest Ranger. Memorial contributions may be sent to: Disabled American Veterans.
Farewell, my friends, farewell.
My eyes are still watering.
And may you rest in peace.
Judith Howe holds an M. Ed in Counseling from UNH. Previously published in The Christian Science Monitor, she’s currently working on a memoir titled, Tales of Amusement, Adventure and Angst in a 50-Year Marriage. She lives in NH with her husband.