Brilliant Move

Sometimes the big decisions aren’t made: they just happen.

My days at Alaska Ocean Products, the salmon cold storage plant that employed me, were numbered. Fish and Game had a date marked on their calendar to indicate the end of the season, and even before that date arrived, I would be up and on my way. Exactly in which direction, I had not completely decided. I still hung out in Howard and Noah’s cabin, the one that had formerly been a mobile home. They had both been working hard on the slime line and, like the rest of us, had accumulated some money. Noah would be going home, back to Tel Aviv, but Howard’s plans weren’t so settled. Once these Australians leave home, they are in no hurry to return, and Howard was still tossing around ideas about moving on to the “Far East.” He wanted to start in Tokyo, and go from there, to Korea, Malaysia, Vietnam, maybe China. The whole thing sounded a little vague.

“You don’t speak those languages,” I pointed out one evening after work. We were all physically tired but still pumped up from all the exertion.

“Everyone speaks English now,” said Howard, in his own distinctive brand of that language. He was seated in his accustomed spot, crosswise on his bed in the center of the white interior with blue markings, his lank physique topped by a head of tousled, dirty-blond hair.

These Australians also have a fearless air about them. Maybe it’s because they seem so casual, “No Worries, mate,” that kind of thing. He did give you the feeling that he could pull it off. Just wander into all those countries, give the locals a friendly “Hello” and sit down for a pint, or whatever size they serve their drinks in. The thing was, he thought I ought to come along.

“What about it, Jordan? What do you think?”

Thinking, that was my strong point, but this one had me stumped. “The Far East,” “The Far East,” it had a ring to it. I had the cash, money I’d earned myself. “The Far East.” And what about Howard, a bit moody perhaps, but who wasn’t? Probably a good traveling companion; he was a big guy, at least six feet; he ought to be able to stick up for me in a tight spot. And I was already halfway there. Didn’t planes flying to Japan touch down for fuel in Anchorage? Some of them? Well, here I already was, a hundred and fifty miles south of Anchorage and a good half the way to Tokyo. And what about those countries? They had youth hostels, didn’t they? Wasn’t it all pretty much the same thing? Australians and New Zealanders and women from New Jersey with backpacks sitting around the common room of a youth hostel eating ramen noodles? How different could it be in Malaysia, or even Vietnam? The war was over. The tourist trade was on the increase.

“When would you go?” I asked Howard.

Noah had been lying on his bunk; he had his guitar in his lap, and he was quietly strumming the chords to “Sad Liza,” not wanting to interrupt our conversation.  His dark eyes were thoughtful. The black, though trimmed, beard added to the look.

“Soon, right away, next week,” Howard answered. “Things are about through here, aren’t they?’

I stood up and paced the length of the cramped shared living space. This was a big deal. Certainly not something to be jumped into lightly; I had my education to think about, two years done already, and what would my folks think? They seemed awfully far off from up here. They hadn’t been too thrilled about the hitchhiking, but they’d gotten over that. This would be quite a blow. Still, it all seemed like a great chance. There was such a thing as a leave of absence. I could write someone a formal letter, explain things in a factual way. In a very real sense, I was wavering.

“What do you think?” I turned to Noah.

Noah didn’t seem to be thinking a whole lot. He wasn’t high. No marijuana involved. Maybe he was just coming down after work. This Israeli painter had come to Alaska, to accumulate capital to pursue his art form on his kibbutz home. He had passed his required stint in the army in an office, as a pacifist.  He knew where he was headed, and what he was about.

“Why don’t you go, Jordan?” he said.

“Why? Why don’t I go? Because I’m a student, that’s why. Because I’m getting an education. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

This quieted both of them down considerably. They weren’t trying to run my life, really.

“Couldn’t you go back,” Howard finally said, “and finish another time?” It has a certain singsong quality, the Australian accent, which is soothing, kind of like the waves lapping quietly at the shoreline. Imagine a whole country of people talking like that. That would be something to see.

“Maybe he doesn’t want to go,” Noah said to Howard. He still had the guitar in his lap, but he had stopped playing.

“Maybe he’s just not sure,” Howard answered.

“No pressure,” Howard said to me. “No worries, none at all.” And he gave me a smile.

But the season really was drawing to a close. It may have seemed like more, but there were only a little over three full periods, about seven weeks of steady work. Then it was time to move on. The question here was in which direction. We were a fairly broad community, and there was another guy I’d gotten to know. We all knew one another. His name was Wayne, and he, too, came from a fine academic institution, Bowdoin, up in Maine. Wayne had been at AOP the preceding summer and had shown up for work at the last minute just before the salmon season officially began. With his ready smile and pleasant demeanor, he’d been taken right in.  He’d been working all summer on the nighttime freezer crew.

Wayne had a plan of his own. Maybe it was my idea, I’m not sure, but the two of us started talking about hitching north past Anchorage and up to Denali Park. This, too, was quite an adventure. Denali was, after all, the tallest mountain on the North American continent. We weren’t talking about getting on top of it, just heading up there to take a look. Somehow or other, Audrey got caught up in the conversation and said she’d like to come along. Audrey was the day shift freezer crew member who weighed and registered the boxes.

So, there it was, in stark contrast. Get on a plane with Howard, for Lord only knows where, and skip the fall semester entirely, or merely stick out my thumb, head north, and hope to make it back in time for registration. That was the choice. The salmon were still coming down the line, and being duly frozen, but there was an element of finality about the place. People were getting ready to move on.

Howard was not persistent, not in the least. He had expressed his interest in traveling with me. He’d kindly extended the offer, but that was about as far as it went. Noah wasn’t bugging me either. It was up to me entirely. Wayne and Audrey were also happy to have my company. We talked about the plan from time to time, nothing too specific, just that we’d head up through Anchorage to the park and spend a few days camping there. Then head home. There was some talk about going to a big music festival at Talkeetna that was supposed to be taking place at about that time, an end-of-the-season hangout for cannery workers. But that was a little vague, too.

But what about the role of my folks in all this? They’d dropped me off at the airport in the maroon BMW and wished me well, or gone home to take smelling salts, probably the second as well as the first. It had to be a little nerve-racking to see your child fly off to Alaska with no definite job prospects, but they hadn’t stood in my way either. Maybe, on some level, they knew that for a kid as sheltered as I had been, some growing up was called for. Still, I went through this decision process more or less on my own. I’d sent postcards; they’d sent up a replacement address book when mine was lost; I’d even called to openly confess that I was getting around with my thumb, but that was about it. I had two fine options before me. I just had to choose between them.

Noah caught up to me walking away from the processing shed after the day shift.

“Do you want to go with Howard?” he asked, coming right to the point.

“It’s not Howard.”

We had turned in our rain gear and gloves with Norma, the woman in the supply room, but I could still feel my wet jeans sticking to my thighs. I’d grown thoroughly accustomed to the calf-high black steel-toed boots. It was eight o’clock in the evening, and there was a cross flow of workers moving across the lot, some turning in for the evening, others just starting their day.

“I know,” Noah said.

He did know. He knew quite a lot. It was just a choice I had to make, or let it be made for me. Howard was pulling out in three days. He was flying out of Anchorage on some kind of standby program he’d heard about. You weren’t exactly sitting in the baggage bay, but they certainly weren’t serving you any free alcohol.

“Tell him I’m still working on it,” I said.

Noah continued on to his cabin, the former mobile home, and I pushed open the front door of the cabin that had formerly been mine, made entirely of plywood. I pulled my guitar out from under the lower right-hand bunk. I still kept it there even though I’d long since relocated to my tent in the tent neighborhood, down by the water. Funny thing, that guitar. Yes, I carried it around, and it certainly helped me get rides, but it was also good company. You sit on an old car seat, in twilight, and strum some three-chord Neil Young song, and it can kind of settle things down.

I did want to go with Howard, to get on that plane and head east. The wanderlust was deeply rooted. When I was about eleven, I tried to convince a neighbor to just take off and start walking, just for the adventure, just to see where we’d wind up. He went back inside and watched NFL football, and I made it about as far as the local park. I did turn up one street I’d never been on before, but all things taken together, it wasn’t much of an adventure.

This was different: a plane, a few thousand dollars in my money belt, a world of possibilities. It was certainly something to consider. And consider it I did. But I didn’t make all that much progress. The decision just kind of sat there. People around me were moving forward; things were happening. I just wasn’t participating. I was still holding down my position at the end of the slime line, lining up dead salmon on white plastic trays, trying to make sure they were smooth and that their tails didn’t freeze together. I was still camped out in my tent, on my own, but among my tent-neighborhood neighbors. I just didn’t know exactly where I was going to go next.

But the day rolled around. That seems to be one thing that remains resolutely beyond human control. The sun goes down, however briefly, and the sun comes up. One day ends and another begins. We just can’t seem to screw up that progression. So, that morning Howard came out to my tent. He actually walked over to the tent neighborhood, which was not something the cabin people often did. I was lying in my sleeping bag, watching the play of the light on the flowing orange canvas above, the creases forming and reforming, and listening to the sound of the water in the inlet, lapping on the shoreline. Not a whole lot more was going on.

“You in there?” Howard called out, with his Australian lilt.

I got to my knees. I was wearing a pair of gym shorts and unzipped the front flap. I stuck my head out.

“That would be a yes,” I answered as I squinted a little in the morning light.

“Pulling out today. Wanted to say goodbye.”

Howard was dressed for traveling, a clean pair of jeans, a button-down green shirt, and a pair of lightweight hiking boots.

“Doesn’t look like you’ll be coming along then.” He squatted beside me. His speech rose and fell in a manner distinctive to those from down under.

“Guess not,” I answered. I finished unzipping the front flap and stepped outside.

Howard stood up beside me. He put out his right hand. “Be seeing you,” he said, giving me a good look.

“Be seeing you,” I said, and gave his hand a firm shake.

Howard turned and started back toward AOP proper. I watched him until he was out of sight, hidden by the tall underbrush.

Well, there it was. So much for the Far East; the Far East was just going to have to go on without me. A vision of the Cornell Uris Library seventh-floor stacks flashed across my mind.

What have I done? I thought to myself.

I had a one-way plane ticket to Tokyo, and I’d turned it in for an empty chair in an undergraduate library. Yes, there might be a side trip to Denali Park or a stopover at a music festival. But this one was done.

Brilliant move, I thought.