The Alaskan Laundry (30 page)

Keta hardly opened his glazed eyes when she gave him his pills. He breathed shallowly, and hadn't touched his dinner.

“Dog's green around the gills,” Zachary said.

“Don't worry, monkey. We'll get some rest on anchor.” She wondered if it was the salmon heart.

She curled up with the dog, squeezed his paw. Zachary didn't change the setting on the alarm clock. Twenty seconds later he was snoring.

“Fuck,” she muttered, already thinking of the snarl of the engine, Zachary's upbeat morning mood. She went down the ladder to zip into her bag.

The next day, after a morning of slow fishing, Zachary told her to pull the lines.

“That's why they call it fishing and not catching,” he said.

Staring at the numbers on the glass, he said they would run north despite the prediction of strong winds. Reports were good in Icy Strait. He put the boat on autopilot and busied himself replacing a wire for the water heater. Tara tied up gear, crimping ferrules and attaching hooks to the fluorescent bugs.

As they ran, Irish, the cantankerous white-haired troller Jackie had reamed out, called for the
Revenge
over the radio. He had installed a new fathometer, he told Zachary, and it kept conking out.

“You're too hard on your gear, Irish,” Zachary responded. “Give the damn alternator a spa day. You know, clip its nails, give it a sponge bath.”

The old salt scoffed. “Yer a feckin' idiot, is what you are, Zach. And I'll tell ya another thing. 'Steada a home fleet built on trust, now it's ever man for hisself, one huntin' the other. No sir, that's not the world I grew up in.”

Zachary stripped off wire sheathing with a flick of the wrist. “Irish, you can still get at the work pretty good, but having someone to unload on wouldn't be the worst thing for you.”

He didn't seem to hear. “Fellas always gougin' each other, runnin' this guy or that into the shallows. Fellas don't even know it's starboard inside pole that's got the right a way.”

“Yeah, Irish, you're coming through kinda fuzzy,” Zachary said, reaching to turn down the volume. “Can you turn it onto a higher frequency, please, and repeat that?”

After about thirty seconds he turned up the volume again. Irish was still going.

“Yep, still not coming through, Irish. Try once more.”

Again he twisted the knob on the volume, turning it up a few minutes later. Irish was still complaining.

Tara tried not to laugh. “You're cruel.”

“It's good for him. Call it fishermen's therapy.”

She watched as he replaced the wooden panel and studied the graph of tide tables on the computer. He had different gears—playful, work-serious, contemplative. He checked his watch, once more turned up the volume.

“Yeah, I hear ya on all that, old bud. I'm gonna go throw 'em in. Good morning. Clear to sixteen.”

He slowed the boat. As soon as they set the gear there was a clatter—the lines whirring, the poles bending. Keta sensed the excitement, hopped off the bench, and started howling on deck.

“That's right, doggie!” Zachary shouted, pulling on his bibs. “Someone's feeling better. He knows we got fish on the line.”

They each took a side, running through the lines one after the other. She did her best to haul gear without stopping the hydraulics. Zachary slapped together peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which they ate while pulling in float bags. She tossed her crusts into the waves. It was glorious. No Fritz to check up on her, no what-the-fuck hand from Trunk, no silent, vigilant Jackie eyes burning holes in her back. She wondered if Newt would still call her slow as molasses.

Just after ten, Zachary said to stack 'em, and she arranged the leaders neatly along the gear-setter. Dinner, brush teeth, Keta's pills. The dog had started to pick at the soups and chili she gave him. “You're starting to like it on the water, aren't you?” she said, petting his head.

Moments after she climbed into her bunk and shut her eyes, it seemed, the clock was bleating. Turn of the key, press of the starter button until the low gear of the engine snarled. Rattle of the anchor, tick of the coffeemaker, lowering of the poles, and they were at it again.

That evening, setting out her side, she noticed an oil slick tailing off the stern when the bilge pumped. When she pointed it out to Zach, he frowned and mumbled something about pressure.

Wisps of white skirted across the darkening sky. A bank of clouds had developed in the west, seabirds working the leading edge of it. As she ran lines, one after the other, Zachary leaned his head out of the cabin and shouted. “That blow is headed our way. Let's pull it and get the hell out of here.”

The ocean creased, and the waves took on a green tint. She heaved in her stabilizer, then returned to the cabin. Zachary rubbed his beard. “They're stacking up with the tide,” he muttered as he steered the bow into a wave, the
Revenge
hobby-horsing as it rode up a face then dropped down the back side. Keta was back in his corner, licking his lips. Zachary turned on a red light to search for a wiper to clear condensation from the windows, then switched it back out. “I need you to go and throw back in those stabilizers,” he said. “Hey! Pay attention out there.”

The coffeepot on the Dickinson skated over the stovetop, clattering against the steel rails. Spice jars toppled onto the floor. As she stooped to pick them up, she knocked heads with Keta, who had his paws spread wide, bracing against the rocking boat.

“Leave it,” Zachary said, his voice calm and steady. “Do what I said. The dog will be fine.”

Outside, green water washed over the deck, flooded the scuppers. Just half an hour ago she had been fishing—now, off the port side, a wave, streaked with foam, reared back, drops skittering down the face. She was dreaming, she would wake any minute—but then the wave came down with a clap, the leading edge exploding over the gunwales. She grasped the handles of the hatch cover as the boat took a heavy roll, salt water stinging her cheeks. From inside she heard a yelp. When she stuck her head back in Keta was beneath the galley table, shaking, staring back at her.

“Tara! We need those stabies in—go!”

Holding on to the hatch cover, she dragged herself aft to the troll pit. Over the back of a roller she glimpsed land for a moment, and then it was gone. The stabilizers were balanced against the sides of the landing bins. She lifted one and threw it in the water. The orange monofilament line tightened as the steel fin dragged over the surface. She hit the lever for the hydraulics, but had it going the wrong way, and the stabilizer came back toward her, the wire skipping on the gurdey because of the weight. The metal banged against the side of the boat. “Motherfucker,” she cursed. She switched directions on the hydraulics and the fins splashed. Sweat dampened her scalp. She shoved past Zachary into the house, tearing off her gear and collapsing onto the galley bench.

“Up,” he said, dragging her by the wrists. “C'mon. You're not done until we're out of this.” She stood, grasped the corners of the sink, hunched over, and spat. Keta whined from beneath the table.

“Listen to me. We're losing oil pressure and I need to figure this out. If our steering or engine goes, we're in serious trouble. Our hold's just about full, and we're sitting heavy. I want you to go down to the engine room and check the oil. The gauge is on the engine, toward the stern. Got it? I'll drive.”

She gripped the edge of the counter as the boat heaved. She was going to throw up. “Yeah.”

As she climbed down the companionway ladder she felt her bowels loosen from nausea. In the engine room wrenches swung back and forth, clattering. She could hear water sloshing against the sides of the boat, or in the bilge, she couldn't tell which.
This is not a drill,
she told herself, thinking of the class, then the curly-haired instructor, then Connor, then her father, and the quiet streets of South Philadelphia.

She dropped to her knees and threw up, vomit splattering against the exhaust manifold of the engine, dripping down into the black water of the bilge.
It doesn't get worse than this.
The thought flashed through her mind.
But if it were worse, we'd be dead.
This second idea was somehow comforting.

Wiping her lips with a rubber cuff, she scanned the block, then found the oil reservoir and tapped the sight-glass. About halfway full. The pressure gauge read just under two pounds.

Through the sweet-rot scent of vomit she smelled something dirty. To her left, on the line from the oil reservoir to the engine, a joint bled oil. She rubbed the black liquid between her fingers, feeling the silky slip.

Back in the wheelhouse, rain and ocean lashed the glass, the flapping wipers unable to keep up. Green water flooded the bow, breaking over the anchor winch. Wind howled through the rigging, the sound braiding into Keta's whining.

“You see anything?” Zachary shouted, working the wheel through the waves.

“I found the leak.”

“Leak?”

“Just forward of the engine.”

“A coupling?”

“Yeah. Oil was coming out of it.”

“Okay, listen. I want you to keep the bow of this boat pointed into the waves. If you don't, we'll get swiped and sink. Understand?”

She nodded.

“Say yes.”

“Yes.”

“Use the hand wiper over here to see what you're doing. I'm gonna go down into the engine room and you're gonna guide us toward this purple X I set on the screen here, where we'll be in the lee of it. Yes? Keep one eye on the computer, another on the radar. There could be all sorts of floating junk, deadheads, even other boats. We're gonna ride this out. Hear me?”

“I need to throw up,” she said.

With one hand on the wheel, he took a section of line from the binnacle board and handed it to her.

“Go. Tie this around your waist. Hurry.”

Fingers shaking, she bent the line backwards, making a loop, brought the rabbit out of the hole, around the tree, and back in. A bowline.

“Go!” Zachary yelled, pushing her outside. Rain washed against her face. Wind blew the tops off dark swells. The rope grew taut. She jammed her index finger into her tonsils. Her stomach convulsed, knotted, and reknotted as she spit up into the wind.

“Get these on,” he said when she came back in, pushing fleece pants and a sweatshirt into her hands. “Then your survival suit. You remember how?”

I am not going to drown tonight. My dog's not going to drown tonight. We're going to get back to the land. Maybe I won't go crabbing, but I will buy a tugboat, and then I will have a home with Keta, and then I will go back to Philadelphia, and I will discover how to love my father, and maybe I will love Connor.

“Yes.”

“Look here.” He opened an orange box. Instantly she recognized a yellow EPIRB, a flashlight, a strobe beacon powered by a dry cell. “We've got hooks, foil ponchos, tarps, food, fire starter, everything here. If anything happens to the boat, you don't worry about me, you go in the water with this and swim for shore. Yes?”

“What about Keta?”

“Forget about the dog—he's got good survival instincts. The EPIRB will go off, the copter will be here in no time. Now—steer.”

He disappeared down the companionway ladder. She knelt beneath the table. Keta was panting, his breath coming out in short, warm puffs.

“I will protect you. I promise. Okay?”

She stripped naked and put on the fleece, then the survival suit, keeping the hood off so she could hear Zachary. Her fingers trembled.

When she looked up again through the windows, she found herself staring at a wall of water—twice as large as what she had seen on the stern deck. Her stomach lurched as the
Revenge
skirted up the face. She reached out to the back wall for balance. The boat became weightless, and for a moment she could see the shoreline on both sides, even the dim glow of the moon as it shone through a rip in the storm clouds to the east. Then the bow dipped, and the boat shuddered as it skidded into a trough. The windows turned a sickly green. She lost her balance, hitting her elbow. Her stomach turned and she retched again onto the floor, holding her hair back, then pushed herself up again and seized the wheel.

“What's going on up there!” Zachary shouted.

The dog kept licking her cheeks. She pushed him away. “Got it!”

The boat on the computer screen inched closer to the purple X. Another wave, smaller, arched over the bow and crashed across the deck. They were blown off the line, and she began to make the turn to starboard when Zachary came from behind and took the wheel. The drumming of the wind and water diminished as they moved into the bay.

“We're in the lee of it,” he explained. “We can wait it out here.”

He went out and dropped the hook, signaling to her to put the boat into reverse.

“You okay?” he asked, coming back into the cabin. She had her arms around the dog and was whispering in his ear. Zachary put a hand on her back, and she stood. The man smelled of oil and fish and cigars—like her father, except Alaskan.

“Good catch on that leak down there. Saved our butts. Felt like we took a real monster—did you see it?”

She nodded, still not sure if that wall of water—it must have been thirty feet, she thought—had been real. He flipped the switch on the bilge pump, then went outside, Tara following behind in her survival suit. At the mouth of the bay she could see the wind whipping up the waves.

“Guess you can probably take that thing off now,” he said.

“Okay if I sleep in it?” she asked. His face broke into laughter. And she realized that he had been scared too.

He put a spotlight into the water. A sheen of oil spread as the bilge pumped out. “If we fixed it good that should start running clear,” he said, squeezing draughts from a bottle of Joy to disperse the oil. “Damn, hope old Irish made it through that blow all right. Feel bad now for giving him such a hard time.”