The plane vibrates like all planes do as I land. This isn’t nearly the worst I’ve felt in a plane before, a teenage boy with sweats on and oversized sunglasses is trying to play it cool. I go back to reading. We hit an updraft. He kicks into the air and yells out an obscenity. I laugh at him and he looks down. We touchdown and I close my book.
If Mars had proper rain and was colored grey and green it would feel like the Aleutians. They are bleak, harsh, bitter and beautiful. The people who etched their own living here for eons are stronger than your average joe with a cup of Starbucks in his hand. They are fishermen, hunters and mechanics. They fix and refix, make-do. They play softball in thirty mile-per-hour wind, much better than I can play when air is still.
The building that is the airport here feels as though it has been re-purposed many times. It’s ugly with plywood and t111 siding. The windows are small. About a dozen people mill around the airfield’s fence, waiting for loved ones. I am a stranger. Some of them eyeball me with vague suspicion, but mostly they ignore me. The wind blows through my short hair and pushes cold arctic air against my scalp. My neck goosebumps and I pull on a hat. A man in white sunglasses introduces me to my contact. I am here for work, not vacation.
The road is long and dirt. It passes around and over hills made by sand and volcanic rock. In the distance, old water tanks tower above the town. We pass by a freshwater lake. A bird flits past us. No one here drives fast. A line of crab traps stretches for hundreds of feet. The town comes in to view. It is an old town, built during the forties and some of it before by Russians. They came here and forced the populace, the Aleuts, to work skinning the hides of seals, otters, reindeer. They pushed their version of Jesus into the town. “Re-educated” the populace through forced schooling. Their religion still exists here, though the Russians left some time ago. An old church pushes past the other weather worn buildings. The cupola of it leaks and the members of the church are wondering how they will fix it. Large construction projects present unique and seemingly insurmountable problems. They’ll figure it out.
I spend time in the town, my comrade doesn’t leave our apartment much while I am there. We are here to work. A large freighter brings materials in every few weeks. One evening we go to the docks to receive them. New and used cars are craned over the side of the ship to land. The recipients are overjoyed at their new property. They turn up their bass and the other denizens of this island climb in and look into opened hoods.
A construction loader, three skidsters and a zoom-boom all move around each other offloading crates, boxes and pallets of goods. It is a special dance of efficiency. They’ve done this many times. The locals smoke cigarettes and visit. They invite me to play poker that evening. I tell them sorry, I don’t gamble and they understand. We receive our freight and the wind never stops blowing. I catch a cold.
There is an old age home where the elders live. I spend time here. The oldest woman on the island lives here, her name is Irina. She is 92 or 93, depending who you ask. Her daughter also lives in the old age home. I say hello to her sometimes and feign surprise when she walks in. It makes her laugh and look at the ground.
I meet her at the store one day. She asks if I can give her a ride back. I say of course and load up her groceries. We pass the graveyard. She tells me many of her friends are here in the cold ground now. There isn’t enough space anymore and the island is looking for a new place to put the departed. She asks me if her haircut looks good. I say yes, why do you have a hot date?” She is a shy woman and bursts out laughing before turning away quickly and looking out the window.
Sometimes I work outside, next to a popular walking trail. People will stop and converse with me. A beautiful boy with no fear stops and asks if I’m from the city.
Yes.
Do you play Fortnight?
No but my brother does.
It’s a really cool game. You should play it.
I probably will.
It’s really nice out today. I’m trying to decide if I should go swimming.
In the cold ocean?
It’s not so cold, a bunch of us do it, near that tide pool.
You’re a braver person than me.
Yeah, probably.
I tell him I have to go inside now and he bids me adieu. A day later I see him and his friends playing in the cold ocean.
The old lady finds me and asks me to visit with her in her apartment one day. I acquiesce because the old should always be visited, they don’t have much time and we should sacrifice some of ours for them. She tells me she had a friend like me. He would always do the same thing that I do when I see her, act shocked and surprised. What happened to him?
He died six months ago. It’s quieter here now.
She is quiet and looks at the wall.
Let me show you pictures of my family and she brings me framed memories of her two sons. They live in New York and California or somewhere. Her husband died some time ago and now she takes care of her elder mother, Irina. I smell wine on her breath and I am sad she has no one to drink with and I would but I am working so I can not. She says she is tired after some time of telling me of her visits to the “the states.” She walks to her room and I stand up from her couch. I tell her I have to go and thank you for letting me visit with you. I shut the door on my way out and I can hear her snoring already.
Irina is watching television in the hallway. For the hundredth time she asks me if I will drive her to the bar. I tell her I have no vehicle. She says she doesn’t drink but that She enjoys drinking tea and visiting with people. I tell her I am sorry but it is an impossibility and she is resigned. She has heard it many times before.
The man with the white sunglasses shows up later that night. He tells me there is a softball game going on and that I should head down and watch. I look to my comrade and he says sorry but he cannot make it. I say I’ll swing by for a time but that I cannot stay up late. He says alright. I walk down to the field by the high school. It is windy but I am the only one wearing a jacket. I smoke cigarettes and watch as the one sided game progresses. Many people sit in their vehicles and watch in shelter from the wind.
Whenever a home run is made they honk their horns and it is the sound of a community. A man sells t shirts with high school girls. The t-shirts are anchored by large rocks and every time one is sold a few get blown away and are chased. After a while I see that it is approaching nine thirty. I walk past the lone bar on the island. It is owned by the village and resides in a concrete building purchased from a military base and shipped to the island in pieces. The building also houses the village council. I enter and there are scientists inside of the bar, an old man and three young women. They wear quick-dry zip off pants and talk weather. They are working inside the NOAA building. Soon, due to budget cuts, the office building will be shut down. The old man has spent much of his career here on this island and there is forlorn in his voice. I have a couple of beers at the bar and the bartender tells me about her son. He works for an oil company far north she says. He will send his old car to her when he buys a new one. She brims with pride when she speaks of him. She offers me a smoke and we converse outside as we smoke. I see her one more time when I watch the men play horseshoes and never again after that.
On my day off I take a drive down to the southwestern point of the island. The road passes the tallest hill here, over six hundred feet. The man in the sunglasses told me that one of the hills has old lava tubes. I see a herd of reindeer. He got two last year he tells me. I stop at a rookery and climb out to see the seals. They are lazy, dangerous creatures. They yell at each other and occasionally look my way. The man in the sunglasses tells me that he was thrown around “like a rag doll” by one that had bit onto his leg. He tells me he thought he was done for, but was saved by his compatriots.
I stop for a time at the point. It is a long shore of cliffs, fields punctuated by blue bells and grass, and eventually a plateau. The waves crash against the shore and I feel the wind bite past my jacket. The smell of the sea dances to my nose. A group of birds fly to and from the sides of the rocks on the cliff. There is an island in the distance, it is called “Otter Island.” “It used to have so many otters, but the Russians hunted them to extinction.” He tells me. There is nothing else on the horizon but ocean and the world beyond, but we cannot see it right now.
There is a large warehouse type building by the docks. It is a cannery. The workers inside are foreign, some hailing from as far away as Ethiopia because the company can pay them less than they pay locals. Still the work is dangerous and hard so many quit after their first time. It is typical of large corporations to use borderline slave labor these days, in their search of ever higher profits and the island is used to this, but there is still some bad blood about it. And the stories I hear leave an unwelcome taste in my mouth. It used to not just be them who operated the docks. Fishermen use to come here a lot and the season promised many visitors, but lately it is just the island’s fishing corporation and the docks can be very bare most of the year. On my drive back to the town I stop and stay for some time and an old hunting cabin. It has many old reindeer antlers and even some beach scavenged whale bone.
We are supposed to leave the island on Father’s Day, but are unable to. The flights are delayed due to weather here quite often. My comrade is disappointed because he wanted to spend it with his family. The man with the sunglasses meets me at the old age home and tells me to get my comrade because he is having a Father’s Day feast here with us and his family. I thank him and fetch my comrade from his morose mood and apartment room. The common area is soon full of young and old people, all related the the man with the white sunglasses. They laugh and jeer and Happy Father’s Day.
Irina sits and the children talk to her and she tells me it is so good to see the young ones here and to visit. I say I know and she smiles a young smile as they chase each other through the room. A mother yells to settle down and the children beautifully don’t listen and Irina is happy. She even forgets about asking me to take her to the bar tonight.
I step out onto the back deck where two men are grilling dinner. A man asks me if I like living in the city. I tell him I can’t imagine living anywhere else. He says he use to live there. He was almost a journeyman plumber
But then I found out my wife was pregnant with my boy.
So you moved?
I thought to myself that I couldn’t raise a boy in that dangerous place.
I see.
I was so close to my journeyman’s license and I probably should have stayed, but…
But home is home.
He smiles. Yes. Home is home.
There is much on the island I missed, It is only 40 or so square miles but, like all things in life it takes a few visits to see all of it. The next morning I fly out on a rather bumpy flight with many of the people I met on the island. As I land I am thankful to be back part of the world but I will also return to the island. I will see these living and friendly people again. They endured terrible hardships before white men came and made it worse. The weather is an enemy of its own but they have learned to make it their friend. The Aleuts endured, they endured when the Russians came and then again when the Russians left. They endured the slaughter of their people and re-education of the colonists. They endure bad fishing seasons and broken cars. So when I return, I know Paul’s Saints will be there, like the green fields of their home.
Storied By Josh 