Church of the Dog (4 page)

Out from the truck steps a very tall redhead, about six feet tall, wearing cowboy boots. I walk down the stairs and go out onto the porch with Edith.

“Hi. I’m Mara O’Shaunnessey. I’m the new art teacher.”

“You’re the vegetarian with a new pet hog,” I say, trying to repress my laughter. “You’re famous in these parts.”

“Four hours. That spread fast.” She nods and smiles at herself like a good sport.

Edith is smiling politely. There’s a pause. “I’m Edith McRae, and this is my husband, Earl.”

I wanna just ask her what she wants, but in an attempt not to humiliate my wife, I keep my mouth shut. I also wanna ask her what the hell my tax dollars are going to art for, but I keep my mouth shut on that one, too.

“Welcome, dear. Would you like some iced tea?” God love Edith.

“Um, . . . sure,” says the redhead, suddenly all awkward.

Edith goes to get a glass. The redhead looks more and more awkward. She studies Edith’s garden.

“What’d you say your name was?” I can’t remember those damned hippie names.

“Mara.”

Edith appears with the tea.

“Thank you,” Mara says.

“So, Mara, what brings you to our ranch?” Edith asks. If I had asked that, it would have sounded unwelcoming.

Everything that comes from Edith’s lips is so gentle and kind. Sometimes, I wish, that in my sixty years with her I coulda become a little more like her instead of just allowin’ her to be that part of me for me. She’s kind. I’m cranky. Together we make a whole person.

“Well, Tim next door watched my impulsive purchase of my new pet and for some reason took pity on me and offered to let me keep it over there,” she begins.

“For some reason? Be careful or you’ll end up being that boy’s next wife,” Edith warned, although it came off sounding like a joke.

“Yeah,” she said uncomfortably, like she understood. “Well, I told him I was looking for a place to rent. . . .”

“Where are you staying now?” asks Edith.

“Camping east of here,” Mara replies. “Weather’s nice. I don’t mind it at all. I’d like to be in a building by winter, though. And Tim mentioned that your ranch has some old employee quarters that are vacant. . . . Would you be interested in renting them to me?”

“Ever rode a horse?” I pipe up.

“Yes, sir.”

“Know anything about fixin’ fences?”

“No, sir.”

“Know anything about fixin’ anything?”

“Yes, sir.”

“You afraid of hard work?”

“No, sir.”

“I need help fixing fences and working cattle more than I need money. Interested?”

“I have more time than money, so, yes, very interested.”

“Follow me. I’ll show you your new home. Your hog can live in that pen. Can’t have you marrying the Grennan boy. He’s no good.”

Problem solved. And when I’m gone, Edith will have a neighbor.

While I scrub the tanks, the other crew members scrub other parts of the boat. It’s our last day for a month. In October we’ll come back for a three-week king crab season. After that, we’ll be free again until January—snow crab season. Finally, in late February or early March, we’ll be free once more until the end of May, the beginning of salmon again. Salmon is by far the longest season, and we’re all eager to get off the boat. We like each other and work well together, but we’re looking forward to not seeing each other for a while.

After I clean each of the four larger tanks and the two smaller ones, I’m done. I go back to my quarters, put my camera bag over my head and one shoulder, pick up my duffel bag, and walk off the boat.

I stop by the company office and find the mailbox with our boat’s name on it. I sort through it all, looking for anything for me. Aside from a couple of credit card offers, I find no evidence that the outside world has missed me at all, and then I get to an envelope from Three Hills, Oregon. Grandma. I stick it in my pocket, rip up the rest of my junk mail, and go back outside to sit on a bench and read what she has written.

It’s a birthday card with a fish on it. “Today’s a day that’s just for you, to do the things you love to do! Happy Birthday!” Underneath the printed message, Grandma wrote, “Happy 29th, Daniel. We love you! Grandma and Grandpa.”

My birthday was nine days ago. I didn’t tell the guys. I didn’t want anyone to contemplate whether they were glad I was born. I look at Grandma’s writing. She’s glad. I don’t know whether anyone else is, but she is.

I take out my wallet and pull out two pictures. The top one is of me between my grandparents after I qualified for regional finals in bull riding. In the picture, taken just after I rode a huge Brahman named Tornado Joe, Grandpa looks proud while Grandma looks scared. I never noticed her fear before. The other picture, the one I keep tucked under the first, is of me sitting in my father’s lap and driving the green Ford pickup around the circular driveway near my grandparents’ barn. Mom and Dad are laughing.

Later, in the same truck with the same people, I would be crushed by silence. The silence would be more crushing than the countless rolls that left us upside down.

Like I did then, I shut my eyes tightly to try to block out what I wish I had never seen. I put the pictures back in my wallet and get up.

I cross the street that runs along the water and walk up another street to where a wooden sidewalk traverses a hill. Near the top I see my house, the ugliest house on the street, and hear my housemates’ music. As I approach the door, I see Minda and Rob through the window, dancing wildly. I can smell the stink of our house even before I open the door.

“Hey, Daniel! It’s Devo Night!” Minda shouts and hugs me as I walk through the door. Although Minda is like a sister to me, she’s also the first woman I’ve seen in a month. She’s a sight for sore eyes—even in her waffle long underwear and cutoff army pants. As she hugs me, I realize it is the first time anyone has touched me since the last time she hugged me. I smell her slightly magenta hair. The softness of her polar fleece vest reminds me of little chicks about a week after they hatch.

“We’re serving baked potatoes and have several Mr. Potato Heads for your entertainment if you don’t feel like dancing with us!” adds Rob. He holds up a piece of brown plastic shaped like a potato. Then he reaches down to the pile of small plastic parts on the table and selects the eyes with the big black glasses, a Roman nose, and big red lips. Finally, he tops the potato with the yellow Cuban-style hat. I think I may have gotten a Mr. Potato Head for my sixth birthday.

“Hey, bro,” Paul shouts as he reaches for the sliding glass door in the back of the house. Through the ends of his long nasty dreadlocks I can see he’s holding a bong and a Mr. Potato Head. “They’ve finally progressed beyond disco and into New Wave.” He rolls his eyes through his large Coke-bottle glasses. “I’ll just be out here.” He walks out onto the back porch in his clashing plaid flannel shirt and boxers, rag wool socks, and sheepskin slippers.

Rob is wearing a silky polyester shirt with a seventies psychedelic print of topless women all over it. It shines like his freshly shaven head.

“Nice shirt. Is that new?” I ask.

“Minda bought it for me at the Salvation Army. Other gay guys dig it.”

Minda dances past the pile of home brew equipment and into the kitchen while Devo sings “Whip It.” She tosses a hot baked potato at me from across the kitchen, still dancing.

“You didn’t cook this in the microwave, did you?” I ask. Our microwave—well, our whole kitchen, really—is disgusting because no one ever cleans it. We’ve had the same sticky yellow fly tape up for about three years now, long covered with fossilized flies. The wall above the stove has a good half-inch coating of bacon grease on it from all the nights Paul gets the munchies and cooks bacon at 3 a.m. We all fear the refrigerator and have stopped using it altogether. Rob duct-taped it shut to protect any of our guests who might dare to open it—as if we ever have guests: No one else can stand the smell in here.

“You know what the microwave reminds me of?” Rob asks. “Those magic rocks we used to put in a glass of water and they grew into colorful stalagmites. Did you have those when you were a kid? I call it ‘the magic rocks microwave.’ ”

“No. Oven-baked, hermetically sealed in tinfoil,” Minda assures me in regard to whether the potato was cooked in the microwave. The oven is the one part of the kitchen that is relatively safe due to high temperatures.

“When do you leave?” I ask.

“Two weeks,” Minda answers. “Got a bunch of richies from Texas coming in three weeks. Gotta get things ready. Herb and I explored some new mountains in the chopper today. Had to find a baby mountain so the Texans wouldn’t hurt themselves but could still go home and tell their friends that they heli-skied Alaska.”

“Right.” I take a bite of my potato as if it were an apple. “Rob, good season?” I ask.

“Sure. I love being yelled at by the newly married and nearly buried on the Love Boat. And you? Any gunfights at Copper River this year?”

“Oh, you know that’s a given,” I answer.

I take a Mr. Potato Head and slip out the sliding glass door. I join Paul on the back porch where seven large Hefty bags of garbage have accumulated since someone forgot to pay the garbage bill. Paul likes to sit out here and ponder his mortality while he smokes a bowl, shakes the mice out of the garbage bags, and watches Lavern, the neighbor’s gray cat, eat them.

“I see Lavern is glad to have you home,” I say.

“We have a special bond based on our mutual fascination with mouse mortality. Good season?” he asks as we explore the various identities of our Mr. Potato Heads.

“Yeah, you know. Fine,” I answer. “What about you? Stay off the rocks this year?”

“No. And then we had a little fire in the hull in the middle of the night. Yeah, bro, I was on the national news being airlifted off the boat wearing nothing but boxers and boots. I think the only reason we made national news was that we took aboard that black lab on the dock—you know, the one no one knows who it belongs to—and when the engine exploded, she ran down and hid in the cabin. I ran down and got her, so she was airlifted out, too. The media love a good dog rescue. Some TV guys are going to do a reenactment of it on some
Amazing Rescues
show. I told him I should have monster dreads and be wearing nothing but boots and boxers when the coast guard arrives.”

“You’re famous,” I say.

“As you can tell by all my groupies,” he says, gesturing to the large crowds of women that aren’t there. He takes another hit off his bong. “Bro, tonight we tap the spruce brew.”

“I totally forgot about the spruce brew. It’s been fermenting since early May. It must be over 150 proof by now.”

“Alaska White Lightning. Minda made Jell-O shooters out of our blackberry brew. A little treat for later.”

“Nah, that’s just wrong,” I say. I get up and sneak past the dancers and into the bathroom I use as a darkroom.

I finish developing the two rolls of film I shot during the summer. When they dry, I put them in envelopes in my file of hundreds of rolls I’ve shot and developed but haven’t printed.

When I come out, Minda and Rob are still dancing. I look through my lens and snap them.

My first day at work is an orientation day complete with a potluck lunch. If there is one thing I detest about being a teacher, it’s all the potlucks. In the first place, I don’t want to eat what most people eat. I have no interest in eating mayonnaise-based foods or hamburger casseroles made with cream of mushroom soup and crushed potato chips sprinkled on top, and I am not remotely tempted by any dessert made with Cool Whip. Yuck. And, surprise, no one there wants to eat what I eat, either, so there’s really no point in making some nice whole-grain vegetarian dish.

But since I’m homeless right now, I couldn’t make a dish if I wanted to.

I go to the store to see what I can bring. Every bachelor in the district will bring chips, so I can’t bring those. That’s inherent sexism in potlucks. I just cringe when a male superintendent or principal proposes a potluck. A potluck isn’t more work for him or any of the men in the district; a potluck is more work for the women in the district and for the wives of the men in the district. I want to say, Guess what, pal? Just because I have boobs doesn’t mean I want to cook for you.

I pick up a watermelon to bring as my contribution, and for my lunch, since I won’t be eating anything there, a container of yogurt, some nuts, and an apple. Then I drive to the high school’s multipurpose room.

I sit quietly and feel out of place while other teachers around me catch up with each other about their summers. I think most people are teachers because they liked school. I’m a teacher because I didn’t. I think this is at the root of why I feel like a foreigner in a crowd of them.

After the potluck we are set free to set up our classrooms. I start with my high school room since I’m already in the high school. I sort through chemicals used in glazes and look for firing cones in the cluttered cupboards. I dump water in the clay bin, knowing it will never soften before tomorrow. I discover there is no blue watercolor paint left anywhere. I find a lot of charcoal and newsprint. I guess I’ll start with that. Drawing is a good place to start.

Then I drive to the elementary school and explore the art room there. I immediately love it because it’s old and at one time it was clearly a K-12 school. There is a broken kiln, some photography equipment I don’t know what to do with, and a fifty-year supply of tempura paint. Every cupboard is like an archaeological dig, telling the story of the last sixty years in that building.

The next day the kids come. My day starts off with half-hour blocks at the elementary school, starting with the difficult and self-conscious sixth and fifth graders, progressing to the curious and willing fourth and third graders, and ending with the excited and enthusiastic little ones. I start the year off with a lesson about the first art element, line, and the fourth art element, color, by putting on different kinds of music and inviting students to make different kinds of lines in different colors that interpret that music. I do it with them, and some imitate me. This is all right because they’re learning to think differently, and sometimes you have to imitate at first while you think about why you’re doing what you’re doing or consider other ways to do it. The kindergartners are the most fun because even though many of them just make random scribbles that look the same on every paper for the different kinds of music, I know they understand the idea because some of them can’t contain their excitement and end up interpreting through dance or movement what I had invited them to show me on paper.