Week eight, email four:
July 16, 2004
I know my mom is waiting in nervous anticipation to see how much of “Mom's Wild Adventure In Alaska” trip I write about. Don't worry mom. I won't tell all the lurid details of your visit by email. Instead, I'll wait until I can tell folks in person! Let me just say that my mom is the raddest gal I know. Having the experience of carrying her up the stairs to her Crow's Nest cabin is one I will always treasure. Yes, this is Denali, where time and space don't exist, and reality turns on its head.
“If it happened anywhere else, I'd be shocked. But it happened here.”
This was the first thing Ernie said to me the morning after my mom's first night in Denali. Ernie was a fire-fighter-turned-Crow's-Nest-shuttle-driver from Arizona with an “always a little sweaty” / “gentle giant” presence. This particular morning his eyebrows were pointing unusually high and his forehead was scrunched up with a look of barely-controlled-panic. As we made our way to the front desk, Ernie unraveled a series of “if it happened anywhere else, I'd be shocked” events which had occurred so far this morning, while I was still sleeping away the evening's mis-adventures.
The scene that morning began with a bus load of Japanese tourists and a missing cook.
The Japanese arrived especially early to catch a special breakfast buffet. This was indeed special, as the Crow's Nest normally forbade breakfast for guests. This breakfast would be served by the kitchen's brand new cook, Matt. Matt was probably the sixth cook to come in (and out) of the Nest's kitchen this summer. I hadn't seen him around much until the night before, when he was in the “hang out group” that I was in, celebrating my mom's arrival in the canyon. By the time I had seen all sorts of worlds begin and end that evening, Matt was boarding the all-night shuttle to the no-last-call bar 15 miles up the road, The Totem. The Totem is the kind of place where every story that begins with “So last night at the Totem” is a bad one.
Fast forward to 7am, and the Japanese tourists. Ernie saw that there was a big crowd, and a little confusion, so he stepped in to try and help. Brad, the restaurant's manager asked Ernie to go wake up Matt, and get him into the kitchen by any means possible. Ernie went and came back empty handed three times. In between trips, Ernie was handed a knife and instructed to start cutting fruit to serve to the Japanese to keep them from starting a hello-kitty riot. Finally, it was sudden death:
“Ernie, tell Matt he has 15 minutes to get in here or off the property.”
Needless to say, Matt never made it into the kitchen, and he was out looking for a new job within 15 minutes.
That happened, and then the sun vanished.
Literally, it vanished.
With the wild fires burning all over Alaska, it was only a matter of time before all the smoke started choking out our little canyon, blocking out the sun entirely. But since the sun doesn't set much up here, there was no night-time to relieve us from smoky orange haze with visibility barely reaching across the street. By the time we lost sight of the anything resembling nature in our periphery, cabin fever had set in to the point of panic and delirium.
Out of the haze, Ashley and Carol appeared. Our new prep-cook and waitress were heralded with open arms and porch parties featuring copious amounts of Key Stone beer, billowing bongs and “My Friends” being sung on the Ukulele. Things were so loose and laze-fare in fact, that Carol's boyfriend Victor became a regular at the campground, even though non-employees were strictly forbidden from Tent City, per order of the Crowfeet. On the outside, Victor and Carol looked like a charming young couple, straight out from the suburbs of Fairbanks, complete with big hair, bangs, and beer swigging goodness that only real Alaskans can offer. But on the inside, specifically the inside of Ashley and Carol's tent, things were a different story.
“Is there somebody there?”
“It's me, Ashley. I had to come here, I didn't know where else to go. They were fighting all night.”
“What?”
“Carol and Victor.”
I was used to being woken up by the sounds of foxes eating left over sandwiches or squirrels eating nachos outside the tent, but not by a whimpering, moaning lump of person emanating from one corner of our tent at five in the morning. I had already been surprised by an impromptu tent-porch party at around 2am, and figured that this was just more of the same. To my surprise, Ashley was there; huddled in the corner; hair a mess; eyes watery, puffy, and red; body clearly in some sort of state of shock. Apparently Carol and Victor either forgot or were too drunk to care that Ashley was in the tent with them, as they proceeded to tear each other in half with their loud and hateful words. All night long, they yelled and yelled and yelled at each other. Ashley just stayed hidden inside her sleeping bag, unable to break free of the semi-violent outburst that was unfolding before her. During one of the shout-breaks, she made her escape to our tent when I found her quivering and weeping.
A couple hours later I was housekeeping away, and I heard on our radio system... "Front desk to maintenance... there is a strange man in Ashley's bed, he peed on her sleeping bag and won't leave. Can you go take care of this?"
What?
What?
Victor peed in her bed and won't leave? Oh yeah, that's right, I forgot where I was for a second.
Later in the day I found the discarded, peed on sleeping bag on the trail between the restaurant and our tent city. Candy being Candy refused to let us wash it for Ashley, saying it was too big for the washing machine. We have a fucking industrial size washer, which could fit ten sleeping bags. Candy should have just said "I am a mean spirited person, and I refuse to let anyone have comfort.”
My head had been spinning all day from the morning's freak out, and a run after work was in order to calm my nerves. Once I clocked out for the day, I started jogging down Denali's only street, where I found a little path that lead me to a secluded spot along the Nenana River. Away from the voices and broom sticks of the Nest, my mind started to latch on to the sound of the roaring river, noticing how beautiful it was. Even under this orange glow that permeates everything, the river just keeps being beautiful weather or not we can see it. It bums me out that we forget to notice because we're so busy being mean to each other. But to have this moment is a blessed one.
Not even ten minutes into my meditation, I was presented with a horrifying sight.
It was Carol. She appeared before me as if she were imitating what meat looks like after being put through a grinder.
“It's my ankle. I rolled it.
You did more than roll your ankle, lady. You and your boyfriend ripped each other to shreds all day in the woods is what you did. And now I get to take you back to the crow's nest. Great!
Brad, the restaurant manager, had been privy to the day's activities, and was smiling like the creepiest old man you can think of walking in on a cheerleader who fainted before getting into the shower. He was ready to fire Carol just for having invited Victor to the employee campgrounds, resulting in his awesome display of piss-power, but having heard her and Victor yelling at each other all day from the gas station across the street was just icing on his cake.
He saw me with Carol around my shoulder and came to help get her up the hill.
“Let's get you to your tent, then we'll load your stuff into my truck, and I'll take you down to the bottom of the hill, and you can hitch hike yourself back to Fairbanks, and get that ankle checked out.”
That was all he said. And then he laughed like Gargamel from The Smurfs.
The sleeping bag remained on our trail, soaked in piss.
I'm not at all surprised that Brad left a battered woman with a sprained ankle on the side of the road to hitch to Fairbanks after firing her. That's the kind of guy Brad is. He's not all bad... but everyone here can envision him punching his mom or eating a baby and laughing his hideous evil laugh while doing it.
Oh, speaking of baby-eaters, another great quote I heard about our management was "If I were hitch hiking, and Carol or Mike Crowfoot pulled over to pick me up, I would say, 'I'd rather spend six hours in a car with a baby eating rapist.'"
Yeah, and there's Candy too... who said to my MOM, "It's a good thing your son wasn't working today, because one of our guests reported a theft from their cabin today." Then she flew away on her broom stick.
Believe it or not, between our employers and all the odd things that occur, there are moments for bliss, fun, excitement, and full-on roars of laughter. Most days I wake up feeling like a Muppet, but this tends to occur anywhere I go; just this goofy, 'foot loose and fancy free' kid ready to attack the world. Every once and a while I get a little weighed down, but all I need is for Kermit to come in and give me a little pep talk, and I'm ready to Gonzo the whole place down again. So with said peppy attitude, doing housekeeping is actually a fun time. I mean really, all we do are lame tasks like making beds, while goofing off, using our bodies for physical work, and spending most of our time outside taking in the sun. It comes as no surprise that we adopted a policy that if we find alcohol in a checked out room, we must consume it immediately. Today this included a glass of wine. Our biggest score was three beers and a plate full of brownies. You can believe the chocolate stained smiles on that day... "I'm drinking beer, eating brownies, making a bed, and it's only 10 am."
It also helps to have people like Jin-Son on your housekeeping crew. Jin-Son is an adorable part time housekeeper, who is a full time cook at the fancier Chalet resort. He's fresh off the plane from Korea, and can barely communicate in English. But just the type of character he is leads me to believe he can barely communicate in any language.
“Where is Lizarbet?”
Jin-Son had a crush on Elizabeth, or Lizarbet, as he could say.
“She has the day off, Jin-Son. She'll be here tomorrow.
"Oh, I am sad. She is so beauriful. I miss her."
Then imagine an Engrish version of “You Are So Beautiful To Me.”