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CHAPTER 2

The Jumping-Off Place

The Greyhound growled out of the terminal, past the parked taxicabs and into the traffic stream of Boston. It was raining. I fingered Dad’s envelope out of my pocket, hesitated for a moment, then ripped it open with my thumb. His words were to the point:

I once told Anna you were lazy and irresponsible. You were wasting your education. I was wrong. You’re a restless dreamer. You can be so much more than you are. You’re holding out for what you want to do and you won’t settle for what you have to do. Keep following your star and please accept my apology.

I pursed my lips. “You were right the first time,” I muttered. “No need to apologize.” The seat beside me was empty. I hoped it would stay that way. I didn’t feel like talking. I had a lot of thinking to do.

I lay back in the darkness, listening to the singing of the tires in the rain. Trucks droned like huge hornets zipping past the window. I never realized before how much freight moved over the roads while most people slept. Those drivers hurtled their rigs through the dark with hours on their minds and a clock to beat. I dozed fitfully, waking now and then to the sounds of snoring or a baby crying, then drifting off into a limbo again. I was startled when the lights flicked on, and from far off the driver’s voice announced a rest stop. For a moment, I had no idea where I was.

In New York City, a frail, slight man with heavy-rimmed glasses sat down next to me. Before we left the city, conversation started to flow. At thirty-three, he was an eye surgeon. Here he was, just three years older than I, and professionally established. I was still groping.

“I make my living here in the city,” he said. “A very good living … and I hate it. The people are callous. If you fell down on the sidewalk, they’d walk over you before they stopped to help you get up.”

He told me how he had no time to himself at all, how patients came with their problems and left them with him to solve, how meetings of medical societies stole the precious moments of privacy that emergency operations failed to claim.

“So,” he said, “I’m going to my sister’s place for ten days and didn’t tell a soul where I was going.”

“I envy you,” I told him. “You’ve arrived. You’re right on course.” I confided that I still didn’t know what I wanted to do in life, but I was headed to Alaska to find out.

The doctor laughed. “Envy me? Why I’d give a whole lot to be going with you. When I started high school, everything was all planned. Mapped out. I’m sure life is much more exciting your way. The quest is much more stimulating than the goal.”

So we sat and talked, each envious of the other, each good for the other, and yet I felt that his was the better way to go. He was doing something worthwhile, contributing unselfishly of his time to society, and I was still a boy who wanted to play.

I didn’t like to see him leave when he got off the bus.

“It’s been a most pleasant experience,” the doctor said. He handed me a card and we shook hands. “If you’re ever in New York again, please look me up.”

“It would be fun to compare notes someday,” I said. I watched him hurry off, blurring into the crowd and the anonymity he sought.

SCENES FLASHED PAST THE WINDOWS OF the bus as we hurtled west. In Ohio, I was amazed at forests of television antennae. Chicago was in the throes of the Republican convention with “I Like Ike” placards, searchlights, and a barrage balloon [blimp] in the sky. Wisconsin towns impressed me with their washed streets and neat shops. Minnesota’s bodies of water, large and small, danced with sunlight.

North Dakota? A huge, undulating golf course and clumps of trees. Flat Montana rose up into the Rockies. The road was a precipitous rock wall on one side and a guard rail—dizzying nothingness beyond it—on the other. I could only smell the evergreens of Idaho as we roared through it in the night. Southern Washington seemed desolate with sage and rock. It felt like we were in the southwest. Then enchantment came outside of Ellensburg—the snowy Cascades jutting their proud peaks above the dark foothills. Black-striped, orange-barked pines towered amid the firs, and I felt I was moving through a canyon bordered with great living columns. Fog patches curled and ascended the slopes. The clear waters of the Yakima River raced along beside me.

Finally, upswooping, cloud-crowned Mount Rainier … and Seattle.

I shaved in the large restroom of the terminal. Soldiers were stripped down, dipping into suitcases, sprucing up and appraising their reflections. A thick-armed giant shaved next to me and splashed water like a grizzly emerging from a creek. I felt dwarfed beside him and wondered where he came from and what he did. I decided he had to be related to a Douglas fir.

Five days on the bus had exacted a toll. I didn’t realize how tired I was until I broke out on the streets of Seattle. I’d claim my seabag as soon as I got settled somewhere. Which way to go? I flipped a coin. Heads one way; tails, the other. Tails directed me to the Georgian Hotel. Not fancy, but in my price range, and it was clean. I soaked luxuriously in a hot bath, crawled between fresh sheets, and drifted into a deep sleep. When I woke, I couldn’t believe it! I had slept almost twelve hours.

I lay there staring at the ceiling. Thoughts bombarded me. Was I running away from life, or running toward it? Wouldn’t problems from back East follow me like birds in the wake of a ship? When was I going to realize I couldn’t be a boy forever? Well, I’d come this far. I’d play the hand out. With a frowning concentration, I dressed and went out to see the town.

Signs were all over the place:

ALASKA, LAND OF OPPORTUNITY.

FLY TO ALASKA! $79 TO ANCHORAGE WITH 55 POUNDS OF LUGGAGE, 30¢ FOR EXTRA WEIGHT.

STEAMSHIP CRUISE TO ANCHORAGE, $115 WITHOUT TAX.

SEE THE LAST FRONTIER!

The promoters were going on all cylinders. Such a lavish display made the whole business feel like a sucker’s game to me. Round-trip tickets weren’t mentioned at all. I wasn’t going off half-cocked. It was now Monday, July 14. I’d look around. If I didn’t line up an Alaska job here by Friday, I’d light out for Anchorage or Fairbanks without one, and take my chances.

I bought an Alaskan newspaper. I could see there was much unemployment up there in the land of opportunity. Her cities were crowded. There were many references to men stranding themselves without funds. Several pleas in the advertising section alarmed me. “Young man desperately needs work.” “Young man will do anything.”

I checked the Seattle Times carefully to see if anyone was driving up the Alaska-Canada Highway (also known as the Alcan) and wanted a passenger. That was like trying to fill an inside straight, but I’d continue to keep my eyes open just the same.

I wandered the streets to get oriented. Soldiers and sailors prowled the sidewalks singly and in bands, looking into windows, and moving in and out of the shops. Nobody seemed to notice them. They didn’t give the impression of being proud of their uniforms. I remembered how proud I’d been of mine, but times were different then. The country was together.

I strolled along the waterfront. Sockeye salmon, gutted and slab-sided, lay on beds of crushed ice. SEND A SALMON EAST, a sign read. AS LOW AS $10.50. Anna would be pleased with one of them, I decided, so I sent her one. I wasn’t surprised that it cost me $12.50. The low price advertised must have been reserved for the east bank of the Mississippi, the farthest west you could be and still call it “East” here. Piles of crabs rested on folded legs. Men in short rubber boots hosed the wooden and cement floors, sloshing debris off the edges. The smell of fish and seaweed hung in the air. Masses of brown-leaved kelp waved in the Puget Sound swells, like fronds of coconut palms. Packing cases, cans, and papers bobbed in the water around the pilings.

If you don’t know what to do with something, I thought, just throw it off the pier. The ocean will take care of it.

I walked into the spacious People’s Savings Bank to cash a Traveler’s Cheque. I was still wearing my moccasin boots. Even though they felt like gloves, I needed something more appropriate for town wear. A squat character pounced on me from the ambush of his doorway.

“What size you wear? Come in. Come in. You come to the right place. I sell cheaper than any other place in town. Where you from? What kind of work you do, sir?” I let him rattle on until I was able to indicate what I wanted. Then I sat down. He unlaced a boot and slipped a loafer on my foot. I didn’t even say I’d take the shoes. I thought he was looking up another style. Instead, he was wrapping up the loafers.

“You don’t wear big, heavy shoes. People think you’re from the country. Wear these. Look like a civilian. Eleven ninety-five,” he concluded.

Think you’re from the country. In the next few hours, his words rang in my brain. I decided to do some investigating. I took the shoes around to various shoe stores and tried to find out whether or not I had been taken. Of course, the proprietors dismissed my queries by saying that they could not put down a competitor, but in doing so they gave me the slight hints I was looking for. I watched their faces when I told them what I had paid. Finally, an old Swede, bless his heart, told me that they were cheap shoes, that he sold them for $8.00. I could have kissed him.

I stomped back to the first store like a Nazi Storm Trooper. “Here’s the boy with the big shoes back and he wants his money!” I said. I slammed the shoes on the counter. “Those shoes are worth about $8.00. When you size up a sucker next time, look a little farther than the shoes he wears.” He argued. If he was bigger, I think I’d have swung at him. I got my money back and I returned to the old Swede’s shop and bought a good pair. I felt I had won my fight. If I couldn’t trust people, I could now be on my guard and weigh every dealing with cold suspicion.

Author’s journal, July 15, 1952

I wasted the day wandering through the streets. A brooding concentration. Did I try to run away from life? Am I ashamed of what I have done with college up until now? Whether I get a job or not, I must go to Alaska. I must go for pride will not let me return yet to the east. And yet I can’t help but think that this “land of opportunity” rage out here is a sucker’s game.

I had no idea what I was going to do, but it was time to find a job, any job.

During the next few days I visited the offices of several contractors with jobs in Alaska. They were interested in tradesmen, not laborers. Laborers they could hire on the scene. College didn’t count unless you were an engineer or an accountant. College just put you in a different league. I wondered how many educated derelicts there were wandering on Skid Row. I stumbled on a notice posted by the Navy. Laborers were being hired for Adak and Kodiak.

IF INTERESTED, REPORT TO THE ALASKA RECRUITING OFFICE AT PIER 91.

I was walking, and by Pier 63 I decided that Pier 91 would be easier reached by trolleybus. I didn’t know what the fare was. I fumbled for change, revealing my insecurity in my surroundings. As I sat down, I didn’t notice the girl sitting next to the open seat. A few minutes later I was surveying her shapely legs, the perfect swelling of her calves, the thin ankles dropping into black, high-heeled pumps. Her eyes were a sparkling blue, her lips moist and the red of strawberries. I kept stealing glances at her.

“Pier 91 and Carleton Park,” the bus driver announced.

The girl got up to leave. I followed her out. I guess I still looked bewildered by my surroundings, because the girl smiled.

“Pier 91 is over there,” she said.

“Thank you,” I said. She smiled again. Her teeth were like the first snow and her eyes flashed. I walked away, thinking how pretty she was.

A sailor at the gate issued me a pass, and I proceeded to the Alaska Recruiting Office. After filling out an application, I was told to report the next day for a physical. If I passed that, then the deal was to sign a one-year contract. Free air transportation would be provided to Adak or Kodiak, and if I completed my year, the trip back to Seattle would be gratis also. I would have the option of signing over again, too. Not too bad, I thought. This could be my Alaska meal ticket.

Back on the street, I hailed the trolleybus. I climbed aboard, and for a moment I thought I’d never gotten off. There, across the aisle, were those legs again. The girl I’d sat next to before! She smiled at me. It was almost an invitation to introduce myself and sit beside her, but I stayed where I was and lamely thanked her again for her help. My damned shyness and Yankee reserve … I’d never get rid of it. Afraid to make a move and be refused. That would hurt too much.

The bus driver turned when he stopped again. “You two chasing each other around? Too hot for that. Go find a shady spot.”

Even with this assist, I remained tongue-tied, but managed a shy smile in her direction.

Finally, she got off. Her arm brushed mine. I watched her walk across the sidewalk to a store window, then turn and smile. I grinned back as the bus moved off. The driver shot me a sour glance. I got off at the next stop and walked hurriedly back toward the girl. I was going to throw all caution to the winds. It was just too damn lonesome in this town.

Then I noticed a passing bus. My hopes evaporated. There she was again, smiling and waving. I waved back, trying to communicate to her to get off, but she didn’t pick up the vibrations.

“Damn it,” I said out loud.

I WENT TO THE LIBRARY FOR some guidance, and decided to look up some information on Adak and Kodiak. I immediately ruled out Adak. Not a tree on the island. But, Kodiak … that held promise. I wondered what the fishing was like.

On my way back to the hotel, I passed a Girlie Show, all lit up and glittery with revealing posters beneath the marquee. Girls in flesh-colored G-strings and hammocks of fishnet supporting their heavy breasts seemed to squirm right out of the pictures. Their mouths were drawn into “Os” and their eyes were big and round. I hesitated for a moment, then walked on.

Back at the hotel room, I took a bath. As I toweled myself off, the roll of blubber around my middle was emphasized in the full mirror on the door. How did that accumulate so fast? It wasn’t that long ago when my stomach was drumhead tight and the muscles showed.

You’re going to seed, I thought as I jutted my chin and shaved critically.

Don’t blame Seattle, I answered. It’s not as unfriendly as you think. There’s things to do, but you’re holding on to your wallet. I rinsed off the blade.

But my wallet’s my security blanket until I get to Alaska, I thought, splashing my face with a spicy lotion. All right, then, I told my reflection, so stop bitching about Seattle.

The next morning, I returned to Pier 91. The smell of the sick bay was familiar to me from my Marine days. So were the needles the corpsman jabbed me with. I saw on the screen of my mind the long line snaking into the tent, the marines emerging from the other end of it, holding their arms, grimacing, and shouting for the benefit of us waiting to be punctured. “Look out for the hook!” “It’s a square needle!” “Jesus, that butcher struck bone.” An occasional trickle of blood down an upper arm made believers out of us. Some boys even fainted in the tent before the needle touched them.

I felt the swollen pressure of the rubber tubing around my bicep as the doctor squeezed the ball and watched the gauge.

“How’s it look?” I asked.

“See that you don’t get too heavy,” he said. That did it. Removal of the lard would have top priority.

After filling out forms in duplicate and triplicate, after swearing not to overthrow the government and swearing solemnly that I never had been or was presently affiliated with a Communist or Fascist Party, after indicating my preference for Kodiak, I was told to report again in two days. Okay, then, two days to be a tourist—to see Seattle with new eyes.

I spent the rest of the day in a waterfront aquarium and finally in a theater, where I saw The Wild North, a movie about a desperate man in some of Canada’s roughest mountains.

Cars sizzled along the street in a steady rain, their lights glistening on the pavement. People hugged close to the buildings as they hurried along the walks. The rain felt good hitting me in the face. Just for a change of pace, I stopped in a bar to have a few drinks. I sat at the bar with a young, homesick soldier. He was drinking beer because there nothing else to do. The place was full of people with nothing else to do. Women were waiting to be picked up. I didn’t want that kind of trouble.

“Don’t stay in here too long,” I said to the soldier. “They’ll keep looking better and better.”

Usually I walked upstairs to my room instead of bothering the clerk to take me up in the elevator. Tonight, I was later than usual. I noticed the handle to the closed door leading upstairs was missing. Was this a precaution against unwanted guests? The only way up was the elevator.

When I opened my room door, I found a note had been slid under it. Lonesome? it read. You don’t have to be, you know. There was a number to call. Now, who had put it here? I hesitated, then slowly tore up the note and tossed the pieces into the wastebasket.

I brushed the curtain back and looked down on the street. There were lots of lonesome people in this world.

I hoped Kodiak was the paradise I heard it was. I intended to work hard, play hard, and save my money. When I saw my family again, I’d be richer, both in money and experience.

July 16, 1952

Dear Dad, Molly, & Mrs. Millet:

This is only going to be a short letter. I took off without my Marine Corps discharge. Everytime I go away, although I check and recheck my gear, I always manage to overlook something. Because I will probably need it when I get to where I am going, would you please send my discharge to me by the fastest way possible? I think you will find it in one of the trunks at your place…. Mail it to:

GEORGIAN HOTEL

ROOM 307

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON.

I went over to the Naval District Headquarters and inquired about Civil Service jobs in Alaska, and much to my satisfaction, found a few laboring jobs open…. The woman at the desk told me I had the job as long as my physical did not in any way reject me. I have to sign a one-year contract and as far as I know, I will be in Kodiak, Alaska. The pay is just under $2.00 per hour.

Please hurry along my discharge. Hoping all is well.

Love to all,

Sam

I HAD BEEN EATING IN THE Sportsman’s Cafe. The food was excellent, and I enjoyed sitting at the counter and watching the chef do his job. I have always been fascinated by people doing things well. Harry Mae, the chef, had many orders going at the same time. His movements were flowing, and he wasted none of them. He was tall with sunken cheeks, deep-set eyes, and features like Abraham Lincoln.

This particular evening was slow when he placed the steak platter in front of me. It must have been obvious to him how I savored the brown-crusted, red pieces of beef.

“How’s the steak, bud?” he asked, leaning on the counter.

“Best ever. You can cook my grub anytime.”

He dumped more salad on my platter. Then he got a piece of pie and a cup of coffee and came around to sit beside me. We sounded each other out. I was enjoying his company and hoping that customers would stay away for a bit.

“You have to go down deep for king salmon,” he said. “Bounce three and a half ounces of lead off the bottom and ripple a sewed herring along about a foot above it. Picture three hundred to four hundred boats trolling the bay. You sock into a big king and then he starts his run. All them lines out there. You bring him to the boat, and you’re a fisherman.” He pointed to a picture of himself with a sixty-four pounder he had caught. Then a chance remark revealed that he had been to Kodiak.

“How’s the fishing up there?”

He grinned. “Tie a rope on a broom handle,” he said. “That’s all the gear you need. Wait till you see that water. So clear you can drink it.” He got up as a group sauntered into his restaurant.

I smelled the sweet scent of the woman before I saw her. Her hair was a tumble of black brown curls, snapping with glints of copper, and bouncing on her shoulders. She sat a few stools away from me, tipped her head back like a sunbather, and her hair shimmered. Her knitted suit hugged the swell of her breasts and communicated the mold and movement of every muscle. She moved a leg to cross over the other. I glimpsed her calf muscle roll and bulge against the nylon. The idealist part of my nature still controlled the animal. I didn’t hear her voice. She was just a beautifully alive creature that entranced me, that made me linger over my coffee like an old man watching the glory of a sunset. She never looked my way at all. If she had, I would have turned crimson.

STATEMENT OF LIVING AND WORKING CONDITIONS

U.S. Naval Station, Kodiak, Alaska

26 November 1951

GOVERNMENT: The U.S. Naval Station, Kodiak, Alaska, is under regular Navy jurisdiction. All civilian employees are subject to Seventeenth Naval District and regulation, including naval discipline, during their presence on the station, whether during or outside regular working hours.

GENERAL: The station is part permanent and part temporary. It might be termed to be in “Pioneer State” without paved streets, walks, etc. Prospective employees should not expect metropolitan conditions.

CLOTHING: Civilian employees should provide themselves prior to departure from the United States with heavy clothing for winter, rain clothing, and overshoes for both winter and summer. Work clothing, rain clothes, and overshoes and boots are obtainable in the town of Kodiak. Prices for all of these articles are higher than in the States.

BEFORE I LEFT FOR KODIAK, I needed some gear, so I bought a suit of neoprene rain gear, a Filson cruiser jacket, and several sets of Duofold long-john underwear. I was beginning to feel like an Alaskan before I even got there.

My departure date was approaching fast. At the Alaska Recruiting Office I filled out a few more forms and was told to bring all the gear I wanted shipped.

My seabag had all it could hold. I lugged it down to Pier 91, went to Transportation to establish my priority for the Sunday flight, and got my orders from a Navy clerk who had the charisma of a stereotypical undertaker.

At 11:35 A.M. on Sunday, July 27, I would meet the Navy bus and proceed to McChord Field in Tacoma. My last chore at the pier was to transport my bulging seabag across a high footbridge to Household Effects. Sweat poured in trails all over my face when I arrived and deposited the fat, canvas sausage. The neatly dressed woman who checked my gear was careful that I didn’t get too close to her and gave me the definite impression that the sooner I left with my perspiration, the better.

Harry Mae served me a thick, orange fillet of king salmon with cream sauce for my last supper.

“The kid’s going to Kodiak,” he announced to several others along the counter. That started something.

“You’ll be walking across the backs of salmon,” one said.

“… want to fish near the crick mouths when the tide’s turning.”

“When you see a bear stand thirteen feet high, then you seen something!”

“It’s rugged with them winds up there, but you won’t find a better place to save money … if you don’t gamble. Lots of that—and drinking, too—man, oh, man!”

Harry poked around under his counter. “Try these,” he said. “Tied ’em myself.” He handed me several artificial flies, some attached to Colorado spinners. “Take these plastic bags, too. Just as good as a creel. And,” he added, “drop me a line.”

At 1:30 P.M. I arrived at McChord Field. The flight was not scheduled to leave until 4:20 P.M. Things hadn’t changed much since my service days.

The DC-4 transport plane had bucket seats, heavy canvas stretched over metal crossbars. A blanket was spread out in the aisle, and a Black Jack game was in progress around it. Some sailors, slouched and sullen, were showing the effects of their leaves; others hinted of anxiety. Several civilians were reading magazines. A Navy Chief sat with his head hanging, dropping lower and lower until it rose abruptly, only to loll on his chest and start a new cycle.

The motors roared. I fastened my seat belt. The plane began its taxi into position.

So long, Seattle, I thought. We didn’t really get acquainted.

Two time zones away to the north, Kodiak waited in the Territory of Alaska.

Territory. That had a good sound.

Author’s journal, circa 1952

I am anxious to get started and get settled once more. Kodiak lies ahead, a land that I have never seen. Just a point on a map, a place where a giant bear lives. And now I will enter a new field of vision, and I must like what I see there, for I have bound myself for twelve months. I must work hard, I must be faithful to my notebook, and if I do these things I might someday show some doubters that I had the stuff after all.