ONE - EGGS AND ELEPHANTS 1

ONE

EGGS AND ELEPHANTS

1

The winter issue of Backtrails magazine appeared in my mailbox in February. Though I’d never heard of the magazine, much less subscribed to it, the following May I was on a plane for Munich answering one of its ads. It wasn’t unusual for me to respond to the call of a distant place or activity. An avid outdoorsman, I’d hiked, biked, climbed, snowboarded, skydived, even canyoned at various locations throughout the States and Europe. What was peculiar was the way in which the call was delivered.

I’d just returned from Europe, where I’d covered The Vampire Ball in Heidelberg, the Fasching parade in Maastricht, and Fasnacht in Interlaken as part of a carnival series for a travel magazine I freelanced for. My flight from Seattle, the last leg of a twenty-hour affair that had involved two nasty delays, had arrived in Juneau around midnight, and I’d slept in until ten or so. The magazine was on my desk when I woke. My daughter, Kristin, who’d ridden the bus in from Mendenhall Valley to welcome me back, had brought the contents of the stuffed mailbox when she arrived, depositing them in the office next to my bedroom. I saw the magazine before I saw her, the desk being my well-documented first stop (see the divorce transcripts) when I got up each morning. Like many writers, it was my habit to scribble down any sleep-inspired thoughts or dream fragments I could recall for possible use in my other source of income, novels. That morning of course I had no such recollections, having slept in a near flat line state after the journey. Going to the office was a ritual action.

The magazine rested on top of a pile of envelopes, paper clipped open to the quarter-page ad whose text was highlighted in yellow marker. At the top of the page was a sticky note scribbled in my daughter’s familiar handwriting: Found it in the mailbox just like this. K. My first thought as I removed the clips to look at the cover was that the note was in fun and Kristin had found something of interest to her, something she would die to have or someplace she would kill to go. I corrected my suspicion as soon I’d flipped back to the marked page and read the caption beneath a photo of a craggy ridge with evergreen-carpeted slopes: Some of the most breathtaking scenery the high-terrain backpacker will ever experience. High-country backpacking was not Kristin’s thing. I was lucky if she would do an overnighter with me at one of the Forest Service’s remote cabins, which a half day’s hike would get you to.

The picture, though, was startling. Above the tree line, the jagged peaks—set against a deep blue sky—were capped in snow. The upper ranks of firs had received a recent dusting, in contrast to the valley in the foreground, where a waterfall fed a green mountain pool that was surrounded by wildflowers and looked inviting enough to bathe in. It wasn’t unlike some of the scenes among the mountains embracing Juneau, but I knew I was looking at a European setting even before reading the words “alpine excursion.” As tempting as the photo and accompanying trip overview were, however, I was more interested in the magazine’s origin than any once-in-a-lifetime experiences it peddled.

Where had it come from? It obviously wasn’t a sample sent by the publisher. Just to be sure, I flipped to the back cover, but as expected, found no address label. So who, aside from the outfit that had run the ad, was trying to lure me to the Bavarian Alps? Or was that the intent at all?

Those who knew me knew I wasn’t one to be persuaded by an advertisement, even one highlighted in mystery. I tried to remember if anyone I knew in Juneau had made an unsuccessful attempt at convincing me to join them on such an excursion, but came up blank. It was probably a joke from one of my “extreme” sportsmen buddies, referring either to the ad itself or to some inside moment that wasn’t connecting. Whatever it was, I’d let my subconscious work on it for a day, then the magazine was going into the bin with all the other junk mail.

Kristin, bundled in her black, snow-sprinkled coat, was down at the tidal pond, feeding the ducks, when I stepped outside onto the deck with a steaming mug of coffee in my hand. The pond was her first stop on the wildlife adventure my backyard offered.

The lodge-style house was set back from the shore on a terrace of high ground, well integrated with the western hemlocks and Sitka spruces that dominated the island. Wooden pillars provided additional elevation in the face of the twenty-foot tide swings you could get at certain times of year. A path wound down through the nettles and wild grass a local landscaper did the best he could with, opening onto a boulder-strewn beach of slate and smoothed stones. It wasn’t unusual for otters to come ashore, or for seals to make appearances on the boulders when the tide was high. Bald eagles were another regular attraction, perching in the evergreens or scooping fish out of the surf; or, when the stars were properly aligned, coming together in their spiraling mating dance—a true wonder to behold. Black bears, deer, beavers from the nearby stream were occasional passers through. Most impressive, though, were the sightings out on the sea. Porpoises performing leaping ballet as they pursued each other playfully across the water. In the late spring and summer, and with the aid of binoculars: humpbacks blowing and rolling and brandishing their tails.

Once, Kristin and I had even spotted an orca leisurely hunting the open waters to the south, probably having followed a family of seals as they returned from their winter getaway.

As magical as all this sounds, it was tough living. Juneau lay at the feet of the mountains, against the sea, and in the middle of a subtropical rainforest. The elements played hell on everything. Except for April and May, the precipitation was almost constant year-round. Add to that the windstorms, the salt, the silt, the ice, the avalanches, the stubbornly unpredictable waters, and the quicksand, and the image of the relaxed Alaska life was exposed for the product of misguidance and naïveté that it was. Where the elements let off, the wild finished the joke. Bears breaking into houses, ravens tearing the tiles off roofs, otters poaching fishermen’s catch, beavers chewing up piers, wolves killing pets, nettles thinking they were bamboo, mosquitoes out of the Land That Time Forgot . . . the list went on and on.

The price of living a dream, I guess. Had we known what we were getting into, I often wondered if Felicia and I would have made the decision to come. Juneau was supposed to be the path to recovery when her transfer with the Forest Service came through and we packed up the family, minus one, and left Tahoe. Instead, it had been the path to further fragmentation, and eventually marital ruin. We had survived all that, in the broader sense, though, and thank God we’d both stayed in Juneau to share equally in the joy and companionship of our surviving twin daughter.

As Kristin caught sight of me, waved, and began walking toward the house, I thought about how far she had come since our arrival less than two years ago. Christ, the pain she had been put through, with her sister’s death and her parents’ divorce only nine months later . . . no child should have to endure such a tragic sequence. It had taken a while, but she had eventually come to love Alaska, to forgive us, and to shed the guilt associated with both the divorce and her sister’s death, allowing her to remember Kathy in a loving, healthy way.

We could all speak of Kathy in the past tense now, if we didn’t necessarily think of her that way. There were still times, and this was one of them, that I wanted to take Kristin in my arms and impress on her with every ounce of my being how proud I was of the courage and maturity she’d shown in response to it all, how deeply and terribly sorry I was for not being a better father to her when she needed me most, for letting my own pain and grief stand in the way of fully addressing hers. But no matter how far we’d come, we weren’t there yet. Oh, the words had been said in one fashion or another, but they were without real meaning until terms had absolutely and unreservedly been come to. And as long as the mere sight of Kristin made me think of Kathy, that had not been accomplished.

“Hey, Daddy-o,” she said as she walked up the stairs. “Good trip?”

“Drunken Europeans in vampire outfits. You fill in the rest.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Nah. I got to tour Heidelberg Castle again, and hiked up to see the Thingstätte, the Nazi propaganda amphitheater on the mountain. Remember going up there when you were, what, nine? And watching the fireworks?”

“Yes, Dad,” she said, with a touch of here-we-go-again. “Up the trail from the Philosophenweg, where Goethe walked. Tell me you’re not really wearing that, Dad.” She stood in front of me now, hands on hips, lips puckered in distaste.

I looked down at my house robe. “What would you have me wear right after waking up?”

“A flannel shirt and sweats like everybody else.”

I laughed. “Well, at least there’s nobody around to see me.”

“A boat could come around the corner at any time. And when it does, I’m ducking in the house.”

A snowflake landed on her nose, and I brushed it off before giving her a big hug. “I’ll do better next time,” I promised.

“Geez Dad, you act like we haven’t seen each other in moons,” she said, returning the squeeze in spite of herself.

“Feels like a hundred years,” I said, only partly teasing.

When we’d separated, she asked, “So did you see the magazine?”

“Yeah. It came just like that, huh?”

“Yup,” she said. “Any idea who it came from?”

“No clue.”

“Weird. Somebody must really want you in Bavaria. Gotta girlfriend I don’t know about?”

A year ago she never would have asked a question like that, even in jest. And if she had, I certainly wouldn’t have answered with these words: “Several, if you count the online dating services.”

She cocked her head, twisting her lip in that way of hers, then stepped back out of striking distance before saying, “I hope you’ve had better luck than I have.”

I feigned setting my coffee on the rail but let her escape inside unpursued. I turned back to admire the view of the snowy peaks across the bay, and felt the first tugs of another set of mountains beyond a much wider expanse of sea.

***

After lunch—breakfast to me—Kristin and I left the overrated warmth of the indoors for the winter afternoon. She wanted to take a drive “out the road”—as every self-respecting Alaskan referred to it—and do some hiking at Point Bridget. I warned her that with the warmer temperatures of the last couple days the trail was likely to be a soggy mess, but she wanted to give it a try anyway. The backup plan was the Auke Bay recreation area, which offered a wooden walkway down to one of the most beautiful views from shore in the Juneau area, but alas, not the sort of hiking we were looking for.

The famous “road”, whose legend had been broadened during Sarah Palin’s vice-presidential go, was the single road of any length in Juneau. Juneau is an isolated place accessible only by air or boat. Generally speaking, it has neither the need nor the room for long roads, with all the surrounding land being tied up in the endless dispute between the progressives and environmentalists. But this was no ordinary road. This was the road to nowhere. When Glacier Highway first left civilization, it was intended to be a conduit to the rest of the world, a way of attaining the Alaska Highway. Delay after fiscal delay, however, had essentially made it a forty-mile-long cul-de-sac. A bummer for those who wanted to drive up to Anchorage or over to Canada, or for that matter, down to Florida. A snicker for the argument’s other side, who’d thought it a gross waste of state funds in the first place and could now point at the place where the road stopped dead and say, “See? See where your damn road’s led? No-fucking-where, that’s where.”

Then there were the rest of us, who considered the road a scenic, albeit brief distraction from the same-same of a town of thirty thousand people. As with most Alaska politics, I rode the fence between neutrality and apathy on this issue. If I considered the road at all, I considered it a metaphor for the perpetual legal impasse that existed between industry (oil, timber, fishing, tourism), government, and environment. Only the natives seemed to have an edge, though you wouldn’t know it over a beer with them. What limited knowledge I had of the goings-on came courtesy of Felicia, whose job as a public affairs specialist with the Forest Service put her right in the middle of the bloodshed. I’d no interest in feeding the headache by pursuing more. Why bother? There was nothing I could do about anything except cast an occasional vote, and I’d even soured on that.

We chatted as we drove through isolated flakes of snow, Kristin doing much of the lip work. She told me a couple of the sophomores had invited her to join their three-member Wicca coven. After some research, she wasn’t sure it was for her, but she was still debating. The B+ in geometry looked like it was going to be brought up to an A, thanks to Coach Meeder’s extended emergency absence. Why they let coaches teach advanced subjects was beyond Kristin. Since Ms. Jones had been subbing, things had come together, made sense in a way that wasn’t even remotely possible with Coach Meeder, who Kristin strongly suspected didn’t understand the subject matter himself. Meanwhile, I hadn’t forgotten about the skis my beloved and deserving daughter wanted for her birthday, had I? No, she did not need reminding that her birthday was in May. It was my memory she was concerned about. Yes, she realized that ski season would probably be over. And no, she did not think I was made of money. She didn’t bother wondering aloud why we were going through this charade when we both knew full well I was going to get her the skis. She probably didn’t wonder at all. She liked talking about her birthday, and I liked accommodating, especially since she didn’t abuse my malleability except on special occasions. Sundays are special occasions, right?

We talked about my trip to Europe and the magazine series I was working on. While the piece’s main focus was on lesser known carnival parties, its sub-theme dealt with alternative things to do around town while waiting to don your devil outfit. Though Kristin threw in the appropriate share of ‘cools’ as I told her about the curious places my field research had turned up, she was far more interested in where I was going than in where I’d been. I had one lesser known event still to cover for the series, and my daughter knew I’d been looking forward to the trip to Brazil. I knew before she posed the question that her interest wasn’t of the vicarious variety. I was surprised, however, by the answer that came out of me, having previously decided that I’d have to be the bad guy this time, even warning her when the topic first came up not to ask.

“If . . . if your mom will let you have a few days off school, then—”

“Oh, thank you, Dad!” she cried. “Rio! It’s going to be so awesome.”

She was so excited about the trip, she forgot to be disappointed when we reached the Point Bridget trailhead, and before we’d even gotten started, sank to the tops of our boots in the muddy snowmelt.

***

Her mother would agree in the end, because no matter how you broke it down, three days of class—class that could be made up—could not stand up against the worldly instruction of a trip to Brazil. I was a firm believer in utilizing opportunities, even at a sacrifice. Felicia had been in harmony with me on such points in the early days. But somewhere along the maternal journey—before Kathy was taken from us—the ultra-conservative side had taken over and she’d begun fixating on security, frugality, the pragmatic, all the strictures bullet-pointed in the manual. My less than everyday lifestyle and the ‘flighty’ attitude that went along with it were suddenly a danger to the children. Our parenting styles, once in accord, diverged into a battle of wills, and I became something of an enemy in my own home.

She’d actually regained some perspective after Kathy’s death, at least in terms of acknowledging the brevity of life. She still had her hang-ups—the most obvious among them being her overprotectiveness of Kristin—but the leash she held on every aspect of her world had definitely slackened. Which was why, when Kristin and I returned home that afternoon from Auke Bay, where we’d enjoyed just hanging out and watching a fresh snowfall against the backdrop of sea and mountains, I was caught off guard by her reaction to the idea of Kristin going to Rio with me. I’d known Kristin would call her as soon as she changed into dry clothes, and I had been prepared for mild opposition, but this was more like revolution.

“What did she say?” I asked as my daughter stepped into the kitchen where I was starting dinner. The look on her face was an extension of the pleading noises I’d heard from the living room.

“She said I’ve missed enough school already this year, gallivanting around the globe with you.” Tears welled as she spoke. “And she certainly wasn’t going to let me go to that ‘nest of sin’ Rio with you.”

I almost spoke it, the thought that made its angry way in, but thankfully I had the self-control to resist. Neither my ex-wife nor I made a habit of speaking derogatorily about each other to our daughter. On that much I think we silently agreed. I wasn’t going to start that kind of war now by posing, even innocently, to Kristin, What happened? Did she run out of her Zoloft?

But nest of sin? Since when had Felicia gotten religion? Her moral codes came from the same shelf of the bookstore as the life-is-meant-to-be-confined-by manual. And how, for Christ’s sake, did such an expression apply to a father-daughter cultural trip? Sometimes I truly thought the woman was crazy.

“I’ll fix this,” I said under my breath and strode past her to the living room phone. I thought for a moment before punching in the number.

Felicia answered without a hello. “She’s not going, Barry.”

“How was the bird banding? Kristin told me that’s why she rode the bus in. She said you and Nina were making it a day of birds. First the banding, then a special raptor event—”

“What has that to do with . . . whatever you’re up to, Barry, the answer remains no.”

“She also told me you’ve been stressing about a paper due at the office. Don’t you think you should have been working on that instead of enjoying God’s creatures?”

“I’m taking President’s Day tomorrow, Barry, because I had a project on the actual holiday. I’ve got all day to work on it. Is that okay with you?”

“It certainly is, because it illustrates the point. Bird bandings do not take place every day. Nor does the raptor center commonly reunite bald eagle mates for public viewing by releasing the mended one at the site of the couple’s quite sinless nest. Special circumstances. Work that can be made up. Hold your hands out palms up and you can literally feel the scales weighing to one side.”

Silence. As the seconds ticked by, Kristin hovered, fingers interlocking expectantly. Through the phone I could hear the wheels grinding as Felicia groped for her answer. I am an adult and she is a child, Barry. No, I could hear her thinking, he’ll call me on that one, will say that’s my whole problem. Rio de Janeiro is no place for a child. Nope, he already caught me on that one.

Finally: “I hate you, Barry.”

“The feeling is not mutual, Felicia.”

“You better have her back on Tuesday or your ass is grass. And you call the school.”

“Tell Nina I said hi. And I really do hope you’ve had a rewarding day. Sometimes there aren’t enough of them.”

I turned to find Kristin a full foot off the ground.

***

I had a disturbing dream that night, and so did Kristin. I’d taken her back to her mom’s after dinner and then stopped off at the Silver Salmon for a beer on the way home. I had another beer watching CNN on the couch before surrendering to the jetlag and falling asleep right there among the throw pillows. I was in the snarls of the dream when I awoke to the phone ringing. As I got my bearings, only snatches of the dream remained, but the psychological residue clung to me like a film of sap. Or to be more accurate, barbed wire. Such being literally the condition I was in when mercy—at least what should have been mercy—came in the form of Kristin’s call.

As I picked up the phone I could still see the trees of the forest in which I’d been lost. The trees and the featureless faces that were only just beginning to make themselves known when I became entangled in what I thought was a thorny thicket until I actually felt the metal burs in my fists. It took a moment to process her emotion-fraught voice, though the first words out of her mouth were dearer to me than any I knew.

“Dad? It’s Kristin. Dad, I had a horrible dream. I wouldn’t have called, but . . . ”

I processed the unspoken far more efficiently than I had the spoken: . . . but Kathy was in it.

“It’s okay, sweetheart. Just a dream. Do you want to tell me?”

The quivering came through the phone. “We were at the airport. You were getting ready to board a plane to Germany to do that trip from the magazine ad, and I was seeing you off.” She lowered her voice, as if in awe. “Kathy was there. Only, at first she was someone else. She looked like Kathy, but like . . . I just knew it wasn’t her. She was standing right in front of you, but you couldn’t see her. I knew this because she was trying to tell you something. Not with words. She didn’t speak. But she had the magazine in her hand, turned to that page, and she was shaking her head. Normally at first, but then, like, wildly. She was trying to tell you not to go. But you . . . you just walked right through her. I tried to catch you, but one of the airport people stopped me and then you were gone into the tunnel. Then . . . then this girl who wasn’t Kathy turned to look at me, and suddenly she was Kathy, because I saw . . . I saw where she had been . . . where they had . . . ”

She burst into tears, and could go no further. I hurt for her. I hurt for her so badly I didn’t know the means to soothe her. Even through the pain, though, I felt the coaxing tongue of temptation. More than temptation. In spite of my dismissive attitude toward the unexpected appearance in my mailbox, I might as well have been booked already for the Bavarian Alps, and lord help me for being the winged creature Felicia accused me of.