bank in Cordova. Winters he worked on the
Mary B
. in dry dock and on his gear in the net loft over the dock.
Albert inheriting the
Mary B
. was a source of friction with the youngest brother. Boris was twenty-two and self-involved, opportunistic, loud and lazy. He fished subsistence when he worked at all, but his smoke fish was the best on the river and, packed in fancy balsa wood cases, twelve eight-ounce jars to a case, sold at a hefty premium to the clientele of Demetri Moonin’s high-end lodge up in the Quilak foothills. He made a mouth-watering caviar from the eggs, too, for a list of subscribers from as far away as New York City, every batch sold out months before it was in the one-ounce jars. It was enough to keep him in beer and Edwin jeans. Boris was also a bit of a dandy, who had been known to fly all the way to Anchorage for the right haircut.
Nathan, twenty-five, was a typical middle child. He worked summers for Demetri, guiding Demetri’s clients to the best fishing streams in the Quilaks so they could beat the water for record kings. Winters he worked on the
Mary B
.’s moving parts, paid minimum wage by the hour, and kept all their vehicles running for fun. He was cajoling and conciliatory and could charm the most obstreperous client out of a sulk, which made him invaluable to Demetri, who paid him accordingly.
They all lived together in their parents’ house, managing to co-exist for the most part in peace, until Dulcey Kineen came along.
Well, Dulcey didn’t come along, exactly, she’d always been there, born a Park rat to a typical Park rat family, part Russian, part Aleut, part Norwegian. Her father fished and drank. Her mother had babies and drank. The eldest, Dulcey fell heir to the babysitting and housekeeping chores early on. When her mother died her father began to use her as a stand-in for other things as well. She stood it until she was sixteen, when Nick Totemoff told her loved her. It was the first time anyone had ever said that to her. She eloped with him to Cordova that night.
Nick had been motivated by what young men are usually motivated and he’d disappeared within a month, leaving her on her own. She got a job bartending at the Alaska Club and the tips allowed her to rent a tiny mother-in-law apartment. It was her own home, her first and as it turned out, her only, because her father came into the Alaska Club in the middle of the following fishing season and tried to haul her out across the bar. The damages included her job. The next day, Jim Chopin brought her the news that on the way back to his boat her father had fallen into the small boat harbor and drowned.
Her next oldest sibling was fourteen. There was no one else to take care of her three brothers and two sisters. She went back to Niniltna, sold her father’s boat and permit to Anatoly Martushev, and that and their quarterly NNA shareholder payments, their annual PFD from the state and their parent’s social security death benefits managed to keep the family together in the little log cabin with the loft. Cramped, crowded, with no running water and an outhouse out back, everyone took turns splitting firewood for the oil drum stove and no one went hungry.
Which didn’t necessarily turn Dulcey into a pattern card of respectability. There were men. There were a lot of men. She had been forced to a realization of her power early on, she knew how to use it, and it didn’t help that she was a walking, talking example of chaos theory.
And so, inevitably, Ulanie Anahonak, that self-appointed moral arbiter of village and environs, took exception to Dulcey’s behavior, and further, took it upon herself to call DFYS. They didn’t show for almost a year. When they did, they spent ten minutes evaluating the situation before scooping up the five minors and shipping them off to four different foster homes in Ahtna, Anchorage, and Valdez.
Dulcey didn’t fight them. Some said she just didn’t care. Some said she was relieved
Mary B
. in dry dock and on his gear in the net loft over the dock.
Albert inheriting the
Mary B
. was a source of friction with the youngest brother. Boris was twenty-two and self-involved, opportunistic, loud and lazy. He fished subsistence when he worked at all, but his smoke fish was the best on the river and, packed in fancy balsa wood cases, twelve eight-ounce jars to a case, sold at a hefty premium to the clientele of Demetri Moonin’s high-end lodge up in the Quilak foothills. He made a mouth-watering caviar from the eggs, too, for a list of subscribers from as far away as New York City, every batch sold out months before it was in the one-ounce jars. It was enough to keep him in beer and Edwin jeans. Boris was also a bit of a dandy, who had been known to fly all the way to Anchorage for the right haircut.
Nathan, twenty-five, was a typical middle child. He worked summers for Demetri, guiding Demetri’s clients to the best fishing streams in the Quilaks so they could beat the water for record kings. Winters he worked on the
Mary B
.’s moving parts, paid minimum wage by the hour, and kept all their vehicles running for fun. He was cajoling and conciliatory and could charm the most obstreperous client out of a sulk, which made him invaluable to Demetri, who paid him accordingly.
They all lived together in their parents’ house, managing to co-exist for the most part in peace, until Dulcey Kineen came along.
Well, Dulcey didn’t come along, exactly, she’d always been there, born a Park rat to a typical Park rat family, part Russian, part Aleut, part Norwegian. Her father fished and drank. Her mother had babies and drank. The eldest, Dulcey fell heir to the babysitting and housekeeping chores early on. When her mother died her father began to use her as a stand-in for other things as well. She stood it until she was sixteen, when Nick Totemoff told her loved her. It was the first time anyone had ever said that to her. She eloped with him to Cordova that night.
Nick had been motivated by what young men are usually motivated and he’d disappeared within a month, leaving her on her own. She got a job bartending at the Alaska Club and the tips allowed her to rent a tiny mother-in-law apartment. It was her own home, her first and as it turned out, her only, because her father came into the Alaska Club in the middle of the following fishing season and tried to haul her out across the bar. The damages included her job. The next day, Jim Chopin brought her the news that on the way back to his boat her father had fallen into the small boat harbor and drowned.
Her next oldest sibling was fourteen. There was no one else to take care of her three brothers and two sisters. She went back to Niniltna, sold her father’s boat and permit to Anatoly Martushev, and that and their quarterly NNA shareholder payments, their annual PFD from the state and their parent’s social security death benefits managed to keep the family together in the little log cabin with the loft. Cramped, crowded, with no running water and an outhouse out back, everyone took turns splitting firewood for the oil drum stove and no one went hungry.
Which didn’t necessarily turn Dulcey into a pattern card of respectability. There were men. There were a lot of men. She had been forced to a realization of her power early on, she knew how to use it, and it didn’t help that she was a walking, talking example of chaos theory.
And so, inevitably, Ulanie Anahonak, that self-appointed moral arbiter of village and environs, took exception to Dulcey’s behavior, and further, took it upon herself to call DFYS. They didn’t show for almost a year. When they did, they spent ten minutes evaluating the situation before scooping up the five minors and shipping them off to four different foster homes in Ahtna, Anchorage, and Valdez.
Dulcey didn’t fight them. Some said she just didn’t care. Some said she was relieved
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