Episode One: The Salmon Heart of Repentance
Officially, our camp is a dry camp, no alcohol is allowed or to be consumed. I often wondered if the vanilla extracts in the cookhouse were spirit free, and this edict probably explained why a certain liquid cold medication and mouth wash were the best sellers in our closet commissary. Of course with alcohol being off limits that meant the bunkhouses were awash in its fermented goodness. I had heard the horror stories from some of the cleaning ladies about wet beds and a surplus of Black Velvet bottles. As a young teenager, alcohol had a place of mythical status in my cortex, but as I had grown up around a bunch of drunks and the resulting social situation disasters that constant inebriation wreaks; I tended to steer clear of the stuff. Most human beings resent being told no, especially when it comes to substances deemed fun and escape inducing. I was told that I couldn't do things all the time; telling me no didn't drive me to do. Treating my friends like grizzly bear scat on your Extra Tough boot, however, brought out the rebel in me.
It was an atypical day, as there was only a bit of moisture contributing to the ever present brunette frizz that was my hair. With the weather being so pleasant; we were hanging out in front of the cookhouse. Life is so vibrant in a logging camp that young people flocked to a giant chunk of spruce log in front of the central camp building to toss pieces of tuna to the resident ermine. While feeding Spazz was diverting, we truly hoped to witness some sort of drama. We only got one TV channel, and although culturally fascinating, one can only take so much Native tribal dancing in a day. It being the mid nineteen-nineties, our crew was clad in over sized baggy jeans and a dazzling array of plaid flannel shirts. My brother Jack looked like a caricature of a medieval friar, courtesy of his fashionable bowl cut, and John's little brother Kevin was bouncing around like an annoying, non potty-trained puppy.
Truck driver Ed, as we never knew any of the adult's last names, was walking up the gravel road to the cookhouse from his domicile. His trailer was coveted because it was painted a pretty shade of mid century robin's egg blue. Although diminutive in size, it was one of the newest in camp. The stairs probably predated their resident, and it hadn't escaped me that Ed had almost fallen off of his steps as he started his approach. This didn't cause too much alarm as we were pretty used to tipsy grownups. Kevin, however, was swirling around with such annoying velocity that I began to feel that nervous tick in my stomach that precedes imminent doom.
He must have ingested a bad vintage, for as Kevin tripped and fell in front of Ed, a colorful burst of abusive swear words erupted from the older man and assaulted our ears like a smut symphony. Not only did Kevin get called everything in the book, but his mother suffered abuse too. Kevin was dangling like a pair of tighty whiteys on a clothes line as Ed grabbed him by the front of his flannel and held him aloft. None of the present adults intervened on our behalf, instead they clomped on their way, clutching their bags of smokeless tobacco and candy. A few were even guffawing at our distress. The event happened so quickly that we had no time to react, and years later this incident is filed in my life lesson gray matter under the inebriation is no excuse section.
How dare Ed yell at Kevin. Only we were allowed to yell at Kevin. Of course he was incredibly irritating, but this was the one time he was so accidentally, and to receive a public dressing down was a most egregious offense. I had to balance the scales. While I was plotting how to punish Ed for what I deemed to be his sins, John piped up:
Oh man, Kevin and I left a bunch of silvers in the bathtub! We better get them outta there before Robin gets home. The strain will be more than she can bear.
Now might be the time to mention that John thought he was Doc Holiday off of the movie Tombstone, and had to quote at least one line of dialogue from the screenplay in every sentence. He was always in character, and could probably teach a class on method acting. He pulled down his cowboy hat and re-holstered his cap gun. As I stared into a giant wrinkle on John's oilskin duster, an idea formed and I knew how to right the great wrong done to Kevin.
Mobile home bathtubs are cramped spaces, and the absurdity of ten gigantic salmon thrashing around in the baby poop brown tub didn't occur to me as I plucked the biggest salmon from the swirling, almost spawned out mass. I did pause for a millisecond to admire the pretty rainbow of colors adorning the scales of the unfortunate beast. As I held up my subject, an ugly creature that weighed in at about fourteen pounds, I grabbed some toilet paper and wiped off the blood dripping down my arm. That hooked nose beast had knifed me with its teeth. I tossed the soiled toilet paper into the bowl and kicked the door shut to the sweet sounds of thrashing fish trying to make way to their spawning grounds. Old dry wall was going to be tough to get through.
I knew that time was growing short, as Ed would be descending the cookhouse stairs at any moment. The timing of this operation was critical as I wanted it to be as vindicating as possible. For Kevin. As I bounced down the steps of John's trailer, salmon tail slapping my thigh like a battle cadence, I saw that Ed had began to make his drunken traverse down the cookhouse stairs. I dropped to my knees, whipped out my filet knife, and using skills wrought from thousands of similar surgeries, removed that salmon's heart with knowledgeable ease. I know that I broke land speed records running to Ed. I slid to a stop in front of his red-rimmed field of vision and blurted:
Ed, these boys just don't believe me! They don't believe that you are man enough to eat this salmon heart.
At that moment two things happened. The salmon's poor ventricle pumped and pulsed a small amount of blood down my hand and Ed's eyes narrowed like those of countless men whose manhood has been challenged. Whether the challenge was stupid, unsafe, or idiotic had no bearing. Before I knew what was happening he had removed the heart from my paw and was chewing on the still beating organ. It seemed to have the consistency of the supposedly fresh licorice that we got from Down South. Very chewy.
I would like to say that I had some smart comeback, or that we all stood there smugly observing Ed's humiliation, but we all just gaped at him as he chewed and swallowed that exotic bit of sushi, tipped his hat to us, and swaggered down the road to his home. I turned and found myself heading back to John's bathroom. It took five trips but I eventually put all of the bathtub salmon back in the creek so they could spawn. I still don't know why I did that. Salmon really don't belong in a bathtub, it's bad enough that they visited when we flushed our toilets.
Tombstone
George P.Cosmatos - Kevin Jarre - Hollywood Pictures - 1993
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