Caribou Island

So he doesn’t fuck with me when he sees the bottle. We just circle around and he doesn’t dare get close. And then the cops come, and it’s my friend Bill. I’m just like, do you want me to put the handcuffs on myself? He’s already had to do this a couple times, and he’s like dude, how do you get into this shit? So it was cool. I spent the night at the station, and they let me out in time for work.

Everyone looked at the coals another minute or so, no comments about the story, then it was time to go in, the break over. Back to the guts.

Carl in pole position this time, splatted every time a carcass hit the pool. He tried not to flinch. Cold slime hitting his face and left ear, in his hair. It’s only slime and blood, he told himself. It’ll wash off. He tried to figure out some small way to hurt this business and his coworkers, but he couldn’t think of anything. He was inconsequential. He could do the non-job the woman across from him was doing, but since he was standing here anyway, he decided to keep removing the membranes and blood. Only another four hours. His right hand cramped up, cold, but he could ignore that.

He needed to call his mom, say good-bye to Mark and thank him, and also figure out what to do with Monique’s backpack.

The salmon began appearing with heads. Gutted and gills removed, but heads on. Some change in the plans, and Carl hadn’t been notified, but his job still the same. The eyes wide, dilated, silver-rimmed. Hooked lower jaws on some of them, almost like beaks. The males, perhaps. He wasn’t finding membranes.

Something’s different, he yelled to one of the inspectors over the music. I can’t find any membranes.

These already came through the line yesterday, she yelled back. Head and gills. But the order changed, and now they’re without gills.

Cool, he said.

Yeah, she yelled. It’s great. Why not do everything twice. Motto of this cannery.

You sound like a disgruntled employee.

Bite me.

Carl tried to laugh, but the way she said it was actually kind of mean, and she wasn’t looking at him anymore. The other peons at the wash table gave a quick look up, no sympathy, and looked back down at the fish.

A pause in the line, enough time for the peons to catch up, and then half a dozen smaller salmon came by, whole. Not gutted or beheaded, the upstream folks just watching them pass by. Carl was confused, but he gave a quick wash in the blood pool and passed a salmon along. Smaller, lighter, a little bullet. A different species, but he didn’t ask anyone. Who cared what it was, anyway.

And then they all shifted over to another long table on the other side of the warehouse. Plastic wheelbarrows full of halibut. Flat ghosts. Sideways mouths and thick lips, open, expressions of despair. Their tops dark mottled green, camouflaged, ugly. A beast from another time that hadn’t imagined humans. Floor-dwellers, safely hidden away in the deep, swallowing whatever came near, and they could have gone on like that for the next hundred million years. Carl didn’t want to be a part of this destruction anymore, so he stepped off the line and found Sean, the boss.

I’m sorry, he told Sean. I can’t do this. I need to go home.

You have to finish the shift, Sean said.

I can’t. I need to leave now.

Then you leave without pay.

No, Carl said. You’re paying me for my six hours, forty-eight dollars cash right now, or I’m going to hurt you. I’m serious. I hate this place and everyone in it, and I’ll take all of that out on you. So pay me my fucking money now.

Sean smiled. Fuck off, he said. Then he turned his back on Carl and walked slowly away.

So Carl stood there enraged at the latest sign that the world would not bend to his will, then went to the rack to hang up his raingear. He pulled off the rubber boots, changed into his shoes, and left. Carrying his own backpack and Monique’s, he staggered up the beach to a campground where motor homes had gathered for dip-netting. Empty boat trailers, four-wheelers and dirt bikes, nets and garbage and tents. They had a long-drop outhouse he had used before, and this would be perfect for Monique’s stuff. He wasn’t going to carry around her shit anymore.

He had to wait, and a fat old man came out, finally, swinging the wooden door wide. Carl left his own backpack outside on the ground, stepped in with Monique’s and closed the door. The light dim, air thick, and he didn’t want to get any shit on her backpack, because he was planning to keep it himself, so he stepped outside and set it on the ground, opened up the top and pulled out an armload of her clothing. The panties he’d been all excited about once upon a time, her T-shirts and socks and jeans, scarves, sweaters, all this crap, and he stood over the long-drop to toss one item at a time. Fuck you, Monique, he said to the toilet. And fuck you, Alaska. Thank you very much for a delightful summer. The old man had finished the pile below with very light brown shit, covered now by her clothing. This is what Alaska is, right here, Carl said. A place where people shit. Just a bigger toilet.