20. Two Can Play at This Game
Two Can Play at This Game
MATTHEW
With a deep breath, I force myself out of the cab and go round to the truck bed to retrieve the bags of groceries.
Gwen usually keeps an eye on dad, making sure he has what he needs.
Jesse and I help out when we can, especially when the season is slow.
The man is only in his late fifties, but he went from being taken care of by his mother to being taken care of by our mother.
And since she passed, he’s been helpless and drunk more than he’s sober.
The house where we grew up has seen better days.
The wooden boards have turned silver with patina and the metal roof has taken a beating from storms over the years.
Wild grass has nearly taken over the path to the front door and could stand to be trimmed back.
Still, through everything, it sits proud against the rugged, windswept plain.
Dad’s door is unlocked when I go to put my key in. I tell him every time he’s got to keep it locked. The wildlife around here is unpredictable. Today, though, I’m trying to keep the peace. Get in, get out. No problems.
He’s sitting in his usual chair in front of the television, watching a baseball game with the volume too loud.
“Hey, Dad,” I say as innocuously as possible.
He glances at me and grunts. Better than the silence I normally get when I walk in.
“Got your groceries,” I say as I lumber into the kitchen, which is only separated from the living room by the long island where we used to sit for breakfast as kids.
The house smells like cigarettes and body odor. Needs more than a deep clean. Needs to start from scratch. New paint, new carpets, the works.
I start unloading the grocery bags. Frozen dinners, canned vegetables and soups, and snacks.
A fifth of whiskey. I can’t convince Gwen to stop buying him the stuff because she doesn’t like upsetting him.
Dad doesn’t go at her like he does Jesse and me, probably because she’s a girl, but she’s always been sensitive to his disappointment.
The room is quiet, other than the rumbling of an announcer on television. Halfway through my unpacking, I hear the thump of his recliner footrest coming down and the squeaking rock of the chair’s axis. The voices on the television go mute. I pretend not to notice.
“Need to talk to you,” Dad grumbles, his voice gravelly. Probably hasn’t said a word all day.
“’Bout what?” I ask, balling up the plastic grocery bag and putting it under the sink for later.
“Don’t play dumb.”
I lean back against the sink, facing my father. He’s at the bar, already eyeing the bottle of amber liquid. Behind him, the baseball game still plays without sound. “Say what you mean, Dad. Gotta be specific.”
He scratches his cheek, his beard overrun and probably unwashed. Gwen usually can cajole him into a shower. If I tried that, he’d bite my head off. “You’re thinking with your dick.”
I laugh. “Okay, well, this has been fun, but?—”
“Cutting up a net. What the hell were you thinking?” Dad asks, shaking his head.
“My boat, my rules,” I say. “You don’t have to worry about that anymore.”
Dad’s chin dips. I know I’ve wounded him. He’s not too old to be out on the water the way his buddies are. He just doesn’t have a grip on things since Mom died. “I taught you better than that,” he says, hardening his gaze on me.
I shake my head. “Taught me differently, that’s all.”
Dad’s nostrils flare. Looks exactly like Jesse when he does that. “You’re smart, Matt. Smarter than this.”
Dad doesn’t call me smart. He thinks the dwindling salmon numbers are my own fault.
That I’m not as good of a fisherman as he is.
Or was. It’s an insult to himself, really.
He’s the one who taught me everything I know.
No matter how many times I tell him I have better numbers than most, he’s always looking for something to be disappointed about.
“She’s using you,” Dad says.
I scoff. “For what?”
“For her own personal gain! You don’t know what these people are like.”
“And you do?”
He screws his lips up in aggravation. “Been around a lot longer than you, and don’t you forget it.”
“She’s a scientist, Dad. She’s not a politician or a lobbyist or?—”
“She has an agenda!” Dad shouts, spittle flying from his mouth. It’s zero to sixty with him. “She wants to change our way of life because it doesn’t suit?—”
Two can play at this game. “Have you even spoken to her?”
“I have, actually.”
I roll my eyes. “Other than cornering her outside of Half-Hitch?”
He hesitates. “I didn’t corner her.”
I laugh, looking down at the tips of my boots. “You’re so fucking lost, Dad.”
“You’re the one who’s?—”
“You haven’t been out there the past two seasons,” I say. “You have no fucking concept of what’s going on out there.”
Dad narrows his eyes. “Don’t talk to me like I’m an idiot. I’ve been alive a helluva lot longer than you and?—”
“You don’t?—”
Dad steamrolls me, doesn’t stop to let me get another word in, just clenches his teeth and goes on, “I’ve been around a lot longer than you, and I won’t stand to be talked to like I don’t know what I’m talking about!”
I rub my hands over my eyes.
“You don’t waste nets for a fucking seal! And I know you did it to get into that girl’s pants.”
I push up from the counter, holding my ground. “Don’t you fucking talk about her like that!”
“I’ll talk however I fucking like! I’m your father. You’re the one who has to watch your mouth.”
“Just because you don’t understand what she’s doing doesn’t mean?—”
Dad waves his hand through the air. “Gah! It’s all bullshit.”
It’s like talking to a brick wall with him.
“We don’t need people who don’t know a thing about us coming in here and telling us what we’re doing wrong. You think things are tough now? You just wait until she brings her research back to California. That’s when the real shitstorm begins.”
I don’t say anything. I don’t know enough about what Lillian has done or discovered to throw any information back at him with any sort of mettle. I don’t have hard facts or proof that I can trust her.
But I haven’t forgotten her promise. Her hand on my arm. Her tear-stained cheeks. Our eyes locked.
None of that is proof of anything, and yet, I can’t shake the feeling I can trust her. The way she approaches Bristol Bay with an open heart—despite having every reason to close it—inspires me to do the same for her.
“You don’t know her, Matt,” Dad goes on, his voice softening. “You think you do because you’re thinking with?—”
“Maybe the way things are around here doesn’t work anymore,” I say, lifting my chin. “Maybe they haven’t for a long time.”
Dad is silent, his lips forming a tight line and darkness clouding his hazel eyes. I said it to hurt him, and it worked. Nothing offends an Alaskan more than the suggestion we can’t handle ourselves.
“We aren’t immune to change, Dad,” I say, trying to bring down the heat a little bit.
Dad shakes his head slightly, then swipes the bottle of whiskey off the counter before returning to his seat. He kicks the footrest up again, then cracks open the bottle. He pours it straight into the glass on the side table. Pours far too much, if you ask me.
Dad’s the old way of doing things. No change. No nothing.
He unmutes the game and doesn’t give me a second look. Conversation over.
Fine with me.
Fat Fred’s is quiet tonight. I nurse my beer at the bar. People leave me alone. Maybe it’s because I’m acting standoffish. Or maybe it’s because they’re tired of me being an apologist for the scientist they abhor so much.
I finish my third beer, starting to get a little buzzy and sparkly in the head. Fred catches my eye from behind the bar, and I lift my finger for another.
Maybe I’m an idiot for being open to what Lillian has to offer. She’s convinced me she can help, and I’ve been swayed. If she needs a champion, it’ll be me. And if I’m made a fool for it, so be it.
“All by your lonesome tonight?” Ian asks, bellying up next to me at the bar.
I glance at Ian. “Something like that.”
Ian grabs the stool beside me and yanks it out to take a seat. He doesn’t say anything more, thank God. The company is nice, but I don’t need the chitchat.
Fred comes back with my beer, and Ian tells him he’ll have the same.
I have to admit, it’s nice not to be alone.
I came here after that awful conversation with my dad and haven’t said a word to anyone, other than to order my beer.
I’ve been running circles in my brain, trying to make sense of how I feel.
Except I’m all knotted up like a necklace, not sure how to untangle the chain.
“Heard about your net,” Ian mutters.
I let out a bitter laugh, looking into the head of my beer, the white cream interrupted by popping carbonation. “The whole town has heard.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not often someone goes soft on a seal,” Ian says with a chuckle.
“I’m not soft,” I reply, sounding more juvenile than I’d like. “I made a choice.”
Ian nods. “That you did.”
His beer arrives, and we drink for a bit without interruption.
“Your brother’s telling everyone you’ve turned to the dark side,” Ian says eventually. I can tell by his tone that he finds Jesse’s claim as funny as I do.
“Jesse is an idiot.”
“We all are sometimes.”
I reposition myself, elbow on the bar, looking over at Ian. “Things are changing around here. You have to admit that.”
“I know, mate, I know. But I also know it’s best to keep your head down and not make a stink, unless you want to become subject to the rumor mill.” An incredulous hum rumbles in his chest. “Then again, it took me years to be accepted and fly under the radar after I got here.”
“I remember that,” I say, thinking back to Ian’s arrival in Naknek. I heard his accent for the first time when I was with my mom at the grocery store. I couldn’t believe people actually talked like that off of the television.
Ian looks around, as if trying not to be overheard. “Listen, I’m with you, mate. I think people are coming down too hard on her.”
This is something he won’t say in the public forum. He’s loaning me his solidarity in private, and that’s as much as I’ll get. Still, it’s good to know I’m not the only one who sees the good that Lillian can do.
“But we don’t really know what she’s all about at the end of the day.”
“No one’s given her a chance to explain,” I say defensively.
“You have. Has she explained it to you?”
I divert my gaze to my beer. “No. Not exactly. But I haven’t really asked.”
Ian chuckles. “Hard to focus on science when you’re soft on her.”
“I’m not—” I stop right there.
Yes, I obviously am.
“I’d never begrudge you your feelings, Matt. You just have to make a decision whether you’re going to let it eat you alive that people are talking about her, or if you’re going to follow your gut,” Ian offers. “And maybe your heart too.”
I grimace. “Corny ass.”
Ian throws his head back with a big, boisterous laugh that has some people glancing our way. “If that’s the worst thing I am, I’m alright with that.”
I drum my fingers on the bar. “It’ll probably get worse if we don’t let anything change, right?”
“Probably. Things don’t change if nothing changes.
” Ian gives me a solemn smile. “But you’re not doing anything being angry in the corner by yourself.
You’re getting angry because you feel like you’re on fire, and no one is willing to join you.
And hell, why would we? We’ve got our own shit to worry about. We can’t afford to be on fire, too.”
I slump forward onto the bar. “So, what the hell am I supposed to do, Ian?”
Ian puts his hand on my back and leans closer, more like a father than my own. “You worry about your own shit.”
“I’m not just going to bend to Jesse’s will, because?—”
“I don’t mean that. Don’t mean fishing. Forget about fishing.” Ian’s eyes find mine. “What aren’t you taking care of, Matt?” He extends a finger and points toward my chest. “What aren’t you taking care of?”
If I strip away all the logic, all the frustration over my fellow fishermen and their lack of open-mindedness, I’m left with Lillian. Left with her pretty smile and wonder-filled eyes. My heart swells with every thought of her. She’s not just a scientist to me; she’s not just an outsider.
She’s Lillian. And I want to be closer to her.
“You get what I’m saying? Go for what you want.”