Thursday, June 12, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Goldberg: King Salmon

By Tod Goldberg

Grab a map. Unfold it so it shows the whole of Alaska. Now, trace your finger down the coast, past the Bering Sea, turn right into Bristol Bay and head east until you reach the bustling metropolis of King Salmon. Good. Now you're along for the ride as I try to explain to my friend Jim why I think the move he is making is not a lateral one, nor a horizontal one, but one distinctly southern in its direction...as in, toward absolute fucking bottom.

"Jesus," I say, "this place is in the middle of nowhere. Except that nowhere is actually closer than this."

Jim doesn't say anything. He knows my general feelings already. "You're aware that you'll be closer to Russia than you will be to the 48 contiguous states, right? If shit goes Red Dawn, you're as good as dead."

"How bad can it be?" Jim says. We're sitting in Borders with the map spread between us and my qualitative answer to this question is a slow, mournful shake of my head.

For the last nine months, my friend Jim has been living in my house while he waits for his life to restart. Not long ago, I wrote in this space about him moving back to Portland, Ore., to run a strip club he once owned but then lost during a nasty divorce and other sundry activities, but, in truth, by the time my deadline had passed the deal fell through and he went back to the guest room in a fit of ill-tempered silence. Now, however, his travel plans are solid: Next Wednesday he's traveling, via seaplane for a large portion of the jaunt, to King Salmon, Alaska, to help run, with his new girlfriend, her family's fishing "resort" for the summer.

"I just think it's a bad idea," I say.

"I need to get a roll," Jim says. "I'm comin' back with a stack of high society."

"Dude, this isn't Rounders. This is your life."

Jim looks out across Borders and ponders this latest philosophical hurdle.

King Salmon, he's told me, has no stoplights and only 675 full-time residents. During his stay there, if I want to send him something in the mail, all I have to do is write his name on an envelope and it will get to him, like Santa. His job while in King Salmon will be twofold.

Fold one: Something involving spreadsheets, new construction and other nebulous money-things he's either not real clear on or, when telling me, was so oblique about that I've forgotten entirely.

Fold two: Retrieve massive salmon net offshore. Hang and gut hundreds of salmon. Repeat.

Of course there is also an unspoken fold: learn his new girlfriend's family business. I have nothing against his girlfriend--she's pretty and nice and is not currently taking anti-psychotic medicine, nor is she hooked on X, nor does she begin every sentence with "I'm all" while never accurately describing anything--a nice change, really. Normally, I wouldn't have a problem with Jim entering a stable relationship with a woman and perhaps entering into business with her family, except that Jim and his girlfriend have been dating an aggregate total of one week. See, she lives in another state and though they were passing friends prior, their actual physical relationship only began two months ago, and during that time they've only seen each other twice.

"I just think you're rushing into things," I say. "And if you guys break up while you're up there, it's not like you can just catch a bus back home. You're going right from the courting stage to the married stage and, I should add, you'll be doing it in a place where it's light out 20 hours a day...and with her family present."

Jim seems to consider this for a moment. We've been friends for more than 15 years, and during that time I've seen him fall in love just once and that ended badly for everyone, sadly. Since then, he's been flitting between real and imagined jobs, always one pipe dream away from what he wants to do with the rest of his life--an answer he thinks will come to him while cleaning bloody salmon entrails off his shoes in King Salmon, Alaska.

"Anyway," he says, "it's just for the summer. Three months. Maybe less if I get the club back. Could be six weeks. If it doesn't work out between us, the worst that happens is I'm miserable for a while. No different than my current life at all."

There's not going to be an agreement: I don't think he should go; he doesn't know where else to go.

I once told Jim that if he ever got a postcard from me that listed my address as being somewhere on Zzyzx Road, he had permission to kill me because my life will have already reached its unnatural conclusion. I think about reminding him of this, I think about saying something about flying too far on borrowed wings, but instead we just talk about sports and ignore the map between us altogether.