Alaska
"Keith, baby, sit up. We're almost there!"
My little brother blinked awake; staring at his own potato-chip-crumb-dusted lap. Beside him lay an old newspaper, covered in candy wrappers, and his paperback copy of The Fellowship of the Ring. It was propped up like a pup tent, yellowed pages splayed out. His most treasured possession, his Polaroid camera, hung from a strap around his neck.
Usually, on road trips, Keith kept his nose buried in a book, but on this trip the scenery had demanded his attention, especially through the gorgeous mountains of British Columbia. In the ever-changing landscape, he sat in the backseat of the bus, imagining himself as Frodo or Bilbo, the hero of his own quest.
It had been an amazing trip north on the mostly unpaved ALCAN Highway. Our first true family vacation. Days driving in bright sunlight; nights spent camping beside raging rivers and quiet streams, in the shadows of saw-blade mountain peaks, huddled around a fire, spinning dreams of a future that felt closer every day. We roasted hot dogs for dinner and made s'mores for dessert and shared dreams about what we would discover at the end of the road. I had never seen mom so happy. She laughed, she smiled, she told jokes and promised us the moon. She was the mom I remembered from Before.
The VW bus thumped over something-a curb, maybe-and stuff went flying inside, dropped to the floor, rolled into the backpacks and boxes that filled the back of the bus. We screeched to a halt that smelled of burnt rubber and exhaust.
Sunlight streamed through the dirty, mosquito-splattered windows. I climbed over the heap of our poorly rolled sleeping bags and opened the side door. Our rainbow-decorated ALASKA OR BUST sign fluttered in the cool breeze, the sides anchored in place by duct tape.
I stepped out of the bus.
"We made it, kids" mom came up beside me,laid her hand on my shoulder. "Our new home. People come here all over to stock up supplies. It kind of the last outpost of civilization. They say it's where the land ends and the sea begins."
Even with all the pictures I had studied and all the articles and books I'd read, I hadn't been prepared for the wild, spectacular beauty of Alaska. It was otherworldly somehow, magical in its vast expanse, an incomparable landscape of soaring glacier-filled white mountains that ran the length of the horizon, knife-tip points pressed high into a cloudless cornflower-blue sky. Kachemak Bay was a sheet of hammered sterling in the sunlight. Boats dotted the bay. The air smelled briny, deeply of the sea. Shorebirds floated on the wind, dipped and rose effortlessly.
The famous Homer Spit I'd read about was a four-and-a-half-mile-long finger of land that crooked into the bay. A few colorful shacks perched on stilts at the water's edge.
Keith lifted his Polaroid, took pictures as fast as the developer would let him. He peeled one photograph after another out of the camera, watched the images develop in front of his eyes. The buildings sketched themselves onto the shiny white paper line by line.
Moving into a new town in the middle of school year. I've seen all of this before. Ultimately, it didn't matter what I or Keith wanted. Mom wanted a new beginning. Needed it. And we needed her to be happy. So here we are trying it again in a new place, hoping geography would be the answer.
We would do as we asked and do it with good attitude. I would be the new girl in school again. Because that was what love was.
"Our land is over there," Mom said, pointing across Kachemak Bay to a necklace of lush green humps in the hazy distance. "Our new home. Even though it's on the Kenai Peninsula, there are no roads to it. Massive glaciers and mountains cut Kaneq off from the mainland. So we have to fly or boat in."
Mama moved in beside Keith. In her low-waisted bell-bottom jeans and lace-edged tank top, with her pale face and blond hair, she looked as if she'd been sculpted from the cool colors of this place, an angel alighted on a shore that waited for her. Even her laugh seemed at home here, an echo of the bells that tinkled from wind chimes in front of the shops. A cool breeze molded her top to her braless breasts. "What do you think, baby girl?"
"It's cool." I stated calmly .
As we drove away from the Spit and up through the town, I pressed my head to the glass and stared out. The homes were an eclectic mix-big houses with shiny windows stood next to lean-tos made livable with plastic and duct tape. There were A-frames and shacks and mobile homes and trailers. Buses parked by the side of the road had curtained windows and chairs set out front. Some yards were manicured and fenced. Others were heaped with rusty junk and abandoned cars and old appliances. Most were unfinished in some way or another. Businesses operated in everything from a rusted old Airstream trailer to a brand-new log building to a roadside shack. The place was a little wild, but didn't feel as foreign and remote as I'd imagined.
Mom cranked up the radio as we turned toward a long gray beach. The tires sank into the sand; it slowed us down. All up and down the beach there were vehicles parked-trucks and vans and cars. She maneuvered into a spot between a mud-splattered Econoline van with Nebraska license plates and a lime-green Gremlin with duct-tape-and-cardboard windows. We set up our tent on the sand, tying it to the bus's bumper. The sea-scented wind was insistent down here.
The surf made a quiet shushing sound as it rolled forward and drew back. All around us people were enjoying the day, throwing Frisbees to dogs and building bonfires in the sand and putting boats in the water. The chatter of human voices felt small and transient in the bigness of the world here.
We spent the day as tourists, drifting from place to place. When dusk was on the brink of the horizon, we pack our stuff and begin our longest ride once more.
"So," Mom said. "We go two miles past Icicle Creek .Our place is just a little farther on. At the end of the road," Mom said, letting the map fall to the floor as we headed out of town.
We rumbled onto a rickety-looking bridge that arched over a crystalline blue river. We passed soggy marshlands, dusted with yellow and pink flowers, and then an airstrip, where four small, decrepit-looking airplanes were tied down.
Just past the airstrip, the gravel road turned to dirt and rocks. Trees grew thickly on either side. Mud and mosquitoes splattered the windshield.
Potholes the size of wading pools made the old bus bump and clatter. "damn it," Mom said every time we were thrown out of our seats. There were no houses out here, no signs of civilization, until we came to a driveway littered with rusted junk and rotting vehicles. A hand-lettered sign read Ravens.
After that, the road got worse. Bumpier. A combination of rocks and mud puddles. On either side,there was grass that grew wild and sticker bushes and trees tall enough to block the view of anything else.
Now we're really in the middle of nowhere.
After another empty patch of road, we came to a bleached-white cow skull on the rusted metal gate that marked the Walker homestead.
"Mom, why would somebody want to use dead animals in decorating?" Keith said, clinging to the door handle, which came off in his hand when we hit a pothole.
"Oh honey don't you worry about that, most people living here are very religious." Mom said curtly.
Haha! yeah I doubt that .I thought uncomfortably. Five minutes later, Mom slammed on the brakes. Two hundred feet farther and we would have careened over a cliff.
"Jesus Mom!" I said , the road was gone, scrub brush and a ledge. Land's End. Literally.
"We're here!" Mom jumped out of the bus, slammed the door shut.
I looked at Keith wide eyed. We were both thinking the same thing: there was nothing here, but trees, mud and a cliff that could kill us in a fog. We got out the bus and look around. Not far away- presumably below the cliff in front of us- the waves crashed and roared.
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AN: This story is inspired by the movie The Wretch.
