Viator

Before Wilander arrived in Alaska he had imagined that Alaskan trading posts were uniformly rustic, dimly lit places with log walls, venerable wood-stoves, animal heads and antlers mounted everywhere, disorderly shelves stocked with soup, beans, rice, candy bars, fifty-year-old copies of National Geographic containing articles on the area, exotic locally prepared foodstuffs sold in mason jars, gutting knives, French soap, Russian pornography, bullets, whale jerky, slingshots made from fir and reindeer hide, whiskey, mukluks, sacks of flour, fish hooks, hard candy, fossil fragments, rope, fix-it-yourself manuals, work clothes, a few pretty dresses, canned moose meat, snow-shoes, long underwear, ballpoint pens, native handicrafts of a surpassingly indifferent quality (carved ivory, paintings on bark, handmade dolls), an accordion, a guitar or two, dog muzzles, spark plugs, cooking oil, bongs, feminine hygiene products, grease traps, framed photographs of sunsets, paperback novels, animal snares…but though Arlene’s TP (so read the sign above the door) stocked all the aforementioned items and more, there was no hint of disorder, everything shelved neatly and laid out in display cases, and the atmosphere was of a stripped-down functionality, not rustic charm, the fluorescent lights blazing, walls of unpainted planking, dustless floors, and instead of the colorful types Wilander had pictured sitting around the stove in his imaginary trading post, the only person present that afternoon was a long-haired Inupiat kid named Terry Alpin who helped Arlene out in the evenings and was standing by a bin of CDs, picking over the heavy metal section. Wilander asked him if that was his kind of music and, after a pause, the precise measure of which, Wilander had learned, was designed to convey contempt for white non-Alaskans moderated by a degree of respect due a friend of Arlene’s, Terry said, No, man. It’s for the seals. And when Wilander expressed bewilderment at this response, Terry said, The pups, man. Baby harp seals. They love the shit. You go down to the beach, hide out in the rocks with your Walkman. You slap on some Slayer, kick up the volume. Pretty soon the pups, they hear it, they come over to the rocks. You jump up and bash their heads in and get the skins. It’s a lot easier than chasing ’em.

—You’re serious? That’s how you catch them?

Terry shot him a surly look. We useta stay up all night chanting to the seal god. This way, it cuts down on the brain damage.

—I thought the season…when they give birth. I thought that was in the spring.

—Just checking out some tunes for next year. Terry inspected the playlist on a Queens of the New Stone Age disc, set it to one side. I kept one pup alive from this last time and I been testing tunes out on him. He’s getting maybe too old, though, to be reliable. The adults, they fucking hate music.

—Where’s Arlene? Wilander asked.

—Out back. Selling some guy a flat of beer.

Wilander idled along a row of display cases, putting his nose close to one and peering at a grouping of men’s rings with huge cubic zirconiums in ornate settings. He leafed through a fishing magazine that lay open by the register. He stared out the window at two men wearing jeans and denim jackets having a conversation in the middle of the street. He laid a dollar coin on the counter to pay for a Butterfinger bar, which he ate in three bites. I’m going out back, see if I can find Arlene, he said.

—It’s your world, dude, said Terry.

* * *