June, 1981. Southcentral Alaska’s round-the-clock summer rays nurture life beyond: 1000 pound pumpkins, 100 pound cabbage, perpetually pants-less three-year olds. That afternoon was no exception. Clad in a T-shirt, underpants, and socks, I squatted amongst the construction rubble of our backyard, happily brrm-brrm-brrming a yellow toy tractor over cement chunks. When Grandpa Jim’s truck lumbered down the long driveway with a gravel-chewing crunch, I ran to greet him. The turquoise sock on my left foot slithered south, while the white one on my right held its northern course.
Grandpa heaved himself loose from the steering wheel and swung me up into a hug. He was a darker version of himself – a man in black that day, shirt sleeves to rubber boots. His trademark rainbow suspenders were missing; not right for a day on the Susitna, perhaps.
(As an adult, I will see rainbow-striped suspenders hanging limply in a store, or strapped against a stranger on the street, and they will murmur gruff assurances of safety and love. Part of me will want to scoop my arms full and head for the cashier, and my feet will miss a step, tempted to follow the stranger home.)
A broad grin split my grandpa’s face as he shifted me to his hip. “Got something to show you.”
At the back of the truck, he set me down and opened the bed. He reached in, then straightened with a soft grunt. My eyes widened.
The fish hanging from his curled fingers was taller than I was. Gills and guts still intact, a weary rivulet of useless crimson eased down the curve of its belly, dripping from the tail to the dusty ground between us.
“What do you think of that?” Grandpa Jim asked, pride bursting as clearly as his forearm muscles.
I didn’t know what to think. Circling curiously, I tilted my head back to peer into unseeing eyes. The fish’s black mouth gaped skyward, wide as my grandpa’s grin. With a single finger, I skated the slime coat down its broad back, the unfamiliar texture mermaid supple and river stone smooth. A scent like the taste of pennies filled the air.
“What is it?”
His laugh was belly-deep and not unkind. “This is a king salmon.”
Over thirty years later, I will have harvested thousands of king salmon, more than my grandpa could have dreamed of, his hands twitching cat-like on an imaginary rod and reel. I’ll whisper apologies to fish gasping for the sea and stroke their sides, tracing scales of emerald, amethyst, opal. I’ll watch the flat aluminum of death swallow their rainbow. I will struggle with what it means to make a living off of death. And with every unmistakable whiff of king salmon, every time those salt-washed pennies fill my nostrils, some small, dimly lit closet of forgotten memories will shine with the echoes of my grandpa’s pride and joy.
(This piece was originally published in Anchored in Deep Water: The FisherPoets Anthology, (For the Love of Fish issue). The Anthology is available for purchase here.)