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Spirits of the Season: Alaska by Joey Kay Wauters My friends asked how I could trust an elderly plumber under the influence. Yet it doesn’t seem right to switch plumbers in mid-thaw. Click to read Essay Profile of Author Bio of Author from ETG Essay, Late-breaking Developments Author's Comment on the ETG Experience Updated Bio Click to Purchase Send email to the author (The copyright on this essay is held by the author.  For permission to duplicate: copyright@cunepress.com)

Spirits of the Season: Alaska
He stands in my doorway, tall and imposing, wearing Carhartts and Sorrels. His sturdy bulk makes it hard to tell where muscle and man stop, and the layers of leather and flannel begin.

"I’m so glad you came," I say.

"You don’t have me for long," he replies in a husky voice, glancing at his watch. It is three o’clock, dusk on this December day in southeast Juneau.

The alcohol on his breath knocks me back, but I bite my lip and invite him in. I am lucky he showed up at all, and I feel guilty for my pleading tone on the phone when I told him my husband was gone on a business trip.

"Well, let’s see what I can do in a half hour." He coughs, unleashing more toxic fumes. It’s one of those liquors I can’t stand, gin or vodka—clear stuff that smells like lighter fluid. Taking off his wool cap, he reveals a head of gray curls. He is older than I expected. This does not look promising. But what choice do I have? There is no one else I can call. Reluctantly I lead him to the bedroom, opening the closet door.

"There." I point in accusation at the water pressure tank inside. To examine it, he drops to his knees awkwardly, his tool box clattering at his side. Is his clumsiness due to arthritis or inebriation? I offer coffee.

"Nah," he grunts. "People been givin’ me coffee all day." His wrinkled face looks still ruddier under the naked bulb hanging in the closet. After finishing inside, he even trudges up the steep, icy slope to check the water lines from our well, but this eighty-proof plumber is unable to work a thirty-minute miracle. "Don’t expect any water soon. It’s frozen way down deep. You’ve got great heat tape," he says, praising my husband’s handiwork. "But it isn’t working. Plug out there is dead as a doornail. Call an electrician."

The electrician is out. His wife says he will call back. As my next telephone vigil begins, I suddenly am aware that the only males I am willing to wait by the phone for these days are repairmen. The glacial Taku winds howl, and I cry as I picture multiple pipes bursting during the frigid night. Careful not to waste a drop of precious liquid, I direct my tears into the dog’s empty water dish. They barely cover the bottom of the bowl, but the dog slurps them up anyway. I know then I must get a grip on the situation. I decide to do what any sensible person would under the circumstances: throw a party.

"It’s a Frozen Pipe Party," I tell my friends. "Bring a gallon of water and something to eat. I can’t cook here."

"We’re going to drink water?" Catherine asks incredulously.

"No, silly, the water is to flush the toilet." The perfect hostess always plans ahead for her guests’ sanitation needs.

Down the sixty-four snowy stairs to my cliff-hanging house, Catherine hauls a chafing dish and spicy meatballs. Sara brings steamed broccoli and a "chick flick," a sappy movie our husbands would gag on. The house soon overflows with hearty laughter and gallons of water. I feel better even before I pour the Margaritas over snow that I scooped up far from the dog’s territory. We dine on finger foods. Then I serve dessert in the bedroom, where the women are piled on the waterbed, watching the video. Kleenex is passed around as we sniffle in unison during the mushy scenes. We memorize romantic lines to practice later on our unsuspecting husbands.

My friends commiserate over my primitive living conditions. "Why didn’t we take Basic Wiring and Plumbing in college?" one asks.

"We were too busy studying feminist theory," another laments.

I hug them good-night at the door. There were no preparations or clean-up for this evening, thanks to paper plates, plastic silverware, and the food they brought. I realize I have discovered how to give the perfect party.

The electrician shows up early the next morning. I give him a merry greeting, feeling almost civilized now that I have had a sponge bath. The electrician phones my red-cheeked plumber, a buddy of his. They confer over possible cures, like consulting physicians, agreeing that since the heat tape is now working, the plumber should come back to witch for water. I must leave for work before the plumber returns. Should I have insisted on a different one this time? My friends asked how I could trust an elderly plumber under the influence. Yet it doesn’t seem right to switch plumbers in mid-thaw. I leave my front door unlocked and pray for the best.

My faith in the plumbers union is restored when I read the note fluttering on my door that evening: "Water working now. Took two of us three hours. Merry Christmas."

I mentally calculate the cost of the bill as I head toward the kitchen, drawn by the faint sound of a trickle of water. It would not be heard by most ears, but to mine each drop pinging into the metal sink is a musical note. I forget about the bill as I turn the faucet on full force and let the melody of water roar. What to do first? The range of choices dazzles me: run the dishwasher, scrub the kitchen floor, wash clothes? I linger over each option, knowing all along I will choose the steamy waterfall of a shower.

I pour myself a glass of water from the faucet, raising a silent toast to the hardy professionals who risked icy pathways, frostbite, hypothermia, and my barking dog—all in order to restore this liquid gold to me. So what if the plumber’s Happy Hour began a little early? Mine might too if I worked ten-hour days in sub-zero temperatures for an endless list of cold customers. Was it vodka or gin on the plumber’s breath? No matter. I will buy a bottle of both to drop off at the shop tomorrow, with red ribbons attached for my slightly soused Santa and his helper. I look into the refrigerator and see small mountains of food left by caring friends. Maybe I’ll call more friends tonight. Another Frozen Pipes Party. Why not? It’ll be easy—all I have to do is shut off the water again.

But first, my shower.

Profile
Joey Kay Wauters and I met at a Maxine Hong Kingston reading at San Diego State University in 1989, when Joey was on sabbatical. We had a mutual friend, the poet Sandra Alcosser, who was teaching at State and who had invited us both to dinner and to the reading. We ate close to the university at a Chinese restaurant in one of those horrible little California shopping centers comprised of six or seven struggling shops, smudged plate-glass windows and doors, all of which look out over an immense, oil-stained parking lot. What the dinner lacked in atmosphere was made up for by the company and the conversation. A native Californian, I was fascinated with Joey’s stories of the frozen north. We were geographical opposites—and, as you know, opposites attract.

Many of Joey’s stories tell of her life up north—what seems like a foreign land to me. And I finally got to read Joey’s work-in-progress: a comic novel that begins in San Diego with two women leaving behind hilariously misfit men and taking off on a wild car trip to Alaska—all kinds of interesting adventures stopping them along the way.

—Bonnie ZoBell

Bio
Joey Kay Wauters
Places of residence: Southeast Alaska. Northern California.
Birthplace: Auburn, California.
Grew up in: Rural areas.
Day job: Professor of English, University of Alaska Southeast.
Education: B.A., University of the Pacific. M.A., University of San Francisco. D.A., University of Michigan.
Serial publications: Redbook. Dominion Review. Poet.
Awards: First Place, Redbook Short Story Contest. Pacific Northwest Writers Literary Contest. National League of PEN Women. Writer’s Digest. American Chapbook.
Current project: Novel set in Alaska.
Favorite book: Middlemarch by George Eliot.
Belief: A Pacific Northwest climate keeps your skin looking young.
Craving: More sunshine (despite the above belief).

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