Prisoners of the Williwaw (15 page)

Chapter 16

Frank looked up - curtains.
 
White, lacy
curtains covered the windows of the Marine Barracks.
 
He had just left the council meeting and he stood in the middle of the street.
Curtains.
 
He had not seen a curtain on a window in sixteen years.
 
Curtains said warmth, home, privacy and women.
Prison said just the opposite - no warmth, no home, no privacy and no women.
 
He looked up to his own window on the third floor.
 
White curtains.
 
Judy.

Judy.
 
She had asked him to do something. What was it? The store.
 
Go to the store.
 
"Milk, apples, celery and something to patch the leaks around the windows."

The trouble was that the store was down the hill, around the big 'U' that was Adak's main street and near the power plant. It would take him forty-five minutes each way to walk.

Why not go up and get her and the two of them make an adventure out of it?
 
No, she'd asked him to do this small thing.
 
She was up there making a home for them and she probably didn't want to come out in this weather. So far he had not been fair to Judy, no, not at all.
 
It was time to change that.

He faced into the wind and started down the hill. Rain found its way under his hood and down his back as he walked. There was a hole in his boot and, by the time he reached the store, his right foot was soaked.

Billy the Cheese, so named for his most plentiful product, had set up the food store in an abandoned warehouse.
 
Rows and rows of ceiling-to-floor shelves contained only a smattering of groceries: industrial size peanut butter, large cans of tomato paste,
 
a great variety of beans and cases of generic corn flakes.
The produce section featured brown bananas, black lettuce and meat with a greenish hue.
 
A big crate of cabbage emitted a smell like a sewer.
 
Frank kicked the cabbage.
 
The Bureau of Prisons was sending
 
produce similar to the cons they were sending.

The cooler, however, did have variety and quantities of cheese, Cheddar, Edam, Limburger, Parmesan and Provolone.

The Bureau was buying, not on what they needed, but on which sectors of the food industry needed help.
 
Obviously Wisconsin was in trouble.

Frank started back toward his apartment. Judy wasn't going to be happy.
 
The only thing he got from her list was milk.
 
The old thermometer outside the warehouse said the temperature was 45, but with the wind coming at him, it felt like way below freezing.
 
It even seemed strange that the moisture hitting him was rain and not snow.

As he walked the council meeting played back in his mind. Gilmore's proposal to bring in more convicts could ruin his whole plan.
  
Getting the first three hundred settled on Adak would be like getting them settled on the moon. He did not need three hundred more.

The good thing was that Gilmore was lobbying, not having people knifed. It was progress.
Slowly, surely, Gilmore would be sucked into the ways of democracy.

Yeah, sure.
He could almost hear Doc.

Frank walked past Paint Rock where the big orange
Fuck You
stood out.
 
Below that were love messages from Navy days.
 
Once he had carved Judy's name in a tree in a Milwaukee park and he had spray-painted Angela's name on a sea wall. Where was that romantic man now? he wondered.

Somebody in an old pickup truck peeled out of the officers' club and drove wildly past him.
Doc had told him Gilmore had his own gas supply there now.
 
Frank shook his head.
 
The man was a genius of supply.

A shiny object caught his eye - a hypodermic needle.
 
He kicked a hole in the gravel by the side of the road and nudged the needle into the hole with his boot.

Gilmore.
 
Frank laughed cynically.
 
Yes, a genius of supply.

 
After he rounded the base of the 'U,' the wind was at his back.
 
As he started up the hill, a sudden gust of wind came at him from behind and almost knocked him over.
 
He recalled reading WWII stories of fighting in the Aleutians and how williwaws sometimes smashed small planes into the sides of mountains.

As he entered his apartment, he realized that he had spent little time on his way home thinking how to make his marriage work.
 
It was 4 PM on a Sunday and most of the day had been spent on 'business.'
He put the three small bags of groceries on the kitchen table.
 
They were as wet as he was.

Judy stood in the living room amid old, massive chairs and an ugly old couch.
 
A shiny gold piece of material partially covered one of the chairs.
 
The furniture lay at weird angles to the wall, like nothing had found its home yet.

Her hair was frazzled, dirt streaked one side of her face.
 
"Frank, I can't do anything with this room.
 
And…" tears of frustration came to her eyes "… I don't have enough material to cover even one chair. Where have you been?
You left here early this morning."

"I - " She was upset and prison had taught him well how to deal with upset people - shut down his emotions.
 
He stood still in the living room.

"I tried, Frank, I really tried," she complained, "to fix this place up and you know what?"

"What?"

"There's a leak in the roof in the bathroom."
 
She pointed to a bucket just inside the bathroom door.

Frank looked at the ceiling.
 
"I see it.
 
I'll go out and take a look at the roof."

"The whole place is mildewed.
 
Did you get something to seal the windows?"

"They didn't have anything."

Again tears of frustration - and anger.
 
"How do you expect me to live here?"

Frank tried to hug her, but she moved away from him.
 
"So, where were you?"

"I had to get Joe Britt…"

"And this and that and this and that.
 
Frank…."
She started to cry.

He touched her shoulder, then put his arms around her and held her.

"You're wet," she said.

"Yeah, but I'm getting used to it."

He hugged her.
He loosened his grip on his emotions.
Time disappeared.
 
It was sixteen years ago and he was holding her.
 
He was a different man then.
 
His heart was wild and his mind was on making a quick buck and sailing to the South Seas.
 
He had to start over now.
 
He had to learn how to cherish her.

He rubbed her back gently.
 
He felt her breasts press into him. "What should I do?" he whispered

She looked up into his eyes.
 
"Don't you know?"

"I'm asking."

"Frank, you're - you're . . . "

He pulled her tight.
 
He could feel himself getting excited, but, but… that probably wasn't what she wanted.
She wanted the house made livable.
"I'll go repair the roof," he said and pulled away from her.

"Fuck!" she said and stamped the floor.
 
He opened his mouth in surprise, not at her using that word, which she seldom did, but at his own failure to read her mood.
 
Maybe she wanted sex as much as he did.

"Judy, I…"

She turned away.
"You think too much, Frank."

He went out of the apartment into the hallway and found a stairway that led to the roof.
When he pushed on the door, it fell outward and the wind caught it, ripped it off its hinges and sent it sailing over the edge of the roof.
 
"Fuck. Fuck. Fuck," he said to the wind as he stepped out onto the gently sloping roof.
 
There went his emotions again.
 
He talked himself back to calm.

The cold wind drilled into him and his wet, right foot made him shiver. He felt terrible for being so insensitive to Judy.
 
He was just like the wind that sucked the heat and warmth and love out of everything.

He located the roof over his apartment and the bathroom vent. A section of
 
tar and gravel and paper had blown away.
 
Water flowed down the roof and followed the vent into his apartment.
 
Since he had no roofing material, he tried to think of what else he could use, finally settling on melting down some old candles he had seen in the basement.
When the job was complete, he stood on the roof and watched the water divert around the vent and continue toward the gutter.

Now that's a good job, he complimented himself.
 
Why don't I repair roofs?
 
It's easier than governing this island.
 
Easier than being a husband again.

A fierce wind blew at him from the direction of Mt. Moffett.
 
Low clouds had covered the mountain all day, but now he saw it's lower half.
 
A dark cloud hid the top from his view.
 
He imagined fierce Williwaw lurking behind the stark, rocky slopes, then suddenly appearing and blowing disaster on the tiny community.
 
Just like on the medallion.

Frank put his hand up like a crossing guard. "We've made it for two days, Williwaw," he said.
Yes, there was satisfaction in that.
Despite the difficulties, despite the deaths, they were here on Adak and the bars were gone.
 
We made it Rudy, he prayed.
 
Now what am I going to do about Judy?

The wind continued to blow.
 
He turned away from the mountain to ease the sting on his face.
 
Below him, down the hill, he could see some of the buildings of Downtown Adak.
 
There was a beautiful woman in one of those buildings.
 
Forget the run-down exteriors, forget the drab skies, forget the tree-less, shrub-less, stark world, there was a woman with style down there. But - but - the woman's husband, Boss Gilmore,
 
was responsible for six men not being in those buildings tonight.

What did he have to do to succeed?
 
He had to stay the course. He had to set things up so that the ways of prison, the ways of Gilmore, would die.

He shivered with the cold, checked his repair job and found it to be holding.
 
He went outside the building, found the door in the street, carried it up and nailed it in place.
 
Then he returned to his apartment.
  
As he took off his parka, she called to him from the bedroom, "Is that you, Frank?"

"Yes.
I fixed the roof."

"Good.
Thank you."
 
She sounded pleased.

As he hung up his parka he realized that again his mind had reverted to his struggle to govern the island.
  
While he was out on the roof, he should have figured out what Judy needed. How little I've changed, he thought.
 
Sixteen years ago his mind was on how to make a quick 20 gs to buy a boat - and - on Angela, still on Angela, even though he'd been married for four years.
 
Now his mind was on governing this island– and on Latisha.

He sat down and pulled off his wet sock and
 
wrung the water out.
 
The sock smelled and his feet smelled.
 
Judy came out of the bedroom in her heavy quilted robe, but at the bottom he saw the fringes of a lace nightgown.
 
And the smell - wasn't it Chanel she wore?
 
Those early, turned on years.
 
Sex sometimes twice a day.
 
She wore that perfume to prison once and it drove him crazy.

He stood up and hugged her and then stroked her hair the way she used to like.

Or was that Angela whose hair he stroked?
 
He couldn't remember.

She looked up at him.
 
Her eyes were wide and glistening with love.
 
He kissed her deeply, feeling her body, pulling it next to his, wanting her.

"Oh, Frank," she murmured and then she playfully broke away.
 
"Come on, I've got some dinner for you.
 
Then after dinner - just like the old days."

"Let's skip the dinner."

She laughed.
He took her hand and led her to the bedroom.
 
Slowly, playfully she undid his shirt and his belt buckle. He untied her robe belt and helped her out of it.

What did she like again?
 
Yes,
holding her breasts, kissing her breasts, stroking her slim stomach. He had to please her.
 
That's what everything was about, pleasing her.
 
She had come here to be with him, she had put curtains up, she wore perfume for him.
 
It was up to him to meet her needs.