Salmon Run

Salmon Run

A HEFTY VOICE MESSAGE FROM LOUISE CARRIGAN TO HER WIFE, ANNE DAVIS, FALL 17770.

Immortality’s a funny thing. I think—I think I forgot how to struggle. Before us, I mean. You know, back home in Alaska. Yeah, of course there was always some kinda crap, but mostly it was the same stuff day-in-day-out. I’d go to work in the morning and leave work in the afternoon. My job was important, sure, but I’d been doing it so long it just felt like busywork. The day I got my position, though, it felt good. That was what, almost sixteen thousand years ago? Way before we met...

Isn’t that crazy? I lived almost a hundred and sixty lifetimes before I met you.

It definitely didn’t feel like it.

Anyways, on with the message—sorry, this one’s gonna be a devil to listen to. Tell your brother I say hi, by the way! I’m only about 9 hours to Asheville now. Might be a tad more, ‘cause the truck tire just popped. You know, it was just some nail lying about on the road. And the thing is, the roads here are real nice!

ANYWAYS, for real this time, I was finally doing something to give back to the environment. Lord, we really fucked everything up. When I took the job, the chinook runs were really bad. I mean, so many of those salmon were dying during the run or before the run and it was just hell at the fishery. It got better, of course. It all got better, but then there wasn’t this constant stress anymore. After a while they were fine. Still needed management, but it wasn’t as crazy as it used to be. No more fighting with the fishermen ‘cause they didn’t live off of it, you know. Most of the people who fished then were just hobbyists and families—didn’t need much management then. So I went to work and I picked up any book I had lying around the house. This was before I went to college for the first time, so it was just everything I had from high school.

So I started reading Catcher in the Rye, you know, with Holden Caulfield and that hunting hat of his? And I was reading it at work and he said something that kinda snapped me out of everything. He said, “mothers are all slightly insane.” And you know what, that really got me thinking. My mom had been gone a while and I’d been at peace with it a while, too. There were hard days and there will always be hard days, but what I really missed was something she used to do when I was in high school. You know how much of a shit I was then, I took nothing seriously, and you know, she’d always tell me, “God’s watching, Louise.” It wasn’t in too serious a tone, but man, she said it all the damn time. And whenever I fumble one of your absolute dimes, I hear her in my head, going “God’s watching, Louise.” And she had that real thick Appalachian accent too—if you thought mine was bad, you shoulda met her. And I’d tell her right back, “Oh I know he’s watching. Bet he’s cracking up watching me stumble ‘cross the field.”

Anyways, back then when I worked at the fishery, I never did anything that would make her say that. Nothing that was crucial—you know, critical, in-the-moment stuff that God would wanna be watching. I had so much time there. I still have so much time here. And so one day I went out to one of the rivers and I looked at all the salmon, swimming upstream and strugglin’ forever against the current. And I said to myself, I wanna do that. I wanna feel anxious again. I wanna be embarrassed again. I want to trip over my own shoelaces in the middle of the big game.

And it’s kinda funny, cause after that happens, you’re like, “good Lord Above, I never wanna experience that ever again.” But it’s a lie, cause when things get too good, then they’re not good anymore, you know? And I guess that why we do it. Why I keep going back to college even though school’s always my least favorite thing in the whole wide world. And why I keep trying new sports even though the only one I’m good at is that damned football. Hey, I mean, hockey’s fun, but Christ am I a crap skater.

And I guess most important, it’s how I met you—Lord do I remember that! Spillin’ my water and all that fuss. Damn near our whole relationship was swimming upstream, you know that? But shit if it wasn’t worth it. Everything was worth it. I mean, I’ll probably use that radiochemistry knowledge somewhere…

Well, I don’t even know what I’m talking about anymore. I was just thinking and didn’t want to forget anything. But now I’m rambling again. Sorry bout that. Now this thing’s gonna be like an hour long. I’ve gotta quit while I’m ahead. Love you, babe. See you tomorrow.