Tele Aadsen

writer - fisherman - listener

By 6:00, the sun had already blazed a long trail above Sitka’s moun­tain­ous back­drop. Joel slept in as I head­ed up the dock, lured by blue skies, the Back­door Café’s Sat­ur­day morn­ing cin­na­mon rolls, and a solo walk to puz­zle over a resis­tant piece of writ­ing. I hit the har­bor ramp with a smile.

God­damn, is that Tele?”

My smile became a gri­mace. I nod­ded to the man cast­ing a fish­ing pole on a near­by float.

Top o’ the morn­ing!” he called. “How’re you doin’ this gor­geous day?”

Doin’ great. Have a good day.”  At the top of the ramp, I stomped onto the park­ing lot pave­ment. Like a threat­ened bear, an irri­tat­ed chuff­ing broke from my throat. Real­ly? We’re har­bor bud­dies now?

*****

Our reunion had occurred three weeks ear­li­er. I’d tak­en some books back to Ket­tle­son Library, weav­ing around two men smok­ing out­side the entrance. One exhaled a thick cloud. “Tele?”

I cocked my head. Prob­a­bly no old­er than his ear­ly 40’s, life had gnawed this griz­zled man’s edges, but still he grinned bright­ly. “It’s me, Carl!”

Just before he spoke, my stom­ach sank in recog­ni­tion. I kept my face blank for a few pas­sive aggres­sive beats.

Holy shit, you look ‘zact­ly the same! What’s it been, 15 years? You still fishin’? Hey, did­ja ever get those pic­tures I sent ya?”

I grap­pled for hand­holds amidst Carl’s tor­na­do chat­ter. How’s it going. Yep, run­ning a boat with my part­ner. Pic­tures? Huh, no, don’t recall. Nice to see you, got­ta go.

Flee­ing into the library’s qui­et, I felt snared by unfore­seen remembrance.

*****

I was 19 when I got my first job crew­ing for some­one oth­er than my mom. Bro­ken by a series of bad sea­sons and major expens­es, she’d had to sell the Willie Lee II. Like many boat kids, I’d been anx­ious to stretch my deck­hand wings, eager to prove myself work­ing for some­one who wasn’t family.

My new cap­tain was a type of man I’d come to know well over the next decade. Men of my dad’s gen­er­a­tion, who prized work eth­ic above any­thing, they saw a female work­er not as a weak link, but a delight­ful nov­el­ty. Men who were tick­led to see a petite young woman hurl her­self against phys­i­cal labor. The oth­er deck­hand and I did the same work, yet our cap­tain had a clear favorite.

This didn’t endear me to my crew­mate. In his mid-20’s, Carl had worked on giant proces­sors in the Bering Sea, but had nev­er been salmon trolling. For three months we cleaned fish along­side each oth­er all day and slept in bunks mere feet apart. We seemed to share the same 52-foot uni­verse, but in truth, Carl was beached on a des­o­late island. Our cap­tain and I were vet­er­an mem­bers of the South­east Alas­ka troll fleet, and our con­ver­sa­tions built fences instead of doors.

On a boat, three can be a far lone­li­er num­ber than one on land.

Carl was a good sport – bet­ter than I would’ve been in his boots, real­ly. Chat­ty, good-humored, help­ful. But as the sea­son went on, he descend­ed into sullen silence. I don’t remem­ber ask­ing why.

The truth came out in Sep­tem­ber. Anchored in Yaku­tat Bay, we wait­ed for gales to pass so we could make the long, exposed run down the coast. Our cap­tain napped as Carl and I played nick­el-a-hand gin rum­my at the gal­ley table. (A slow coho sea­son, some days felt like I made more mon­ey play­ing cards than fishing.)

Study­ing his hand, Carl took a breath. “Sor­ry I’ve been kin­da an ass­hole this sum­mer. It’s just, I’d nev­er worked with a girl before. I just thought we’d end up – you know – doin’ stuff, to break the monot­o­ny of bein’ on a boat. So it con­fused me when noth­in’ happened.”

As if he’d shout­ed the Empress has no clothes, Carl shat­tered my illu­sion that if I worked hard enough, I could erase gen­der. Make myself more fish­er­man than female. I don’t remem­ber my response. What I do remem­ber is pick­ing a fight with him an hour lat­er. When he turned the boat’s 10-inch TV to a scratchy episode of Cops, I scoffed the show’s racial car­i­ca­tures. Know­ing our oppo­si­tion­al views, I went there any­way, delib­er­ate­ly, and Carl replied just as the script said he would.

What are you, some kin­da n***** lover?”

The gloves came off. I didn’t know how to speak a sud­den sense of gen­der frailty, how to name the resent­ment of being viewed as con­cu­bine rather than cowork­er. But I could rage to defend anoth­er group’s mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion. That felt eas­i­er than speak­ing up for my own.

The remain­ing weeks thrummed with ten­sion. I didn’t tell our cap­tain. When we reached Seat­tle, I hopped off the boat and didn’t look back.

*****

How­ev­er anony­mous you feel on the big blue, there’s no escap­ing your past once you hit the dock. West Coast fish­ing com­mu­ni­ties blur into a small, secret-less neigh­bor­hood. Giv­en enough time, you can count on tying up next to the per­son you could’ve gone the rest of your career with­out seeing.

Fif­teen years lat­er, I con­sid­er for the first time the courage behind Carl’s admis­sion. I’m unset­tled by my reac­tions, then and now. Self-exam­i­na­tion veers dan­ger­ous­ly close to the apol­o­gist behav­iors women are so social­ized for, and I turn away. Sure­ly there’s a les­son in this – isn’t there always, in sit­u­a­tions that leave us feel­ing like we’ve fall­en off the sidewalk’s edge? – but I haven’t found it yet.

A gift in 1994; still one of my favorite presents ever. (Thanks, Daniel.)

Have you worked some­where that your gen­der made you stand out, or have you worked along­side some­one else in this sit­u­a­tion? What lessons did you take from the experience?