Big Dead Place. Nicholas Johnson
Señor X to someone who didn’t know him by name, the order of clues would be broadcast roughly as follows:
by department or division (“You know that science support guy?”),
by past or present sexmates (“…went out with that Fuels gal?”),
by job title or function (“…is grooming runways at AGO sites?”),
by physical characteristics (“…tall, has glasses?”),
by roommate (“…lives with Nick Johnson?”),
by past department (“…used to work in Fuels?”),
by office location (“…works up at 191 or MEC if he’s in town?”),
by famous antics (“…the one who had his hat stolen by a skua?”),
then, in the unlikely event familiarity has not yet registered,
by door decorations (“…field of flowers on his door?”).
As I had winced regarding his door decoration, Señor X urged me to examine the flower photos more closely, and said something about landscape and consciousness. In turn I reminded him that Gorgoroth were countrymen of Roald Amundsen, who had defeated Robert Scott in the 1911-12 race to reach the South Pole, and that they had authored such contemplative songs as “Crushing the Scepter” and “(Under) the Pagan Megalith.”
Though my roommate and I were dissimilar in many ways, we were unified in our tireless enthusiasm for all things Antarctic. We were armchair strategists who argued over the complex logistics of the industrial caravans that traversed to the Black Island communications outpost 60 miles south of Ross Island. We regarded as superheroes obscure Antarctic figures such as Rozo, the baker on one of the French expeditions who did nothing but wear slippers around the hut and bake croissants, or Anton the Russian Pony Boy, who entertained everyone with his national dances.
Señor X had invited people over tonight for Thai food. He emptied tiny jars and festive packets into a prized wok procured from a departed winter-over, while I futzed around the narrow room, arranging the moth-brown Eastern Bloc furniture with grave deliberation, and running extension cords for our many appliances. I shrieked when I zapped my video camera with static electricity, forgetting to first reach for something grounded—this would become habit after a month or so in the dry air. On the walls I hung some Robert Scott masks and a map of the Tucker Glacier Area. I attached a tally counter, like bouncers use at nightclubs, to a new bulletin board, both of which I had recently found in a skua pile.
A skua (rhymes with “Kahlúa”) is an Antarctic gull that feeds on baby penguins, seal placenta, McMurdo Food Waste, and is prone to cannibalism. Skuas are tough and aggressive. They occasionally appear at Pole, 800 miles away, and a skua was once spotted on a beach in Florida, gobbling corn dogs and sandy ice cream cones. Skuas sometimes molest people carrying trays of food on the short walk from 155 to their dorms. A bagel or danish may be plucked from someone’s hand, and a screaming skua once swooped down and stole Señor X’s hat from his head. The tasseled knit cap was found two years later across town near the Helo Pad.
Though the penguin image pervades McMurdo via work order forms, the mail flag, t-shirts, hats, bumperstickers, postcards, and cheap shotglasses, it contributes little to the language. As far as anyone knows, penguins don’t really do anything, they’re just darling and funny. Skuas, on the other hand, steal food from each other, prey on stray penguin chicks who move too far from the group, and try to eat each other’s heads. The skua’s workaday sensibilities have found it a significant place in the McMurdo vernacular.
Each of the dorms has at least one “skua pile,” where people dump potentially reusable goods they no longer want, useful things like clothing, books, coffee mugs, and temporary tattoos of dinosaurs2, as well as more optimistic items like broken pencils, packets of ketchup, and near-empty shampoo bottles. Skua piles are first-come-first-serve and free for all.
The early summer skua frenzy is often so vigorous that at times it might be called a mass pillage. Furniture raids on dorm lounges are planned, and information about a coveted loveseat is closely guarded to foil any preemptive strike. Anything left in the hall, when moving between rooms for instance, should be marked “Not Skua.” This will protect the owner, not against clearheaded theft, but against rationalized theft. An adventurous woman once left a pile of food in the hall for less than one minute and returned to find a bag of avocados missing. “No one skuas3 a bag of avocados,” she said angrily. This incident recurs, but the objects change, from hot pots to bundles of clothes hangers. Despite problems of liberal interpretation, skuaing is a treasured community practice, convenient and practical for some, and for others a fond hobby, like rooting through thrift stores, but where everything is free4.
Aside from the tally counter, I had recently skuaed a functional light bulb (an item sometimes scarce for those who don’t know anyone in Housing), a bag of seaweed, a bottle of cumin, the sheet music for Rocky Horror Picture Show, and a reference book of bone fractures and their treatments, with photos and X-rays.
“What can we count with this thing?” I asked Señor X as I fiddled with the tally counter. “I think we should click it whenever someone says ‘plane’.”
“Each conversation involving planes? Or each use of ‘plane’?”
“Yeah, that’s a problem,” I said. I imagined Ben repeating, “plane” as fast as he could. (Ben and I had become friends our first year when he was a blaster and I was a dishwasher. He told me how to use explosives to move ice and rock and I told him how factions evolve in a kitchen. Ben had introduced me to the beauty of the high-quality Hawaiian shirt.)
“Let’s count the number of times someone clicks the counter,” Señor X said. “Then we’ll always be accurate.” We agreed this was the best idea so far.
Kath arrived with a halfrack of Export Gold (a New Zealand beer). She was working Waste at Pole, but would be in McMurdo yet for a week or two.
“Hey Kath,” I said, “look at our new counter. No, on the bulletin board.”
She clicked it. “What are you keepin’ track of?”
“None of your goddamn business. Where’d they put you?”
She began stocking our fridge. “155,” she said. “But I got the whole room to myself, so I’m open for business.” Kath had spent the last few months sewing fleece hats that she would now sell for $15-$20 apiece to her coworkers, who had plenty of money and nothing to spend it on. “I had five people come up during dinner. I already got a list of people who forgot to bring cash. That’s the thing about this place. It’s easy to trust people because they can’t go anywhere and you always know where to find ‘em.”
We drank beer and talked while Señor X conjured steam at the desk.
Kath had first applied to work in The Program for the summer of 1996- 97 when all Galley and Janitorial services were subcontracted to International American Products of Charleston, South Carolina. IAP’s bread and butter was prison contracts, but they were branching out.
For a call to their office, Kath was rewarded with the position of nightshift Janitor Supervisor. She and the other IAP employees were flown to Charleston with contracts they had received in the mail, for lower wages than they had agreed to by phone. In the office, a secretary was collating stacks of documents by hand from the floor. They filed into a conference room for Orientation and the manager told them to rip up their contracts, then he passed out new ones with accurate wages. People who had worked in The Program before asked why they were only receiving $290 instead of the usual $300 for travel expenses. The manager told them ten dollars each was deducted for the pizza and Cokes they would have after the meeting.
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