2.5 Sexual Tension
In the end, I stretched my pad and sleeping bag on the ornate rug on the floor beside Steve’s bed. I don’t know who exactly I was trying to kid. I was soft from the soak, warm from the wine, full from the food, exhausted from the kayaking at sea, yet stimulated by the bubbles and by this new turn of events. On the floor beside his bed, I soon felt wide awake. I lay there for an hour. I tossed and turned. Then I moved onto the bed in my sleeping bag. Steve never stirred, while I still couldn’t sleep. I turned and turned, climbed off of the bed, climbed down to the floor, and back again, and back and forth, pretty much until daybreak.
I could hear the birds begin the chorus at dawn. I put my pillow over my head on the floor.
“You conservative Christians sure sleep soundly,” I said.
“I know.”
He was looking down at me, looking into my eyes.
“What?”
“I know that I’d like to kiss you. Right now. Before breakfast, before you catch the ferry.”
He leaned over and kissed me.
“What’s this?” I said.
“I’ve decided to come with you,” he said, up on his elbow.
“What?”
“I can extend my trip.”
“You’re crazy.”
“Mother-in-law is visiting. My wife will be fine.
“I think you need to have a chat with God.”
“Perfect. Come with me to the Church in the Woods. I planned to visit it today anyway. There is time before you have to catch the ferry.”
The Church in the Woods is a wooden sanctuary with massive windows trained on the outdoors. No stained glass, just nature, lush green rainforest framed as the work of God. I left Steve alone inside, leaving him to commune while I explored the living world and the architecture. He needed to pray and time was running out.
Despite his prayers, he chose to take the ferry. He sat beside me all the way up the inland passage to Haines, past soaring cliffs with eagles nests and the occasional bald eagle, and schools of otter swimming on their back, grooming themselves and nursing their young. It seemed that without meaning to, we both had found something other than what we had planned on in Alaska.
“Tell me about your son,” I asked, watching the otters with their young on their stomachs. I wondered if maybe all the men in Alaska were fugitives from their new babies.
“It’s hard. He’s so young. I can’t wait for him to be a little older. When I can speak with him. Shape him.”
Steve kissed me full on the mouth.
“What if he grows up to be gay?” I asked.
“I’d disown him,” Steve said.
“Are you serious?“
“I am.”
“Do you really think homosexuality is a matter of choice?”
“I do.”
“You’re born to it.”
“I don’t believe that.”
“ How can you be so absolute? You’d turn your back on your own child?”
“Being a parent is the most important thing one can do in life. But if a son of mine was gay, I’d reject him.”
By the time we reached Haines, we had agreed on almost nothing. But all that stuck in my mind was Steve’s assertion that being a parent was the most important thing. It played in my mind as we poked around Haines, a one time nineteenth century Army base with stately white clapboard Victorian houses arranged around a central square. The hamlet was small, but situated near nesting bald eagles and nearby Native American long houses, sweat lodges and totem poles. We saw eagles through high powered binoculars, and spent our time walking, and climbing and clamoring over massive fallen logs on the way to lodges.
We took a trail up towards the top of a windy moutain, a thin sliver overgrown by a lush leafy forest of dense ferns and towering trees. I tied my bear bell onto my pack, but that was pointless. We both knew we had to spot any feeding bears in advance. The stream alongside was green and gushed water that swallowed all other sounds. Steve was relaxed, having already seen Grizzly. He admired the grandeur of the forest as I nervously looked for scat — bluish, purplish berried—in the hopes that if a bear left recent evidence of being there, I’d be forewarned. I sang out loud at the top of my voice, deep and off-key, but in this context it seemed a very poor substitute for the reassurance of Steve’s presence.
In the river, I saw salmon swimming relentlessly upstream to spawn. I saw them again and again, their striving silvery shimmering backs. Reproduction drove them forward at all costs. And I saw the carcasses of all the salmon that died in the attempt. They floated at the edge of the stream, upside down, pounded and torn by the rocks, ripped at by passing birds, their mouths open and their eyes milked over and glazed.
“Do you really believe having a child is the most important thing?” I asked. Even if he was a father in temporary exile, I figured he should know.
“Without question,” he said despite the contradictions. I, on the other hand, was blindly feeling my way along, trying to figure life out from scratch. Even motherhood.
Up against the raw reality of the bears and the spawning salmon, I was feeling oddly imbued by the natural imperative. I was starting to see reproductive messages everywhere. Only I was up in Alaska with a conservative Christian and a married man.
In some ways, he was made for the part. His New York accent reminded me of home. Seasoned by weeks in the wild, he was even more infused with the rawness of nature than me. He was smart and thoughtful, despite a point of view that was rock hard and absolute. And in the middle of a place where the natural imperative was highly condensed, there was also, of course, some obvious sexual tension.