Dad flew up ahead of us to get things set up. Mom stayed behind to sell the house, the cars, and everything else we wouldn’t need while Roger and I finished the school year.

When he met us at the airport, one of the first things he said was that he needed to find a barber. He couldn’t have us looking like hippies.

To a kid coming from lush, warm Maryland, Anchorage felt bleak. The city sat on the ocean, but there was no beach, only gray mud sloping down to gray, silt-clogged water. The trees were small, the woods vast and scary, and even though it was sunny, I shivered.

At the hotel, I asked where the pool was.

“There isn’t one,” the clerk said.

What horrible place was this?

We stayed there a week before moving into a second-floor, two-bedroom apartment on Elmendorf Air Force Base, convenient to Dad’s work and damn all else.

My friend Levi Hoffman wrote from Maryland, promising firecrackers next time, and asked if we’d moved into an igloo. No, an igloo would have been luxurious compared to our apartment. There weren’t even curtains, just sheets of tin foil taped to the windows to block the midnight sun.

With everything in storage, I had no toys and no bed, just a mattress on the floor. There were no model shops nearby, no friends to play with, nothing to do but watch Air Force planes come and go, and the occasional drunk Eskimo stagger down the sidewalk.

Dad had months to get things ready for us, and this was the best he could do?

Just when I was on the verge of tears, ready to beg to go back to Maryland, Roger rushed in one day, gathered the cheap fishing gear Dad had bought at a drugstore, and said, “Let’s go.”

Go where?

“Come on!”

Like a faithful dog, I followed him down Government Hill, across the railroad tracks, and through the scrub to a bend in a river.

“What the—”

“Shhh!” he whispered. “You’ll scare the fish.”

Almost as soon as his line hit the water, he pulled out a trout. Then another. Then another.

I couldn’t believe it; the fish seemed to throw themselves onto the hook.

We would have stayed all night if I hadn’t kicked the salmon eggs into the river in my excitement. Instead of getting angry, Roger just laughed, packed up the gear, and said we’d get more.

We returned to that stretch of river almost every day. Sometimes we fished. Other times, we waded into the numbingly cold water to swim, search for lost tackle, and see what treasures we could find. It never occurred to us how easily the current could have swept us under a log.

Too soon, summer ended. The days grew shorter and cooler, and I started fourth grade at Sunshine Elementary.

The kids were unfriendly. Most ignored me, and I ignored them. Except for the boy who bragged he was sixteen and had a driver’s license to prove it.

How could this pipsqueak, barely half my size, be sixteen and in fourth grade?

I called him out.

He shoved me.

A crowd gathered, and before I knew it, we were fighting. Well, not exactly fighting. I stood there while he circled me, throwing punches.

Pow.

Pow.

Pow.

A teacher finally saved me and marched us to the principal’s office.

I explained that I’d been defending myself.

The principal nodded sympathetically, opened a drawer, and pulled out a wooden paddle about eighteen inches long.

“Grab your ankles.”

Three quick swats later, my backside was on fire. I squirmed, but I didn’t cry.

Mr. Tough Guy was already bawling before his turn.

Not so tough after all.

At dinner, Mom shook her head and said the principal was wrong.

Dad tried to cheer me up with stories about his boarding school in Ireland.

“If you were out of line even the slightest at Cavan Royal,” he said, “by God, they’d let you have it with the blackthorn stick.”

Whack!

He slapped his hands together, making me jump.

Roger had different advice.

“Next time someone picks a fight, take him out with the first punch.”

He clasped his hands into a club and swung them through the air.

“Like this.”

Next time?

“Oh, yes,” he said. “Unless you learn to stand up for yourself.”

He lowered his voice.

“And if you do it right, no one will ever fuck with you again.”

I was happy to say good riddance to Sunshine when we moved into a house with a fenced yard. We brought Tiger home from the kennel where he’d been since we arrived. I had my room, my bed, and, once our things came out of storage, my toys again.

Better yet, there was a hobby shop nearby with trains, radio-controlled airplanes, and an entire wall of model kits.

And right next door was a Swensen’s Ice Cream Parlor.

What could be better?

On my first day at Woodland Park Elementary, giggles replaced stares when the teacher said, “Let’s welcome Richard Nixon.”

Once she had hushed the class, she suggested I might prefer to be called Paul.

I’d wanted to try Richard for a change, but under her weighty glare, I gave in and settled into the routine.

Soon enough, I made a couple of friends and forgot about the name.

By December, I went to and from school in darkness, and deep snow blanketed everything. It wasn’t like Maryland snow—it was too dry to pack. I froze my fingers trying to melt it slightly in my hands, then made the mistake of thawing them under hot water. The pain shot up my arms in waves.

That was nothing compared to the kid who stuck his tongue to a metal light pole by the hockey rink on a dare.

Before anyone could bring water, someone yanked him free. He screamed, blood pouring from his mouth.

Bits of tongue were left behind on the pole, a brutal reminder not to be stupid.

Alaska in winter was cold in every measurable way, but being outside was infectious, too. I held my own in King of the Hill, enjoyed ice skating at the school’s lighted hockey rink at night, and went to friends’ houses, glimpsing other kids’ lives.

On weekends, Roger and I spent our days cross-country skiing or trudging through waist-deep snow hunting snowshoe hares with the BB gun he got for Christmas, until our bell-bottoms froze stiff. We hit nothing, and that was okay; neither of us had a clue what we’d have done if we had. Just being out there was freedom, and even though we were only a mile or so from home, it felt like wilderness: undisturbed, breathtaking.

Even more so at Arctic Valley, where Roger regularly downhill skied.

I went with him once. I didn’t ski, but he talked the lift operator into letting me ride up near closing.

The view was something else—Anchorage glittering in the distance like a scattering of stars.

“Here,” he said, handing me a bottle of Boone’s Farm Strawberry wine from under his down jacket. “Isn’t this something?”

It was.

The long winter eventually gave way to spring “breakup,” when the snow turned to slush during the day and refroze at night. Everything became dirty.

When summer arrived, Dad bought a small, used camper.

A new chapter began.

At the Russian River, a wide and swift-moving monster that made Ship Creek look like a leak, I’d never seen so many people packed together along both sides with fishing rods. Roger grinned. “Follow my lead.”

I found what looked like a gap in the lines and cast with a Coho fly like his. I copied his moves, reeling, yanking, and pulling.

Suddenly, my rod jerked.

“I think I’ve got a big one!”

I set the hook hard. Several anglers downstream jerked, too.

As I reeled in, my line grew heavier. When I finally pulled it up, I saw why: I’d snagged everyone else’s lines.

Under the weight of glares and grumbles, I packed it in.

Despite the crowd, Roger caught two salmon. He could catch just about anything, anywhere.

Montana Creek, with its crystal-clear water and deep pools, made sense. But the silt-clogged Susitna River? How?

He had the touch.

Dad bought a secondhand aluminum boat that came with a three-horsepower Evinrude, but quickly replaced the motor with a brand-new, peppy ten-horsepower Mercury. At Roger’s suggestion, I painted Panama Red on the boat’s bow. The name drew approving nods and smiles.

The fish remained unimpressed. Despite Roger’s efforts at scoping out the best-looking fishing coves, we caught nothing.

“Trawl for them, son,” Dad advised.

Roger scoffed.

After another day and a half of no bites, and with rain pissing down on us under a rolling chorus of thunderclaps, he reeled in.

“Fuck it,” he said. “This lake is dead.”

It wasn’t. We’d seen the boats at the jetty loaded with fish.

He lit a cigarette and was about to gun the engine when he paused, cut his line, and re-rigged with a small Mepps lure. “Fuck it,” he repeated, putting the motor in gear and casting out.

I copied him.

Roger hadn’t taken two drags when he shouted, “Oh, fuck!” and nearly fell in as he slammed the motor into neutral with one hand and wrenched his rod with the other.

My rod jerked, too. “I got one! I GOT ONE!”

“Well, don’t sit there like a dweeb. Reel it in!”

Nothing worked at Nancy Lake. We came in disheartened and frustrated and went for a soda at the nearby gas station, taking a shortcut along the railway tracks. As we crossed a tiny creek, Roger stopped dead and stared at the water.

“I see fish!”

We ran back to camp and grabbed the gear. Within moments of our lines hitting the water, Roger pulled out a trout. Too small. Another. Too small.

He worked his way along the bank, catching trout on almost every cast, but none were keepers.

It was getting late, mosquitoes had eaten us alive, and Roger was on what he swore was his last cast.

BAM.

His rod jerked, the reel screamed, and I jumped.

With a cigarette dangling from his mouth, he played it cool and pulled out a fish as big as my leg. I danced around, trying to decide whether it was a trout or a salmon, and kicked the salmon eggs into the stream.

Roger laughed. “Time to go.”

I had caught nothing, but God, we had fun.

In fifth grade, I kept up A’s and B’s and even tutored other students in class. I enjoyed school and excelled in math and science. English, too. I even made the safety patrol.

Early in November, Tiger disappeared.

We searched everywhere. Nothing. Dad said a dog sledder probably took him. It didn’t help.

He and Roger argued more, too. Dad seemed stuck between anger and distance—cursing Roger one moment, hugging him the next. When Roger had friends over, Dad twisted his face in disgust and left the room. At dinner, he’d poke at him: “Who was that lout?”

Sometimes Roger answered. Sometimes he shoved back from the table, said, “I’m done,” and retreated to Pink Floyd in his room.

Mom cried. “I can’t take this. I have to get away before I go mad.”

Dad said a week in Hawaii would be the thing for her. Hawaii was a big deal for anyone in Alaska.

A few days before the flight, Dad announced Roger was going too. “Happy birthday, son.”

What about me?

Right up to the moment the doors of the Western Airlines 707 closed, I grinned, certain Dad would surprise me with a ticket too.

He didn’t.

“Someday,” he said.

Someday.

Months passed, and I had all but forgotten about going anywhere when Dad took me with him on a business trip to Seattle. I wanted to visit the Boeing plant, but had to settle for lunch atop the Space Needle. When Dad’s business concluded, he asked if I would like to meet my cousins across the border in Canada.

I rolled my eyes. He might as well have asked if I wanted to go to Wasilla.

Dad smiled. “Or we could swing through Honolulu.”

I lit up.

Because Dad had to be back at work that Monday, we had only one day, and I was determined to make the most of it. I wanted the kids in school to look at me and say, “Wow—he’s been to Hawaii.”

I put on loads of tanning oil and spent the morning in the hotel pool.

Dad came to get me for lunch and said I looked pink. My skin did feel a bit tight and tingly.

After lunch, I was safe and added more oil. Then I went to the beach.

Waves bigger than me crashed on the shore, but I found a salt pool protected by a concrete seawall. I’d been there two or three hours, swimming and minding my own business.

Three Hawaiian-looking boys surrounded me in the water.

“What you doin’ here?” the biggest one said.

“Nothing.”

“You don’t belong on our beach or in our ocean. Go back to the mainland!”

He added a word or words I couldn’t make out and shoved me under. I broke free and swam to shore.

I sprinted to the room and pounded on the door. Dad’s eyes shot wide when he opened it. “Oh, my word,” he said. “What’s happened to you?”

“I was down at the beach,” I said, breathless. “And these kids…”

“No, no. Look in the mirror.”

I’d turned a deep, rusty red. My skin had gone from tight and tingly to on fire.

No amount of Solarcaine from the gift shop helped.

I arrived back in Anchorage looking like a blistered lobster, and by Monday morning, my back was peeling in wet sheets.

At school, I strutted around trying to look cool. Hey, look at me. I’ve been to Hawaii.

The kids just stared.

Sunburn hurt.

Betrayal hurt more.

I learned that the day my friend Alex Glasier and I were supposed to have fun playing army, and he brought another kid from class who wanted to throw rocks at tin cans. I didn’t like him. He was smooth, a showoff, the kid who was going with the prettiest girl in school. When she said yes, he kissed her in front of the rest of us, and not just a peck on the cheek for grandma, either, but a long, lingering, tongues-and-all French kiss that could melt permafrost.

I got bored and went home.

Later, Dad got a call that I’d broken a window. I denied it, but he said Alex and the other kid said I had.

Instead of confronting them at school the next day, I took it out on an innocent kid who had said and done nothing to provoke me. I chased him from the bus stop and all the way into the arms of his bewildered mother.

The principal announced my disgrace to the entire school and kicked me off patrol as a result.

When I began sobbing, Johnny Albiston, the kid everyone said not to be like because he was going to end up in jail or worse, nudged me.

“Patrol isn’t cool anyway.”

How would he know?

Still, he was trying to help.

It worked.

I started hanging out with Johnny and his brother. We built a fort in a junk car in a vacant lot a block from the school and made gang rules involving hot sauce. We smoked cigarettes stolen from our parents, talked, and laughed about whatever secrets Sex Ed had left out.

One day, Teacher handed me a “Kick the Habit” stop-smoking sticker and said I should choose better friends.

“Why? I like the ones I have.”

Just before the start of summer 1975, Mom was crying again and talking about getting out of Alaska. Dad came up with an idea: she fly to San Francisco and stay with friends while he sold the old camper, shipped his car to Seattle, flew down with Roger and me, and bought a new Prowler trailer there. We’d pick her up in San Francisco and return to Alaska via the Alaska-Canada Highway, or Al-Can for short. “It will be a fantastic family adventure.”

Mom went to San Francisco, and we did everything as planned but made it only as far as southern Oregon before the blistering heat turned us around.

On the way back, we stopped to tour the USS Missouri, and we even met the cousins in Canada.

The trip was everything it was supposed to be and more. Roger and Dad seemed relaxed and content, getting along again.

Soon after we returned home, Roger got a job at a local supermarket, then a burger place, then a fish-and-chips joint, and finally at Church’s Fried Chicken, finding a better deal each time.

Mom and Dad were proud.

So was I.

Roger seemed different that summer. Happier. More patient.

Dad bought him a minibike, but instead of hogging it, Roger taught me to ride. He didn’t mind me bicycling over on his Schwinn ten-speed and swapping it for the minibike. One day, he even got me a job for a couple of hours at Church’s, sweeping the parking lot and helping defrost chicken.

I earned a whole dollar.

It felt like a fortune.

Near the end of summer, I got another surprise. Alex invited me to see Jaws. He acted as though nothing had happened, blaming the other kid for the broken window lie. I wasn’t convinced, but he was buying the popcorn and soda, so I said yes.

“What’s it about, anyway?”

Afterward, when he asked what I thought of the movie, I shrugged.

But for a week, a shark lived at the foot of my bed. I slept with my knees tucked to my chest so it couldn’t get me.

I told no one.

Some things were better kept to yourself.