Around The World (migration Is Not A Crime -Unalaska/Seatt

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For some reason I ended up inside a Russian
Cargo-ship across the Bering Sea. No sightings of ice, at this point. To sum
up, lastly, the conversations amongst the technical stuff have been going
mainly around the future developments of the Yamal\u2013Europe natural-gas pipeline;
the nature of the money involved on it and some dirty stories from their
friends working on both sides of the line: on the Yamal peninsula in Western
Siberia and around the Germany-Poland border area. A lover from Frankfurt was
already popping up into the conversations and another one from Krakow more
plump and clownish. Yet the one from Frankfurt more claimant still. The heavy
mechanics and electricians scoffed about the character of these women. The
differences of charisma between them like the difference of personality between
Chinese and Japanese people, it was being said, but there were some
interrogations; not everybody agreed with that and the tempers got exalted,
instantly, they were now discussing this at loud voice; more like arguing\u2026
almost fighting; too much coffee mixed with Rum, all that jazz... I couldn\u2019t
understand half of what was being said; they were mixing Russian and Siberian
dialects and some kind of Chinese etc. Heavy boots over dunes and sunflowers
stamped on the carpets. The sunflowers being watered by some kind of refined
petrol falling from the ceiling on the corner. And behind this fancy waterfall
is the captain\u2019s office, now surrounded by a couple of informants: navigation
specialists etc. And there is also the third captain, a reserved personage,
seated here on the leisure room, taking notes while speaking with the only
woman aboard, an expert in all Chinese languages; she is the one that will deal
with the authorities once the boat arrives in Shanghai. Meanwhile, one
icebreaker emits a signal, miles away, and the second captain spots it on the
screen. As said, there is no ice at the moment, on the roundabouts, so the
icebreaker should be just drifting\u2026 Let\u2019s imagine, the captain playing the
violin aboard, for his dog, a connoisseur\u2026

And as I
get distracted with this kind of thoughts I go out through a big round window.
Outside, the sea is strangely calm and dark, but shiny. The lead sky falling over
the greasy waters and producing reflections of skewed stairs, shrinking and
extending, undulating stairs becoming whatever. Or, if you want the more acute reality,
you can see it as stranded metal containers, piles of them, more like melting
Lego pieces mounted on the waves. More, earlier today, someone has said you can
fit around 36,000 cars and 800 million cans of baked beans inside each of them,
each container, something like that. Yet, others said that what we were
actually shipping to China today was mainly \u2013 frozen poultry - almost rotten - but
the Chinese would eat it anyway \u2013 and inside the poultry could be some kind of
ammunition, second world-war relics, not to go too far\u2026 Well, let it be. Now I
go around on the deck, stumbling over some fat ropes, thinking about life and\u2026
I hear voices upstairs on that small cabin they call \u201cGnezdo aista\u201d. It\u2019s the \u201cplita\u201d
(cooker) and the \u201cnazochik\u201d (janitor). They call me making that signs, and
there I go, straight away, through a series winding metal stairs. Two huge
seagulls with a penguin face cross very close to my head and disappear. Already
there, they pass me the big cigar. Eventually, the janitor is talking about
Nuliajuk, a goddess of the Netsilik Inuit. According to his ancestors, Nuliajuk
lives on the bottom of the sea and controls marine mammals\u2026 Whenever humans
neglect to observe ritual prohibitions, she imprisons the sea-mammals within
the drip-basin under her lamp, so that shamans must conjure her so as to
release them... Nuliajuk is co-wife with Isarraitaitsoq; their husband is the
scorpionfish god Kanajuk. They have an adopted baby, which they stole from a
sleeping mother when her husband was out hunting at the breathing holes.
Nuliajuk have been living in the ocean for a very long time. She just sits on
the ocean floor, her long hair flowing, moving back and forth with the tides
and the currents. When you look down into the sea over the side of a boat in
summer, you can see her hair, swaying back and forth. Sometimes as her hair
moves with the water, it gets all disheveled and tangled up. The creatures of
the sea get caught in it and no matter how hard they try they cannot get out. More,
when she was just a girl, Nuliajuk refused to marry; she would take no man for
a husband. It was a cruel world in which she lived. There were no animals to
hunt, no caribou, seals, whales, walruses, fish, nothing\u2026 Her family was
starving and could no longer feed her. If she had married she would have had a
husband to support her but no, she refused to marry anyone. One day Nuliajuk\u2019s
parents loaded their boat with the few things they had and headed off to
another hunting place, hoping for better luck. They left Nuliajuk behind. They
could no longer support a woman who had refused to marry. Nuliajuk did not want
to be left behind so she swam out to the boat; she grabbed the gunwales and
tried to climb aboard. Her father took his axe and chopped her fingers off to
keep her from climbing in. So, no longer able to hold on to the gunwales of the
boat, she slipped down to the depths of the sea. And there, is where Nuliajuk
lives to this day. Her fingers fell into the sea one by one, and one by one
they became the animals of the sea. They became whales, walruses, fishes and
all the other sea creatures. But now Nuliajuk has no fingers with which to comb
her hair, and when her hair is all tangled up, these poor animals get caught in
and cannot get out. They tickle her head and that makes her angry. She shakes
her head; she screams and flails her arms about. She makes the water boil until
there are big waves. If her hair gets tangled up there are no animals to hunt,
no meat to eat, no sealskin for boats, and no whale meat to feed the dogs. Even
if there were animals about, no one could go to sea to hunt them when Nuliajuk
is angry\u2026\u201d

As it
goes, the cooker is laughing at this story. A strange kind of laugh. The
janitor says that this is a story from his people, the Inuit; although his
mother being American and his father a Russian man. Now, the cooker\u2019s super fat
eyebrows stretching up as I pass him the big cigar, but very delicate fingers,
holding it. He takes a deep breath, and looking straight to me, he says he will
now tell his story, and after will be my turn. What I agree. So, he begins confiding
how he got arrested in China... \u201cWhile I was there, I consumed about one
hundred books, including jailbird classics such as Dostoyevsky\u2019s Crime and
Punishment, Dumas\u2019 Man in the Iron Mask, Solzhenitsyn\u2019s One Day in the Life of
Ivan Denisovich, and modern equivalents such as Marina Nemat\u2019s Prisoner of
Tehran. My head was bursting hot. Stunned and exhausted, I wept. Around the
cell, shaved heads popped up like chicks from a nest to glimpse the commotion,
then went back to sleep nonchalantly. Imagine, a dozen or so bodies lying in
rows on the rough boards, like sardines inside cans with pink lids. A ceiling
light burning brightly \u2014 in fact, it was never off. I felt winded. How could I
sleep? Then suddenly it was light outside too. It must have crept up slowly but
the new day came as a shock. My horror movie rolled to the next scene. A
low-pitched horn broke the silence. I hear it every day still. Bodies sat up.
Warders on the corridor in pale-blue shirts banged on the bars. \u201cQilai, qilai.\u201d
\u201cGet up!\u201d At breakfast the gritty rice and the briny smell of pickle made me retch... Some men had sachets of
\u201ccereal\u201d powder that they mixed with boiled water from an urn perched outside
the bars. \u201cHave one of my cereals,\u201d said one inmate. Two men cleared the dishes
and took them to the sink. Their actions were chores rostered to each detainee
by the warder. Cleaning the floor; washing the dishes; scrubbing the toilet;
stacking the boxes and quilts;
emptying the urn twice a day for refilling; washing and folding the cloths\u2026 etc.
These jobs rotated each week. The men exercised by circling the cell for 10
minutes like Tibetan pilgrims at a temple, minus the Buddhist chants. But this
was no temple\u2026 just a floor five by three meters. The entrance and toilet added
another two square meters. The toilet was a hole in the floor with a rusty
flushing lever on the wall behind it. The sink was a heavy, cracked ceramic
affair with a cold tap. Above it was a piece of shiny plastic, supposedly a
mirror, warped so you couldn\u2019t see a clear image. During 14 months there, I did
not see my own face\u2026 After the \u201cstroll\u201d came the toilet ritual. Orange vests
sat on designated spots beside the wall. Red vests \u2014 new boys \u2014 faced the
grille studying a brown rule book... We went to the toilet in turns, red vests
last. Squatting over the hole I almost toppled as I reached for the flusher
behind me. \u201cTo shit, face forward; to piss, face the wall,\u201d barked Li, the cell
boss. \u201cThat way, it falls the right way without a mess. You did it the wrong
way.\u201d Over the next 10 days, like a dog yapping at my ankles, Li ordered me to
do this and do that.... To learn the rules... But some of the men were kind;
not all. It came the day the warder ordered me to gather my things and \u201cYou are
going home,\u201d he said. The other men echoed his pronouncement and told me to put
on proper clothes and dump my red vest. My heart rose. Then when the warder
fetched me there was some turmoil and misunderstandings\u2026 anyway, they moved me
to another cell and gave me an orange vest.

My new
boss was Chen, he had holes in his face\u2026 sentenced to 13 years for illegally
owning guns to shoot rabbits. \u201cMost people here committed crimes for money,\u201d he
said, \u201cBut I am only here because of my hobby.\u201d There were other three Chinese
in their late fifties like me, in the green vests worn by inmates with chronic
illnesses. All three were wealthy businessmen, hostile to the political system.
All were waiting trial, accused of fraud; all claimed to have been framed. The
cell was nicknamed \u201csick men\u2019s cell\u201d by the others; I called it \u201cthe
billionaires\u2019 cell\u201d. The aim was to crush the spirit, break the will. Many
prisoners crumble quickly. Whatever the cell, the rituals were the same. During
exercises, which were aired on a closed circuit overhead TV, we imitated jumps
and stretches performed by three PE coaches, one male, two female \u2014 the closest
my cellmates ever got to a woman. Then a white-coated patrol doctor came by our
grille. Inmates raised health issues but they would be lucky to get a dollop of ointment for a sore foot, or
an aspirin. Next came \u201cstudy time\u201d. We
sat cross-legged on red spots on the floor while the TV relayed \u201clessons\u201d from
the Detention Centre \u201cpropaganda department\u201d. Sometimes it was the \u201cpropaganda
director\u201d preaching about good behavior and analyzing recent statistics: how
many detainees had quarreled or fought; how many inmates had argued with the
guards or broken other rules, and been punished by isolation or prolonged
squatting. Inmates sat quietly. Some would try sneak-reading a book. Others
plotted how to handle their case, or dreamed. Nobody took \u201cstudy\u201d seriously,
though sometimes we had to write a commentary on the session. That was our
life. A waiting game. No family visits. No letters home. Just brief messages to
lawyers. No chance to orchestrate a real defense. Foreign prisoners could
receive consular visits, to the envy of Chinese cellmates.

Usha, the vice-consul who visited me regularly, and
her assistant Susie, relayed messages to and from my family, brought books and
magazines, and lobbied over my health. They were my angels\u2026

In the
detention center I developed symptoms of prostate cancer, a long hernia, skin
rashes, anal infections and constant diarrhea, and endured an injury to my
spine inflicted during the raid. None was treated. There were frequent
interrogations. For these I was locked in an iron chair inside a steel cage
facing a podium where three PSB men questioned me and, once or twice, men from
\u201ca different department\u201d. Most of it was smoke. I had to thumb-print statements
in red seal ink, and specimen documents from my project files. The PSB men did
not want to hear any mitigating explanations. They tried to make it look as
though Ying and I earned millions from trading in data, which we never did.
Twice, the \u201cother department\u201d men tried to stitch me up for spying. They tried
to accuse me of spying in the restive Muslim region of Xinjiang. They tried to
tie me to a US intelligence entity spying on North Korea. After seven months,
Ying and I were finally allowed to exchange jailbird love letters. They took a
month to travel 30 meters through the concrete and three layers of police
censorship. We were not allowed to discuss our case. Some of our letters were
blocked without telling us. But I reminded myself that the Chinese men had no
such privilege. After 13 months without trial, I finally went to court on
August 8, where Ying and I were charged with \u201cillegally acquiring citizens\u2019
information\u201d (which we denied). That day also saw one of the most deeply
distressing moments of the entire ordeal. The police had told me shortly before
our trial that Ying had been informed of the recent death of her brother,
Bernard. So, on the morning of our trial, when I saw her on the stairs in the
courthouse, I expressed my condolences. The manner in which she broke down told
me instantly that they had lied. She didn\u2019t know. I believe they did this on
purpose to destabilize us for the trial. We were predictably sent down, me for
30 months and Ying for 24\u2026. From the moon, Qingpu Prison would look like a
peaceful walled university campus with dorms, gardens, camphor trees, a soccer
pitch and a parade ground. From my level, there were a dozen concrete cell
blocks with barred windows, a prison theatre, an office block, a kitchen, a
boiler house and a factory. The perimeter wall bristled with razor wire and was
patrolled by armed PAP guards. It could hold 5000-6000 prisoners. It also
\u201ctrained\u201d prisoners for redistribution to other prisons. Cell block eight was
for foreign men, the adjacent block for Chinese. A tall iron fence sealed off a
yard between the block\u2019s wings. A bald middle-aged Malaysian lifer came to the
gate and helped carry my prison bags. His nickname was MC. He was bloc eight\u2019s
\u201cking rat\u201d. He ran a Malaysian mafia that controlled all the food and job
assignments at Qingpu. \u201cWhat are your thoughts?\u201d a bespectacled senior officer
asked me when I arrived. \u201cI don\u2019t know what you mean,\u201d I replied. \u201cWhat will
you do here?\u201d he asked. I did not realize his questions were euphemisms for,
\u201cWill you write the acknowledgment of guilt and \u2018repentance report\u2019?\u201d that was
required of all prisoners. \u201cI can teach some English to your staff,\u201d I said
innocently. I was led to the \u201ctraining cell\u201d for new prisoners, and given
blue-and-white-striped shorts and a white short-sleeved shirt with blue tabs,
the summer prison uniform. I became prisoner number #42816. There were frequent
interrogations. I was locked in an iron chair inside a steel cage. My cell held
12 prisoners. We slept on iron bunks with wooden planks and a cotton \u201cmattress\u201d
one-and-a-half inches thick, covered with a coarse striped sheet. The barred
windows were never closed. Winter was freezing. \u201cI am the cell leader,\u201d said a
wiry young African, one of many Nigerians there, most convicted of drug smuggling
and serving life terms. We were joined by two Chinese prisoners who held
foreign citizenship: Zhang, an Austrian citizen serving a long term for
people-trafficking; and Chen, a Thai citizen who was in jail for embezzlement.
They were snitches who informed against everybody and who had been moved into
the cell to monitor me. As both spoke some English, they would follow me
everywhere, listen to any conversations I had and report back to the officers.
Zhang managed the cell block\u2019s factory production; Chen worked as \u201csocial
secretary\u201d between prisoners and officers. \u201cHow do sentence reductions work?
How does the points system work?\u201d I asked. \u201cWe don\u2019t know, you must ask the
captains,\u201d they lied. \u201cAt least, if you want to qualify for reduction, you must
confess.\u201d I spoke next to a Captain Liu. \u201cWhat are your thoughts?\u201d he said in
broken English in a small interview room with bars separating us. My first
thought was, \u201cHere we go again.\u201d \u201cI am innocent and I will not admit any
crime,\u201d I said. \u201cIf I have to stay here, I will use my time to read. I can help
teach people English if you want me to. I want to know about the
sentence-reduction system.\u201d Liu seemed awkward dealing with a grey-haired Englishman
about his own age. \u201cStudying is a privilege, not a right. You should write
confession and repentance reports,\u201d he said. He was more civilized than most
warders and I think he genuinely hoped to have a good rapport with me. I
disappointed him. \u201cI will not write any of that,\u201d I said. \u201cAnd I demand medical
treatment for my ailments, including my prostate.\u201d Zhang led me back to the
cell. In the corridors and stairs other prisoners appeared. They smiled and
nodded at me. On our corridor an African inmate tried to chat. \u201cThey told us
all not to talk to you,\u201d he said. \u201cThey said you are an MI6 spy. None of us
believes it. We saw your trial on TV. We have been waiting for you. You are a
hero. If you need anything, tell us, we will help you,\u201d he said, ignoring Zhang
and Chen, who fluttered and clucked like anxious hens. I had brought no
toiletries, having been told I would get new ones. Instead, I had to buy them
and I had no prison account, even though my warders handed over the money from
my detention center account to the prison. Initially, the officers also banned
me from sending letters to family, making phone calls or using the prison
shopping system. But I soon found a pile of things on my bunk \u2014 tissues,
laundry powder, biscuits, coffee sachets, a small towel, two plastic rice
bowls, pens and notepaper. Inmates dropped these things there as anonymous
charity donations. Zhang and Chen led me to my first supper in the \u201cworkroom\u201d,
where some 120 prisoners occupied rows of tables with backless, immovable seats
attached. As I walked in, all eyes were on me, along with those of six
officers. The food was warm here, sometimes hot\u2026 A standard dinner was a bowl
of steamed rice, almost grit-free, stir-fry including a meat and a vegetable,
and a thin soup. The Ritz! MC\u2019s gang served one cell at a time, ladling food
from battered trays. After a final roll-call at 9pm, the barred cell door was
locked and trusted prisoners from a Chinese block stood watch on the corridor
to report nefarious activity or suicide bids. The ceiling light was kept on all
night. We awoke at 6am. One of us cleaned the toilet area before the others
rose. A warder unlocked the cell and the men trooped down to the yard with
Thermoses to collect boiled water for hot drinks or washing. Two flasks per
man. For breakfast we ate plain rice congee or a steamed bun with salt pickles,
and, every Sunday, a boiled egg. There was half-an-hour of exercise in the open
air before breakfast in a yard the size of a basketball pitch. After a few days, nice Captain Liu vanished
and word flew round that young Captain Wei would manage our cell. Wei was
notorious for persecuting inmates and stirring up incidents that led prisoners
to get a beating and to be dragged off screaming to solitary, which I witnessed
over and over again. \u201cThey are sending him here because of you,\u201d I was told.
Indeed, Wei summoned me several times a week for a \u201ctalk\u201d. He tried to provoke
my anger, insulted me, ordered me to write confessions, and threatened me with
an extended sentence or solitary if I refused. I never yielded. Every week I
cited my medical problems and demanded proper examinations and treatment for my
prostate. \u201cBut you haven\u2019t confessed,\u201d he would say. He staged searches and
threw all my things out of my bunk drawers across the cell. He often removed my
private diary, so I played cat and mouse, keeping my notebook on my person. I
agreed to write a separate monthly \u201crecord of my progress\u201d for him, but I only
listed his abuses. He would write \u201cgood\u201d on each page like a teacher. He
obviously did not understand my handwritten English. The prison was a business,
doing manufacturing jobs for companies. Mornings, afternoons and often during
the after-lunch nap, prisoners \u201clabored\u201d in the common room. Our men made
packaging parts. I recognized well-known brands \u2014 3M, C&A, H&M. So much
for corporate social responsibility, though the companies may well have been
unaware that prison labor was part of their supply chain. Prisoners from
Chinese cell blocks worked in our factory making textiles and components. They
marched there like soldiers before our breakfast and returned late in the
evening. The foreigners who labored in my cell block were Africans and Asians
with no money from family, and no other way to buy toiletries and snacks. It
was piece work; a hundred of this, a thousand of that. Full-time, they earned
about 120 yen, about fifteen dollars a month. But it was also about points.
There was a sentence-reduction system based on points earned through labor \u2014
work such as floor cleaning, food serving, teaching and approved study.
Snitching also earned favorable treatment. Our life was a waiting game. No
family visits. No letters home. Just brief messages to lawyers. Once or twice a
year a list of prisoners went up showing who had earned reductions. Those on
long terms crowded around, praying their name was on the board. Many were
disappointed. Reductions had become rarer since President Xi Jinping had taken
power in early 2013. Before that, a 10-year term might be cut to seven. Under
Xi you would be lucky to get one year taken off. I never qualified because I
boycotted the thought reports. The officers refused to explain the system to me
anyway. Between bouts of persecution by Wei, I read books and newspapers sent
by my Rotary Club community, and books from the prison \u201clibrary\u201d shelves
managed by Stern Hu, a China-born Australian. Stern had led the China office of
mining giant Rio Tinto before his arrest in 2009 on murky allegations of
espionage and bribery, as China fought Australia over the price of iron ore.
Ironically, I had commentated on his case on CNN at the time. Now I was his jail-mate.
Tall and aristocratic-looking, hair whitened by captivity, he was highly
educated and very kind. He provided me with some of his warm clothing in winter
and helped me with Chinese letter writing and reading. He was struggling with
heart disease, and I worry about his health to this day. Every encounter was an
education. I had spent 15 years helping to prosecute fraudsters. Now, in
prison, I met many people who might easily have been my investigation targets,
but who I came to believe did not deserve such harsh sentences. I came away
from my captivity with sympathy for both the innocent and the guilty. I
continued to refuse to \u201cconfess\u201d, and the captains continued to block my access
to prostate treatment and warm clothing. Everybody was supposed to shave once
or twice a week. Prisoners had their own razors, which were stored under lock
and key. On certain days of the week the razors were handed out to their owners
to shave and then handed back in immediately. I applied to have my family buy
me a razor, but Wei kept blocking approval. They tried to make me use a shared
razor. I refused on hygiene grounds. I grew a long straggly grey beard. Hair
was cut every Saturday morning by prisoners. I let mine grow. Before long, I
looked like a cross between Santa Claus and the Count of Monte Cristo. This
drove Wei nuts. He tried to force me to shave, and I filed complaints to the
prison and my consulate. Other prisoners started winking at me as I walked
along the corridor and I noticed they had started to grow beards too. My
consular saviors \u2014 Roslyn, who took over from Usha, and Susie \u2014 brought letters
and books from relatives and friends each month, and relayed my complaints to
the prison and the authorities. One day, they brought me a copy of the United
Nations treaties on imprisonment and torture that I had requested. These
confirmed to me that China failed to comply with most of the standards of treatment
on nutrition, sleep, labor, health, and contact with family, etc., required by
international laws that China had signed, and I urged my consul to complain. I
shared the treaties among the inmates. Handwritten copies proliferated. Some of
the men started citing the treaties in complaints to the governor. The officers
began to grow uneasy and I could sense that some wanted to get shot of me. Wei
continued to threaten me with solitary and made efforts to ban me from sitting
down anywhere. In the meanwhile, something shifted. Consular lobbying and my
relentless complaints forced the prison to send me for a PSA blood test and an
MRI at a local hospital. Wei used the moment to parade me in front of the
public at hospital in handcuffs and prison uniform. But the MRI result was a
milestone. Within weeks, they had to admit that I had a tumor in my prostate,
although they concealed the result of the blood test. The next step should have
been a biopsy. Instead, they began to fake the paperwork for a sentence
reduction for good behavior. It emerged from this that the real commander of
cell block eight was one Captain Shang. He, and eventually the prison governor,
spent long sessions pleading with me to sign an admission of guilt so that I
could leave prison with Ying, whose sentence would expire on July that year. \u201cEven your wife could get a small
reduction too,\u201d said Shang. He and I argued over the wording of a compromise
statement that I would sign to satisfy the paperwork. He went back and forth to
his superiors with my position. I finally signed a statement expressing
qualified, conditional remorse if I had done anything wrong but not admitting
that I had done anything wrong at all. Somehow they fudged it. I came away from
my captivity with sympathy for both the innocent and the guilty. On June that year,
the prison smuggled me to the Shanghai Prison Hospital where I never saw a
doctor but where they pretended I was getting medical attention for five days.
The vice-governor came to me with a Gillette Turbo razor and begged me to use
it. In my final act before leaving Qingpu, I shaved. Some days after, they
released Ying and me into house arrest in the Magnotel, a small hotel that
sources said belonged to the security apparatus, pending our deportation. In
the end of that month of June, the PSB men who had originally arrested and
interrogated us before, conveyed us to Pudong Airport for deportation on a
Virgin flight to London. Just before we climbed aboard, the PSB handed us a
bill for our nine-day stay in the Magnotel\u2026\u201d

At some point,
different kind of seagulls came to us, not totally white these ones. Their chirping
was queer too. Even the water began to look brighter. Something new was imminent.
And there it was, still far away, surrounded by very low dark clouds, what
looked like an Island. Attu inland, someone said. American land. Actually this
is the island that has been invaded by the Japanese on the aftermath of the Second
World War. After one year of confronts or so, the last Japanese on the inland,
it is said, dug a tunnel in the bigger mountain to hide from the American
offensive. Myth or reality I don\u2019t know. History. But, maybe they are still
there, maybe is them coming now\u2026 on speed boats\u2026 yes\u2026 a couple of speed boats
surround our ship suddenly, but, there is no alarm\u2026 The speed boats turn off
and pull over the ship's hull. Straight away, a couple of ropes descend from
our deck and some big packets are moved into those hovercrafts. Yet, some loud words
are exchanged between the men operating the ropes and the drivers of those
small boats, not much conversation, after all. Although, I understand they are
talking in some Inuit or Yupik dialect. And without previous warning; two men
come to me, hold my body as if I\u2019m luggage too and make my body descend through
the rope into one of that small vessels. And there I go. I mean, there we go,
at full power. Just me and the driver. And I accept it. I don't object to
anything. The driver even smiles to me. That\u2019s the kind of communication we can
do, because these boats are really noisy; even if we try to exchange some words
we can\u2019t really hear each other. So, here we go towards this island, but quite
far from it at the same time. And when passing off it, other hovercraft approach
us, and other, and other, they collect our merchandise and disappear in between
the islets. The hour that follows is a bit confuse, but at some point we reach
what my driver calls: Dutch Harbor. Some hippies are waiting for us; they welcome
us with big smiles and everything, while making themselves busy taking care of
our vessel. So, finally, we are in land, and on foot. But I feel dizzy, and the
first thing I do on this land, is to vomit. Well, at least I taste the water.
And after I wash my face I envisage my driver again, but he is looking different.
To say, he has removed his bonnie and disclosed his semi-blond hair ties, now falling
over the shoulders. More, he says, we are going home. His name is Liam, he unveils,
the more popular name in Alaska, and because is the more popular name I can
call him Noah, James, or Oliver, or as I want, he suggests. So, I go for the
second option and take the forth as my name. And, we great each other,
properly. Like brand new brand connoisseurs. I look around. It looks peaceful
here. Very green the mountains around. On the harbor, some boats even have Wind
Chimes, or vint tshimes, or Ulu chimes. We can see them dangling from the boat
masts. Not the usual ones made of metal tubes, these ones are made of clay,
like big earrings, and the sound is hollower. Also, we pass several groups of
fisherman in this harbor. They have a lot of gear to organize, and they seem to
do it patiently, quietly, but I see no fish. What I see is a thermometer inside
the window of one of these boats. It says 55 degrees Fahrenheit, what is about
13 degrees Celsius, I got to know. Its summer now; and it wouldn\u2019t get much
higher than this. It\u2019s fresh, but not really cold. Even though, on our front is
chain of greyish clouds hovering over the hills. So green, these hills. But I
can spot some purple flowers up there, on the slopes. We leave the harbor, and as
we do it, a couple of yellow school buses are waiting for tourists here, French
speaking ones. We pass them. And I understand what they are talking about. Not
talking about cheese, this time, actually it\u2019s all about Cordova and the head
of Orca Inlet on the east side of the Prince William Sound. A middle age man
with slanted eyes tells them that there are no roads connecting Cordova to
other Alaskan communities, and I get to know there was some accident there, years
ago, the Exxon Valdez oil spill, my colleague says. They want to go there
because of that. That\u2019s what I understand. People have strange English accents
here. Well, we pass a couple of souvenir shops, but there is almost no one
inside, after, and we pass some provincial cafés with a wooden fence on the
front. My mate, James, even greets the lady at the door of that café, her name
is Monica, he says, and she is his auntie, he confides. We follow on the road
side, by the water. There are no buildings here, just a couple of warehouses
with their greyish containers on the lot and some broken peers, made of wood
and moss. And some of this warehouses look semi abandoned, with their passages
covered by weeds or piles of shellfish hulls. After a while, a muddy area and
some abandoned one floor houses, also in ruin. No doors. No windows. We are actually
walking towards the town; my mate says; it isn\u2019t far, just about one mile from
here. And coming back to the road, under the prickly pines, there is a sign
pointing some kind of evacuation area. Tsunami evacuation area, it says. And
another one pointing the Unangan, the first inhabitants of Unalaska, or
Ounalaska, to transcribe what is written. We cross a wooden bridge over the mud
and the see the town, down there, Unalaska. But no buildings yet, just some one
store houses with metal roof. And after a van stops other side of the road,
some kibitzer get out and start taking photos on our direction. \u201cGod\u2019s away on
business\u201d, my mate says, pointing to the bigger white building on our back.
Like a small arabesque palace, with that kind of roofs, like a bonnet. We
approach it, the tourists are leaving now. These ones are Japanese. I try to
ask them what\u2019s their religion, but they just smile and point something on the
sky. \u201cI love Japanese noise music!\u201d I say. They agree. On the back of the
church I can see more of those strange crosses with three bars, the lowest one
kinda slanted. I don\u2019t want to ask what this means, I wonder. But my comrade
tells me about a movie that was shot here, a movie with vampires and a post-office
man that was a cannibal. Actually the post-office man ate the orthodox priest.
And the Alaskan natives, the ones with slanted eyes, became vampires\u2026 they would
come during the night; looking for people with no slanted eyes, etc. My colleague
also have slanted eyes, not me. His grand-grandfather was Russian
"Eskimo"; a term people don\u2019t like over here, he says, coz it refers
to several sorts of people, of Siberia, of North Pole\u2019s, of Alaska. For him, it\u2019s
to put all in same bag, the Yupik, the Iñupiat, the Chukchi etc. And finally, to
justify his darkish skin color, he explains that his mother is actually
Caribbean; which archipelago he doesn\u2019t say; \u201cbut she lives in Europe\u201d, he
wound up. And here we go, through this quiet, semi-abandoned city, well not
really a city, because there is no buildings, just some fenced houses, one
floor wooden houses with corrugated steel panel roofs and not much people
outside\u2026 So, no funny looks, just quiet people that mind their own business. And
we approach another lake. So, I get confuse from where we came now, because,
water surrounds us from several sides. \u201cThis is East Broadway Avenue\u201d he says, \u201cand
there is West Broadway Avenue, from where we came, where is the Iliuliuk Harbor
and the fish factories, down there is the Beaver Inlet, or Bobrovoy Guba, in
Russian language, it\u2019s uninhabited, but good for fishing.\u201d So, we cross the
main road, and there is no traffic at all, but, we can hear some noise: someone
is revving the engine of a stopped pickup, down there, and that produces a lot
of black smoke, we can see. The smoke mixes with the fog and gets heavy, more like
a black cloud, hovering in the middle of the road. We go inside a fenced yard,
the gate is open. \u201cI live here\u201d, he says. The house is similar to the other
ones around: a small one floor wooden house with a small front porch and a
shack on the side. We go inside, \u201cI live here with a couple of mates\u201d, he says
\u201cbut they are all out now\u2026 they work for the fishing ships and factories,
sometimes they are working on the ships\u2026 other times on the factories\u2026 I never
know exactly\u2026\u201d Already inside, there are huge pictures of palm trees on the walls
and people on the beach, the landscapes looking very realistic, but the bodies
somehow glazed, dull. Many kind of fishing
lures hanging from the ceiling, some of them mixed with colorful feathers, the
lures looking more like native hand-painted earrings. And the main thing in the
living-room is a huge cast iron stove, still seaming a bit. We approach it, to
warm us up. And a lot of stuff hanging
on the sides of it, on the racks, kitchen and bedroom stuff, all mixed up. Clothes
covering all the seats; so he tells me to throw them on the floor, if I want to
seat. But I don\u2019t want to seat. Then, for some reason he starts talking about
his mother, which kinda abandoned him when he was only five. He grew up with
his father, which used to work on the fishing ships as well. No fishing, but
cargo. I ask him if his father still lives in town, he tells me that no, he is
now in Los Angeles, living with some Spanish speaking fat woman. He also asks
me where about my family, my parents, my wife, my travels, and I tell him a
bunch of lies. After the conversation goes into Switzerland. We watching now a doc
about the reggae/dub guru: Lee "Scratch" Perry. He lived in
Switzerland during sometime, and this interview is made there, in his lonely
shelter, somewhere close to the snowy mountains. What we see now is an old man
with red beard, dressed in shabby colorful clothes, his jacket full of badges, a
cap with some mirrors; and even his boots are painted with some kind of
inscriptions. He is outside on his garden, on the top of some mountain; there
is a lot of colorful rubbish around him, and he is organizing all this rubbish,
making a kind of sculpture with it. He is now painting the tip of some metal tubes
and chains and at some point he spits over it, then he says some silly words
and drops some golden coins over the chains. A dog approaches; he begins to speak
with the dog, saying things like \u201cMy wife needs money, and she has a lot of
bills to get paid, and I will have to help her pay the bills\u2026 Lot of people believes
in God but they are not aware of God. God is alive and God is coming like a thief
in the night [chuckles]... You know God don't tell no one when he is coming. It
could be a couple years, it could be three years, five, it could be ten. That's
the idea\u2026. My wife love luxury, she loves money and phoney. She loves good
food, she always wants to eat in good restaurants, and the shoes, the best
clothes, the best everything. See, I believe in this mess, but my wife believes
in her ass\u2026 she wants to become a king, should we exchange sex? Would you marry
with me?\u201d After this we see Lee Perry and a happy business man eating together
in some posh restaurant. There are fauvist paintings on the wall. The business
man is eating, but there is nothing in Perry\u2019s plate, and the smiles to the
camera. At some point the waiter brings the bill, and Lee Perry protests, that
they haven\u2019t finished the diner, the waiter leaves the bill on the table
anyway, and Perry passes it to his friend, saying he will have to pay. The
business man passes it to Lee Perry; and Perry eats it, after he turns over the
plate and starts to read the inscriptions about where that plate was made. My comrade intervenes \u201cThis man is Mikhail
Khodorkovsky, an exiled Russian businessman, and former oligarch, believed to be,
or have been, the wealthiest man in Russia... After the dissolution of the
Soviet Union, in the mid-1990s, he accumulated a gross wealth by obtaining
control of a number of Siberian oil fields unified under the name Yukos, one of
the major companies to emerge from the privatization of state assets during the
1990s\u2026 in two thousand something he was arrested and charged with fraud\u2026 The
government under Russian president Vladimir Putin then froze shares of Yukos
shortly thereafter on tax charges. Putin's government took further actions
against Yukos, leading to a collapse of the company's share price and the
evaporation of much of Khodorkovsky's wealth... Around two thousand something
he was found guilty and sentenced to nine years in prison or so, but later, the
then President Vladimir Putin pardoned Khodorkovsky, and he was releasing from
jail circa two thousand thirteen\u2026 in the meanwhile there was an widespread
concern internationally that the trials and sentencing were politically
motivated\u2026 The trial was criticized abroad for the lack of due process\u2026 Khodorkovsky lodged several applications with
the European Court of Human Rights, seeking redress for alleged violations by
Russia of his human rights\u2026 In response to his first application, the court
found that several violations were committed by the Russian authorities in their
treatment of Khodorkovsky. And, despite these findings, the court ultimately
ruled that the trial was not politically motivated, but rather "that the
charges against him were grounded in 'reasonable suspicion'". Ergo, he was
pardoned by Putin and released from prison and immediately left Russia and was
granted residency in Switzerland\u2026 later Khodorkovsky re-launched Open Russia to
promote several reforms to Russian civil society, including free and fair
elections, political education, protection of journalists and activists, and
ensuring media independence\u2026 stuff like that\u2026 so, you see."

So, next day I learned how to
take a ferry to Anchorage. The bigger city in Alaska. It went first to Ukutan
island, after Unimak and King Cove, Chignik, Unga island, Kodiak island, and
finally Achorage, that is a kind of Meca for the American travelers, especially
the freakish ones. Also some professional run-aways. Despite the low
temperatures (the temperatures vary on average between minus ten in winter and
plus ten in summer), the surrounding green areas of this city have many people
wild camping around, the authorities of the city have been trying to clean this
camps, but people always come back, and do new ones. And obviously I ended up
staying with this people, like, if the winds lead me here. Many kinds of
travelers in this camps, around. Off greed freaks, punks, escapees, people with
problems with law, alcoholics, drug addicts, perverts, alchemy stalkers, psychedelic
verbiage etc. And cyclists. Actually most of these camps are full of bicycles,
full or disassembled, and many kind of junk related with bicycles. Wheels
hanging in the trees, is something common to see around here. People use
bicycles to move around between the camps, and to go in the city and come back.
Half of them use trailers for their bicycles. And they are always changing
their trailers: for a bigger one, for a shorter one, for one with two wheels,
for one with antennas and batteries, etc. I end up in a camp not far from the
city. Just about a mile from the industrial area. People come and go. But there
are about ten fellows that have been staying here for long. And we can describe
the camp as follows: a bigger communal tent in the middle, where we can stand
and move a little, fire always burning in the middle, a stove that is like a
piece of art, half under the earth, with a metal tube in the middle, for the
smokes. And some other shorter tents around, where there are people that maybe you
will never see. Though, some of these tents are just abandonments, full of
junk. I can tell you the name of the ten main settlers here. Jim, the older,
with white beard. Liam, a middle age man with strange glasses, an expert in
recycled electronics. Olivia and Emma, both latinas, Spanish speakers, but with
slanted eyes, yes. Amelia, is an old woman that doesn\u2019t like to speak at all, people
say she is a witch. Dee Dee, a story teller. Duman, the very one interested in
constructions, the one that made a cabin up on a tree. Ron and Beavis, the
lumberjacks. And Mila, she got a male-female identity. Actually it was she the
one that brought me here. We met inside a supermarket. She was not buying anything,
just hanging around speaking with people. So, she came to me and asked me
something about Africa, I found it funny, and tried to answer, but soon she
explained, actually she was not talking about Africa the continent, she was
talking about an specific area, in Anchorage. An area she would show me later. This
Mila could/can be very funny, and very angry, minutes after. She has got blue/white
hair and reddish nails. Ron and Beavis are the dealers here, in matter of fact.
They just interested in drugs, wood and fire. They take drugs to make fire and
make fires to take drugs, something like that, they like to say. Actually they
are always going and coming back to the city, but never with their bikes, they
always looking for rides, sometimes riding each other. Normally they use
clothes with slogans referring Punk rock ideology, etc. Duman, the one that sleeps
in a cabin up on a tree, is from Turkish pedigree, his mother lives in Canada,
he says, and his father is in Cyprus, a Turkish/Greek inland on the
Mediterranean Sea. The word \u201cduman\u201d actually means smoke in Turkish language, I
got to know, and is also the name of a rock band. He is the one helping Ron and
Beavis in the constructions, usually. About Amelia, there is not much to say,
coz she doesn\u2019t speak yeah. But people say she speaks only in private, only
when you get the opportunity of being alone with she, inside her tent. She
dresses sophisticated, garments over garments, strings around the waist, braids
falling over her shoulders. Huge earrings on the ears. Mirrors on her palms.
Dee Dee is from California, he says, but he have been everywhere not only in
this country but also in Europe and Asia, Africa and more. Olivia and Emma have
both Mexican and Alaskan roots, to say, they have both roots in the ancient
people from Mexico, and Mayas, and the Haida from the coastline of
Canada/Alaska. Some famous anthropologist has compared the Haida to the
Vikings, they say, while Haida have replied saying that Vikings are like the
Haida. After there is Liam, the middle age man with strange glasses. He is the
one always solving the problems with the solar panels, although not much sun
arriving here, he have been experimenting a new technology, making electricity
from the fire, connecting gadgets under the fireplace, and more, he have even
tried to produce electricity based on the pressure of the smoke, passing
through the metal chimney in the middle of this tent. Jim, the captain, the one
with white beard, have always a smile for any kind of ridiculous attempts from
others. He has been living here for more than twenty years now. Long ago he was
a seaman that became a drug addicted that became a jailer. His family scattered
between two continents. But, essentially, he has no family, he confesses. He is
the one always telling stories about jail. Just now he is telling to me a story
about a guy, one of his old his jail mates, which has killed his wife and
escaped to Mexico. But he couldn\u2019t learn to speak Spanish, so he could not
understand that people. He just liked the women there. So, he ended up working
around the Mexico-American border, selling fake American identity papers to the
illegals. The ones without money, he would rape them, as a bargaining chip, but
after, he would fulfil the agreement, he wound convey them to the American
side. One time someone tried to kill him, and he responded in the same
currency, but got hurt and caught up by the police. He explained me in detail
all the Mexicans he had violated. How he liked to hear them scream like pigs.
He just could speak a couple of words like \u201cdinero\u201d; \u201cfrontera\u201d; and
\u201csombrero\u201d. He used to make songs with these words. One was something like:
\u201cGive me gime your dinero, mr Mexicali, Ali-Ali, you should be some punctilious
man with no sombrero\u2026. Gime gime you dinero, señorita bonita, if you don\u2019t give
me it I will tell your mamacita\u2026oi oi oi\u201d, and at this point the Spanish
speaking girls, Olivia and Emma, came by and started shouting with the old man,
saying that he was being racist and homophobic and the old man Jim started to
laugh loud and more loud, and the girls keep began throwing stuff is his
direction, people got of the tent, and me too, I was pushed out, and wandered through
the forest and came to a road and was caught by a lorry driver that took me to
a small town named Tok. It was a nice man with long beard and bleared eyes, he
even took me into a Motel there, and I ended up sleeping in the same room as
he. Next day we had breakfast together and he left me on the entrance of a
caravan park, somewhere close to Tok. Here on the entrance of this caravan park
I took another ride to the border with Canada. I kept hitchhiking south. A
French speaking lady on a rented car gave me a ride to another town; she tried
to impress me with her knowledge of the French language, which was actually
weak. We spoke about the differences between the French Guiana and the Guyana,
two small countries in South America, on the top of Brazil, being French Guiana
part of European community, we spoke about their cousin: blaff of fish. Awara
broth. Lawyer Fierce. Kalawang of pig. She understood about that, but when I
said I was not interested in pigs she came to a stop. The next ride was with a
group of men working in road constructions, all using their yellow helmets and
gloves inside the van, they wanted to know from where I was coming, and when I
said Aleutian Islands they contacted another friends that also were working on
road improvements, we got to a cross and
I just had to jump from one van to the next one. Canadians were being good with
me, and didn\u2019t even make much questions. Following like this, somehow I managed
to arrive in the city of Vancouver. And
on my arrival, I got to know that David Townsend, from the band Strapping Young
Lad was (or is) based on this city.
Years ago I used to listen a lot the album their \u201cInfinity\u201d, which we
can describe as a mix of progressive metal and ambient music, with some sort of
operatic (no theatre) vocals. I heard that after the completion of Strapping
Young Lad's, Townsend began to approach a mental breakdown. He was diagnosed
with bipolar disorder. It is said that the diagnosis helped him understand
where the two sides of his music were coming from. The heaviness and the
sweetness. \u201cInfinity\u201d, the album I used to listen, was in fact wrote after he
had been discharged from that hospital, which he described as "the parent
project" of City and Biomech. I remembered a song from that \u201cInfinity\u201d album
named \u201cChristine\u201d, I went to listen it again, the lyrics go like this: Running,
beyond the speed of sound / Calling, beyond the speed of sound / Say you love
me, say you love yourself / Say you need me, say you care / Say you want me,
say you want yourself / Say you want to
be with me well / Christeen, that's all I ask of you / Falling, into the open
doorway / Loving, what anyone else would loathe here... / Say you're with me,
say you're with yourself / Say you're lonely, say you care / Say you warned me,
say you warned yourself / Say you want to be with me well / Christeen, that's
all I ask of you / Are you\u2026 I go through the city. Looking for that Christeen
he\u2019s talking about. The city, all so clean. Residential areas well interspaced
with green areas. People not looking sad not looking happy. But well behaved.
Not fat. Whitish. Pale, sometimes. But walking fast, even if they are not heading
to their jobs now, as I got to understand. Greenpeace was founded here, someone
say, pointing to the entrance of, what looks to be, a closed-down hairdresser.
Many Asians around. Chinese bakeries and
butchers and gifts shops.

What kind of Christeen is that?
Say you are with me. Say you are with yourself. Say you are lonely. Say you
care. Yes, we know, this is one of the loneliest cities in the North American
continent. At least it\u2019s what the statistics say. But fuck that. I go towards
the coast. I want to see a beach. They tell me the best beaches are in the
Vancouver inland, other side of the bay, or the Strait of Georgia. About fifty
crossed by ferry. And on its southern
tip of it is Victoria, British Columbia\u2019s capital, with neo-baroque Parliament
Buildings and English-style gardens. The harbor city is Nanaimo, home of chocolate-and-custard
Nanaimo bars. I laugh to this. English-style gardens, no way. I just want to
get close to the water, a small dirty beach, family. They tell me there are
many beaches. The city is surrounded by water. They tell me the closest one is
English Bay beach. Oh English again. Also close by, just need cross the bridge
to the west side, yes Westside sounds better. \u201cOn the other side you have
Hadden Park beach, Kitsilano and Jericho beach and\u2026\u201d well this name, Jericho
suits me; I have read a book with this name, something Frenchie as I remember.
I pass the \u201c666 Burrard Street\u201d or Park Place, a sort of futuristic huge building
with pink granite facade adorned with flush-mounted copper-glazed windows that
match the granite's appearance. And someone informs: This building is rare in
its use of the address 666, because of the negative connotations of this number,
as you may understand, however, in \u201cChinese culture 666 is considered one of
the luckiest numbers. The decision was likely motivated by the city's large
population of Chinese Canadians and strong ties to China, especially Hong Kong.\u201d
So, I leave that fucking financial district, with huge glass facades, and
arrive at Burrard Street Bridge, over \u201cfalse creek\u201d, that we can cross walking,
going through some arcades with sculpted carvels up our head. Other side is Vanier
Park, already on my right side, the marina, the small yachts, and giant Indian
man made of wood, with open arms and a funny red hat. I arrive at Hadden Beach,
more weeds than sand, but clean. A couple of guys seated on the fallen pieces
and a sign saying \u201cDOG OFF-LEASH LOCATION\u201d. I ignore it, and try to go closer
to the water, but soon get the confirmations, a lot of small dogs touring around,
some of them coming to me. I run away. I even have to jump some barriers. Then
I pass some weeping tress and arrive at Kitsilano Beach, a proper beach this
one, many people in bikini, many stretched on the sand, but not so much on the
water, actually. It\u2019s hot, but over some big mountains, other side of the bay,
we still can notice the whitish summits. I pass the outdoors swimming pool, the
traditional \u201cscreaming and yelling\u201d related with this kind of places. I listen
conversations from kids, conversations about a beautiful animal that will lick
your ass in the middle of the night, something like that. I pass a series of
gardens where the grass mixes with the sand. Nice feeling. And by the entrance
of a restaurant, or maybe the tennis court, or maybe public toilets, I see a
short plump guy playing the saxophone. I know what he is playing; it sounds
like arabesque music. And there\u2019s kind of a huge diabolo on his back, actually a
conifuner drum thing with blue skin, and it looks like a darbuka waiting for any
monkey to come by and show his luck on the aparatum. And I know, he can\u2019t smile
us back coz he\u2019s using his mouth, on the saxophone, smallest one of the rank, a
sopranissimo, that looks more like a clarinet, but no, it\u2019s a saxophone. Some
kind of camel breathing, on the going\u2026 but he looks amenable, so\u2026 I throw my
small rucksack to the urticas and grab that fucking blue projectile on his side.
Fingers rolling, drivel\u2026 And actually, what he is playing / interpreting a cross
between Ennio Morricone and Rabih Abou Khalil. But he is playing too much in
the air. I need to give him some earth. I need to give him mud also; give him
glance, course and portment. I need to flourish, equally, independently.
Somehow, technically speaking, arap music is kinda triangular, not circular, I
mean, hexagonal rhythms, and not symmetric, with a lot of skidding. Some notes
are extremely squeezed, like if squeezed in slow motion, with a lot of gosh
notes, like minced oaths. Rolling and rolling, turning the mountains upside
down. I would go for an ice cream now. Applauses and whistles. We go off together,
instruments under the axilla, and arrive to Jericho beach. We exercise the
Malfuf, the Mukhliss Jazaeri , the Al jird. The rhythms of the last one are a
5/8. And crazier than this just the Fajir, that is an 11/8. Well, I hate
mathematics. I assure you, this has nothing to do with accounting. Or maybe it
has. People are actually dancing and throwing coins over each other\u2019s arses. Apteral,
we are just improvising. Everybody is just improvising. Even you are just
improvising. And where should we go more? If we keep going west we will reach Wreck
Beach. But that would be like leaving this place, and I just arrived. In the
meanwhile I get to know that my colleague actually speaks fluent Italian, or
better, Sicilian. \u201cChi apparisci a
nui vantaggiu, tanti voti è molestia o disaggiu.\u201d What appears to us to
be an advantage, is often a nuisance or a pain\u2019. We come back to the city. This
small guy with big nose tells me he has been all around, since California beach
to Miami. Passing through Havana, Chicago and Ottawa. I ask him if he have been
to Quebec City. He doesn\u2019t answer. Then he tells me he would like to go to
India, Saudi Arabia, maybe Trinidad and Tobago. We make plans for a trip
through the Caribbean Sea but we end up sauntering around the airport. We go
for a free diner at some Indian temple and come back downtown. Night comes, and
he invites me to his apartment in Mount Pleasant. He is dividing it with some
mates, half Chinese, half Arabs, half whatever. Some queer people, without a
day job, without a night job, living parallel lives with an aquarium, throwing
salt in the water, speaking with the fish, reading their mind, and writing
about it. I\u2019m hitchhiking again. Already passed the border. Got caught by a
Scottish / Italian/ Irish plumber man and a couple of ambiguous truck drivers. An
evangelist saying that Jesus was a hippie bastard. And his mother\u2019s propaganda.
Got caught by a hospital security man. Got caught by two sisters coming from
visiting their mother on the Canadian side. Her father lives this side, but
they prefer the other side. They have here and there two step-sisters, also
hitchhikers. They very interested in hitchhikers. Their two step-sister have
hitchhiked in Europe, France, German, Greece, etc. And are now somewhere close
to Panama channel. Where they are going, I ask. Brazil, it\u2019s the answer. Why
Brazil, I request. They want to go into the jungle, she says, into Amazonia
forest. OK. I want to go to Seattle are you going there. Yes. Why Seattle? She
demands. Because I\u2019m going south, and that it\u2019s on the way. Just that? Yes,
only that. After I will see. So, where have you been. All around. All around in
the states? No, all other places, less the states. And they ask me what I know
about this city. I say Alice in Chains, Mudhoney, Melvins and Sunn O))). They
begin talk about Laurelhurst, residential neighborhood bounded on the northeast
by Ivanhoe Place N.E., beyond which is Windermere; on the northwest by Sand
Point Way N.E. and N.E. 45th Street, beyond which are Hawthorne Hills, Ravenna,
and University Village; on the west by Mary Gates Memorial Drive N.E., beyond
which is the East Campus of the University of Washington; on the southwest by
Union Bay; and on the east by Lake Washington. Seattle Children's Hospital is
located in its northwest corner. Once a seasonal campground of the Duwamish
people, the neighborhood has been a part of Seattle since its annexation in
1910. I ask about this Duwamish people, what that means. The other not driving
says Duwamish is a Lushootseed-speaking Native American tribe in western
Washington, and Seattle, where they have been living since the end of the last
glacial period. Today, Duwamish people are enrolled in the federally recognized
Tulalip Tribes. Although not recognized by the U.S. federal government, the
Duwamish remain an organized tribe, mostly set in West Seattle, near the mouth
of the Duwamish River. The Laurelhurst Beach Club, the Laurelhurst Park, and
its Laurelhurst Community Center serve as gathering places. Until 1906, the
White and Green Rivers combined at Auburn, and joined the Black River at
Tukwila to form the Duwamish. In 1906, however, the White River changed course
following a major flood and emptied into the Puyallup River as it does today.
The lower portion of the historic White River\u2014from the historic confluence of
the White and Green Rivers to the conjunction with the Black River\u2014is now
considered part of the Green River. Later, in 1911 the Cedar River was diverted
to empty into Lake Washington instead of into the Black River; at that time,
the lake itself still emptied into the Black River. Then, with the opening of
the Lake Washington Ship Canal in 1916, the lake's level dropped nearly nine
feet and the Black River dried up. From that time forward, the point of the
name change from Green to Duwamish is no longer the confluence of the Green and
Black Rivers, though it has not changed location. After all, the Duwamish
Waterway empties into Elliott Bay. Laurelhurst has had several famous residents,
including Melanie Griffith and Antonio Banderas, who rented a house on the
waterfront one summer while filming a movie; musician Duff McKagan, bassist for
Guns N' Roses and Gates, Bill Gates lived as a young child in Wallingford
before moving to this neighborhood, where his father William Henry Gates II
also lives. There are two bill gates? I ask. There are actually four or five,
they say. His grandfather Gates I, a furniture store owner, is from another
century. Born in Bremerton, Kitsap County, son of William Henry Gates and
Rebecca Eppinhauser. He married Lillian Elizabeth Rice circa 1913 in Washington
and Condoleezza "Condi" Rice is a black woman, an American diplomat,
political scientist, civil servant, professor, and the current director of the
Hoover Institution at Stanford University. As a member of the Republican Party,
Rice was the first female African-American secretary of state and the first
woman to serve as National Security Advisor. Rice was born in Birmingham,
Alabama, and grew up while the South was racially segregated, they say. She
obtained her bachelor's degree from the University of Denver and her master's
degree in political science from the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. There
is some silence; then one of the sisters asks me if I know Notre Dame in Paris.
Yes I say, remembering that afternoon me and Carmen getting drunk in from of
Notre Dame more the devils of the arcades, making silly faces\u2026 and with the
scorched ass, we went sleeping in the garden of some posh residential in Saint-Germain-des-Prés,
where Henry Miller used to come by in the morning for begging. There are a lot
of neighborhoods in Seattle, they say. And\u2026depending on who you talk to, there
are even more. Some people are really uptight about the nuances of each
neighborhood. They might argue that they live in Phinney Ridge \u2013 not Greenlake.
Well, they\u2019re pretty damn close together. As the name implies, Phinney Ridge
sits along a long ridge whose slopes provide its residents with great views of
Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains on the west and Lake Washington and the
Cascade Mountains on the east. Located in northwest Seattle, this neighborhood
is primarily residential. Homes tend to be on the larger side and sit on larger
properties. Phinney Ridge is bordered on the north by Greenwood, on the east by
Northgate and Green Lake, on the south by Fremont, and on the west by Ballard
and Whittier Heights. Columbia City is that part of the city where artists have
employed themselves by other means until their dreams can take shape. Beacon
Hill is middle class families and polyamorous group homes. Seward Park \u2013 older
Jewish couples. Rainier Beach \u2013 The \u2018cultural\u2019 part of Seattle, and barred
windows. Some people just call this Renton. Mercer Island \u2013 The rich and the richer.
Microsoft millionaires. Georgetown \u2013 Beards and the girls who love guys with
beards. Tattoos and bicycle gangs. Capitol Hill \u2013 Hipsters and the LGBT
capital. First Hill/Central District \u2013 A bleed of people between Capitol Hill
and Beacon Hill. International District \u2013 Fresh off the boat Asians. Downtown \u2013
People don\u2019t live here. If someone lives here, they\u2019re probably corporately
sponsored and travel a lot for work, so they don\u2019t really live here. Pioneer
Square \u2013 Junkies and the few random people and Madison Park \u2013 We don\u2019t see
these people. Their money has built them an invisible wall of solitude. Queen
Anne \u2013 Wealthy families and single white girls. South Lake Union \u2013 Brogrammers
from Amazon. Ballard \u2013 Aging hipsters who now have real jobs and are
considering a family. Fremont \u2013 Just graduated college and still trying to
balance partying every night with working 9-5. Wallingford \u2013 Hippies. University
District \u2013 College kids, street kids, etc. Sandpoint \u2013 Slightly less rich
people hide here. Ravenna \u2013 Where the recently graduated with jobs go who don\u2019t
feel the need to keep the party alive. Greenlake \u2013 Young families and empty
nesters. Greenwood \u2013 Perpetually single, and increasingly more socially awkward
individuals. Northgate \u2013 Too poor to afford anything closer. Puyi was the name
of the dog, named after the last Emperor of China, and also the name of that grimy
restaurant, in Seattle downtown. I ended up sleeping there.

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