fyuuft
Ga'me^i
Victoria Stoppiello
A m anufactured problem
4$
Your Professor ain't Studs Terkel, but he'd like to
reflect for a spell on the world of work these days. I'm
struck by how seamlessly young college graduates slip
into slots in the electronics industries. Fresh from
colleges and universities, they seem possessed o f some
incipient foreknowledge of the freeways to financial
success. I see them drive by in gaggles, polished clean
in fresh BMWs, charmed and apparently blissfully
content.
Your Professor may have a twinge of jealousy. His
work path winds over more ground than a junk yard
dog. As a teenager he foraged for blackberries, picked
cascara bark, cut and split firewood ($35 a cord,
stacked), set chokers (2 days at a gypo logging show -a
ghastly business), and stocked grocery store shelves.
Following my first college session, I snaked out of
the draft for a few years by "inculcating Western
Values" to sophomores in high school. Richard Nixon
and Robert McNamara sent me their regards in 1969.
The U.S. Army taught me how to kill people in The
Republic o f Vietnam, let me burn human excrement in
55 gallon drums, and trained me to call in artillery
rounds. In the process, I had a chance to hump coal and
fold laundry at beautiful Fort Lewis.
After graduate school and a fit of joblessness, I
butchered meat for the Del Monte/Sweetheart Meat
Company. The Old Boys in the back room never
guessed I had a background in Romantic Poetry. They
called me "Tiger" and showed me how to lift front and
hind quarters of beef with a pair of meat hooks. One
morning, with an elaborate ceremenony tantamount to
being "knighted," the whole meat plant celebrated my
receiving o f knives. I was a By-God card-carrying
Union butcher. Old A1 imparted sage advice. "Tiger,
you only need to know two things. Keep a sharp knife
and know your bones!"
In succeeding years, I've gill-netted for herring in
Tomales Bay, purse seined in Yaquina Bay, trolled for
salmon, sawed and pounded boards, slushed out
concrete with Ab "The Slab" Childress and Rod
Kerslake, painted trim, shingled houses, roofed,
insulated, and just plain dug dirt. I've scrabbled around
in an alphabet of other tasks too, but, oh well.
Some days I'm not sure what to make of it all, really.
I cherish the fine stories I've accumulated. What could
be o f more value?
ANTHONY STOPPIELLO
-
TRILLIUM
The other night our friend Tom arriv ed from
Portland and teased us. saying he thought we'd already
gone to bed because there were no Christmas lights
and so few lights on in the house 1 laughed and said,
"We're saving a few kilowatts to send down to those
poor souls in California." Tom snapped back, "Oh,
giving some to those guys, w ho will nev er send them
back when we need them." This is the way the
"energy crisis" has niggled its way into the
consciousness of people who follow energy politics.
Some of the "crisis" is due to unusually cold
weather across the country, but a lot ol it is because ot
manipulation of the energy market A complex
scheme called utility deregulation, first implemented in
( California, has changed the way utility companies
operate In the past, utilities ty pically had three
segments—power planLs of various types,
transmission lines, and local distribution systems All
the power produced was used by the utility itself
I nder deregulation, companies had the option ol
selling their power plants Many investor owned
utilities wanted this option because they were saddled
with power plants that were no longer profitable
(Consumer electricity rates are regulated by
each state's utility commission, but under
deregulation, the wholesale rate floaLs, and that’s where
the "crisis" has occurred. Under deregulation, (lower
producers can sell energy to whomever they choose,
and for whatever the market will hear Power producers
also have the freedom to cut deals with big purchasers
o f electricity, like aluminum plants and other
industrial users—and make up for those low prices by
charging a multitude of small buy ers more Early
observers predicted that home-owners and small
businesses wouldn’t get any benefit from deregulation
and would end up pay ing much higher rates than in the
past.
That's exactly what's happened in California,
where the Utilities ( Commission held public hearings
last week to help determine consumer rate increases,
which could range from eight to 20 percent. In other
words, if you were paying five cents a kilowatt hour,
it could go up to six cents, but in California people
often pay nine cents, which would go up to close to a
dime (iiven that a typical new house uses 11 ,(XX) kwh
&
MATURÄLFWDS >
’S?
- ^ ^ IS P R E S S O
{¡^PORTLAND
ftoAST/NS
COFFEE
ESPRESSO
„ PRIMS
per year, that could add up to a $ 110 increase in a year,
abov e the $990 at current rates.
Whenever a commodity has the aura of
"gotta have it”, the seller can jack up the pnee, and
profitcenng can result In one outrageous instance,
Alcoa has decided that, in this super heated electricity
market, they can make more money selling the cheap
electricity they've contracted to buy rather than making
aluminum with it, so they've shut down their plants
Remember, this is the same industry that insists we
keep all the dams on the Columbia sy stem so they can
hav e cheap power We know that dams have a negative
impact on the surv ival of salmon runs Alcoa is adding
insult to injury —and laughing all the way to the bank
News articles about ( California's energy
problems always quote someone who says we need
more power plants— but it takes y ears to site and build
new plants, often with negative environmental
consequences as well Conservation is, by contrast,
the cheapest and fastest source of new energy, but
conservation programs were phased out by big energy
moguls like the Bonnes die Power Administration
(BPA) back in 1993, when energy was plentiful and
the attitude was that we didn't have to think about
saving any
You can blunt the sting of higher energy
prices that are inevitably aiming our way by
employ ing energy conservation measures yourself
Space heating uses 50'i of the energy budget for most
buildings Our Pl ID has rebates and zero interest loan
programs that will help you buy insulation, new
double pane windows, a heat pump, and even a solar
water heater It's possible that you could make the
pay ments on the improvements from the energy aist
savings—plus you'd hav e a more comfortable home
The federal government ordered the BPA to
sell power to California to help with their problem
That means we in the Northwest got shot in both feet:
On the one foot, we have less power available, and on
the other, we have less water in the reservoirs to help
fish.
No, we didn't have a lot o f lights on in the
house the other night, partly because we've been gone
a lot and I didn't make the effort to decorate — but
mostly because energy conservation has become a way
of life
Victoria Stoppiello writes from Ilwaco, at the lower
left corner o f Washington slate.
IL L A M O O k
feOfl/MPAAfc W W ,
N E L W ^ U 5 E .D
architect
Architect
B O O K 5
-JPE.C1AL ORDERS
Philip Thompson
■
e i A o
¡S o o k ^ s
Skeptkum , like chastity, should not be relinquished
too readily.
George Santayana
■
H
Î50 A a / e .U, S e a s id e
Personalized custom designs for your unique site.
Earth friendly architecture
Consultant - Educator
Passive solar design
Conscientious material use
Licensed in Oregon and Washington
a r c h ite c tu r e & e n v ir o n m e n ta l p la n n in g
'25925 N.W. St. Helens Rd., Scappoose, OR 97056
(503) 543-2000
310 Lake S t • POB 72, Ilwaco, WA 9 B 6 2 4 (3 6 0 ) 6 4 2 -4 2 5 6
Butterflied Steak
By Alison Clement
I got a job waiting tables at a seafood restaurant that
nobody but tourists and strangers went to. It was owned by a
woman named Trudy Fargo and she hated us all. She hated the
people who worked for her and she hated the people who lived
in town and drove back and forth on the highway in front o f
her restaurant and she hated the tourists, most o f all. "Why
don't they go back to California, where they belong?" she'd
shout from the kitchen Sometimes she'd throw down her
spatula and charge through the swinging doors that separated
the kitchen from the dining area and shout it right into their
startled faces while they slunk down in their orange booths,
and averted their eyes, like a dog, don't look, maybe she'll
move on to the next table, the guy in Bermuda shorts eating
fish and chips She had a dirty mouth "Why don't you get the
fuck back to California, where you belong?" H er first husband
was from California. She knew what they were up to.
It was a seafood restaurant: The Pyramid Seafood
Cafe, the sign said, but people wanted to order steak,
sometimes, or they wanted pork I f they were from the
Midwest it was steak What’s good enough at home is good
enough when they travel is what they think
"We've got Dungeness Crab from right out in this
ocean here," Td say, nodding so they'd look out the big picture
glass window at the wild blue ocean outside "We serve
halibut and perch and we've got cod and clam chow der" But
they didn't like seafood. It tasted fishy They'd been thinking
about steak all day Didn't somebody tell them we had steak7
Didn't the lady at the motel say that7
A t The Pyramid Seafood Cafe things hardly ever
went like you planned It was an old building, for one thing.
Some nights the septic backed up and we had to send
customers to the biker bar next door, to use the bathroom
Some nights the pipes burst and the floor o f the restaurant
filled up with water and we served our fancy grilled salmon
with raspberry sauce or halibut with a hazelnut crust dinners
while the dishwashers crawled on the floor with a shop vac,
sucking the water up
The first big problem I had was the day a man came
in with his date, sat down at unlucky Table 14, and ordered a
butterflied steak I had never heard o f butterflied steak but I
wrote it down in my little notebook It had a nice, cheerful
sound to it. I knew right away there would be trouble because
when I slid the order to Trudy, 1 heard her growl in the back o f
her throat, which is what she does when there's danger
coming She asked me did I ever eat my steak that way She
asked Raymond the waiter with bad teeth She asked us all,
casual, like she was taking a little poll, that's all "I think it has
something to do with cutting the steak up so it looks like a
butterfly," said Ricki the Lesbian waitress "Or a butterfly
bandage maybe," she said, and they were standing over the
steak looking at it like maybe a clue would present itself
"I know how to butterfly a goddamn steak," said
Trudy, grabbing hold o f a cleaver
Whether I knew what a butterflied steak was or not,
when she gave it to me to serve I could tell it didn't look right.
I sneaked it onto the table and tried to slip away but he was
too fast for me
"Hey! What do you call this? You expect me to eat
this?" H e was a yellow faced, hang dog kind o f man but he
had his date with him and he wanted to show o ff a little.
"Is there a problem?" I hurried back to his table with
my most concerned face. I stood over them, cocking my head.
"What seems to be the trouble?" Like I was blind
The customer on unlucky 14 smirked. He looked at
his girlfriend who was pink now with excitement, and rolled
his eyes, without even bothering to wait until I wasn't looking.
He tapped his fingers on the orange tabletop showing me he
had had it up to here He wasn't the kind o f man who usually
got to push people around and he was discovering that it was
kind o f fun. He gave his plate a shove He snorted. The girl
was on the edge o f her seat. She licked her lips.
"How long have you been a waitress?" he said, giving
me the choice o f being either inept due to inexperience, which
was temporary at least, or the kind o f woman who would
always be a waitress, a lifelong waitress, a woman whose
main concern in life would always be that people enjoyed their
dining experience, a woman who would spend her entire life,
not reading books or making love or dancing all night but bent
over someone's table, someone like him, asking: blue cheese,
thousand island or ranch?
But now the girl spoke up Her voice was high and
she was laughing like it was a private joke they had together
and she squealed, "I don't think very long!" And they both
burst out with the kind o f laugh you have when you've been
holding your breath and can't anymore
Would you kindly lower you voice a few octaves, I
could have said but didn't.
After they had quieted down, I leaned forward a little,
like a nurse, concerned, with my brow knitted and my pencil
ready, in case I needed to take notes "Can I bring you
something else?"
Even after all that, when he demanded to see Trudy, I
didn’t feel any satisfaction I'm not the type to hold a grudge
and anyway all he wanted was to get laid, poor fellow From
the looks o f him, maybe the chance would never come again
You got to root for somebody in a situation like that
"We serve Dungeness Crab from right out in this
ocean," I said, in my perkiest voice, and I nodded toward the
window It was dark outside and he didn t bother to look.
I was trying to wiggle my way out o f it, he thought,
making a face at the girl while she licked her lips, thinking
how sexy he was Oh, what a dominator’
"You got a manager7 " He said, lowering his voice
and smirking The girl was flapping her legs back and forth
under the table
By now my other customers were restless He had
taken more than his share o f my time and their sense o f justice
was aroused They began to wave at me from across the room
and call out the names o f condiments Mustard, ketchup, tartar
sauce
I looked up at table 7 across the room, six yuppies
with empty drinks who might actually know how to tip and I
held up a finger Til be right there, to show him I had other
people to think about
"Are you going to get the manager, or am I?" he said.
He didn't leave me a choice
"I think it's his honeymoon," I lied to Trudy in the
kitchen, as she ripped o ff her apron. I followed her through
the swinging doors, "They just got married," I whispered,
running after her
The man swung his face towards us. It had a happy
look on it and its mouth was already open, ready to tell. He
was a man who would never stop while he was ahead
"Somebody got a problem?"
And he laughed. Here was a woman who meant
business "We sure do," he said.
"You, you're the one, aren't you?" said Trudy, and his
mouth continued to smile but his eyes darted from her to me,
to the girl, and back to Trudy. Everyone else was quiet. They
forgot about their checks and their drinks, their tartar sauce;
they all turned and watched. They always watched, like how
people w ill watch a car accident. You can't blame them
"What are you looking for, a free meal? Is that it?"
That reminded him o f the steak and he moved his
eyes to the plate hopefully, but she didn't wait for him to
collect his thoughts "I've seen it before " And thinking of
those other times, her voice got louder "You come in here and
order a steak? Is that right?"
He nodded There it was on the table, no denying it
And now Trudy turned to the rest o f the floor, to all
the people watching, and cried, "He comes to a seafood
restaurant, and what does he order?"
They didn't like him anyway, not after he hogged all
the service
"Steak!" she shouted. "Can you believe it?"
He wasn't getting sex that night, 1*11 tell you She'd
never want to fuck him after this After this every time she
thought o f him, she'd think o f this minute The most he could
ever hope for after tonight was her pity and women do not
have sex out o f pity
"You come here, to the Oregon coast, and do you
order crab or oysters7" H er voice was loud "Do you order
salmon or halibut?" She turned back to the crowd and some o f
them were eating steaks and some were eating pork tenderloin
or hamburgers but that didn't faze them, they curled their lips
"Do you go to Paris and go bowling?"
He slunk down in his seat and his mouth quivered
"What kind o f idiot goes to a seafood restaurant and
orders steak7" she shouted
"Trudy, it is on the menu," I said, but she waved her
arm at me
"Would you go into a department store and order a
chainsaw?"
She hated a weakling
This is an excerpt from a novel-in-progress. and though she waa
given a grant to complete it, no. it wasn't enough You can check out
Alison s work at www.kfledgesuzY.com or you could just send her
money
UPPLR LEFT EbGE FEBMUW 2.004
3