Red Dog Poker Mornings

Within our tiny buzz of activity in the vast bleak landscape and never ending gloom of polar winter, I study my opponents. The four of them sit around the only table of the only bar in Red Dog. They’re each holding five cards.

I could use a drink, but unfortunately the town went dry a long time ago—indigenous Alaskan territories often enact alcohol bans. But people still need to distract themselves. Tuesday mornings are poker “night” for the night shift. 

I sip my Coke Zero, longing for something stronger to numb the pain of last years broken ankle, as I study Gorgeous Greg. 

“GG” is deciding whether to bet or fold after the draw. There’s at over a month’s salary on the table.

GG, who is perpetually single and with a new woman every trip to Anchorage, likes to ask too many questions about my girlfriend. I never know the answers he’s looking for.

And I receive plenty of questions from my girlfriend too. Returning to 12-hour shifts at Red Dog has made my life a lot easier.

“Do you love me?” she asked.

“I think so.”

“You think so?” she says, and then, “Do you want to have a baby?”

These questions are traps, it’s better not to answer.

“I don’t know. Do you want a baby?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “Sometimes I wished someone would give me the answer.”

She asks me one east one. “When will you be back?”

“Same day two weeks from now,” I say.

She gives me a peck on the cheek and I pack my things.

Up at Red Dog, with so much time on my hands and nothing to do when I’m off my shift, it’s hard to stop thinking. I need to stay off social media. Social media makes fly-in fly-out jobs a lot harder. Before it was “I’ll be waiting for you, honey” and then next thing, I’m back. It felt like no time has passed. Now I have to see photos on Instagram from her friends at 1am of Sophia doing shots at a bar in Anchorage.

Gorgeous Greg folds.

“GG folds so often it’s like he’s doing the laundry,” Dan the Animal chuckles. 

“Rock bottom and still digging,” GG replies.

I shift my attention toward Dan. He’s a big guy with a thick beard and a booming voice. Danimal. Everyone needs a nickname at Red Dog. Danimal is the pit dispatcher, a real hardass. You’ve probably worked with someone like him.

Every time I get stuck in traffic driving the haul truck up from the pit, he’s on my ass.

“I need you to push out of there,” Danimal says over the radio, his voice full of aggression.

“The shovel truck is in my way,” I explain.

“Go around it. Go around,” he shouts, almost screaming.

How did I get here, having a guy like Danimal screaming at me at 5am in the morning? A question I ask myself daily.

Ten years ago, my parents said I needed to find a job. The sign in Wausau said “experience the beauty of Alaska”. When it’s 25 below zero, dark, and there are no trees outside, you don’t experience any beauty. They said they had an art gallery, but after you go there once, what else?

After driving a truck for 12 hours, gaming isn’t a good option either.

I’m still studying my cards. The wooden table feels rough underneath my hands. I notice the subtle movements of the other players. They are more nervous than their faces suggest.

As I watch Danimal, he uncharacteristically puts his cards down and quietly mumbles, “I’m out.”

“The animal goes into hibernation,” GG says.

Danimal grunts but says nothing back. Maybe he’s tired from shouting at me last night. I couldn’t decide how many times to hit the snooze alarm, and Daninmal was at my door tearing me a new one to get me out of bed. He could barely look at me today.

The next player is Jazzy Joe. He’s holding a small stack of poker chips in his hands and studying his cards.

At least Jazzy Joe is chill with my way of doing things. An Inupiat, he knows how to occupy himself up here better than the others. The Red Dog mine has transformed things in northern Alaska, he says, gives millions of dollars to the Indigenous community. 

He works at the canteen and gives me the inside tip on what’s good. This morning, I was looking at the Mac & Cheese and the Chicken Wrap, and couldn’t decide.

“The mac & cheese is no good today,” JJ tells me.

“I’ll take the Wrap.”

In the line behind me, I hear a sigh of relief. I guess because I’m a head taller than everyone else here, they don’t speak up when I’m slowing them down.

On the way over here, JJ told me something new.

“Bro, you’d better be careful about your girlfriend back home. What’s her name?” he says.

“Sophia,” I tell him.

“You better be careful with Sophia. If she finds out about your date with Arctic Angie.”

“What date?”

“Angie said she asked you if you wanted to go see the Northern Lights, and you said it’s a good idea.“

“I say that to everyone.”

“You don’t know what it means to go see the Northern Lights?”

“I guess not.”

“Bro, you got to be more decisive about what you want in life.”

“What do you want?”

“A good caribou sandwich,” he says and laughs. 

At the table, JJ puts his cards down. “I fold like a grilled cheese sandwich.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Danimal grunts.

“It makes sense to me,” Jazzy Joe says, while he munches on a handful of chips.

There’s only one person left at the table, the only woman in the game. Arctic Angie, and she’s watching me. I admit, I sometimes like Arctic Angie. She’s the only one here who doesn’t ask me too many questions. They call her “Arctic” because they say she’s cold-hearted. But I don’t think so.

“Get out of my way,” she said the first time I met her. She knows what she wants. I respect that.

“Angie, you don’t know who you’re dealing with here,” I say, playing with my poker chips, as I’m still in the game.

“I think I do,” she says. “All in.” She pushes her poker chips out to the middle of the table. 

“Whoa…” is the group commentary at the table.

“You’ve got to know when to hold them and them when to fold them”, Angie says, and begins humming the tune

I take another look at my cards. They haven’t changed. I shuffle and reshuffle them in my mind, and think about what I could do with the money if I win, or how bad it would be if I lose. 

“I just can’t read him,” GG says, looking at me, taking a sip of sprite. No gets up from the table after they fold, in case they see someone else’s cards.

“This is going to take a while,” Danimal groans.

“The best poker face ever, bro,” JJ says about me.

Should I trust my instincts? She looks nervous. But, it might be an act. Or is it for real?

I’m perceptive. I notice all sorts of little things other people don’t. When you watch closely, there’s so much to see. Sometimes it makes it harder to decide than not knowing anything.

Things worry me. The black specks I see in the mac&cheese. The browned lettuce in the Chicken Wraps. The way my girlfriend doesn’t pay her credit cards bills on time. How the old tires on the haul trucks could have a blowout at any time. These playing cards and how dirty they are and feeling the oiliness on my fingers. How could anyone make quick decisions when there’s so many things to think about? So many things that can go wrong?

I look at my cards again: four kings and an ace.

“Your bet,” Danimal reminds me.

I’m still thinking about it. It’s hard. I’m the last one who hasn’t folded, and I want to keep Angie honest. I’ve got a good hand, but what if I’m being played? That would be embarrassing. Each time Arctic Angie taps her fingernails on the table, I sense every tremor.

“You need to decide, bro,” Danimal says.

Angie keeps humming Kenny Rogers. The lyrics to the chorus are stuck in my head. I keep repeating the words to myself.

“Come on!” Danimal says, his voice getting angrier.

“Ok. Ok.” I say, putting my cards face down on the table. “I fold.”

“Wavering Will is out!” Danimal announces.

With a flourish, Angie turns over a pair-of-jacks, then pulls in all the chips on the table.