Cold Storage, Alaska by John Straley

Author:John Straley
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781616953072
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 2014-02-03T22:00:00+00:00

BILLY READ THE letter from the Dalai Lama’s secretary with a mixture of panic and amazement. Billy had been living on the ship for the last forty-nine days like a man who had been born again into a life of satiated desire. He had been pulled from the sea by a woman who wanted to love him; he had been eating his fill of rich food and telling stories of his old home, embellished stories to feed his ego, and they had started to become almost like fables in his mind.

But now here was his old passport—his old identity—and it smelled like home. He held the passport up to his nose, picked up a whiff of sulfur water and fuel oil. He flipped through the pages and inexplicably felt as if he had been taken prisoner by that village. The stories in his mind sank away into his chest, where the reality of that place—the rain, the bickering, and the depression—seemed to have always resided. Unlike a cruise ship, Cold Storage was well-suited for the life of denial.

In the letter, the secretary explained that he’d gotten Billy’s new address in Vancouver from a member of the press; he’d assumed that “Mr. Cox” would want his official papers and reading material back. The secretary thanked him for his kind donation and wished him health and good fortune on his journey.

Inside the book, the secretary had placed a small photograph of His Holiness. It was a postcard-size official portrait of the Buddhist monk in his robe sitting and staring at the camera with an expression of dignity and intelligence. But staring at the photo, Billy knew the Dalai Lama had been suppressing a laugh, as if he knew exactly how silly Billy looked in his tuxedo. He slid the picture back into his book and, with a heavy heart, took the longest possible route back to the ship.

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