Trashley: Part Nine
The Permafrost Tunnel
Ashley convinced me to bring her to Alaska the week before my job started back up. My sister, Jordan, was having a gender reveal party that weekend, so it seemed like a good time and place to surprise everyone. Plus, I hadn’t seen my parents since another sister’s wedding in 2017, and I wondered if they’d even remember me. The only person I told I was coming was my Grandma because I didn’t want her to have a heart attack from seeing me unexpectedly.
I left Perci with Ashley’s family in Bakersfield, and they seemed happy to have him. Ashley and I had gone camping and taken several road trips in California, but this would be our first big trip together. I wasn’t thrilled about going to Alaska, even though everyone always thinks it’s beautiful. I’m not a fan of eternal daylight, and the insects are out of control: Pincher bugs, stink bugs, wasps, mosquitos, ladybugs. I hate them all. But Alaska was always more bearable when I brought someone along. By myself, I might last three days. With a companion, I figured I could last a week.
I’m an excellent tour guide because I have access to parts of Alaska that other people would kill for. My Dad is the largest private landowner in the state, and all I had to do was ask for the keys, and Fairbanks would be ours. Our visit would be during summer solstice, which is the longest day of the year at an entire twenty-four hours. It’s a big day for Alaskans, we celebrate with the Midnight Sun Run, a midnight baseball game by the Gold Panners, and the Golden Days parade downtown. For one night a year, everyone in Alaska stays up past midnight.
The flight up was long and uneventful. I drank all of the wine, and Ashley knocked herself out with edibles. We landed in Fairbanks that afternoon, and I did my best to avoid being spotted since I didn’t want to ruin the surprise by running into anyone. So, we rented a car and drove to my Grandma’s house.
My Grandma was the first person in my family to meet Ashley. For being in her mid-eighties my Grandma is cool as hell. She travels the world by herself and swims several miles a day. During the Pandemic I bought her a Frida Kahlo face mask that said “Not fragile like a flower, fragile like a bomb.” And she was photographed in the newspaper wearing it. She’ll live forever if she keeps this up.
The only thing she can’t do is properly use electronics. Every time I visit, my Grandma needs help connecting her computer to her printer, or opening Netflix. But Ashley was great at those things. She told me she had built a computer from scratch, and that she used it to mine for Bitcoin and Crypto Currency. If I knew how to do that, I’d be mining all the time. No one would see me for years, and then I’d emerge from my mining cave a rich mother fucker. Ashley thrived when it came to working with technology. So, I volunteered her services to fix whatever my Grandma needed.
“You know I built an app, right?” she said after I asked a dumb question about synching my Grandma’s Bluetooth speaker to her phone. “And then,” she continued, “Mae Whitman stole it from me.”
“The actress?”
“You’re not the only one who knows celebrities, you know.” she said as if there was a competition, which I would absolutely win.
“Why would Mae Whitman steal your app?” I asked.
“Because she’s fucking shady like that. She totally screwed me and my development partner over. And made millions off of it.”
I couldn’t understand why or how Mae Whitman knew Ashley, let alone why Mae would ever steal an app. But Ashley’s explanation was specific enough to kind of believe, even though I had questions. Occasionally, I’d see Mae around my neighborhood, and I figured she lived near me. If she really did steal Ashley’s app, I was worried there’d be a confrontation.
My Oma left for the gender reveal party, and we followed about thirty minutes later. I needed to shower because there is no worse feeling than airplane.
When we got to the party everyone was hanging in the backyard. I could see everyone through the window, talking, laughing, and drinking. I snuck through the house with Ashley behind me, and surprised everyone with a big “Ta-Da!” as I burst through the backdoor. It was the perfect surprise. My Dad cried, which made me cry, and my sisters were so happy I was there. Plus I was one of the lucky few people who knew the baby was going to be a boy, making me an Uncle.
I hugged everyone and simultaneously introduced Ashley to my parents, sisters, and sister’s friends. I’m really close with my sisters and talk to Jordan at least a few times a day. She knew all about Ashley, minus the parts I didn’t share. I didn’t want her to worry or think I was dating a maniac.
I floated around the party, drinking wine, and showing off my smart girlfriend. My brother-in-law, Drew, found Ashley especially interesting. Drew is extremely smart, for a Florida Boy. And he’d read some books about Physics he wanted to talk about with Ashley. Instead, he looked confused about whatever Ashley was saying, and joked, “Wow, you make me feel dumb.”
She has that effect on people.
The party was fun, and we were tired. We spent the night at my Grandma’s place and got some rest. Right before I closed my eyes, I got a text from my sister. She had set up a surprise for Ashley and told me to meet her at a Permafrost Tunnel at eight am. Permafrost is permanently frozen ground, and I didn’t tell Ashley where we were going because I knew she’d nerd out once we arrived. My family always rolled out the dirt carpet for visitors, and this was just the beginning.
That morning, we grabbed coffee and met my sister in front of the Permafrost Tunnel Research Facility where scientists had been drilling through a mountain and unearthing all sorts of treasures, like mammoth bones and mastodon skulls.
We went inside the facility where the scientists were working. Our tour guide, Tom, was the lead scientist, and spent his days studying soil, ice, and organic matter, so he was excited to meet a Physicist.
“What you do is real science,” he told Ashley, “I just play around in the dirt.”
Ashley became quiet, as if she wanted to fade away and be anywhere else but there. The tunnel wasn’t open to the public, but since it was on my parents’ land we got the VIP treatment. We suited up in hardhats and heavily insulated parkas because it still felt like the Ice Age inside the mountain. Tom opened a hatch leading inside, and we followed, stepping back into the prehistoric past.
I’d been in the Permafrost Tunnel before and knew what to expect. Twenty thousand year-old Mammoth bones jutting out of the walls, grass poking through the ice, and dirt that smelled like rotted ground. It was the kind of experience a scientist would sell their soul to see. Even I, a fancy lady who loves Burberry jackets and expensive jewelry, was awestruck.
My sister’s dog ran up and down the frozen tunnels as Tom guided us through the belly of the mountain. “What was your main field of study at MIT?” Tom asked, genuinely curious.
“I studied theoretical theories of time travel and parallel universes.” Ashley answered without missing a beat.
“Dang, you humble me. All I do is carbon date flora and fauna and monitor melting ice.” Tom laughed.
At the end of the tour, we emerged from the mountain, thanked Tom, and drove away.
“What’d you think?” I asked Ashley.
“This is so crazy, but I studied this exact Permafrost Tunnel at MIT.” she told me.
“Wait, really?” I asked.
“Yeah, I spent an entire semester studying it and presented it as my thesis. I can’t believe it’s on your family’s land. What a crazy coincidence.”
“Why didn’t you tell Tom– and why did you study Permafrost? Does it have anything to do with physics?” I asked.
“I wasn’t sure if it was the right tunnel. And yeah, permafrost permeates the ozone layer, which inadvertently affects the compounding of subatomic particles in the atmosphere. I can find you my entire dissertation.” she quipped.
God, I thought. Ashley is so smart.
“Theoretical theories” got me 😑
This woman stresses me ouuuuut