Neah Bay: Makah 2

My friend surprised me again when she would not go into Take Home Fish Company, a dilapidated little shed in the backyard of a run down house owned by Kimm Brown, a full-blooded Makah who put on a pretty good show, until we let on that we knew he was putting on a show, and put on a show of our own.

My wife read about the fish shop in the Oregonian, had put it on her bucket list for whenever we took Trolley to Neah Bay. Because we did not take the ferry to Vancouver Island, Take Home Fish Company rose to the top of the list.

Eight hundred people live in the little fishing village at the edge of the world. It’s not hard to navigate yourself through town. It is hard to find someone home. My wife wanted to visit an art gallery, but it was closed. She had also read about another art shop, which was also closed.

We found Take Home Fish Company easily. My wife and I got out of Trolley and met our friends who had pulled up behind us.

My friend’s wife got out of their RV and stared wide-eyed, her arms folded. “You’re not serious about this?”

“Whadda ya mean?” I asked. “This place can’t have anything but the best catch.”

“I doubt that.”

I pretended not to hear. My wife and our friend followed me toward the decrepit little shanty. We stopped for a moment in the yard to play with the five dogs that were playing together. A girl of about seventeen stepped to the opening of the shed.

“Hello,” she beamed.

I followed her into the dark, rundown little shop marked with a hand painted sign. My wife and our friend followed me. His wife hung back, would not step foot in “such a dump.”

Brown stepped out from a closet at the back of the shed. “Look what I found,” he hollered, holding up a bottle of Mike’s Hard Lemonade, an illegal item on the reservation. The label was nearly worn from the glass.

“Knock it off,” laughed a girl behind a make-shift counter. “These people want to buy.”

”They can buy all they want. We don’t have anything. Tell ‘em to go home, or send ’em out fishing. I’ll give ‘em the key to my boat.” He plopped down in a chair near the open door, of which there was no door. “Sorry, but we had a run on fish earlier. You get what’s left, unless you want to stay over and get what I may or may not catch tomorrow, if I even want to catch anything at all. Fishin’… just too damned much work.”

He pointed to a plastic Coleman cooler. I opened the lid and looked at three vacuum-sealed packages of smoked salmon, and one package of halibut.

“How much for the Halibut?” I asked.

“Twenty five bucks, American,” replied the girl.

“Double if you’re not from Canada,” quipped Brown.

“How much for the Salmon?” asked my friend. His wife peaked one eye inside the shed.

“You know,” said Kimm, “I don’t do math very good. Messed up my head with drugs when I was a kid. Cocaine, you know, was my drug of choice. Oh I miss that stuff.”

“Dad,” hissed the girl.

“Acid was my drug of choice,” I countered.

“Sugar cubes,” added my friend.

“Blue dots,” I insisted.

Brown laughed. “Tell you what. You want the salmon? How much you give me?”

“Sixty bucks for the fish and the vintage Mike’s Hard Lemonade.”

“Vintage,” he yelped. “Just bought it yesterday from a fella who looks like you.”

“That’s why I’m here,” I laughed. “He’s my evil twin brother. Stole the first bottle of liquor I ever bought for myself and came up here and sold it to you. Tell you what, skip the fish; how much for the Mike’s?”

“Oh you devil,” laughed Brown, winking at me. “Tell you what. For you, three salmon for forty, and I keep the booze.”

Later that night, during our usual evening of pinochle, My wife, our friend, and I shared one pack of Kimm Brown’s salmon. The three of us stared at each other, nearly with tears in our eyes. We had never tasted salmon done so well. I will make trips to Neah Bay specifically to purchase smoked salmon from Take Home Fish Company.

Sadly, my friend’s wife refused all offers to share such a joy.