was the finish. I never went back.
Because that summer Dad built a primitive sort of trailer, what he called a ‘house car.’ It had two
bunks and a little cooking galley. The stove was good. You could cook anything on it. Baked our
own bread. I used to put up preserves — pickled apples, crab-apple jelly. Anyway, for the next six
years we shifted around the country. Never stayed nowhere too long. When we stayed some
place too long, people would begin to look at Dad, act like he was a character, and I hated that, it
hurt me. Because I loved Dad then. Even though he could be rough on me. Bossy as hell. But I
loved Dad
then. So I was always glad when we moved on.» Moved on — to Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon,
eventually Alaska. In Alaska, Tex taught his son to dream of gold, to hunt for it in the sandy beds
of snow-water streams, and there, too, Perry learned to use a gun, skin a bear, track wolves and
deer.
«Christ, it was cold,» Perry remembered. «Dad and I slept hugged together, rolled up in blankets
and bearskins. Morning, before daylight, I’d hustle our breakfast, biscuits and syrup, fried meat,
and off we went to scratch a living. It would have been O.K. if only I hadn’t grown up; the older I
got, the less I was able to appreciate Dad. He knew everything, one way, but he didn’t know
anything, another way. Whole sections of me Dad was ignorant of. Didn’t understand an iota of. Like I could play a harmonica first time I picked one up. Guitar, too. I had this great natural
musical ability. Which Dad didn’t recognize. Or care about. I liked to read, too. Improve my
vocabulary. Make up songs. And I could draw. But I never got any encouragement — from him or
anybody else. Nights I used to lie awake — trying to control my bladder, partly, and partly because
I couldn’t stop thinking. Always, when it was too cold hardly to breathe, I’d think about Hawaii.
About a movie I’d seen. With Dorothy Lamour. I wanted to go there. Where the sun was. And all
you wore was grass and flowers.»
Wearing considerably more, Perry, one balmy evening in war-time 1945, found himself inside a
Honolulu tattoo parlor having a snake-and-dagger design applied to his left forearm. He had got
there by the following route: a row with his father, a hitchhike journey from Anchorage to Seattle,
a visit to the recruiting offices of the Merchant Marine. «But I never would have joined if I’d known
what I was going up against,» Perry once said. «I never minded the work, and I liked being a sailor

seaports, and all that. But the queens on ship wouldn’t leave me alone. A sixteen-year-old kid,
and a small kid. I could handle myself, sure. But a lot of queens aren’t effeminate, you know. Hell,
I’ve known queens could toss a pool table out the window. And the piano after it. Those kind of
girls, they can give you an evil time, especially when there’s a couple of them, they get together
and gang up on you, and you’re just a kid. It can make you practically want to kill yourself. Years
later, when I went into the Army — when I was stationed in Korea — the same problem came up. I
had a good record in the Army, good as anybody; they gave me the Bronze Star. But I never got
promoted. After four years, and fighting through the whole goddam Korean war, I ought at least to
have made corporal. But I never did. Know why? Because the sergeant we had was tough.
Because I wouldn’t roll over. Jesus, I hate that stuff. I can’t stand it. Though — I don’t know. Some
queers I’ve really liked. As long as they didn’t try anything. The most worth-while friend I ever had,
really sensitive and intelligent, he turned out to be queer.»
In the interval between quitting the Merchant Marine and entering the Army, Perry had made
peace with his father, who, when his son left him, drifted down to Nevada, then back to Alaska. In
1952, the year Perry completed his military service, the old man was in the midst of plans meant
to end his travels forever. «Dad was in a fever,» Perry recalled. «Wrote me he had bought some
land on the highway outside Anchorage. Said he was going to have a hunting lodge, a place for
tourists. ‘Trapper’s Den Lodge’ — that was to be the name. And asked me to hurry on up there and
help him build it. He was sure we’d make a fortune. Well, while I was still in the Army, stationed at
Fort Lewis, Washington, I’d bought a motorcycle (murdercycles, they ought to call them), and as
soon as I got discharged I headed for Alaska. Got as far as Bellingham. Up there on the border. It
was raining. My bike went into a skid.»
The skid delayed for a year the reunion with his father. Surgery and hospitalization account for six
months of that year; the remainder he spent recuperating in the forest home, near Bellingham, of
a young Indian logger and fisherman. «Joe James. He and his wife befriended me. The difference
in our age was only two or three years, but they took me into their home and treated me like I was
one of their kids. Which was O.K. Because they took trouble with their kids and liked them. At the
time they had four; the number finally went to seven. They were very good to me, Joe and his
family. I was on crutches, I was pretty helpless. Just had to sit around. So to give me something
to do, try to make myself useful, I started what became a sort of school. The pupils were Joe’s
kids, along with some of their friends, and we held classes in the parlor. I was teaching harmonica
and guitar. Drawing. And penmanship. Everybody always remarks what a beautiful handwriting I
have. I do, and it’s because once I bought a book on the subject and practiced till I could write
same as in the book. Also, we used to read stories — the kids did, each one in turn, and I’d correct
them as we went along. It was fun. I like kids. Little kids. And that was a nice time. But then the
spring came. It hurt me to walk, but I could walk. And Dad was still waiting for me.» Waiting, but
not idly. By the time Perry arrived at the site of the proposed hunting lodge, his father, working
alone, had finished the hardest chores — had cleared the ground, logged the necessary timber,
cracked and carted wagonloads of native rock. «But he didn’t commence to build till I got there.
We did every damn piece of it ourselves. With once in a while an Indian helper. Dad was like a
maniac. It didn’t matter what was happening — snowstorms, rainstorms, winds that could split a
tree — we kept right at it. The day the roof was finished, Dad danced all over it, shouting and
laughing, doing a regular jig. Well, it turned out quite an exceptional place. That could sleep
twenty people. Had a big fireplace in the dining room. And there was a cocktail lounge. The Totem Pole Cocktail Lounge. Where I was to entertain the customers. Singing and so forth. We
opened for business end of I953-«
But the expected huntsmen did not materialize, and though ordinary tourists — the few that trickle
along the highway — now and again paused to photograph the beyond-belief rusticity of Trapper’s
Den Lodge, they seldom stopped overnight. «For awhile we fooled ourselves. Kept thinking it
would catch on. Dad tried to trick up the place. Made a Garden of Memories. With a Wishing
Well. Put painted signs up and down the highway. But none of it meant a nickel more. When Dad
realized that — saw it wasn’t any use, all we’d done was waste ourselves and all our money — he
began to take it out on me. Boss me around. Be spiteful. Say I didn’t do my proper share of the
work. It wasn’t his fault, any more than it was mine. A situation like that, with no money and the
grub getting low, we couldn’t help but be on each other’s nerves. The point came we were
downright hungry. Which is what we fell out over. Ostensibly. A biscuit. Dad snatched a biscuit
out of my hand, and said I ate too much, what a greedy, selfish bastard I was, and why didn’t I get
out, he didn’t want me there no more. He carried on like that till I couldn’t stand it. My hands got
hold of his throat. My hands — but I couldn’t control them. They wanted to choke him to death.
Dad, though, he’s slippery, a smart wrestler. He tore loose and ran to get his gun. Came back
pointing it at me. He said, ‘Look at me, Perry. I’m the last thing living you’re ever gonna see.’ I just
stood my ground. But then he realized the gun wasn’t even loaded, and he started to cry. Sat
down and bawled like a kid. Then I guess I wasn’t mad at him any more. I was sorry for him. For
both of us. But it wasn’t a bit of use — there wasn’t anything I could say. I went out for a walk. This
was April, but the woods were still deep in snow. I walked till it was almost night. When I got back,
the lodge was dark, and all the doors were locked. And everything I owned was lying out there in
the snow. Where Dad had thrown it. Books. Clothes. Everything. I just let it lie. Except my guitar. I
picked up my guitar and started on down the highway. Not a dollar in my pocket. Around midnight
a truck stopped to give me a lift. The