JoKoKo

 1 Naming “Grizz! Wake up! It’s time to go!” Grizzly Baby could hear her mother calling from inside the longhouse, and laughed out loud. She had already been up for hours. She awoke before the dawn, and waded down to the clear, cold salt water. She bathed, and said a little prayer to her long line of ancestors, naming each in the line until she got back to the beginning of the Saltwater People. She dressed, and gathered some nearby camas bulbs, devil’s club buds, fiddleheads, and a few gumboots from the base of the seaweed covered rocks. She thanked them all for the sustenance they would provide, and promised each one that their spirit would grow and flourish once it joined her own. It was not until she had prepared everything for the coming day, or perhaps days, that she heard her family begin to shuffle out of bed.  She whistled a loud, high pitched hummingbird call in response to her mother’s summons. Her mother gave a high “yew-uup” of celebration in response. There wa...

  1 The Sinking Ship “They don’t build them like they used to,” Rian said jovially. Conny bit his tongue. This concrete brutalist monstrosity was also not built like they used to. They never built them like this, and that was the only reason they had come to this horrible, bland, and unholy place. The hulking edifice was sunken into the triangular lot at the lower slope of Yesler Way at a dangerous angle. Its highest point, some sixty feet above the sidewalk, was at the apex of the triangle. The decks had been adorned with nautically-themed railings and filigree. This had garnered it the nickname “The Sinking Ship” and, while its aesthetics were frequently derided by locals, the hoi polloi took it for what it seemed: a quirky parking garage in the heart of the city. Unlike most parking structures it had no ramps, elevators or stairs. Rather, motorists were forced to use the busy street to travel from deck to deck. When seeking refuge for their beleaguered jalopies, drivers would cr...