Annie Muktuk and Other Stories

by Norma Dunning

  “You’re a nice quiet Skeemo, aren’t you, Amos?” said the black guy, his square teeth close to Kakoot’s eyes, a chuckle erupting from his dark throat.

  Kakoot closed his eyes, waiting for his memories to stop in for a visit. She would come again to see him, his mother. She usually stopped in at this time of day. They would talk about their times together when they were both so much younger and stronger and life had a northern ease to it.

  Sleep began to wash over his body and he could hear them. The birds, millions of them, so many kinds, flooding the tundra floor all at once with their gooey shit and yelps louder than any of his dogs. Spring. The best time of year. Time to get ready for the hunt, time to prepare, time to take stock. He could hear the rhythm of his breath and feel the rise and fall of his chest. Sleep was his hinterland, his escape.

  “His mother is preparing him, isn’t she?” Sedna asked of the Old Four-Legged Women Spirits, whose cooked fingers were growing increasingly numb.

  “Aiii,” they responded in unison.

  “Good! She is the one who brought him into the Earth World. She must be the one who will wait for him outside of the qalgiq. She will hold his hand as he walks inside.” Sedna sighed. She started to relax. Finally, the welcoming feast could come together.

  “Kakoot, Kakoot, what are you doing here?”

  It was Mama. He lifted only one eyelid and said to her, “Mama, upirngasaq.”

  “Kakoot, come home. Imminuuqpug.”

  “I will Mama, very soon, very, very, soon. Ungaava.”

  “Pst, Mr. Amos, stop all that shit,” came a low whisper. Kakoot opened his eyes to see Wade pulling a wheelchair behind him.

  “Now, hop in and I’ll show you to my office.”

  Kakoot flashed a sleepy grin. He pulled himself up and turned around in a full 360, plopping himself into the chair. He looked up at Wade.

  “Well, look at you, you show off. Spry old fucker, aren’t ya? Now just keep quiet, we got about twenty minutes before anyone comes around looking for you.” Kakoot was whisked away down a grey lit hallway.

  The office was the broom closet at the end of a skinny, cement tunnel. Wade pulled a cigarette out of a package and handed it to Kakoot. As Kakoot put it into his lips, Wade lit up a fatter cigarette of his own.

  “Hey, hey,” warned Kakoot.

  “Want some weed, Amos?” Wade asked between coughs.

  “No, boy, I never did that stuff. Far as that goes, I don’t smoke anything.”

  “But I thought, we shook hands on it—come on Mr. Amos, I might get my ass cracked in half over this.”

  “Wade, we had an agreement. A gentleman’s agreement and we shook hands. I wanted out of that room and you gave me the chance to get out of there. But not like this.”

  “You fuckin’ Indians are all the same.”

  Kakoot raised his raw brown hand upward, palm facing Wade and said, “I’m not a fuckin’ Indian, Wade. Never have been, never will be. But whities get that wrong all the same.”

  “What are you then? You look like an Indian.”

  “Inuit. Eskimo. Skeemo. Whatever word whities are using these days.”

  “You all look the same to me,” muttered Wade in disappointment.

  “Ditto,” replied Kakoot.

  With that they both began to chuckle. Slowly, the chuckle swelled into a wave of laughter that washed over the room.

  Wiping his eyes, Kakoot looked around the dank room and said, “So this is your office. A cleaning closet. It’s the best office a white guy has ever taken me to.”

  More laughter.

  “Now, Wade, I’ve got to get myself outta here but I don’t know how. Can you help?”

  Wade took a long pull on the joint and shrugged.

  “You know the routine around here, the coming and goings of things—all I need is a simple escape. All I need is to get out. All I need is to be alone.”

  “How did you get in here anyhow—usually a family member puts you here. Ask them to get you out.”

  “The government put me here—it’s my last stop. I got no family left, Wade. I’m about eighty-four years old and I have no idea where any of my children are anymore. I want to go to the Land of the Dead, that’s all. Just help me get there.”

  Sedna sat up straight. “His bones are starting to feel his tarniq. His bones are telling his body that it is time to move on. I can feel it. Can you?” Sedna turned to the two Old Woman Spirits.

  “Aiii,” they agreed in unison.

  “I do too. I was scared at first when it happened to me. Then the fear left me. Was it like that for you?”

  The two Old Woman Spirits hesitated. The oldest among them spoke.

  “You just learn to trust your heart in that situation. Learn to let go of it all. All those things on the earth land that tie you up. It’s like the feeling you get when we untangle your hair.”

  “Do you have to bring that up? You old people always have a way of getting back at me!”

  “And what do I get outta the deal?” asked Wade. The joint brought a faint glow to the dim room.

  Sedna slammed her body into Wade’s. “You’re high aren’t you?”

  “Who the fuck are you?” Wade tried to shake his head back to reality.

  “I’m the Goddess of all your delusions. Now, buddy, I hear you have an agreement with my man Kakoot. So this is what you’re going to do…”

  Wade thumped his right palm into Sedna’s face and began to run his fingers over her high cheek bones and nose.

  “You’re sorta hot,” he whispered. “You’re the best delusion I’ve had in a long while.”

  Sedna pushed both palms against Wade’s chest. “Back off! You don’t want to mess with me. You will serve a purpose today, Mr. Wade. You are the one who will make sure that Kakoot gets to me when I need him to.”

  “I don’t know what they’re putting in my weed anymore but…”

  “Listen! You get my man out the door and I’ll be sure that you’re taken care of. You know what I mean?”

  Sedna stepped in close to Wade’s face and ran a palm down his right cheek. “You don’t want to fuck this one up.”

  “Hey, you got no fingers! How do you, you know, get it on?”

  “Listen! Get this in your head. Get him out the door and I’ll take care of both of you!”

  Sedna ran her oar-shaped hands down the front of Wade’s janitor pants.

  Sedna paused, “Make sure that you have my man Kakoot back in his room. I’ll be waiting for both of you.”

  Wade grinned while he watched Sedna evaporate part way down the hallway.

  Wade turned to Kakoot. “Man, I gotta get you back to your room.”

  Kakoot was sitting in his bed looking at the clock when the nurse came through the door with her companion.

  “Now Mr. Too-Much-Moose, we’re taking you down to the main area. We have a real treat for you today—we’re having beers!” Again the black bear claws lifted him up from his bed. Again he was slammed into a chair, his head snapping back and falling forward. Again the square white teeth were in his eyes telling him to shut his Skeemo mouth.

  As he was being pulled in a long chain of wheelchairs, Kakoot spied Wade in the dining area mopping the sun speckled floor. They caught each other’s eyes, and Kakoot nodded at him briefly. Wade nodded back. Again a gentleman’s agreement had been sealed.

  Along the hand-railed hallway the procession of wheelchair-ridden seniors snaked their way towards the main receiving area. The black man was the lead dog. It was the most singular dog team ever assembled. Pulling their way along the railing with one hand and pushing the wheels of their chairs with the other. An informal death procession.

  Wade came close to Kakoot. He bent low and whispered, “Pretend to die. Grab your chest and then I’ll come take you outta the line-up.” Kakoot again gave a slight nod.

  Pull, push, pull, push, pull. “Aaaggghhh!” screamed Kakoot as he slumped into his chair, his hand upon his heart.

  Wade loo
ked towards the black man and shouted, “I got it!” but the black man came running anyway.

  “That fuckin’ Skeemo!” he muttered.

  “What’s up? He dead?”

  Wade said, “Don’t sweat it man, I’ll take care of it—you got all these other old fuckers to worry about. Here, I’ll just take him back over to the nurse.”

  “Thanks, man—now, I owe you.”

  Wade pushed Kakoot back towards his room. They were about to enter when along came the nurse. “Now Mr. Loose Tooth—what’s wrong with you?” Kakoot did not move. Eyes closed, hand to chest, he breathed shallowly. It was time. Wade lifted him from the wheelchair onto the bed. Kakoot felt himself crossing even as the nurse tried to pull him back.

  “Dancers! Drummers! Everyone in place please. Why haven’t the Spirit Hunters returned? You, Caribou Spirit, fly around out there and get them back here. Okay, everyone else. This is a test run! Let’s get practicing!” Sedna felt the happy glow that welcoming home one of her own always gave her.

  Sedna winked. Wade followed her. He could see more women with her but they were a bunch of legs. His own Rockette kick line. They were telling him to hurry up. He obliged.

  Sedna smiled. The white boy had done well. He deserved what was coming.

  Kakoot walked onto his tundra. It was minus forty with the wind howling in at thirty-five kilometres per hour. He smiled as he felt the tip of his nose go completely numb.

  He had made it. White boy Wade had got him home. As bits of snow whipped and bit into his face he removed his hand from his mitt and said, “Sanningajuliuqpaa,” making the sign of the cross as he spoke the word.

  In the distance he could see all three of his wives. Nobody had aged at all. He called their names into the flat, winter desert. “Pihtwa! Meeka! Saila!” He screamed each name above the wind. Loud. Hard. The women started to jump up and down. He was coming home to them.

  He saw her. “Anaana!” Joy flooded his veins. He was her boy again. He was running towards the arms of the woman who had loved him best. His heart filled with happiness, his face smiled with young glee. Dizzy with love he felt his body fall forward, slamming onto the frozen ground.

  “Here he comes everyone!” Drums started to beat in a slow rhythm. The Dancing Spirits hopped from one foot to the other with the same thump-thumping. The Singing Spirits broke into song. Kakoot walked into the qalgiq holding his mother’s hand. All four of his women were with him. He was home.

  Kakoot looked back one last time before the Earth World closed behind him. In the hospital, snow twirled and swirled around a mother and her newborn child. “Kakoot,” exclaimed his mom as he let out the first cry from his blue-red mouth. “We’ll call him Kakoot!”

  Annie Muktuk

  BAIT. There are so many good things to do with it. Slide it onto a fishhook. Put a small amount onto a trap. You can use it in the water and on land. You can put in your freezer and use it in town.

  Me and Moses Henry, we’re the masters at it. We aren’t just best friends and roommates, we are the Master Baiters. No one can out-bait us. We aren’t traditional Inuk hunters and fisherman, but we each know how to do that. Our Daddies taught us and we know how to use some of the old ways. We just have a different approach, a different execution. We use our muktuk in other ways.

  When the small-framed Igloolik girls come in for some shopping around town we have our bait on hand, thawed and in platters. We put it onto the kitchen table with a tablecloth and then head out. Before we close the door, we each glance back over our left shoulders, grin, look each other in the eyes and whisper, “Bait.” It is amazing stuff, it works absolutely every time.

  It’s fun to hunt for women and the Seaport is the biggest trap you can find. Not a tiny little snare hole, it’s a bear-sized trap and the game that strolls through the door are the women. Igloolik women are the best catch of all. They’re small and delicious and muktuk is their drug of choice. Tell them you’ve got muktuk and you’ve hit a home run, a grand slam.

  Tonight was the night. A group of those lovely Inuk bodies had flown in a couple of days ago. Like the husky mutts we are, me and Moses Henry, we were out sniffing the merchandise. It’s mostly a new batch this year. A few repeats. Annie Mukluk among them. Moses Henry spied her and started to drool right there in the Northern Store. I punched Moses Henry hard in the ribs for it, told him to quit it. He started to growl and I mean growl. Those Inuit eyes turned to black slits and his lips wrinkled into an O-shape. I thought he’d slam his fist into my face. It’s not like we hadn’t had our fights along life’s way, but really Moses Henry—Annie Mukluk?

  What I couldn’t get into Moses Henry’s head was that she just wasn’t Annie Mukluk. She was bipolar. She liked the Arctic and the Antarctic. She played with the penguins and the polar bears. Annie Mukluk liked to fuck and she did it with everyone in Igloolik and everywhere else she went. She’d fuck your father, your sister, all your brothers and finish off with your mother. She swung both ways and sideways.

  Moses Henry met her a year ago and still had not forgotten her. She was hot, she was horny, and he appeared to love her. We were the only two over-thirty and under-forty bachelors in town. We had one rule—never love them. We just enjoyed them and moved on. We had a reputation and maintaining it was everything.

  I tried only once to talk to him about it. We were out on the land together. She was all he could blubber about; she was his “it.” We had strolled along together in our non-traditional hunting gear after hopping off our ATV, looking more like Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan than a couple of Inuk guys tracking caribou. I couldn’t stand his whimpering any more.

  I said, “Moses Henry, you gotta stop thinking about Annie Mukluk. It’s time for you to move on. You know what we all think when you start that crap—you say her name and I hear the jingle, ‘Oh Annie Muktuk, what the fuck, who did you screw last night? Oh Annie Muktuk, what the fuck, we know why you ain’t tight’.” Those words sang their way out of my mouth and the next thing I knew, Moses Henry has drum-danced my ass to the ground.

  Bits of twigs are stuck in my head. Moses Henry was a tough son of a bitch, he was fast and could fire a hit to your body quicker than you could blink.

  “Johnny, you can’t talk like that. I love that woman.”

  Dragging my arms next to my ribs, I started to heave and peel my body from the earth.

  “Moses Henry, everyone from the 58th line up has had her. Not once, not twice but more than three times each. She’s the pit stop for all northern jizz. She’s the original sperm whale. Don’t you get it—she’s not your ‘it’! She’s got a mental disease of some sort, she’s weird.”

  I tried to get that all out before another fist shot out at me. The fist did fly but I dodged it and had a momentary thought of victory. I didn’t win. I woke up with Moses Henry’s boot holding open my jaw and my right eye was looking into his gun barrel. I heard the slow words, “Take. It. Back.” I know one thing about Moses Henry; he means business when he means business. I took it back and for the last eight months I have not uttered Annie Mukluk’s name.

  Moses Henry has. I hear him in the shower some mornings, saying her name. She has cast a magical love spell on him and he can’t find his way out. He sings her name in the most affectionate of ways. When we are out on one of our in-town hunting trips, he searches for her. He compares all the locals to her and I can’t stop it. I’ll ply him with beer and more beer and he continues to stalk her memory. Annie Mukluk, he won’t stop saying it, thinking it and breathing it. Tonight he will be fucking it. All that muktuk on the platter. She’ll lick it, she’ll suck it and then she’ll swallow it. Annie Mukluk, you need to leave Moses Henry’s brain.

  We are at the Seaport. The jukebox chimes one of my favourite Phil Collins tunes, “In the Air Tonight.” That drum solo is the best drum solo. I’ve got an Igloolik honey on each arm. My, they are fine-boned and for once, shorter than me. Their skin is dark, dark. It’s all that seal meat they chew up most of the year. They
smile the best smiles and giggle in low tones. Everything they say sounds sexy. It’s so hot just being near them. I’m afraid I’ll get hard before our dance finishes. I think about stepping into the bathroom for some quick hand relief. As I glance towards my crotch I hear the bar door swing open.

  In strolls Annie Mukluk in all her mukiness glory. Tonight she has gone traditional. Her long black hair is wrapped in intu’dlit braids. Only my mom still does that. She’s got mukluks, real mukluks on and she’s wearing the old-style caribou parka. It must be something her grandma gave her. No one makes that anymore. She’s got the faint black eyeliner showing off those brown eyes and to top off her face she’s put pretend face tattooing on. We all know it’ll wash out tomorrow. She won’t look very Padlei in the morning.

  Moses Henry is in a state of awe. He is dumbfounded. I feel my uhuk. I look at Moses Henry and a slow smile builds across his face. The room screeches to a stop as Annie Mukluk sashays towards him. She’s rolling off her parka. I can see her brown belly button. Someone at the back of the room yells, “Hey look! The arnaluk has scribbled all over her face! Naughty, naughty, naughty!” That corner of the room breaks into drunken chuckles, shoulders shaking in pools of Grey Goose Vodka. I grin but I remember my own anaanatsiaq and the soft tattoo lines on her tender skin. I always thought she was beautiful but, there is no time to remember now. I’ve got a mission to complete.

  Like a war hero from an old black and white movie I leap across the room. I’ll put the pin back into this hand grenade. I’ll be a local hero. I will have saved Moses Henry’s reputation. Landing onto the floor I feel a slap crack across my face. My bottom lip splits open. Blood flosses my lower teeth. I can’t believe that bitch had the nerve to do this.

  My gut reaction is just that. I reach my fist to Annie Mukluk’s perfect face. My knuckle drives hard into the bridge of her nose. Moses Henry snatches my Adam’s apple into the palm of his hand. Squirming on the floor I hear, “Say you’re sorry. Say it! Take. It. Back!” I can’t breathe even though I have a hole in my throat. I can’t think. I lay on the floor curled up like the letter ‘h’. “Say it, I said!”