Annie Muktuk and Other Stories

by Norma Dunning

  Moses Henry, my best friend since residential day school, is giving me orders. I nod. I moan. I swipe the red liquid with the back of my hand.

  This is twice in less than a year. This requires revenge—old-style! “I won’t say shit to that cunt!” I utter and slowly begin to crawl away. Like a dog with his tail between his legs, I look back, my head is pointed downwards, but my eyes meet Moses Henry’s.

  I wake up naked on the kitchen table. The window is open and the white-grey curtains are tugging against the frame. They are gasping deep breaths and exhaling quickly. Another gasp. Another exhale. I realize that it’s not the curtains, it’s my lungs. God help me. God help me. I roll to the side of the table and vomit up muktuk. Puddles of it. Sour fish smells fill the room. I try to sit up but slump back onto the table. What happened? I can’t remember things consecutively.

  I remember the Igloolik honeys bringing me home. Take a deep breath. I remember a bottle of Tequila. Take a deep breath. Muktuk in my mouth with a tequila shot. Breathe steady. That’s it. That’s as far as the night goes. Breathing normally. Trying to sit up again. I’m cold. Need to close the window. I turn over onto my stomach and slide my feet to the floor.

  Moses Henry is sitting on a kitchen chair across from me. “You’re alive,” he says sarcastically.

  “Shut the window,” I whisper.

  “I thought you were dead,” he answers, not moving off his chair.

  “I’ll shut the window,” I murmur.

  I reach across the kitchen sink. My entire body aches. I look into the sink and puke once more. Turn on the tap. Splash water into my mouth.

  “Moses Henry, are you going to kill me?” I ask. I don’t have any fight left in me. I don’t care if he does kill me. I would take death over this pounding sickness that is in my body right now. I would roll out the welcome mat, sound the trumpets, here I come.

  “No.” Moses Henry replies. “You’re still my best friend. You don’t slap a woman. You know better.”

  “Is she here?” I ask, easing myself onto a chair while wrapping a dish cloth around my balls. For some reason covering them up felt like the right thing to do.

  “No, she left with a white guy.”

  “I’m sorry, Moses Henry,” I say, trying to mean it.

  It was always like that. The white guy shows up and off goes the Inuk woman. I don’t understand the pride that goes with that.

  “Guess I learned my lesson,” he says. “Guess you were right all along. I’m sorry, too, for the record.” He extends a hand across the table. I take it. We have a brief moment of guy love.

  “Ah, it’s alright,” I shrug and grin. “Should we be taking more muktuk out of the freezer for tonight?”

  Manisatuq/She offers herself provocatively in sexual relations openly and willingly

  IT HAD BEEN YEARS since I had taken a blow to the nose. Years. Lying on the motel bed staring into the ceiling I remembered the last time a guy had hit me. I was in Grade Four, out on the playground. I ran out first, greeting recess with enthusiasm. I was the fast runner, the female Atanarjuat. I got to the swings before anyone else.

  There were only two and I hopped onto one swing and pumped it into the sky. It was all mine until those boys had come along. One grabbed the swing from behind leaving me dangling in the air, legs flailing. The other boy standing at the front commanded me to get off. I looked him in the eyes and told him to fuck off. Big words for a little girl to say.

  A little boy’s fist smashed into my nose before I could take in my next breath. I slumped forward and fell to the dirt. Followed by the rant of all the little boys I had gone to school with. All of them called me Annie Muktuk instead of Mukluk. They sang long soprano notes of “Annie Muktuk—Baby Beluga, Baby Bell-ou-gaaa-ou-gaa-ou-gaa” dragging out the letter A. I hated that childhood song. It had changed over to an adult song. “Annie Muktuk what the fuck…” I had heard that one too.

  I couldn’t stop the songs but I could stop the punching. From Grade Four onwards I thought, this will absolutely never happen again.

  It didn’t. I had learned how to fight, especially with a boy. Nail his crotch as quick and sudden as I can and I will win. It became my life’s most important lesson. It became my mantra.

  Growing up I had learned to nail a crotch in a different way. Once I had my hands on their balls, those guys were my putty. I had ’em. Every swing in the world became mine. Men are stupid this way.

  “Come on, eh, just move over some.” I gave the white guy next to me a gentle shove. The lump wiggled slightly, inching over to his side of the bed.

  Ah, these white guys. They like to fuck with Inuk girls. They like to brag about it the way a man comes home from a good hunt. All rosy faced and a belly full of stories. I like the way they look at me, as if I am some precious little stone. I like the chase. The hunt. The first time he puts his palm against my breast. His fingers pinching my nipples and leaving a sweat trail down my spine. The beginning of the fuck is always the best. I let them think they are the leaders. Whoever he is, he gets to be the head goose out in front of my V-shaped crotch. I like to wait to hear their breathing pick up. That first low moan from the back of their throats—Ammpphh. A white man’s version of throat singing. Then I take over.

  They have become my game. I am always in charge of the hunt. I am always on top. I bend and whisper into their ears, “This train stops when I say it stops.” I have them. They can only agree. I give each of them the best orgasms they’ve ever had. I rarely allow the same interracial ecstasy for myself. After a Matinée Mellow King-sized cigarette, I sit in the stench of our sex and hate them.

  There is never morning-after sex. Never the obligatory breakfast together. I sneak out of their beds and back to my own. Never a “good bye” or a “see ya later.” Good Inuks never say that. I had learned one thing in my thirty-plus years. Never love them. Fuck ’em slow. Fuck ’em hard. And never fuck ’em again. Sex is the one thing that I do very well. It gives me power. It gives me strength. It brings me a strange comfort.

  The white guys are special fun for me. They like to tell me how they are in the North to study. They like to rattle off their credentials. Letters coming from this university or that, sometimes the letters were at the front of their names. Sometimes they droop off their last names. As if any of that matters to me. I just nod and know that they think having sex with me will be some sort of spiritual experience. This is a good game. I whisper a few Inuk words to them and they are in awe. I tell them they have uhuk eyes bathing in quik then grin. My spirit laughs. I can hear the tingling of that laughter after each of them comes.

  I give them nicknames based on their performance. I can always tell which one of these white guys is married. Thirty-five seconds of foreplay, six pumps, and a squirt. When that is done, I make them start over because this train only stops when I say it does. “Two Time Louie” or “Three Time Tom,” “Peak Performance Pete…” Ah, those white boys. I especially like the blond, blue-eyed types. They are easiest and dumbest to snare. Little white rabbit boys who do as directed. Me, Annie Mukluk, I am the CEO of sex. The chief commanding officer and I love it.

  People talk but who really cares? One thing about people—they are gonna talk anyways. But this hit to my nose! Who was that guy in the Seaport coming after me in mid-air? It was the swing incident all over again.

  “I’m gonna get that little fucker,” I mutter. “I’m gonna get him.”

  Moses Henry had been a fun time for me last year. He was my “Milestone Moses.” What a blast he had been in bed. He was fun and funny and he did something that most of them didn’t. He considered my orgasms first, before his own. This is what made him most unusual. I had decided last night if there was going to be a repeat in my life it would be Moses Henry.

  I had scrambled all over town trying to put together an outfit that would make Moses Henry remember me forever. Bought an old caribou parka from an Elder. Found a washable blue ink pen and went to the hairdressers with an old magazine pi
cture of a woman with intu’dlit braids and a tattooed face. Paid that hairdresser a fortune for those braids and face markings. Walked back through town knowing that everyone was looking at me. And what a grand entrance I had made, right at the drum solo of Phil Collins’s best song. It was definitely “comin’ in the air” last night.

  It had happened so fast. Those square Inuk feet coming towards my face and what perfect timing. What turaaqpuq! Perfect aim! BAM! I got a slap in onto that light tan cheek, though. I didn’t mean to crack his lip open. It was a natural reaction. Tucked away inside of us, waiting for us to use them. It’s natural. It’s real, and it hurts like it’s supposed to. After that guy had limped away, Moses Henry had shook his head in slow motion and had told me “No.” That’s it. That’s all he said. “I-want-you-white-boy” was at my side immediately, offering an ice-packed handkerchief for my perfect nose. I had left the Seaport with him and had given him the ride of his life. Anger and adrenalin, the best basic ingredients for sex.

  Getting up from the bed, I start to dress. “I-want-you-white-boy” is breathing deeply, lost in his world of books and writings. I know I never want to see him again. He has fulfilled his purpose. I am done with him. Leaving the motel, I head out into the spring air. Crisp, fresh, new. Walking in the stillness of the town, the sound of the odd bark from a local dog. I hear the crackle of the lights. Spring skies are like this, full of colour and dance. The nippy air and the lights are walking me back to my shared room at the Aurora Inn.

  I remember being a little girl. The magic that night sky made for me is a warm memory. Sitting on my Mama’s lap, we would clap and cheer on the lights. We behaved the way others did at a sporting event. Only us. Together, snug under the lights. I always asked my Mama to stay up all night and we would. Drinking tepid tea, wrapped together like one person under an old blanket, sarliaq. My mom had been the best mom. Every day of my life I miss my mom.

  My father was absent, whether by choice or by chance. He was never much to me. He was there, only indifferent. Indifferent to me. Indifferent to my mom. My mom though was everything. We had the best relationship. Always together and ready to cheer each other on. Mama taught me how to cook and sew. How to knit and play siutaujaqtuqpuq—cat’s cradle.

  “Don’t make a mess, Annie, watch for the ‘X,’ aanauniq.” We would laugh and start over. Mama telling the story, me watching for the ‘X.’

  “Aanauniq.” Me, I was her “beauty.” Strolling through the streets of town I begin to hum the song of my mom. Every Inuk had one. Our own pisiit to carry us through life. I inherited my mom’s pisiit. It was the greatest gift to leave behind for me. Better than money. Better than clothes. It’s not something you could hang on a wall and Mama’s is low and happy. The lights overhead crackle and skid into one another. I amble back to my roommates from Igloolik. Cat’s cradle and tepid tea. All those good things.

  I look to my right and my Mama is walking next to me. I am not surprised. She shows up every now and again. Tonight, we are two high-spirited spirits walking together in the shadows of the night.

  “Mama,” I whisper, “I’m all right, you don’t need to worry about me.”

  “Aanauniq, you need to stop behaving badly around the men.”

  “Mama, stop. I know what I’m doing. Don’t be like this. Don’t tell me that old story again about the woman without a husband.” I hold my head a little higher and strut a little faster. I can hear the hurried steps of my mother next to me, scratching at the bit of snow still left over from a hard winter.

  She tugs on the old caribou parka, “Aanauniq, you must settle down. Look at my eyes. Turn your head to me and look at my eyes.”

  I stop and bend forward a little and see the eyes that had first seen me. The eyes that gave me life. The eyes that made me laugh.

  “It’s time, my Annie. It’s time for you to stop all this fooling around. You are kidding no one. Not even yourself any longer. You need to rest your head into the same man’s arms each night. It’s time, my Annie.”

  “Mama, I’ll try. Here! Take my hand! We’ll run together under the lights like when I was a little girl! You know, before all the penises. If we run fast enough we will be able to touch them! Quick Mama, let’s go!”

  Annie Mukluk runs with her mitt clasped around the hand of the woman who had loved her best. Annie Mukluk runs with her long-dead Mama’s hand wrapped into her own.

  Qunutuittuq/One who never refuses his person

  I HAD DEVISED A PLAN in my head. It was all figured out, how to get those Igloolik honeys to come back to my place. Of course, the offer of muktuk would remain but I had lain on this sagging couch for most of the morning building a formula. My head works this way. I wasn’t like Moses Henry. I had gone to university and studied Math and Sciences and all things about the earth. I had a BA in Environmental Science framed and hanging at eye level across from my toilet. When I’m taking a good, long, satisfying shit I can look at that degree and grin. Completing a shit was more satisfying than earning a degree. The end result was better too.

  I had learned to make numbers spin. I had sat in lectures, and read books until my eyes were so filled with veins it looked as though I had been out on a six-week bender. I had worked hard. I am one of the few and first Inuk guys from my area to have gone out and completed university. I had loved the scent of musky libraries and the girls. The girls were so incredible. They all wanted me. White girls, black girls and every-colour-in-between girls. They wanted to know what it was like to screw some northern meat. I had complied. I had never denied any of them. Wherever they wanted it, they got it. I didn’t mind if they were fat or bony.

  Eventually I had enlarged a map of the campus and placed small different coloured pins onto all the buildings I had had sex in. The pins were colour-coded: Asian girls, yellow pins. Black girls, black pins. Russian girls, red pins. The colours were endless and the pins clustered into all forms of patterns. At the end of my four years I had sat down and compiled the data. Put together the quantitative and qualitative. Made the charts and graphs and presented it as my final project. I had considered staying on and making it my Master’s thesis but that didn’t work out.

  I know that I am far from stupid. I am a local boy who had gone “out” and stayed “out” for five years. I liked the city. The lights and the pace. The bars and the dancing. I loved all of it. I had returned upon the death of my brother. A death that is never spoken of. I had found myself a nice government job. Got up every day, went for a swim and off to work. I am a regular working guy. I just never saved any money. Who did? Money is for spending. Money is what brings the ladies home.

  Moses Henry is still sleeping while I am devising and scheming. I have figured it out. I am going to go over to the Aurora and tell those Igloolik honeys that my shop is open today. Open today for just one thing—washing their hair. When was the last time a guy offered to wash all the out-of-towners’ hair? It was my idea. I own it, and I am going to get this show rolling. I am gonna buy some flowery smelling shampoo and line the ladies up. Get out the muktuk. Hit start. I am going to get laid tonight, not once or twice, but more than three times. And I am going to remember it.

  Pulling on my spring boots, the standard green rubbers with spurs, I jingle my way out of the house. I had added the spurs to my boots so I could look different and sound different when I strolled down the streets. I love most the laughter it brings to others. Some days I wear a cowboy hat to go with it. A thick leather belt with my thumbs tucked into it. The jangle of the spurs, with my hat cocked to the side. I am Johnny Cochrane, the northern John Wayne.

  “Gonna trap me some polar bears, Pilgrim,” I’d say as I tip my hat to the men of the town.

  “Life is hard. It’s harder if you’re stupid” is the quote that I live by. I love being alive. “Johnny Ijuqtajuq”—the name I live by. This afternoon there will be prep required in my kitchen. I have to find one of those sinks that girls lay back into when they get their hair done. There had been a hair salon o
n every corner in the south. You could cut, colour, and dye all in two hours time but in the North it was razor yourself bald or let it grow to your waist. Hair had no gender partiality above the 58th.

  Maggie MacPherson was the only person in town I knew of who owned such a thing. Like me, she had gone “out” and studied hairdressing. She had never stayed current with the new styles though, and everyone had their hair done at her place. All the hair in town remains in a 1980s limbo. Farrah Fawcett or Princess Di dos for the ladies or Bon Jovi–like mullets for the men. I love my mullet. I take extreme pride in it. I like the swishing of it down my back and though my government boss often asked me to cut it I always tell him it’s my traditional hair. I am growing it for my people. This is where an Inuk could get away with it. Telling the whites this or that is traditional, required, and needed in order to stay in Eskimo mode.

  I ramble up to Maggie’s door. Knock politely, take a step back, waiting for the door to open. Maggie appears in her housecoat, a tattered piece of terry towel with coffee stains and various shades of hair dye clinging to it.

  “It’s a fine spring day, isn’t it Maggie?” I begin.

  “What do you want, Johnny? I got appointments lined up for today. I don’t think I can fit you in.”

  Maggie is cranky. She’s a few years older than me, but I have no childhood memories of her. There was a time, though, when Maggie had been the “Queen of the North.” Her days of beauty had faded fast after she had married the local RCMP guy. He had left her after four kids within six years. Her potted belly is wrapped in her torn housecoat and only her bloated tea bag eyes soften her chiselled face. Her faded auburn hair is mixed with grey-black roots and her skinny Arctic crane-like legs hold up the mess in front of me.

  “I want your sink Maggie. The one where you can lay back your head. How much for a one day rental on that?”