“No, no, don’t leave me, Moses. I have a gift for you. If you can just help me take my pants off.”
I am receiving the invitation of a lifetime. I happily unbutton Annie’s Levis. We both listen and watch as the metal zipper slides open ceremoniously. I can’t do anything but stare. It is that feeling we get when we know we shouldn’t look at something, but can’t stop ourselves. It is the knowing of something better to come. Something we can stop but don’t. The spilling of thousands of lined-up dominoes and the sense of satisfaction that comes with watching them all fall in perfect order.
I stare at my heart-shaped gift. I love it. I love her. Johnny will hate this.
Phil Collins and the Igloolik girls sing, “Take me home” while I bend and tenderly kiss my Annie.
Johnny Cochrane dances in his underwear in the middle of the Igloolik circle, singing, “take me home.”
Annie Mukluk’s mother’s spirit fades from the corner of the room.
This was where things should be and should stay. Piujuq. Saimmavuq.
Qaninngilivuq/He goes into the Distance
“I’M MOVING UP TO IGLOOLIK,” I announce. I can’t stop staring into my coffee cup.
The apartment is in a shambles. Lacy black underpants dangle from a light shade. Beer bottles are scattered all over the floor. Bras in various colours and shapes lay on the back of the kitchen chair I am sitting at.
“Yeah,” replies Johnny. Johnny is back on the sagging couch. Laying naked with a cloth over his forehead and one over his crotch.
“What are you gonna do up there?” asks Johnny. Johnny thinks this is another one of my passing fantasies. The one where I become a preacher.
“They’re looking for a pastor up that way, thought I’d go up and see what it’s about.”
“So, you’re not moving. You’re gonna go and smell around up there—right?”
“Nope.”
Johnny struggles to sit up.
“God, hangover days get harder and harder. This must be part of the aging process, right?”
“I’m gonna leave tomorrow. With Annie Mukluk.”
“I wish I could hear you correctly. Let’s start again. You’re leaving tomorrow. You’re going to Igloolik to be a preacher—again. You’re going with Annie Mukluk. Moses Henry, take your life off repeat. The preacher hooks up with a whore and goes out and saves the world? Think that one has been done.” I can feel the anger in Johnny’s throat. He is now a naked soldier sitting at full attention.
“I love her,” I tell him.
“Everyone loves her, Moses Henry—absolutely everyone!”
I lift my eyes from my coffee cup and look directly at Johnny. There is no anger in this room, only an eerie kind of peace that I know Johnny can’t understand. Can’t put his finger on.
“I love her,” I repeat, “and yes, we are going to ride off into the sunset together and live happily ever after.”
I smile and ask, “What about you, what are you going to do, Johnny Cochrane?”
“You know Moses Henry, I’ve been thinking of heading off back south. I didn’t tell you but I applied for the Masters Program at U of M. Got the letter yesterday. Been accepted. Thought I’d start with a few courses this spring and just take it from there.”
Silence blends in with the smell of stale beer, nicotine and sweat.
“Hmph,” I snort, “Guess we both had plan B’s happening.”
Johnny stands and wraps the cloth around his head like a bandana. His crotch cloth falls to the floor.
“Yeah, I guess we did.” Johnny coughs and shrugs.
“Let me get cleaned up and we’ll go out and do one final thing together. Alright?”
I smile and nod ‘yes’. I’ll always be Johnny’s lead dog.
Samagiik/Two who call each other pal
“WHERE IN HELL ARE YOU TAKING ME?” Moses Henry is squished into the ATV sidecar next to me. We have been bouncing across the land for over one hour. Bobbing around the Hudson’s Bay like a pair of baby seals. The shore line is craggy and the ice is starting to soften. Spring ice is not to be messed with. Basic Inuit 101. Don’t fuck with the floes.
“Johnny! For God’s sakes man—where the hell are we going?”
“We’re almost there,” I grin and scream, “Don’t be a suckie baby! Preachers don’t look good when they whine.” I turn back and hit the throttle a little harder.
“Fuck man!” yells Moses Henry.
“Now that’s not good preacher talk, Moses Henry,” I yell back while I make a quick left.
I jerk the machine to a stop. Both of our bodies lurch forward.
“You’re gonna kill me so I can’t leave! I knew it! There are times when I absolutely fucking hate you, Johnny Cochrane! Look at where we are,” screams Moses Henry, “right in the middle of fucking nowhere!”
“This is a place where me and Jimmy used to come. That’s his grave over there.” I say back to Moses Henry in a whisper. I point my chin towards a small hill.
“Johnny, Jimmy’s grave is in town. In the graveyard.”
“No. I moved him out here. Come on. Follow me.”
“You moved him. You can’t move bodies around, Johnny! I think there’s a law against it. It’s not like a coffin is a friggin’ salt and pepper shaker or something.”
“Oh, look at the preacher giving me a sermon. Preach on, Moses Henry. Preach on, Preach.” I start my cackling laugh. Like the old ravens that hang around town. The laugh Moses Henry has heard all his lifetime. The laugh that makes him happy because this is how Moses Henry knows when Johnny is happy. Moses Henry decides to let it all go and just enjoy the moment. One of his last with Johnny.
“When did you bring him up here?” asks Moses Henry.
“About a week after the funeral. My mom wasn’t gonna get him. She gets his headstone and she can think he’s under all that but I brought him back to where he and I fished and hunted and smoked dope together for the first time.”
“You smoked weed with your handicapped brother. Jesus, Johnny!”
“Ah, only a couple of times. It was fun for him. Anyway I brought him back to our playground. Our private playground.”
Me and Moses Henry stand over the pile of rocks. The grave of Jimmy. I lean forward and pull a foot long, die-cast white corvette from the front of my snow pants. I look over and smirk at Moses Henry.
“Almost as long as my penis, eh!” After a bit my laugh lines straighten and the corners of my eyes moisten.
“He always wanted one of these. Found it on eBay last week. Had it flown here. Thought I’d leave him something to play with while I’m gone. Can you just say one quick prayer over him for me, Moses Henry? Something nice.”
Moses Henry closes his eyes. Bows his head and begins:
“Our dear Lord, times change, people change and together Johnny and I ask that you keep watch over our Jimmy. We’re both heading out in the morning, Lord. We’re both moving on. We ask that you keep Jimmy safe and secure in the loving palms of Your hands and we ask more that Johnny and I will live our lives in a way that is honourable to both You and Jimmy. May both of your spirits never leave either of us. May the love we both felt from Jimmy always remain a part of who we are and mostly Lord, protect Johnny here as he swings down south to study ’cause I’m sure going to miss him. In your most precious name Jesus. Amen.” Both men automatically make the sign of the cross.
Johnny wraps his arms tight around Moses Henry’s neck and sobs.
“I love you Moses Henry,” Johnny manages to say between wet tears.
“I love you, Johnny,” replies Moses Henry. “Let’s go home and pack.”
Husky
Cecil “Husky” Harris, the HBC Factor at Poorfish Lake on the edge of the tundra, had three Inuit wives at the same time and even visited Winnipeg with them all in tow, staying at the Empire, then known as the Husdon’s Bay Hotel. “Harris’ wives were quite a mixed lot,” reported his colleague Sydney A. Keighley. “One was old and ugly, one was young and prett
y, and one was short and very homely.”
—PETER C. NEWMAN, Merchant Princes
BITTER COLD. Spring wind singing an aria outside, and inside my little cabin, a fire is crackling us through the night. I often sit up and look at all of them, spread out like sled dogs across the wooden floor, sleeping. Wondering how my life had become this tangled mess. I’m one of them now. The other trappers even call me “Husky.”
I came here to make my fortune and I have a bit of money tucked away in a mattress. Money. Paper with other peoples’ faces on it. It is useless up here. Something to pull out and look at, count and put away. The shadow of the fire flutters pirouettes across their faces. I indulge the beauty and innocence that sleep gives—especially to them. Knowing they are off in their dream worlds they soon will awaken from and share with me. Telling me of what they saw, what it meant and what the future will hold. I never stop being amazed by the stock they put into their night visions. No matter how large or small it is, it is all interpreted with awe and reverence. It is part of being Inuit. I decided that long ago. They live their lives close to the ground. I won’t stop it.
I light my small pipe and pull on the handle with my lips. I’d had a good life in Nova Scotia. I had gone to school, learned to read and write real good—Mama wanted me to go to Dalhousie College. The ad in the local paper caught my eye and I thought it would be grand to head north. I became a company man, an HBC Factor at this tiny post. It is my job to mingle with the locals, to barter for their furs and to learn their language. Maybe I had taken it all a little too far though. First one wife and then another and another. Oh, how my Mama would keel over and squeal over it, if she saw what I was doing. Well, the Bible does say, “A man shall take a wife…” The ‘a’ part would be disputed, singular as it is. Like Shaharaim in Chronicles I may never have a son until I get rid of a couple of them.
The trouble is, I enjoy these women. Each is different and each arrived at my post with a different story, a different reason for staying on. In time we formed an unconventional family in the white world. In the world of the North, this kind of living arrangement is the norm. They each came with the intent of leaving but never did. I used to wonder if they would leave, but now our lives are meshed together in such a web that it is as though they were always here. Perhaps this is the life that I was always supposed to have.
The babies start to be born, our lives becoming knitted up tighter. I am the Papa to three different and beautiful little girls. Each a different mom, each a little bit different looking from the other. They are my girls, the extension of me in this cold, northern world. I taught them some English but mostly they all speak their moms’ tongue and so do I. When I learned their language, I began to respect their culture and it became a part of me. It moved into my heart and set up camp in my soul. It became who I am.
I’m rocking on this creaky old chair and thinking of all that money. Money from the company. Money from my own trapping. White fox and wolves, their hides have stacked up and so has the money. It is time to go somewhere to spend it all. Time to take off for a while before the winter decides to really settle in. Time to take this qatangutigiit south.
There are times when I long for the white life. For tea to be poured into porcelain. To hear the sound of motorcars. To know I can stop at a pub for a quick brew. I miss the brew. The company sends some in at Christmas, but this is such a small post. We are poor in supplies and low in the things that matter most—brew and smoke. Tobacco is rare and I bring in enough to plug my pipe every evening. The brew is sipped at until late March. This is something I never share.
Yes siree, it’s time to take this group of ladies into the city. They can take in the sights and the sounds and see the white life. I get excited just thinking of it all. I’ll take them to the big Hudson’s Bay store down on Portage Avenue. We’ll have the time of our lives. I chuckle to myself as my chair carries my imagination away to concrete sidewalks and women with lipstick.
Sometimes I pine for the company of a white woman, even though I’ve got these three. The pretty one, her name is Tetuk. Her father traded her for a can of Macdonald tobacco and a box of bullets. How could I say no to her beauty? All my Christian upbringing left me when I looked at her. She came to me when she was around sixteen. For three winters now she has done nothing but given me a ton of boners and one baby girl. Her hair shines, her eyes grin; it excites me to think of her. There are no boundaries in bed with her. She howls and growls and sits on my belly, rocking back and forth, licking all of me. Those white women back home would never do this. White women only get onto their knees in church, I chuckle to myself. Our baby girl is three winters old.
Alaq is ugly. I have never seen her with teeth. Lips are worn from chewing caribou hide, cheekbones are dug high into her face and her tiny black eyes peek out from their sockets like a baby bird’s. She’s smart and knows what I want before I say it. She knows what I want, period, and never refuses me, no matter what time of day or year it is. She’s the type who gets the job done, not always quickly but definitely efficiently. She showed up one day all alone. Said she had been travelling for a couple of weeks. That was two summers ago. Our little girl is one spring old.
Keenaq is oldest, softest. She is the calmest. Filled with patience. She likes the slow movement of sex. She likes things to last. She takes the longest and slowest way when it counts. She is quietest and speaks only when she thinks it matters. She understands the wind better than the others. Understands the seasons better. She’s a good trapper too—lots of Arctic hare. Keenaq left her group after her husband died. She didn’t want to go to another man from that bunch, so she walked into my cabin on a stormy night and said this is where she was staying. Our baby daughter is one summer old.
These women take care of every part of me. I would be a lost man without them. We’ve had all the seasons with each other and they are always at my side in some form. Keenaq checks the trapline with me. Alaq makes all my clothes. Tetuk has to do only one thing—be pretty, and she’s good at that. I never give them to the other white men who stop by to trade. This is something else I never share.
Those other assholes don’t understand it. They laugh at me and call me “Husky,” tell me I’ve crossed over and can’t come back. They’ll fuck the Natives but they won’t stay with them. Say they’ll burn in hell if they get too involved. But they come here and see my settled life and I know a part of them is just jealous. Here I am, twenty-four years old, the husband of three Esquimaux women and the father of three babies. And there they all lie before me on the floor of this cabin. Life really could not be better except for my itch to take them out. I want them to see the south. The other side of what I know. We can paddle our way to Nueltin and from there fly out to Churchill and take the two-day train trip into Winnipeg. It’ll be our spring vacation. It’ll be the time of their lives.
Next day I say to my ladies, “Ikauqpuq” as I load the canoe. They seem to think we are going to go out to get some supplies. I tell them we have a long trip and to get ready. They load the boat with only the things they can carry. I estimate three long portages between here and Nueltin. These women know how to travel light and scramble up and down the lakeshore to the cabin in three trips each. We are off, babies are tucked into each mother’s amaq and away we go. I am excited and together we paddle away from our tiny HBC log home. The wind is light, the blackflies are buzzing, and we sing the only English travel song I’ve ever taught them.
What do you do with a drunken sailor?
What do you do with a drunken sailor?
What do you do with a drunken sailor
Earl—y in the moorrnnning?
Shave his balls with a rusty razor!
Shave his balls with a rusty razor!
Shave his balls with a rusty razor!
Earl—y in the moorrnnning.
Our spirits are soaring high above the tiny whitecaps of Poorfish Lake as we paddle our way towards what is called “civilization.” It takes us five sleep
s to finally make it to Churchill. Another two on the train ride down south. My ladies are forlorn. They don’t like the plane—they scream, the babies scream, and I scream at them. My wives tell me the flying friends of the bird-man once married to Sedna have returned and the plane will dive into the waters below and we will all be killed. The flying friends are pounding their wings and this is why the plane bumps and pushes the clouds around. Their stories arrive at the worst of times.
They whisper it to each other as our plane hits turbulence over and over again. Their faces tilt in fear and the babies dangle from their hoods like so much glue. No matter what I say they won’t listen. I know it’s wrong for me to yell at them but the plane engine is chugging out loud. It grunts and groans and I can’t help myself. These are women who never raise their voices. Screaming is their way of telling me of the terror that lies inside of them.
I try to tell them that this is like riding on the bumpy tundra on our qamutikkut—the sky is the land upside down. This doesn’t work. It is a terrible trip—the pilot asks us to never ride his float plane again.
The train ride jostles them too much and my daughters cry and cry and cry. My wives sit with their heads hiding behind their summer caribou hoods. I can only do one thing. Go to the bar car and enjoy the brew. I am drunk for thirty-six hours straight. It is the only way to manage this vacation. We finally arrive in Winnipeg and the worst hangover of my life has nested into my head.
I manage to load us up into a taxi and my ladies look exhausted. The babies have fallen into unconsciousness after all their crying. My wives need to have a bath. My head pounds and all I want to do is lie down. Off we go to the St. James Hotel. The clerk at the front desk doesn’t know what to do with us. Her eyes become owl-round and her words stumble out of her mouth.
“Yes sir? What would you like?” says the pretty blonde lady with the red, red, mouth. Fear is drawing straight lines around the edges of her lips.
Annie Muktuk and Other Stories Page 10
