It wasn’t completely by chance that in a universe of diversity and in a small town like Dawson City, the Rock Creek family chose someone to collectively dislike. No dinner conversation or daily small talk was complete without a vile or slanderous reference to their chosen victim, Joshua Shackelton. The talk was vicious, and they missed no chance to make his life miserable. Any attempt of mine to mitigate this derision met with blank stares.
“We hates who we hates, Tobias, and we hates things that are not true,” Clutch said.
“Sure,” I said. “But look at it this way—what could Joshua possibly have done to deserve this?”
“He didn’t fight when his country asked him; he dodged the draft,” OP said. “That’s what we heard. What’s an American doing here, anyway?”
“He is a yellow-bellied sapsucker, that’s what he is,” Clutch chimed in.
Winch looked at me across the table while he cut a piece from an apple with a knife too large for the job. “You heard what my brothers said, we hates who we hates, and that’s the end of the story—unless you want to join Joshua in Halloo hell?” He looked down his nose at me as he ate the apple off the knife and laughed.
I didn’t answer and turned my head away. Of course I didn’t want the Halloos’ wrath, but I sure as hell felt sorry for Joshua.
Joshua was the only person I’d ever thought was cool. He tried to be spiritual, and in the Age of Aquarius, he was interested in peace and love. I never saw him angry, and he had the ability to remain calm no matter what the situation. He quoted Kahlil Gibran and listened to Ravi Shankar in a town of Merle Haggard and Real Romance magazines. Slight of build and of medium height, he had dark skin and a full head of thick brown hair. In summer he kept himself clean-shaven; in winter he grew a beard. He had “Mystic” embroidered above the pocket of his green GWG work shirt. The number “1548” was tattooed over his heart as a reminder of a special place and time. He worked at Hughie Ford’s Chevrolet Automotive Garage pumping ’tane, as he called it.
At the time Dawson City was still locked in a post-gold-rush era of boom and bust. Crooked boardwalks lined the dirt streets, where more houses and buildings were boarded up and abandoned than occupied. It was a slow, seasonal, dusty town with a melancholy aura. Joshua felt at home here and rarely mentioned his past. Until I told him what the Halloos thought, Joshua never knew why they’d chosen him as a target for their anger.
“I didn’t dodge the draft, I was 4F. I’m colour-blind,” he said, pointing to his eyes. “The draft board said I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between a Viet Cong and an American and I would end up shooting the wrong person. I was glad to get out of the draft, but I was only colour-blind, not blind.”
“All draft dodgers are liars,” Winch said when I explained Joshua’s 4F, “and he’s a lying chicken-livered draft dodger.”
“Yeah, they’re all chicken livers,” OP said.
I didn’t try to reason with them but told Joshua, “My best advice is to run if you have to.” I was confident that Joshua’s skinny legs could outdistance those behemoths.
In the hot summer, when winds lifted great columns of dust off the sandbars at the junction of the Klondike and Yukon rivers, old men—relics of another age and adventure—sat outside the Occidental Hotel on well-worn benches, retelling stories and reinventing history. The story of how Piedoe bit off Neil O’Neill’s nose never stopped drawing guffaws of laughter. Joshua showed the old men respect, and they allowed him to sit in and contribute; others who were less polite were not welcome. Occasionally the Rock Creek boys would walk past, but the old-timers would go silent until they left, giving them no acknowledgment. This irked Winch the bully to no end, but what was he going to do, beat up a sourdough?
There were two gas pumps within thirty-five miles of Rock Creek. One was at the Dempster Highway corner, and the other was in town at Hughie Ford’s Chevrolet Automotive Garage. The next-closest pump was at Stewart Crossing, one hundred miles west. The Halloo men didn’t like having to deal with Joshua, so they drove out to the Dempster Corner, but that proved costly and impractical. Their solution was to send the women to fill the truck’s gas tank. While the men didn’t like Joshua, the women despised him. When they met, they spared him no slight or insult.
“I would rather deal with the men than the women,” Joshua told me. “The men are predictable.”
One ideally warm afternoon the Rock Creek women drove a one-ton primer-painted International Harvester truck to town, bringing a plume of dust and noise along with it. Winch’s wife Lulu was driving, and OP’s wife Olive sat on the passenger side. Neatly wedged between them was Clutch’s wife Stella, who was the youngest. The three women wore matching bright-orange paisley dresses that together looked like a blanket thrown over the front seat of the pickup.
On Olive’s lap was a large brown wicker picnic basket lined with the same cloth as their dresses. Olive unwrapped the waxed paper from thick egg salad sandwiches and distributed them in the cab and through the rear window to the kids in the back. They were out for a pleasant afternoon of driving, eating, shopping and listening to CBC music on the radio. In the box of the pickup sprawled an assortment of kids, dogs, laundry, bales of hay, spare tires and cordwood. Every once in a while, Olive would glance at the side-view mirror and yell a sharp warning at the kids, “Sit down!” Then she would flail her arm backward out the window in a feeble attempt to land a corrective smack.
Drifting around the last corner, Lulu made a beeline for the garage. Joshua stood still at the pumps. He fought the urge to dive for cover, but at the same time was convinced that if Lulu had the chance, she would drive over him, back up and do it again. The truck came to a sliding, screeching, gravel-showering stop. The dogs leaned out and barked in his face while the kids threw clumps of straw that stuck on his hair and clothes. The three women looked back and glared at Joshua. Stella leaned out the window and made the sign of the cross that people used on vampires and other evil beings. She looked at the “Mystic” embroidered on his shirt, and in her most disdainful voice, ordered, “Fill it up, mistake.”
Joshua was amazed at how anyone could be so dumb as to mispronounce such a simple word. He never got used to their insults. Some days he was tempted to refuse them service, but he knew they were waiting for a fight, so he didn’t contend. Stella threw money in his direction, and the truck left in the same cloud of dust and gravel it had arrived in.
“Goodbye and good riddance,” he said under his breath.
Every year the Dawson City Social Club held three or four dances that were well organized and well attended. The family dinner and dance closest to September 21, the first day of autumn, was a particular highlight. The New Tones, an eight-piece orchestra hired out of Whitehorse, made the 333-mile journey north to Dawson City in their battered van. The bandleader, Hector Badham, swore there wasn’t a song they didn’t know and couldn’t play. Dressed in red-sequined jackets and silver-trimmed pants, they set up their matching music stands and were primed to entertain.
My mom was on the committee that organized the dance.
“Remember, Tobias, don’t eat the potato salad,” she said. “You remember what happened back in 1964 when Mrs. Robinson’s turned, and the whole town got sick.”
How could I forget? Mom reminded me so often about the salad that I never eat potato salad at any event. On occasion I even refused to eat Mom’s at home.
Men, women and children showed up in their finery and took their seats. Food was piled on tables, and while everyone ate, the band played dinner music. Huge pots of steaming corn on the cob and platters piled with roast beef, moose and fish accompanied potatoes, beets, peas, cabbage and cauliflower—all locally grown, some by my father. All of this was washed down with gallons of tea and coffee and soda for the kids.
The best was saved for last: the three tables groaned under the weight of pumpkin pie served with mounds of whipped cream, apple pie with thick slices of aged cheddar cheese and cream pie with shredded
coconut. There was also blueberry, raspberry and rhubarb pie, all served with healthy scoops of vanilla ice cream. The pièce de résistance was the mile-high lemon-meringue pie, which no one could resist; every last slice was devoured. The treats were set out for everyone’s dining pleasure, and people indulged themselves to the last slice and scoop.
By half past seven the men pushed themselves away from the tables and casually strolled out the back door for a smoke and a nip from a mickey. The women knew exactly where they were going and what they were doing. They complained among themselves and, trying to feel better, scolded the older children to help with the cleanup. After an hour, when the women had put away the dishes, the clatter and voices from the kitchen died down.
The New Tones were eager to start the dance and did so with a lively arrangement of fast-paced tunes. Hector’s baton became a blur. Without the slightest hesitation, the Rock Creek boys, with their wives in tow, sped out onto the dance floor. They and only they commanded the space—but what a show! What graceful elegance they displayed, moving as if on clouds, twirling and waltzing in perfect time. The women wore smiles; the men wore grins. Bow ties matched dresses. Their steps grew lighter. They knew that the Halloos were showing the town.
After the first three dances, the Halloos took their seats to a smattering of applause. Other couples stepped forward onto the dance floor, and my mom and dad were among the first.
“Don’t you have a girl you could ask to dance?” my mother called out as she waltzed past where I sat.
“Yeah,” I said, “but I think she’s married to the actor, Richard Burton.”
“Don’t get smart with your mother, young man. I was only asking,” she said the next time she danced by. My father then led her in another direction.
In the midst of the crowd, Joshua danced with Angel. Angel was pretty, blonde and lithe, and when they danced together it was as though Fred and Ginger had flowed out of a silver-screen movie and taken their place at centre stage. Round and round they went while others stood aside to watch and applaud. They soon grabbed the spotlight. The Halloos were good, but Joshua and Angel were sensational.
The Halloos watched sharply. As if a message had been telegraphed through the autumn evening air, every man, woman and child realized that something was afoot. More than anyone, the Halloos realized it and called an on-the-spot family conference in the back hall to discuss the situation. I quietly joined them to listen in. A great dance-off was shaping up.
“Why don’t we just pick a fight with him now? That will be the end of it,” Winch said.
“No, no, that would be too obvious,” OP said. “We have to beat him on the dance floor. We can’t let that jerk show us up. We have to do something, and quickly.”
“Let’s not panic. We can do this! We’re good enough!” Clutch said. “Let’s go back in there and pull out all the stops and show this town who can really dance.”
I had no doubt whom the town was going to root for—everyone but the Halloos liked Joshua—but I stayed out of it and privately wished both sides good luck.
The Halloos moved back onto the dance floor. This time their lips were pursed and their faces more serious and tense. With complete concentration they twirled, whirled and quick-stepped. Caught up in the intensity of a tango, Stella clasped a celery stick in her mouth. As they dipped, Clutch gently removed it with his teeth and dropped it down the front of his overalls. The onlookers laughed and applauded.
Half an hour later, after giving it their best, they sat exhausted, breathing heavily and sweating. The women made fans out of placemats and wafted them in the faces of the men.
Then Joshua and Angel, fresh as spring flowers and full of energy, got up to a warm round of applause and followed the Halloos’ sequence of dances. They executed each step flawlessly with flair and precision and with even more beauty and grace. The Halloos looked on with their mouths gaping, muttering among themselves and probably writing Joshua’s epitaph.
But the night belonged to Joshua and Angel. The Halloos knew it, and the appreciative crowd knew it. The New Tones switched rhythms and tunes so that the samba, the mamba, the bomba and the tango, along with the cha-cha-cha and the bossa nova, challenged everyone’s abilities. The Halloos grew exhausted and stumbled during the bossa nova. Joshua and Angel demonstrated the dance with such flair that the audience burst into more thunderous applause.
“They’re wonderful, those two,” my mother said. “And to think those big men were so dainty but such bad sports, booing like that.”
Two days later Joshua was back at work. His legs were sore from dancing. Before he heard or saw the truck, the hair on the back of his head stood up. He turned to face his tormentors, but to his surprise, this time Clutch was sitting behind the wheel. Stella sat by the window, and wedged between them was their round and rosy unmarried young niece Missy. Clutch pulled up so that Joshua and he were at eye level.
“Morning, Joshua,” everyone in the truck said in unison.
Joshua must have looked a little taken aback, because Stella immediately started introducing Missy. “Joshua, honey, I want you to meet our Missy. Missy, I want you to meet our friend Joshua. Go on, shake his hand.”
Missy, who was all smiles, held out a plump, soft hand for Joshua to shake.
“Pleasure to meet you, Joshua,” she said breathlessly in her sweetest voice.
Joshua was totally bewildered and stuttered, “Likewise.” A stirring filled his body with a strange combination of physical attraction and fear. Was he attracted to Missy? Was this the forbidden fruit he had heard about?
The Halloos sat talking quietly in the cab while Joshua filled the gas tank. The dogs in the back tried to lick his face, and the kids offered him a bite of a chewed, gooey chocolate bar. Joshua politely refused and walked back to the cab, where Stella offered a wad of bills to bring their account up to date. Missy leaned over Stella to reach the window, showing her ample cleavage, and in the same breathless voice told Joshua, “Come up to the house and see me sometime.”
As Clutch pulled out, Missy smiled and waved twinkly goodbyes with her chubby red fingers.
Long after they were out of sight, Joshua stood by the pumps deep in thought, unconsciously wiping his hands on a greasy cloth. Slowly he came back to the present. Suddenly he was enjoying the cool morning breeze, the pristine air and the sun’s heat on his shoulders.
The Man Who Thought His Wife Was an Alien
Brian and Joshua worked together at Hughie Ford’s Chevrolet Automotive Garage in downtown Dawson City. Hughie and his brother Mordechai were more interested in placer mining on Dominion Creek and winters in Florida than running a garage. They left the running of the business to Brian, whom they trusted but supervised closely. People thought Mordechai was a silent business partner, but it was just that he rarely spoke.
“Show Joshua the ropes, Brian. Maybe he’ll be a mechanic someday,” Hughie yelled as he left the dim garage bay for the morning sunshine. Mordechai followed behind him and gave Brian the nod.
“You don’t have to tell me twice,” Brian yelled out after them. He turned to Joshua, who wore the same green coveralls as Brian, but two sizes taller. “I hate that nod Mordechai gives after everything Hughie says.”
I walked in on the tail end of the conversation, and Brian’s anger turned to a cheery, “Good morning, Tobias. How are you doing?”
“I’m doing fine,” I said, giving Joshua a nod.
I liked both men. Joshua was level-headed. He had a friendly smile and a calmness about him, but his dealings with the Rock Creek boys had proved he also had a resolve of steel for what was right.
Brian was a helpful, pleasant person—customers and friends agreed on that—but he also believed that aliens lived amongst us. Every day he made a clandestine scrutiny of Joshua’s features for any sign of alienness. As they talked, Brian scribbled notes in a grease-covered memo pad that he kept in his left shirt pocket. In his right shirt pocket he kept his memo pad for the garage, but it st
ayed fairly clean.
When Brian thought he’d discovered an alien, he gave a wink and a nod as an attempt to communicate, but a wink was as good as a nod to a blind horse.
Joshua failed the test.
“You’re not an alien,” Brian said, stuffing his notebook in his shirt pocket. He was disappointed; he was hoping to work with an alien.
“What?” Joshua asked.
“You’re not an alien. Go pump some gas,” Brian yelled over his shoulder as he walked into the dark, cluttered tool room to look for parts. Outside, a customer was honking impatiently.
“Okay, okay, thanks for letting me know that,” Joshua called after him. He had no clue that he had been struck off the alien list and saved from further annoying scrutiny.
Brian was a writer’s dream, since his wild imagination and scientific knowledge gave me fodder for enhancing the Yukon’s mystique. He was a great talker, and at times I pulled myself back from the brink of belief in his tales.
“Tobias, there are a few things you have to know about identifying and catching aliens. The first is that they have pointy ears.” Having said that, he froze slack-jawed and fixed his gaze on me. Seeing that this priceless bit of information had sunk in, he snapped his mouth shut and continued, “And they have different-coloured eyes, like malamutes, sometimes stutter and prefer colourful hair.”
He pointed out that, due to a bureaucratic bungle in their administration, they all had the same cover story of an Aunt Maggie and Uncle Sidney living in New Mexico with their two children, Roberto and Roberta.
Talking at the Woodpile Page 12
