remained sound and whole and only somewhat re–arranged over the many years. Self–preservation has always been at the very top of my list of priorities and values.
Still, it may have been embarrassing and uncomfortable for Jim, to have had to explain to his friends in G.P. and to G.P. as a whole, after I had gone away, just what manner of thug – like characters he had known at one time, back down Edmonton way.
Whitehorse! I had made it without getting caught or killed. A big rig let me go and I immediately gravitated towards a 2 A.M. bar – beat I could not ignore. Now…
Whoever had driven me to the outskirts of G.P. and put me on the road had been pleased to shoot me a double – sawbuck to jingle in my jeans. Hell, he got away cheap. After the fuss and commotion I had raised in G.P., he had every right and reason to expect no less than this good ol’ boy asking for his truck and demanding his watch and wallet.
And so I had a few dollars and was prepared to drop it on any cheap thrill but fate stepped in and I fell across an acquaintance from the southern days. And he was buying.
Much later, thru the blur of a smoky alcoholic cloud, just like in the movie, a brown eyed girl across the room and she owned a green metal – flaked Cadillac. Marga was her name and she was a metropolitan and cosmopolitan class of lady. She knew petticoats and palaces. She took me home. To her apartment. Where I spontaneously regressed into a sprawling and spreading lower life – form, right over and across the lovely lady’s bar. I drank everything. I can recollect her bar as having been a well – stocked and custom affair. Until my arrival and determination to imbibe. At 4 A.M. the damn thing was history. And then, had I wanted or needed another drink badly enough, well, I just might have stripped the paint clean off the girls’ living room walls. I was that way, once upon a time.
Thru the fog and mist, I mind the image of me telling that sultry girl a long and detailed story, a desolate and forsaken narrative. She said I should write a book, as I was a strange and distant character. (Here it is pretty lady, like I said I would.)
I got drunk. I passed out. I remember no more. Then morning came and the girl kicked my wicked ass out and onto the streets of W.H.
When blanks like this happen to me, I feel like a prize fool. It was not the first time for sadness of such description to come my way and positively not the last. No.
After that wonderful salutation from W.H., I scurried on downtown and did just 1 pass thru the Edgewater Hotel before managing to tree a total stranger into buying me beer for the remainder of the day. I have a talent for essentials of this sort.
Well now, I hung my hat at the regional hostel for a night or 2 but soon burnt – out that amenity, that sweetness and light, after the staff became cognizant of my fondness for drink and of my wont for reeling in at odd and unusual hours. I was asked to leave. A door closes. And the damned things keep right on closing.
Read this. W.H. depends or did depend, on the existence and efficiency of 2 mines and they directly or indirectly employed the whole remarkable city of W.H. and without those mining enterprises, W.H. had no credible reason for being on this planet.
What could possibly go wrong? After all, I was in the Yukon, Robert Service country, Jack London land, high adventure and a fortune to be won at the snap of a card. It was not this way in 1976 folks.
Both mines were on strike. W.H. was a bust. W.H. was a town of walking and wandering spooks and specters, every one of them with a cheap beer scam. I was not pleased. I was not impressed. At one time or another, I too, had used all the tricks and crafts, in a lot of far off corners on this planet, to keep from having to give up the ghost.
Dismayed and distressed at having found W.H. to be no more than an inhospitable and precarious danger – zone, I knew something had to be done. Something had to change or I would have gone to jail, for reasons I shouldn’t have to explain but I will. Quite simply, I would have had to pillage and plunder and maybe have done something worse and possibly have hurt somebody, to have removed myself from my quandary and predicament of the time. Jail seemed a possibility.
All the tourists and trash like myself, hundreds of us, were drifting from one end of W.H. to the other and back again, moving aimlessly, trying to forget the burden of boredom and hoping for deliverance.
Resources were spread thin, practically non-existent, gutter butts were rare and invariably a satisfying delight when found. It was a slim – pickin’s and sparin’ situation. I had gone past hunger and was preparing to deal with a prodigious case of starvation. It was a grim setting and I felt like a phantom and I knew I was standing awful close to the dark lady and her kiss of death. It was a hardship but I would manage it. I had to manage it.
A bleak and bleary summer’s evening and I had occasion and opportunity to do a late night reflection on my life in general and of my condition of the moment in particular.
I was laid out high and horizontal, amongst the weeds and rocks, atop the Yukon River. Above me, towering and soaring overhead, the Northern Lights began to shimmer and dance. Rolling and roiling, howling and hollering, from horizon to horizon, frantic and eerie ripples of gold and silver, green and purple haze, blue – black velvet, shockin’ pink and blood – red hues and tones, splashing and splattering over my face and body, laughing and pouring down on me. Brilliant lights and flashing fireballs, from star to star, wild and violent shrieking and smashing and crackling noise, over and aloft and out of the mighty northern Canadian sky.
Alone, private and withdrawn, the moon was a gentle, white – hot disc.
Down below, the Yukon River fought its’ way thru the canyon, incredible din and clamor, as the river bucked and swayed and charged, swirling and scraping and grinding past the scabrous and scraggy walls of the gorge and chasm. It was a blustery thunder and racket.
It was nature’s hauntingly beautiful symphony, challenging for dominance and supremacy, a terrible and tumultuous beauty of such intensity, of such magnitude, that my breath left me and I was awed and humbled to my knees. Then I heard, over the magnificent storm and turmoil, even louder than the uproar and chaos which surrounded me and engulfed me, great tidings, that, even though there was close trespass and quiet villainy in my life, there were still eternal wonders and miracles I had yet to see and experience. Fine words to hear.
Desperately, I reached for my bottle of Colona Royal Red that I had wisely brought along for earthly comfort and was about to go on the damned thing when up popped a vagabond. The tattered old fool seemed determined to purloin my ’baccy and booze so I thrashed him soundly for his impertinence and sent him on his way. Strange wine indeed. Ho! Ho! ‘Twas a fine night for feelin’ fine.
The closest I may have come to disappearing in the Yukon Territory, had to have been when I decided to stay 2 nights of my life in a friend’s cabin.
It was a rustic setting, trees and rocks, fresh and frosty air, a pastoral backdrop, a scene to be found on any North Country postcard. A scene, one in which I was downright terrified to set foot outside the cabin for fear of the wolves my German friend saw fit to keep as pets. The dumb bastard was a tad paranoid concerning his skeptical Nordic heritage you see and so harbored and nurtured those wolves for the fright and dread they instilled and inspired in any stranger or passerby who happened upon his shack in the bush. Those animals were an amazing deterrent and not many neighbors came a – callin’ while I was there. For sure, those wolves were masterful and powerful protection.
Even though the filthy brutes were heavily entrenched behind a double, chain link fence, I felt and knew it was not enough of a security factor, not for this lily – livered southern boy. At first sight of those shaggy and mangy mutts, I casually suggested giving
