ill and infirm. Dying I could have handled but, ‘Please God, don’t leave me crippled,’ was my ritual prayer, mornings and evenings.
The rarity of my box and fix had come home to me. The awful enormity of a set of nevertheless conditions, a lively blend of unique stimuli, forlorn though they were, had come upon me like sufferance from above and I would have to go to work. Not good. No.
By the time this solemn configuration came along, I had heard tales and talk of Giant Y.K. Gold Mine. A camp! A bunkhouse and a bed! A cookhouse and a kitchen! Get clean! Get healthy! Be as silent as possible when called on to do a stitch of work. Cheat the company. Get even.
To further and finally convince myself that work was a no choice option and no avoiding it and that labor had become a necessity and beyond my control to deny and to ease the burden of unnatural duty and obligation, I charged my head with a glimmer of positive reinforcement. I persuaded myself of the fantastic and industrious idea of a touch of larceny. Perhaps I could somehow appropriate and swing with enough and to spare of the noble metal. Why not? After a dastardly thought of this nature, the cloud and confusion of hard - labor was easier to manage and helped put the issue to rest. Anyhow, what did I know about working in a mine? Not much.
Now, a speculation such as me absconding with the gold was fine, save for the true fact that there was only 1 road out of Y.K. and the town coppers would surely have tripped and fell over each other, hootin’ and jeerin’, at any man fool enough to be scampering down that gravel road, dragging an illegitimate sack of loot and treasure behind him. The man would be going to jail.
Was in mind of a vicious rumor. Idles’ gossip alleged a bright individual, maybe someone much like myself, had made off with 2 bars of gold, many years before. Story was, burnished and buffed, the gold had been sitting in a satchel, on the edge of a runway at Y.K. International, awaiting a plane that would have taken them to the Canadian Mint, when a devious and enterprising person had come along and seized and usurped the damn things and walked away. “Possibly,” I thought or fable and folklore, to keep fools like me interested and intrigued. Whatever, it was an intoxicating expectation on my conscious being.
Truthfully though, what attracted me most, was the inkling and inspiration of that pie in the sky camp kitchen. I know my stomach was digesting itself at that point in time and I know I looked like a wraith and an apparition. I needed nourishment.
I stalled some more. I searched for leaks and openings but couldn’t find any and the argument was over. End of break and delay. I was determined to grind and plug, to work and survive. So…
One clear evening, after all the reasoning on the subject of struggle and endeavor was in and done, while sitting on a moon and starlit chunk of driftwood and drinking sweet wine on the shore of the Great Slave Lake, I resolved to just do it. For me and my natural inclination towards sloth and shiftlessness, it was something of a staggering bolt and revelation. It was to become a pleasing and promising triumph and victory.
The following early and misty morning saw me standing bare – assed naked in the shallows of the cold, cold, Great Slave Lake, scouring and scraping my squalid and slovenly body. Wet but washed, I pulled on my crusty blue jeans, my threadbare T – shirt, my cracked and blunted boots and set off for the mine.
It was a 2 mile troop and tramp, down a dry and dusty road and while walking that road, Tennessee Ernie Ford’s, ‘Sixteen Tons’, kept playing over and over inside my head and I could be in error but it could have been a fateful and baleful sky, hanging above that road, up in Y.K., N.W.T., back in 1976.
Standing meekly in front of the Giant Y.K. Mine Manager, in his office, chatting and natting so convincingly, so earnestly, as to why Giant needed, yes, needed me. I was able to deliver a performance and stunt like that one effortlessly and smoothly because I was true and genuine. I was also some kind of whore. The man gave me a job.
All is well.
G.B.T.
The Mine – Darkness and Despair.
I crawled on out of the Giant Y.K. Mine personnel office on my belly but as a workingman. Firmly clutched in my left hand was a slip of paper, entitling me to all the amenities and advantages of being Giant’s foremost employee of the future.
Somewhere within the floating confines of the camp I was issued sheets, blankets, towels and the hooks to my very own room, in one of those ridiculous but restful brand – name trailers.
Sauntering about on a fresh summer’s afternoon and reconnoitering my new surroundings and there was little for it than but to flag down a brother mine worker and insist on directions to the camp kitchen.
The kitchen was a deluxe affair and readily tolerable to a near starved man like myself. It certainly bore no resemblance to some of the low places I had lived out of, for so long a time, all those eateries and hasheries in which I had missed so many meals.
The staff was admirably acceptable and quivering with suitable servility. “More sir? Are you sure you couldn’t devour another 12 oz. T – bone steak sir? Perhaps you could do with another dozen jumbo shrimp? Salad sir? We have lashings of the damned stuff. How about another quart of ice cream? Milk sir? We have barrels of it. Never mind you sucked back the better part of a gallon sir. We have more. As much as you need.” I belched and gave the girl, Selina, an arrogant and spiteful, “be off with you wench.” Vast quantities of consequential and fundamental fruition and pleasures will make a man behave like a big – headed shark. While eating, a subtle and imperceptible change had come over me. Gone was my previous compliant demeanor. Once again I was proud and masterful. I was back. Confliction me. I was back on top.
After having been wretched and wasted for a long long time, I found myself, quite suddenly, overwhelmed with a deluge of comforts and plenty and mean – street images were fading fast and I was becoming thoroughly relaxed and comfortable. Hell, I had a home and a bright new lifestyle, one which I understood and approved of and was peaceful with and transient though it was, I believed in it all the way.
Sitting in the camp kitchen and I may have been dumb and dopey with fatback stupor and satisfaction. My feet were up on a chair, I had a toothpick dangling loosely from between my teeth and I was thinking about what a clever and talented fellow I was. Contentment was a warm and slow dance all over my body. ‘Wonder if I could order me one of those sweet scullery maids. Ask for some take - out. Go back to my new digs and get salty and suggestive.’ No. Not a good idea. They were feeding me and there was no sense in being stupid. Hell, they were gracious and kind and they were taking care of me and I was filled with gratitude.
About the same time I was struck with a powerful craving for a beer. Should not have been difficult. After all, I was a man of means. At least I had a job…
Having dined and feasted in a most splendid fashion and feeling reasonably high minded and moral, I cast off the final remnants of an extreme frenzy that had been building within me and been part of me and determined to become a civilized man. Y.K. was awaitin’.
First, I approached a stray kitchen worker and shook her down, in a gentle and pleasant sort of way, with a touch of aloofness and haughtiness. I carefully explained I was going on shift and required every manner of provender and victual and the girl gave me what I needed for a long day’s labor in the mine. “And help yourself to anything else sir,” was in there as well. So I went heavy on the fixin’s and was crude with the condiments. I packed up everything vital and edible. See, I was headed into town and I really didn’t know if I’d be back. Sometimes it happened like that. Should I have gotten sidetracked along the way, well, at least I’d have had myself a sumptuous and savory scoff and banquet, down on the shores of the Great
