Condition Other Than Normal: Finding Peace In a World Gone Mad. Gary Tetterington
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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 Slave Lake.
Naturally, before going into Y.K., I had to pass thru the bunkhouse and of course there was a full - tilt party going on, from one end of those trailers to the other. Talked to the men and ran off a few drinks and was told something of the rut and routine of Giant Y.K. Mine.
Three shifts worked the mine. One was on site. One was at rest. One was into a steely and steady alcoholic psychosis. I was pleased. I had found a safe haven and a fine place to hole up and lay back, where a man of my afflictions could hide and be hidden. I was content.
I paused in the bunkhouse long enough to understand that the camp was into the mystic, a continuous circle of dependencies, going round and round. I agreed with this form of madness in 1976.
An unstable person from the deep east thought me interesting and loaned me 20 dollars. Then I was truly fearless and positively needed a beer.
At the Strange Range Hotel. Where I once again squared off with the same quaint folks who had arranged for me to kip in a grass – patch greenhouse, a week before. When I laid my booty and bounty down, they became a jot excited and ecstatic. It was a rather large sack of groceries, choice delicacies from the 4 corners of the Giant Mine kitchen. It was authentic home – cookin’, the likes of which those O.T. runabouts had never before experienced. Maybe in their dreams…
The friendship I encouraged between those O.T. people and myself was an equitable one, one I had no wish to end, in any big hurry. I had no way of knowing if and when I might need them again and I was ever aware of the long road that waited silently in the shady regions of my mind. Those kindly O.T. residents might not enter into this tale again but we helped each other. What friends are all about.
I slurped back a large flagon of due and deserved beer. Only one and it was remarkable control because I’ve been known to partake heavily and disgracefully on just such disconcerting and downcast occasions. But not then. No. I knew it wouldn’t be smart, to get liquored and lit, not for my scheduled tour with the shift – boss, the coming morning. I could see it… The Strange Range and a rampaging blow – out in camp, culminating in my being a bleeding wreck at 6 A.M. and screaming at the boss – man, thru a 2” rickety and low - grade pine door, to go fuck himself, did not seem like a fitting aftermath to a well laid scheme. I stayed moderately sober.
At sunrise I was a Stein beck man. Hell, I was bright as a new penny. I was clean and dressed, hale and wholesome, fit and fresh, right and ready to work for Giant Y.K. Mine.
First however, it was the excellent camp kitchen and a hearty breakfast and then it was the latrine, for the meanest and most exciting triple – coiler of my interesting and extravagant life. Then I was eager and on the bus and on my way to the mine and now it begins.
Bob, the shift – boss, took me down into the mine, for the walk – about tour. Slickers and rubber boots, splish – splash, up and down ladders, circles and turns, muddling twists, a dim and dismal world where the sun never shined. Total dark, dark, forever dark, penetrated only by our hard – hat beams that stabbed quickly and quietly thru the inky dark. No light. Silence, except for our swoshing and sploshing footsteps and far away, the eerie and constant trilling and prilling sounds of dripping and dribbling water. The chill air wrapped itself around me and touched me thru and thru and was part of me. Gaping caverns, yawning open suddenly, left and right and having to plank over enormous and empty pits, into which a man stumbling could fall and plummet, out of control, to the very center of the earth.
Could I take it? Well, yes, assuredly. Darkness is my friend. I was in my element. All my life I had been seeking such a place, a place to hide, a place where no one could see me. A place where I never had to explain myself.
The solitude