Condition Other Than Normal: Finding Peace In a World Gone Mad. Gary Tetterington
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me home and nothing happened and likely so because of the 30 or 40 beer I had knocked back in the bar before leaving with her. It may have been a factor, another typical accident of fortune all right.
A fearful lack of passion had been involved, to a tired and unremarkable event. It had been so boringly routine. We had only wanted to submit and subdue each other, to bruise and hurt each other, to make each other bleed and to make each other cry. I don’t wonder on her bearing and conduct, when she flitted on into her bedroom, to get pleasingly prepared, as a fine lady will and upon her return and finding me horizontal and cold and limp as a blue jellyfish, on her couch and gripping a near empty bottle of flat whiskey, that she took to mean curse and language. The girl’s faith and foundation in the male animal of our species, had to have been shockingly undermined. That dear girl wasn’t capable of understanding a perspective like mine, not on that warm and tender evening, in Y.K., back in ’76. No.
Truly though, the excitement and the challenge, the chase and the capture, the conquest and the dominion was not there for me. The game was not important and no longer mattered. Love was nowhere to be found and I never cared.
I needed a warm heart. A close heart. I needed forever in love. Instead, I found myself a master cheat. My life is crowded with such blunder and blotch.
After waffling on that event, the cold – hearted bitch refused to serve me beer in the Gold Range Hotel. Which was a fall from a great height. The Strange Range Hotel would serve anyone with a wallet, regardless of the manner of deviant behavior the bastard was up to. An Olson or a Bernardo could have gotten a drink in the Gold Range Hotel, as long as he had money in his pocket. I could only take comfort in knowing, positively, I had been asked and escorted, with greater impetus, from much finer establishments.
It was August and the midnight sun was dull and drab daylight at 1 A.M. and I can recall being in O.T. and on the shores of the Great Slave Lake and collapsing on a washed up log and being adrift in an existential void, eyes vacant, waiting and watching eyes, crossing slowly over the placid water and thinking about tomorrow and the world I would find here and knowing it would never be as confusing and as lonely as the one I lived in and needed in 1976. Where was I running to and who would I be when I arrived? Hard questions. The answers never came and I never cared. The morning after did not look good. No.
For my frustrations, all I could do was, execute and effectuate a malicious and pitiful act of spite and malice and this meant polluting the lake with puke and piss and beer cans.
The law in Y.K. was sensitive against this form of behavior. While Y.K. was a wide – open town in ’76, at times protocol had to be observed don’t you know.
One fine evening, a small group of us rabble-rousers were weaving our way towards O.T., for fun and frolic and up slid a cop car. Somebody said something. Another downed a full bottle of beer using the cops’ flashing lights for cover. ‘Could be we’re going to jail,’ thought I. After observing and considering, I turned off to the side and whizzed in the ditch. Bingo! The whole gang of us was rounded up and taken downtown and socked in the slammer. Charges were varied. Everyone was wanted somewhere else. The bag in Y.K. however, was, simple possession of open liquor, obstruction because someone had given an impossible name, mischief as someone else had yapped off and it seemed Alberta had every other form of bad business on me. Edmonton came back with, “Tough luck men. He’s not worth our trouble and expense to transport. You got him, you keep him. The son of a bitch is your problem now.”
Such eloquent and perfect usage of the English language and the sublime and beautiful reasoning and enlightenment it allows for, has always impressed me.
But, it was a good deal, in an obvious way. As to the bevy of local charges, well, every one of us was a runner and no one planned on being around for the hanging.
Having done their duty, the Y.K. coppers cut us loose. False promises to appear had been duly recorded and everyone prudently went about his business.
Our business was in O.T., down on the shores of the Great Slave Lake. Our beer had been confiscated for evidence but it was an ordinary setback and not really a problem to obtain more, not even at 3 A.M. In Y.K., back in ’76, the coppers had set – tolerance, zero – even, for a ragged collection of barfly miners, deliberately bent on lewd and vulgar behavior. The law must be enforced. Life went round.
There were comedies. Certain incidents became glowingly important and took the lonesome from the sad futility of a man having to do time in the North Country. Prime motives for a man going north may have been a lost love and a dream broken and left behind, a helpless frustration or a shameful greed. An array of reasons but always seeking. I’ll keep writing.
One splendid evening, I happened to be sitting back, in the Strange Range Hotel, heavily sedated and bumming service, when I entered upon the company of a cute and fresh – cut whore. She told me her name was Nicole and she had impeccable tits. I chatted her up. “Girl. In this town people don’t carry cash. Everyone’s credit is passable. Cheques in Y.K. are legal and binding and good as gold.” The witless tart went for it. I assured her novice pimp that I was the man to handle his girl for the evening and that he should sit back and drink beer and in a short time I would return with his girl and a roll of dirty money. I gave the weasel a ten – spot. I took the pretty young maiden by the hand and we were on our way to the Giant Mine camp, for laughs, cheap tricks and general degradation.
The girl set herself up in an unoccupied unit, in one of the bunkhouses, hung out her shingle and proceeded to defile and debase herself. My, but that girl was a welcome bit of fluff and entertainment.
Now, while she never really did pull the Giant gold train, she did manage to satisfy 6 or 8 gnarly and snarly miners, old – timers too bush – bugged to appreciate the finesse and delicacy of the occasion.
Meanwhile, a mighty throng of us degenerates and perverts had gathered next door, to celebrate and drink beer and sing ribald songs. I was falling out so heartily, at one point I was actually concerned for my life. Hell, my heart was racing and beating hard and fast and death from side – splitting laughter seemed a legitimate possibility. Trauma leading to death from cardiac arrest, as a result of violent and rollicking conduct? I ruminated on it and studied on it and let it go.
Whatever would happen would happen. Those moments were beyond my narrow control. Because, who, on this great and green planet, could possibly crack a fat, while writing a fictitious name, on a worthless scrap of paper, to a whore? Not me.
At 12 P.M., the very next day, she pounced on me. Accosted me, Right On Main Street. She had just come flying thru the doors of the local bank. She had herself a fast look, right and left and there I was, helpless. She was seeing mean and evil. She commenced to scream and shout and jump about. “Motherfucker! Bastard!” She was some hot. “Cocksucker!” She was a rare beauty. “Son of a bitch!” She called me everything but a gentleman. “Asshole!” She was somewhat meaner than a stepped – on snake and all during this screed and denunciation she was waving a fistful of thoroughly good – for – nothing and useless paper in my face. People were stopping to stare and listen. “Animal! You fucking animal!” It was an extremely rude and graphic sight to behold, in Y.K. at high noon, in ’76. I felt unclean.
What I wanted to do, was, smack her a couple of good ones upside her head, rip her clothes off and fuck her righteously, there on main street and in front of all those townspeople.
I should have lit into her with a lengthy discourse on the ignoble wages of sin and how it was her lot in life, to suffer the indignities of being a woman, for being a woman.
What I did, was, hang my head, smile meekly and agree with her at the depths of depravity and beastility some men would sink to and stoop, to hold – up and hi – jack a real sweet girl like her. She walked away.
For a brief moment I felt like a nazi. But only until the cheap and wanton strumpet was around the corner and out of sight. Then I snickered and did a quick 2 – step, at having played a cruel and nasty trick on the deplorable little harlot.
I had no shame. I used that girl. I suppose she could have taken the whole ordeal as an object lesson, truth of a worldly nature, experience being the best teacher