Читать книгу Condition Other Than Normal: Finding Peace In a World Gone Mad - Gary Tetterington - Страница 10

Anxiously, I raced the last 100 yds. to the camp, needing to be part of the mayhem and music I could hear and feel, even at that distance. I was craving an uneasy dependency I knew so well and had felt so often, amongst other fools and failures.

Handshakes and backslaps all around. The liquor and the laughter tasted natural and true but a tone of disquiet was in the air and a hostile and threatening power was drawing closer around me and that bunkhouse celebration could have been the dance of the red death.

Only an hour had gone by and in walked the boss – man and it was a rude jolt and stagger, to be told I no longer had a job. I had been let go, fired, for not being at work the previous 5 days.

Stand by me here folks. Since I was a bit crazy at that point in time, all I can do is scribble and scratch out how I felt and reasoned back then. I may think differently today.

Bastards! I had been in the hospital! Because of an injury I had gotten in their fucking mine! And the bastards knew it! Not right! Not fucking right!

Anger, mean anger, get even anger, was my1^st and immediate reaction. It came upon me with great force and would not let me go. I was possessed with anger. I was over the line with anger. Easy…

Now, I had been canned and banished from so many jobs, one would think I would have had little difficulty in dealing with yet another dismissal. But… something went snap. Something basic and vital and I had been aware of it but unable to define it, to reason it out and to ward it away. I was helpless.

The party and the pandemonium and the sheer craziness sent me shuffling back to my room, for solitary drink and reflection. Alone in my room I was E.A. Poe, buried deep in a dark and desperate nightmare. I was frightened. And I was so weary.

I pondered on my wordless rage and what I knew would surely be my most outrageous act of dismay and defiance. I had been bushwhacked and I knew I was going to do something.

Torn and gone was a frail and fragile thread I had grasped and seized onto, a lifeline I had abused and battered until it had finally parted and I was falling. My faith and credit had been severed and I did not believe I would be walking away peaceably, not that time. No.

I was a long way from home, wherever that may have been and I was busted. No coin. I had nothing. Nothing!

Well, whose fault was that? Who was responsible for such error and indiscretion? Well… I was… of course. I know it now. But back in Y.K., in ’76, I was mixed up and confused. Perhaps I had been deceived by an evil influence. Intelligence and my heart say yes. It was exactly this way.

What was I to do? Where was I going to run to next? What would I be doing when I got there? And the big one, who would I be when I did get there? Troublesome questions and cause for much alarm and distress.

The delusive fact that I had been wrongfully dismissed by Giant Mine had pushed me over a thin red line and a lifetime of self – inflicted grievance and injustice had compressed itself into a tick of time and I was not going to run away. Not that time. No.

Suddenly it came to me! Inspiration and awakening born of despair and madness! Kill the beast and be done with it! Yes! Yes! Yes! Giant Mine, low – swine corporation that it was, would have to answer to my defeats and anguishes. It was a flash scenario, brought on by a rogue star I had never seen before and quick as lightening, a sweet vengeance was mine.

Giant Mine and so many other ravages and raiders had been harassing and complicating my life on this leisurely planet and it was time to rid myself of their evils.

Blow it away. Waste the worthless pit. Chase the demon. I was going to do it. I had the means. I was the man. I was the one.

The image grew rapidly and became a swift certainty and it was totally correct. Consequences never bothered me or entered my head. It was urgent and imperative I do the deed. It was the only way out because my whole life to that point was one enormous and abysmal foil and rout. It was the only way to break free of a washout existence or I was going to die. No doubt about it. There were no alternatives. It was an awesome revelation and a perfect understanding.

The very idea of bombing Giant Y.K. Mine was an atonement and a redemption for past deceptions and shortcomings. The act itself would be a salvation and set me free.

An icy calm and a low – point acceptance offset the fury I had felt. No emotion. No motion. The world stopped turning. I was comin’ home. There comes a time.

Come 2 A.M. and guided by strange gifts, whiskey and white magic mostly and being drawn by the spectral mysteries and music of the Northern Lights, I set off for A – Shaft.

Listen up now. Along the way and in the way, happened to be the main powder magazine. It was a monster of a container, a glistening and glaring steel edifice holding vast and limitless tons of explosives and it supplied the whole damn mine with fire and lightening. I walked around it. Shook my head and kept walkin’ because had I gained access, well, the entire camp and everyone in it would have vanished and died. The trailers and the men in them, would have been sent spread and sprawling, all across the northern tundra. And I would have touched off the bastard. Why not? I felt that right, that night. To the point where I was sore tempted, to pick up a large rock and beat the weathered old lock to pieces and slide on in and do some extreme damage. Something stopped me. A higher power? As I say, I kept walkin’.

Can any one of you praiseworthy and passionate people understand of how I really did feel a sense of purpose that night in Y.K., in ’76? Can you understand further, of how I was doing the right thing? That, at the time, expression of some sort was necessary and correct? And that I’m not trying to justify?

I’m not talking right or wrong. There were no lofty principles or high ideals involved. No. I had been motivated by cheap and simple anger and resentment and driven by a reckless need for vengeance, for so many frustrations and annoyances which had plagued me for so many years. In ’76, way up north, they had all come together and peaked and Giant Y.K. Mine was a convenient recipient, to vent and unleash my madness upon, to pay for a lifetime of magnificent failure.

I know I wasn’t completely off my rocker because, although the tears and laughter were real and maybe signs of an unbalanced mind, I knew and was absolutely and unequivocally certain, I could not possibly have hurt anyone by eliminating A – Shaft from the face of this stout and sturdy planet. Not at 2 A.M. A – Shaft was a one-shift shaft, 8AM – 5PM. Hell, breaking rock is one thing, mass murder quite another, thank – you very much.

The sky was ablaze with lights and flames and beneath it a man could do no wrong and it may have been an intelligent conception, as to why the barred doors to the A – Shaft head frame weren’t secured but that 5 lb. ‘Master’ padlock was sprung and I was inside and at that point I knew I had solemn backing.

Today I know and can say truthfully, nothing gives a man, a politician, a preacher, a soldier, a man in love, such inner strength and courage and conviction, than to have faith and hope on his side. ‘Right,’ on one’s side, sustaining an objective, no matter how noble or misguided the cause, is an all – powerful weapon. A true fact folks.

With my hardhat and light and no thought of caution, I scrambled down a greasy ladder, to the 150’ level. It was personal then. It was my work area.

I hopped on a motor and went gliding and tracking towards the powder room and the somber and black pitch was broken only by my light and the clicking and ticking of the motor.

Once at and in the powder room, I set to loading 200 lbs. of high – speed nitro onto the motor. I paused and thought, ‘what the hell’, and loaded on another 100 lbs. of ‘AMEX’. Amex was an additive, used as a booster, for synergy, added effect, to make for a massive and powerful blast, to do the job right. I’ve always been a bit of an extremist…

That special night, I was reasoning the way I was because I knew I was going to piss the bastards off in a big way and so it seemed a fit and proper reckoning they remember me for a long, long time. Afterwards and if I lived, the swine who owned Giant Mine would likely think little of tying a whopping chunk of ore around my leg and disappearing me into the depths of the Great Slave Lake. It would save every manner of explanation and embarrassment, trace and trial for them and I’d have said my piece.

Off in the direction of a target, nothing specific, merely something suitable for the total destructive effect, the twisting and turning of rock and steel, the intensity of pure statement. It had to be.

About then I was manic and mad as a hatter, so let me run down a few items concerning that magic moment, in 1976, down in the mine. Let me get back.

All those miles of track and direction, drifts and branch – drifts, stopes and levels and services areas, dead ends, equipment and tools, piping and electric that reached and ran endlessly and brightly forever and all for one enduring purpose. A greedy and insane purpose. It was man’s obsession for wealth and power. It was a natural consequence of a little rape, a reflection of artificial foundation and for the genius and wonder of it, it was lunatic and unsound. Greed and gain are worthy and delicate purposes but they made no sense at all to me, not on that night, deep in the mine. A necessary rape is still a rape. It was so totally correct but so very wrong.

People were bowing down and serving a lesser God. Show me a miner, a man who has worked underground his whole life long and I’ll show you the same man, if he’s a thinking man, a bitter man with every reason for regrets. I will show you a man looking to escape because if there was any way out of the booby – hatch which is a miner’s lot, a reasonable and intelligent man would go for it quickly and expeditiously.

Giant Y.K. Mine was no more than a goofy game, a maze with no escape, put together by restless and ruthless hoodlums, in a far off and far away land of stockholders and boardrooms. No root or primary factor was involved. People were no longer working for people. They were working for the system, the machine and it is wrong because even accepting man’s colossal greed; people must be part of any process, of any integral decision concerning this fragile planet.

I have tasted the poison water. I have breathed the lethal air. I have seen the derricks, the sisters. I have been the deforestation. I have witnessed the spent and wasted rock and dirt. I have felt and heard the planet cry.

Once I was frightened and angered by the evolution of progress. Not anymore. No. Never again. Today I know everything is unfolding to a definite purpose and right on schedule.

The commitments and hungerings of the industrial complex will come before the needs of man for a while yet. Once I may have said it was wrong and shouldn’t be allowed and should be corrected and those responsible should be taken out and shot and pissed on but I won’t. Man is such a silent coward.

Let me take you further. Today I don’t believe in wars or famine or disease or disaster or technology or pollution or population, nothing as being catastrophic enough to end my role and duty on this glorious and resplendent planet. I will never believe this planet will be in ultimate danger from anything paltry and pitiful man can do to it.

Whenever man has expressed an intense and insane need to self – destruct, a supreme and sovereign power has always stepped in. And always will. This planet does not belong to you. It belongs to God.

There is no time left for worrying or brooding or agonizing over trifles, over the trivia inspired by man. Because… we are living in the days of fire. Believe it folks. It will all come down to one dramatic and cataclysmic fire – fight in the end, the end of days. And we are close. Real close. I’ll keep walkin’.

That doomed and desperate night in Y.K., in ’76, the entire network and structure which was Giant Mine, was defenseless and unprotected against my defiance and my dominance. It would be the last time an employer would toss me a bone and expect me to be grateful and beholden. I did not feel like eating shit anymore. It no longer worked that way. It was payback time.

To the task at hand. Had located a fresh and high – grade work area. Deftly I placed the powder and the amex. I set and fired up the tape – fuse with my trusty ‘Zippo’ lighter. On point. Careful.

I had 7 min. to get clear. Any unforeseen hitch or miscalculation and I could have gotten jammed – up and have relieved myself of my earthly burden. My light could have blown out and I would have been in a worse dilemma than young Tom. Lost beneath the surface of the earth with no candles. Those damn ladders to surface were mighty slick and slippery from the mud and moisture of the years and I could have slipped. Now, that would have made for an interesting spectacle. I would have been instantly converted into a crushed and squashed dab of red jelly by the forthcoming blast or if I fouled up closer to the actual impact of the blast, bits and pieces of my rent and mangled remains may have been found, along with a hank of hair splattered on a rock. Had my motor refused to go, past the point of no return, well, that electric track would surely have been a suicide stroll. And it was likely enough, seeing as how I had transformed and worked over so many of the bastards, in fits of malice and ill - will.

That long and lonely night, back in ’76, in Y.K., I was pushing the buttons. No other man – made force or person had control over me. No. Not that night. And I did not have a death wish. No. I wanted to be around to see the results and backlash of my handiwork and talent. Life on this marvelous planet can be a cold and cruel misery if you stop caring. I wanted to start over. I wanted to start by caring. I needed to care. I needed to cheat death one more time. And…

As you discerning folks are able to tell, most everything went according to plan. Well… I’ve thought a great deal on this point… interesting and unusual… and I’m satisfied. I’m content. What happened was this…

One last and fast double – check, to see everything was fixed and planted properly. Powder positioned correctly. Yes. Sure – fire connections and the fuse sputtering nicely. Yes. I surveyed the situation. It was a crude set – up. But all was well. It was a go. A done deal.

Then I was working on that 7 – min. time – frame and I was aboard that motor and beatin’ down those steel rails, sparks from the wheels flyin’ in every direction and it was hurried and hasty departure indeed.

With mercy and grace, I made it back to the lift area and lunchroom, where the emergency ladder to surface was located. I vaulted off my machine and reached for that ladder and with dispatch; I clawed and climbed my way to the top. I ripped out thru the head frame doors and I was delirious and deranged with hysteria and laughter. “Fire in the hole!” I shouted to the blazing northern sky, as I dashed and flashed across the road, my shirttail flapping in the early morning breeze and my eyes aglow with indignation and integrity. I dived into a deep ditch for cover and crawled and collapsed behind a large boulder, for safety and protection. It was the best seat in the house. I waited… waited… listen close…

Suddenly, the night sky was cracked and shattered by an awful thunder and a blinding and dazzling roar and smash. The explosion traveled from the soles of my boots, to the top of my head. It deafened me and made my teeth clatter. The air vibrated and tingled and the world trembled. The sky shrieked and divided into chaos, as the blast impacted and the ground shook and the earth fractured and heaved and erupted. Pieces of the head frame, black timbers the size of small trees, were floating and moving thru the night sky and it sounded like an incredible but brief artillery barrage and A – Shaft ceased to exist and I was glory and greatness and the creator of a deed terrible and immensely beautiful and I was in a special place and no man had ever been exactly there before. Silence…

Strange and ominous silence. It was over. It was over so quickly it could have been an illusion. Only a dusty haze, drifting softly and gently thru the spidery streaks of moonlight, remained as evidence that something had happened. The silence was supreme and was requital and a requiem for my hard – livin’ days.

I felt good. I remember feeling real good. About all I can remember, for certain and worth recalling, after the deed, was a white light inside my head and feeling good. Then I came back.

According to society’s virtues and values, I had done wrong and I knew I had to get away. I knew I had done a wrong thing and though feeling like a proud and noble, blue – blooded patrician, I was coherent and rational enough to know that possibly some manner of authority may not have seen things my way and might not have understood my stately account and explanation of the scheme of the inner – most workings of the Universe. No. Not on that rare and remarkable evening in Y.K., in 1976. No.

It was a furtive and cautious creep on back to the bunkhouse, where I fell into a deep and almighty sleep. Which seems odd, considering the deed should have made for much psychological trauma and consternation. Perhaps an amnesiac period of time? No. I remember. Everything. And I remember I was crazy but I was not insane.

The morning after and thinking over the deed and I could only conclude I would be going down hard. If I was stupid and didn’t bolt. The only fitting denouement to the deed, was for me to keep my head down and run like a rabbit. This subtle proposition I figured before breakfast.

Getting breakfast the morning after my bold stroke of the night before was a sly and sobering endeavor. Already in the mess hall were a number of unfamiliar men, men with curious and questioning eyes. They were not miner’s eyes. They were eyes which lacked a special kindness, a look of innocent betrayal. The bodies were squat and paunchy, the hands were soft and clean and the faces were much too calculating. They were men much too obvious. They were coppers.

The real men of Giant Y.K. Mine were not comfortable. There was very little eye contact. No one wanted to be centered out.

I grinned bravely and ordered steak and eggs. I needed a decent spot of cheer and chow, after my long and grim labors of the previous night.

Moving about on Giant property that same morning was an eerie proposition and undertaking. Even at such an early point in the comic proceedings, which were soon to follow, classical questions were being asked and looked over. “What happened?” “Where is the head frame to A – Shaft?” “What was that loaded boom and crash that had shook and rattled the world in the middle of the night?” No one knew anything for certain.

Wild speculation and ridiculous conjecture abounded. “A freak air blast?” “A stray spark?” “Atmospheric phenomena?” “A minor earthquake?” Detailed hypothesis and no easy matter to pin down.

However, there was no mistaking the small army of uniforms and suits that had converged on the site where A – Shaft had once stood and existed. About 50 keen – nosed and qualified trackers and spotters were busy sniffing and sorting thru the rubble and wreckage, which had once been A – Shaft, and I knew revealing and legitimate answers would not be far behind. I had to fly or die. Yes. Right smartly. Yes. A real good idea. Yes.

John was one of several Newfoundlanders working Giant Y.K. Mine in ’76. John and I had become close strangers after a drunken brawl, when we had gone at it hammer and tongs and had thereby inflicted heavy damage on one of the local booze joints in Y.K.

Thru John, I came to understand that N.F.L.D. exported men to all parts of the world, for whom mining was one way of life. Mining was survival to one class of Newfoundlander. Being victims of a mismanaged economy and a vilifying misuse of natural resources, had made it necessary for many N.F.L.D.ers to leave home and family, to seek livelihoods in other parts of Canada. John claimed his town and province had been the butt of exploitation and deceit from corrupt and contemptible politicians trailing as far back as Confederation.

Which came as no shock or surprise to me. I’ve always known or suspected that thieves and swindlers, in the guise of pure and plain politicians, have infested this great country and have flourished and prospered here since time began for Canada. Truth of this type, as spoken or expressed by any Canadian has never astonished or astounded me. No.

The only exception to the following accusation was Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Trudeau knew how to talk the talk and walk the walk. Any other Canadian politician…

Any Canadian politician is and always has been a deplorable and despicable parasite. Simple enough for you? The only sure way to fathom or comprehend a Canadian politician is to realize that he is one of the lowest of the low. Then you can’t go wrong.

I have never known of or had knowledge of a Canadian politician who was not a lying and thieving scum – sucking leech, who will fuck you in the ass in a second and while you’re not looking, precisely the type of man you wouldn’t stop to spit on.

The comfort and consolation I have these days, concerning every Canadian, is, every one of us, in the desperate and despondent end, will answer to our violations and masquerades.

Perhaps it might be premature of me to suggest hauling out the piano wire and go looking for tall timber? Maybe not. Any Canadian politician, at the end of his tenure, should have a gluey and gooey maple stake driven thru his fraudulent chest and heart, for the sake of ceremony. And I’ve often advocated a man should take his last pogey cheque for a walk and buy a weapon.

It is only a matter of opportune time before a Canadian politician gets shot dead. It will happen. Some brave hearted fool will say enough and will go for his gun and will do it. The one question I have regarding this justifiable scenario is, “What is the name of the man who will pull the trigger?” It will happen.

John declared, if a man lived in N.F.L.D., he mined, he fished or he existed on welfare. Any other form of income was a bonus. As in other parts of the world, it was a meager subsistence. In Detroit, a man built cars. In B.C., a man cut trees. In Alberta, a man knew oil. In Africa, a man starved slowly and solely for the state.

John was proud of his labor and thought it right and honorable. John was innocent and needed an

education concerning the real world. I thoughtfully decided to rechannel and redirect his misguided delusions.

What we both agreed on, was, Y.K. was a burnout of blind drifts and bad news. We knew it befitting and better to take wing and leave that doomed and damned town. I knew it was correct to leave Y.K. in a big hurry.

To this end and by means known to John alone, he arranged for us to have jobs waiting in Quebec, in another Falconbridge mine. I was dismayed but unresisting.

But first came the coppers and their star – chamber inquiry. Giant Mine figured, at an early point, that there just may have been a screwball on the loose. A junior office employee of the company must have thought up this undue speculation because the boardroom brass would never have reasoned it out themselves. See…

It was a theory those Giant Y.K. Mine executives could have lived without and would have found difficult to accept and believe in any case. That someone lived, an outrageous and ungrateful fiend, someone impossible to their plastic world, a person they could never relate to, a person unheard of and unknown to their corporate world, was a concept far beyond their little minds and not easy to support and swallow. Such flagrant abuse of their goodwill and generosity was not possible. Falconbridge was a benevolent employer.

Falconbridge was also a ruthless and relentless adversary and I would have put all my money down on the absolute fact, that when they did run the perpetrator to ground, they would use all their clout and might to beat him senseless in the courts before expulsing him into a heinous and horrible dungeon forevermore.

While most everyone working for Giant Mine in 1976 was traveling solo and alone, myself and 10 others were deemed as being temperate enough to have done the deed. We were asked downtown.

The drill. “Did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Set the blast that expelled and expunged A – Shaft from the face of this planet.”

“Wrong man officer.”

“We think you did and if you don’t ‘fess up, you’re in maximum trouble.”

‘’ No chance officer.”

“Would you be willing to take a polygraph?”

“Why not?”

“We’ll be in touch.”

“Right.” It was a sad and sorry confabulation and I’m glad you folks missed it.

The copper I had dealt with happened to be a dolt and he had had no choice than but to doubt the naked truth. Surely he had seen my guilt and transparency? But, him and his chums would get straight soon enough. And for me there was only one answer to it and it was to flee, to vamoose, to run like hell.

John and I left amid a flurry of drunken disorder and lunacy of the highest degree. After all, prior to leaving, we had to have 15 rounds of beer with our brother workers, in the Gold Range Hotel, to celebrate and praise the good and the bad times. We had been comrades in dubious battle that way. As the plane ran roaring down the black ribbon runway and up and away, about all Y.K. could see of either of us fools were assholes and elbows. The date was close on September 28, 1976.

All is well.

G.B.T.