Читать книгу Condition Other Than Normal: Finding Peace In a World Gone Mad - Gary Tetterington - Страница 8

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 and silence of that black pit pleased me greatly. At any moment I expected to meet Gimli and a host of dwarves, creeping stealthily and searching for true silver. Imagination is a powerful gift and anyone can get strange and peculiar in a hard – rock miner’s world.

Other than to consume 10 sandwiches I had built earlier in the mess hall, mainly the morning was easy and uncomplicated.

I do recall one short-lived moment of truth. I remember some kind of asshole standing me in front of a rock the size of a small house and him handing me a sledgehammer and him telling me to make it smaller. I nodded. I took 2 rounding and resounding swings at the bastard and cried out, “No fucking way!” I threw down the hammer, laughed like a lunatic, dropped to the ground and rolled myself a smoke. I wasn’t stupid. Right off, I had recognized that trick for what it was. It was a workingman’s idea of a test or trial. A joke even. Give the new man an impossible task. Let the man know what he was in for. Make him quit or show us he had the right stuff. Was he one of us?

The men were impressed. I’d handled their challenge with grace and grandeur and nothing was ever again mentioned about that horrible fucking boulder.

A fine day’s work. I felt powerful and protected and could only hope that however many days I had left with Giant would be just as rewarding and fulfilling, as gratifying and satisfying. Because, the only question I had, at that specific point in time, was, ‘How long? How long could I hold out before going off the deep end and throwing it all away?’ My attitude was not positive, not a good one. No.

The fever. Yes. I was to learn that hard – rock mining for Giant was not much more than guess work and lights and mirrors. Also, I was disturbed and grieved to be told there was no such thing as visible gold in Giant Y.K. Mine. One third of an ounce per ton was all. High – grading was out of the question. There would be no stuffing my pockets with golden dreams, not in that gloomy world where the sun never walked. No.

Decided to become a muck machine operator. It was a simple job, involving a minimum of risk and responsibility, a job of such nature whereby a lax and lazy person, such as myself, could all but vanish as an unimportant cog within the overall system.

Once or twice each shift, the boss – man would pass by my work area, to see I was producing and generating profit for Giant Mine. Other than a stiff and animated nod and smile at each other, the man left me alone. I could have dressed up a chimpanzee and put him on my machine and the boss would never have noticed and that was how markedly important my job really was.

Every shift, me and my machine, a glorified scoop – shovel on wheels, were expected to fill 30 – 40 grubby and grungy ore – cars, each one of them holding 2 cubic yards of broken rock. Then, some other damn – fool would come along and hook onto the string of cars with an electric engine and roll down the rails, a grotesque shambles of a train, spewing loose in every direction, to an ore – chute, where the cars were tipped sideways and the whole sorry mess went banging and crashing down, down to the lower levels, to the bowels of Giant Mine. From there, the depths, the ore was taken away to the mill for processing. Not my story.

Whenever a drift or a stope or any work area began to taper out, to stop producing 1/3 oz. of fine gold / Ton, the big bosses would put their heads together. Nothing lucrative in handling straight rock. No money in it. Up against a wall. All work on that site would cease and desist.

Enter the evaluation and deception. The diamond drillers. Called upon to poke and prod and drill off in different directions, at any barren turn and depleted region of the mine and any one of those mysterious sub terrestrials could have cried, at any time, “Hey! Our samples indicate that you should go this way!” An erratic method of exploration, I would have to say.

Now, I suppose I’m short on detail and technical expertise concerning diamond – drilling but back in ’76 and working for Giant Mine, I knew then and for certain and occasionally took to wondering on the million riddles that ran thru that rock where no light began. Hell, any one of those bastards could easily have missed a rich deposit; a vein of pure, a mother lode and those hard men never gave a rat’s ass. Those men knew how to play the game.

It was Giant’s way of doing business. The burgher – swine who owned Giant Mine were being put thru properly and likely recognized the gaff for the hoax that it was but had no choice than to go for the game and gimmick and accept the fact they were being duped.

Which did my fibrillating heart good. ‘A mind that’s weak and a back that’s strong,’ was about as close and involved as I ever wanted to get to any big business and its corporate concerns. It was all dirt to me.

Met all the men. The Giant Y.K. mine and camp was not much more than an excuse for confusion and clutter and 2 pay cheques. One hundred and fifty miners, tight and strong, a stout and sturdy gathering of true Canadians, from every province and territory and island across this great country and every one of us drank beer and whiskey to terrible excess. It made perfect sense to me in ’76 and it met with my countenance completely.

Inside of one week Giant Mine had degenerated into my most intense fear, work or so – called honest labor. A dreaded, black – funk nemesis was on me and I began consuming more than my usual intake of alcohol and other poisons. No one cared. I never cared. I didn’t care. And as each of you reasonable and intelligent folks know, there are no more terminal words to say to your lover. Last and final words. I don’t care…

Any given shift would find me half in the bag and feeling like death. Bloopers and blunders were common and encouraged by ungrateful note worthies like myself. My machine would go down every day and hours were lost and wasted as mechanics searched frantically and desperately to find or fabricate parts for the relic contraptions. I would lose or misplace tools and other items and fritter away time looking for them but inevitably; they would be gone and lost forever.

Often, I’d simply be some foxed and wander away from my work area, find myself a shelter to cover my retreat, click off my light and sit and watch the far off flickers of shapes and shadows and listen to the distant chinks and clinks of steel on rock and wonder at the consummate sadness of the working man in this world. On such occasions, I’d sample the wisdom of being anywhere in the vicinity of Giant Mine or any place near the confines of that cursed and hell – bound mine.

There were other feints and jigs I used, to do less than my share of drudge and duty but you understand. I never cared.

Intuitively, I knew a judgment was close at hand but it was a subtle feeling and it never concerned or caused me alarm. It was an elusive and a building fear, in the dim recesses of my brain, an ominous gloom but I paid it no heed. I didn’t care.

It was easy to get crazy. It became bad enough, the menials, my co - workers, knew it wise to refuse to work with me or to keep well away when forced to do so. I had become a risky and chancy character to be associated with on the job. I never blamed my brother niggers any. Hell, they were right to avoid me.

Although I was never consciously aware of it, I was swiftly approaching a hub in my life, an ending and a beginning.

The enormity of my position had taken me to extremes and I wished it were true and I could have blamed the awesome powers of the midnight sun for my bothers and plagues, up in Y.K., N.W.T., in 1976.

There were diversions and places to hide but try and understand, if you can, I could never run far enough or fast enough, to elude and escape my troublesome demons. All my life I’ve been walking with ghosts.

Alcohol was the flight of choice. In such quantities as would send a sane person reeling and crying obscene. Crash – hot parties and sprees, which the most callused coppers allowed to run their course, and then the yellow dogs would converge and swoop down on and arrest the survivors. Binges and benders in camp and in town and on the lake. The Strange Range Hotel that on most nights served up a river of rot – gut hooch and everyone danced. Fights, sometimes just for the fun of it, no reason in particular, only the fast gun mentality at play. I was in to the nines. Both feet were off the ground and in the air and a great fear of mine was that it couldn’t last a long time and that it was all going to come crashing down around me. And on this bold deliberation, I was awfully close to the truth.

There was a barmaid, a gentle girl with exquisite tits. I believe her name was Gitte. One late night and after the Strange Range had shut down, she took 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 and solid reinforcement. Perhaps the empty – headed bimbo and her white - slave master profited in another way. Maybe today, her and her pimp run an exclusive cathouse or 2, somewhere across this great land Canada. Credit cards and cash certainly. No cheques accepted. Who can tell? Not I.

There were no drugs to be had in camp. “No dope – No hope,” said some of the men. I agreed with that stalwart assortment of desperadoes in Y.K. in ’76.

A poker game was hastily convened and the marks were invited and after a night of wild stake and wager, destiny decreed I should make the flight to Edmonton. Not only did I have all the hard line cash in my pocket, I had the cook’s return ticket as well.

There I was, the same morning, a mite delirious to be sure, standing shakily in front of a female ticket agent by the name of Darci, looking mean and babbling incoherently about how I had to make Edmonton for a conference and pretending to be somebody else. The girl never understood my jabber and gab and it was a damn good thing she never saw my eyes. I was wearing mirrors at the time and only a supreme effort let me see thru the glass and the hot crystal tears that burned so badly.

Had the girl have realized and recognized my near – terminal condition for what it was, the D.T.’s along with a cross – assortment of various neurotic disorders, well, she would have alerted security, which would have advised the coppers and if they would have let me on the plane, an emergency would have been created en route, the plane would have been diverted to an unassuming and unimportant airport and I would have been dragged off, scratchin’ and bitin’, to be dealt with, in some backwoods community that still believed in the rope.

Honestly though, the young girl had only wanted to be rid of me. I was an embarrassment and I was upsetting the respectable passengers. Hell, I needn’t have uttered a word, just that an uncontrollable rapture had come over me, to say something in relation to her normalcy and at having to deal with normal people, a circumstance which will never be part of my inner world and which I will only ever humorously be part of.

Y.K. Airlines let me board the plane but I was branded and the stewardess, Alex, refused to serve me alcohol of any persuasion. She wouldn’t even talk to me. I endured that flight south to Edmonton.

From my many years of prowling the streets of Edmonton, I had come to know an array and assembly of unsavory characters, many of whom would have been considered outlaws, as most of them had lived their lives in close covenant with the laws of Canada. Therefore, it was a simple matter to do a hare footed scramble thru back streets and byways, score and after 2 beer in the Royal Hotel, I was set and back on that same steel bird and going north, 4 hrs. later. My flight bag was crammed and jammed with a kaleidoscope of colorful hops and hopes and my sudden appearance back at camp was cause for much delight and jubilation and I was a magic man in 1976. I’ll roll some more.

How long did this madness go on? How long did I work that tomb and coffin? Maybe 2 mos. It has never taken me long to revert to my true calling, of being a heretic dissident or a maverick extremist.

One startling morning, deep in the mine, I had the good fortune to injure myself, in a non-life threatening kind of way. The shift – boss had sent me down a lonely drift, to dispose of a box of old and sweating powder and you folks know how flighty and fickle that item can be. Inadvertently, I stroked a wee bit of nitro into my right eye. Instant manic pain! I gave out an animal screech and fell over backward! The boss came a – runnin’! And escorted me out of the mine and back to surface.

At first telling, the big boss man refused to believe my story but I tell you true, the pain was excruciating and overriding any booze and drugs I may have had in my system at the time. It was a sorely distressful experience and occurrence. I was sent home.

The top of the following day and braced by a pint of low – cost whiskey, I told the man, in bold and fearless tones, that I would not be going underground that gloomy morning. For strange and unspoken reasons, he was still not convinced I wasn’t a treacherous and lying dog. The bastard. But the boss men brought their heads together and came up with the brilliant idea of giving me a broom to work with and that plan and purpose went over real well with me.

I was to keep the dry clean. The dry was the area on surface where the miners went to shower and change before and after each shift.

Puttered and muttered for an hour. Then I yelled out, “fuck it!” flung the broom into an open corner and went reeling off in the direction of the camp and the cook and the bottle of excellent vodka he owed me.

As I was leaving the cookhouse, stinko and shot, the safety man came along in his ranger – scout and tried to persuade me of the prudence of catching a ride into town with him, to see a doctor. I refused. I said no.

As it was, a searing ailment and misery was smashing and crashing and tearing thru my head and I would have shouted solemn testimony, of how a large and homicidal black rat was inside my head, chewing its way past the convolutions of the cerebral cortex, into the cerebral hemisphere, thru the thalamus, on its merry and merciless way via the cerebellum, towards the midbrain and there to establish residency, the result of which would have made me a vegetable for the rest of my harrowing life. I felt it easily possible for my right eye to explode, ‘blam!’ red and purple and blue veins and blood, ‘splat!’ directly onto the safetyman’s white shirt.

I was having trouble maintaining. I was teetering and teetering and having difficulty balancing and I nearly fell on my face. I waved my ½ empty bottle of vodka back and forth and up and down and gurgled and gagged and explained about having my own doctor, right then and there, in that bottle. “Not to worry about this freewheelin’, good – timin’ young man, thank – you very much.”

All is well.

G.B.T.