Landwash-Expressions of culture/s in flux
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Landwash Expressions of culture[s] in flux Volume 1 Issue 1 February/March 2014 Published by TheIndependent.ca
Editor Hans Rollmann Assistant Editor Justin Brake Graphic Designer Graham Kennedy Web Designer Kieran Hanley Cover Art Joey Donnelly Contributors Ted Bonnah Nancy Cater Keith Collier Joey Donnelly Chloe Edbrooke Hope Jamieson Graham Kennedy Marion Lougheed Mona’a Malik Melanie Oates Jon Parsons Charlene Paterson Martin Poole Hans Rollmann Check us out online at www.theindependent.ca For author bios check out our website All content in Landwash is copyright theIndependent.ca and subject to the ‘Privacy’ and ‘Terms of Use’ outlined on our website: www.theindependent.ca.
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Landwash CONTENTS Introduction Hans Rollman 6 This house keeps secrets
Hope Jamieson 11
Home out of it Melanie Oates 12 More tragedy than farce
Jon Parsons 16
The Judgement Hans Rollman 18 Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves
Mona’a Malik 28
The Recipe Martin Poole 30 The romance of a Newfoundland winter Nancy Cater 32 A Night like This
Marion J. Lougheed
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Brain Fog Chloe Edbrooke 37 Seal Cove Dawn Hope Jamieson 38 Watching Dunderdale resign: Media at work Graham Kennedy 40 An anchor in uncertain times
Hans Rollman 56
Stock Boy Charlene Paterson 59 Sleigh Bells Keith Collier 62 The Coast Ted Bonnah 64
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Contribute Landwash is an online journal of literary and creative arts, edited and curated by The Independent. It features poetry and prose, short and serialized fiction, short scripts, experimental writing, literary essays, photo-essays, visual and multimedia art of all forms, and more. Many contributions are solicited. However, if you think you’ve got something absolutely fabulous, exceptionally creative, or otherwise absolutely imperative to share with us, we’ll be happy to take a look at it. You may contact Landwash Editor Hans Rollmann at hansnf (at) gmail (dot) com with a pitch or even a fully completed submission. If you’re providing a pitch for a piece, it’s best if you also provide a sample of your writing so that we’ll be able to run it through our top-secret supercomputers and produce a brainscan of your brain’s creative lobes. Brainscans are an essential part of the submission process. Just kidding. Maybe. Also keep an eye out for occasional public calls for submissions or literary contests. What are we looking for in contributions? Ahh…if only we could encapsulate that in words. We want material that is good, provocative, challenging, good, different, unusual, insightful, good, revealing, satisfying, creative, and good. It’s got to be good, though. How does one quantify good? “Beauty awakens the soul to act”, said Dante. WTF, did we just quote Dante? “Beauty is not caused, it is” replied Emily Dickinson. WTF, did we just…anyway, Aldous Huxley, not wanting to be left out of an otherwise stimulating threesome, burst in upon them to proclaim: “Beauty is worse than wine, it intoxicates both the holder and beholder.” Anyway, we do not advocate over-intoxication (too frequently) but that should give you an idea of what we’re looking for. Intoxicate us. We also accept darkness and incisive wit. We will not publish everything we receive. We won’t be able to provide profoundly good reasons for why we do or do not, because unlike Notable Literary Elites we do not pretend to possess secret knowledge of what is good and what is bad; rather we simply know what moves us and what does not, and we judge neither. But we do publish what moves us. There’s simply no kind or rational way of explaining it further than that. You can always publish your own literary journal: in fact, we HIGHLY ENCOURAGE you to do so. There can never ever be too much literature and creativity, regardless of what those who seek to keep the field to themselves might say. Well, can you blame them? We must all earn a living. Nonetheless, if you would like to see whether your creative works fit into our [indecipherable, indefinable, inexpressible and utterly beautiful] vision, we encourage you to submit. Submit! Each issue we also challenge our writers – and our public – to produce a piece of creative writing around a particular theme. If you wish to take up that challenge, the next issue’s special theme is: “Tales from the T.C.H….” Get creative!
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In this issue… Once you’ve appreciated Joey Donnelly’s lovely art on the cover of this issue, continue on inside. Hans Rollmann introduces the journal, its origins, its raison d’etre. Percipient, perspicacious, portentously pretty poetry for this issue provided by prodigious poets Mona’a Malik, Charlene Paterson, Hope Jamieson, and Chloe Edbrooke. A profoundly real piece of short fiction by Melanie Oates opens our prose offerings, which continue with two wonderful short stories by Martin Poole and Keith Collier. To add variety, Jon Parsons offers a short creative commentary on the provincial tourism industry, Hans Rollmann engages in a longer piece of satirical (so he describes it) fiction, and Nancy Cater offers a creative reflection on our erstwhile harsh winters from the vantage of an ex-pat who’s been away for too long. Each issue we challenge our writers to produce a piece of creative writing based around a particular theme, and for this issue the theme was: ‘Fog’. Three writers took up the challenge, and the lovely pieces of poetry and short fiction which resulted are the works of Hope Jamieson, Chloe Edbrooke, and Marion J. Lougheed, respectively. We are journalists as well as writers: Hans Rollmann talks to the creative talents behind Riddle Fence about the launch of their new issue, and the broader role of literature in our culture, and Graham Kennedy provides a photo essay of the end of the Dunderdale era in provincial politics. Finally, we end this issue with a movingly provocative and evocative fictional encounter between the people of Labrador and the European missionaries, flowing from the virtual pen of Ted Bonnah.
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Writing our culture in the 21st century: An introduction to Landwash Hans Rollmann The idea for this ‘journal’ actually originated in the line-up of a liquor store in Toronto some years ago. Newly relocated to that city, I was wearing a ‘Free Nfld’ t-shirt when I got to the front of the line and laid down my bottle of [Rodrigues blueberry] wine triumphantly. The woman at the cash register looked up at me, and then exclaimed in shock: “Free Newfoundland! My god b’y what’s that s’posed to mean?” We stared at each other with equal measures of astonishment. “Er…well, it’s a bit complicated,” I stuttered. The perennial debate: say it’s ‘just a t-shirt’? Or try to explain the complicated politics of Newfoundland history and nationalism to a passing stranger? “Are you from Newfoundland?” she asked, incredulously. The bottle of wine sat ignored. “I am,” I replied. “Me too b’y! I’m from Harbour Grace!” “That’s wonderful!” I exclaimed. “But tell me about this t-shirt,” she demanded. “I’ve been away 20 years but I never heard tell of anything like this. Free Newfoundland from what? I’m some glad we’re part of Canada – we were nothing before. Nothing but poor and stupid.” That settled it: it all came out, no holds barred. For the next 15 minutes she and I argued vehemently over whether confederation had been a good thing or a bad thing, while a lineup of incredulous Torontonians stood and stared, ignored, their numbers eventually stretching to the end of the liquor store while I called down abuse upon Joey Smallwood and the woman praised him as saviour. Eventually the manager strolled over to see what was the matter and we had to cut our debate short: after all, there was wine to be bought. We left it unresolved, but the experience lingered in my thoughts for the rest of the day. One of the first random encounters with a Newfoundlander in this Canadian city of millions, and we’d spent it at each other’s throats arguing over confederation. The woman had been firmly convinced that confederation was a good thing, that we had been – as she put it – ‘poor and stupid’ before, and that it was only confederation which had elevated us and brought us up to the level of other Canadians. She’d argued that our history was nothing to be proud of, and while she loved Newfoundland for her family and the natural beauty of the place, she felt that everything worthwhile in our culture and character had been endowed by Canada.
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Meanwhile, back at the pub... Later that evening, while discussing the matter with other – more nationalistic – Newfoundland friends at the local Newfoundland pub, we considered her comments at some length. These were expatriate Newfoundlanders of a different breed – angry at Toronto, angry at having been forced to move here for work, angry that Canada existed and that they were forced by circumstance to be there instead of in their home in Newfoundland. They blamed Canada for creating and maintaining the conditions that made life in Newfoundland so impossible for so many of us. But one of the points which emerged from my liquor store experience was the fact that the relationship each of us had had with Newfoundland had affected us in indelible ways. For myself and my friends, it shaped the way we looked at Canada, and the way we responded to the Canadian city and people among which we found ourselves. It shaped, too, the way we looked at Newfoundland – as a glorious beacon of hope and civilization floating in the Atlantic all too far away. But it had also shaped the experience of the woman I had met earlier. Her own relationship with Newfoundland was one which validated the Canadian relationship, and which led her to praise the very elements of Canadian society which we were critical of, and to denigrate those same qualities we so valued and missed. From quite opposite perspectives, we shared one thing in common: an identity forged in, and by, and of, Newfoundland and Labrador. Most of these friends being the artistic type, our discussion eventually wandered in that direction. We considered the fact that while many of us were involved in the arts in Newfoundland, our experiences away impacted the art we produced. Was it still ‘Newfoundland art’ or ‘Newfoundland literature’, when the artist lived an ocean away and wrote about settings and situations entirely alien to those on the Island or on the Labrador? Yes, others argued; and in an even deeper way, for not only did our experience on the mainland – tor even further abroad, for I have had these same conversations in cafes in Europe, in dusky riverside terraces in the Middle East and in small pubs in far-off Asia as well – not only did that experience shape the kind of writing or art we produced, but in many ways it refined the ‘Newfoundland character’ that came through in that work. After being impacted by the ways and wiles of the wider world, our craft and our art and our creative projects did not become any less ‘Newfoundland’; but the Newfoundland character that remained at the core of it was that which survived, honed and shaped by the experience of life outside of Newfoundland and Labrador. Moreover, it shaped the way we looked at our home, and the way we – as Newfoundlanders and Labradorians – lived our lives, even if they were being lived in Toronto or Alberta or Seoul or London.
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A resolution We decided, that night in the boisterous College Street pub (with a Danny Williams-as-Chavez poster staring over us), that we should at some point produce a journal of art and literature; one produced solely by expatriate Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. What would such a thing look like? How would it reflect the Newfoundland character? What stories would it tell, and what values and philosophies and culture would it convey? Well, this is not a journal of expatriate Newfoundlanders and Labradorians: some of us are, many of us are not. But it is based on a fundamental idea: that Newfoundland literature and art is not just that which is set in Newfoundland and Labrador, or which is written by people in Newfoundland and Labrador, but rather that it encompasses the writing and art and creative endeavours of all those who have been touched in some way – any way, really – by Newfoundland and Labrador. So in these pages you will not necessarily find the stereotypical fare of difficult lives set in rural communities; you will not see laundry blowing on clotheslines; there are no whales frolicking ‘neath white-flecked waves and no gritty, down’n’dirty urban louts leafing through the Dictionary of Newfoundland English for choice language. Or rather, you might find some of these things, but you will find much more too. But whatever you find, it will bear the indelible impact of Newfoundland and Labrador – just as the landwash bears the mark of the sea, no matter whether it lies underwater or bared to the sun. An introduction We have called this a ‘journal’ but it is not quite that: it is an experiment in revisiting the role of literature in our lives and culture. The offerings in ‘Landwash’ are offered to readers free of charge, ready made for you to pick your favourites and share them with others. Discuss them with others. What do they mean to you? How do they help us understand who we are?t Do they make you laugh? Cry? Do they inspire you to produce creative projects of your own? Let us know. Let others know. Share openly and freely. Far too much ‘literature’ in this day and age is either buried in obscure short-run literary journals that run upwards of $20 a pop, or restricted under heavy use-restriction rights on e-book readers that themselves bear a hefty price tag. The Independent offers Landwash in this manner because in many ways we aim to revive the spirit in which the newspapers of a century ago offered literature and poetry just as determinedly and enthusiastically as they provided news and journalism. The role of a newspaper is to reflect and inform our culture, and to shine a discerning light on all that is important to our society and culture. That includes art and literature no less than it includes investigative reporting and political editorializing. So this is an experiment in a new model of doing that: an experiment based on the ways pioneered by newspapers a hundred years ago. Many of the 20th century’s greatest writers – and many of the greatest works of literature – appeared first in the pages of the newspapers and tabloids offered for sale at streetcorners for a couple of pennies. What great writers and works of literature will emerge from these pages? Explore and determine that for yourselves. Better yet, be part of that process. Write. Discuss. Share. Think. Create. By creating art and literature, we forge a movement; in forging a movement, we construct a culture; and having constructed a culture – one built upon the many threads of different cultures and experiences that have come to be entwined on this magickal land in the North Atlantic – we build a nation whose words and ideas will echo across the globe, and whose legacy will resound for eternity.
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This house keeps secrets Hope Jamieson Well, the floorboards will not betray you if you choose; the doorhinge will stay complicit as you walk away and into the morning fog, alone and if you never say another word then he might never know; your shoes on the mat will aid and abet and you will be gone at dawn, silent. He will wake up alone and call it a draw, call it breaking even or breaking up. This house will tell no secrets of yours, it has centuries of memory more interesting than the thousand repetitions of these same sad waltzes to the familiar beat of heartbreak on hardwood.
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Home out out ofofit.it. Home Melanie Oates
The sign welcoming you to the town was a giant picture of a hockey player. A local guy that went up through minor hockey with all of the b’ys in the harbor. A millionaire now. The name of the town and a hockey player. That pretty much summed it up. It was 9:30pm and I’d just finished my fourth barf of the day. The booze were gone and the only store closed at 9:00. I put on my old snowsuit. I saved up my birthday money and a few dollars from babysitting when I was sixteen and bought it at the hardware store down the shore. That and a pair of insulated green boots. There were purple lights from inside the building that used to be the Community Council. A two-storey box. It got too expensive to heat and there weren’t many council members left. They didn’t need voting anymore where they were lucky to get a couple of people to volunteer for the positions. They moved into a room attached to the volunteer fire department. Some looney from the States bought it and moved in there. She called it a museum. You could go in and have a look. Full of junk and chickens running around. The post office was the same post office for the last thirty years. Franky, the guy who ran it, was cross eyed and thought to be either gay or asexual. He never came out. We didn’t knock on his door when we were trick-or-treating. There used to be a drummer from an Irish band that lived across from the post office. We’d stand on the road outside his house and listen to him practice. We thought he was famous. A drug lord lived across from the Nun’s house. Although he was shacked up with a misses from up the shore now and her two youngsters so he probably wasn’t slinging dope anymore. Two young fellas on an ATV shot past me on the middle of the road. They sang out something that was either Eat My Dick or Ya Dirty Prick. I wrote this letter to Tommy, just before he went and stuck it in my best friend. So obviously I didn’t give it to him. It went: I would sit and stare at paint drying for seventy four and a half hours with you and not say a word and it would be the most boring thing but I would be in wonderland. The way that you make me feel let’s me in on some universal knowledge of what it feels like to be totally in love with somebody that I never felt before and it changes everything and even goes into the past and changes things I thought I felt and people I knew and reaches into the future and changes everything I thought I wished for or needed to be happy. You could keep me on the phone for eighteen hours straight and do nothing but breathe and I would not stop listening or fall asleep because I wouldn’t want to miss a breath. I am so proud of you and I want to talk about you all of the time. For every instance that I say your name out loud there are a thousand times that I think it. You understand me in a way that nobody ever has and when you say things like, you’re not doing well. There’s a plea on your face. You are always right. You are a genius and I don’t think you realize how much that is true. When you talk to me, when you tell me secret things, when you read me brand new poems I love myself because you’re sharing with me. You prove clichés to me: You can do no wrong. There is nobody like you. You are my fucking sunshine. If you asked me to move to Timbuktu tomorrow and to be ready in an hour I would do it . 12
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Some fucking foolish, what? We were collapsed into his couch one afternoon and he started telling me how I made him feel like there was nothing wrong with him. How all of these things were going right. I couldn’t bear it. I screamed at him, What do you want me to be? I’m not antibacterial hand soap. He thought it was funny, said No, I was more like a snot rag. I slogged through the snow down the path to the Nun’s house. She was only ever there in the summer. I sat on the concrete step in the back garden eyeing Gully, the drug lord’s, house. I remembered it being scuzzy as fuck when I was teenager. The carpet was like a soggy marsh and it smelled like burnt armpit. He wasn’t bad looking though. In a sawed-off, mall brand badass kinda way. I went over there. -Devi? Christ almight, it is too. I’m not that high. How long since ya’ve been home? Gully’d got himself a beer belly and a desert head. -I’m just up staying in Father’s house for a bit. Thought I’d stop by. -Deadly. Come in girl. Your poor ol father. That was a hit for all of us. Wanda’s gone to hockey in St. John’s with youngsters for the night.
A drug lord lived across from the Nun’s house. Although he was shacked up with a misses from up the shore now and her two youngsters so he probably wasn’t slinging dope anymore. He hung my snowsuit by the woodstove to dry off. The place hadn’t changed except for a few action figures and magic markers thrown in. Laundry all over the kitchen table. Clean or dirty, I wasn’t sure. Ashtrays overflowing onto all surfaces. Towers of rotten dishes. Garbage bags fell over, stuck to the floor. There were at least four cats. Maybe more. They kept coming in and out so they were hard to count. He was the real swine in shit. He loved it there. -What are ya at the whole time? Writin books and all that. You’re a real celebrity girl. Wanda and me read it. We loved it too. -It’s alright. I think I might give it up and go at somethin else now. Your father got either spare berth on his boat? He slapped his leg at that. Wooped a laugh like a donkey.t -What’s so funny about that? If Wanda can do it. He lit up a joint. -Ya think if Wanda could be writing books instead she wouldn’t do it? She got youngsters to feed. Plus, she gave up fishin a few years ago. She’s at the homecare now. Lookin after Franky, ya know, the postman. He had a stroke there last fall. His eyes sorta matches now. -The drug business not as vibrant as it used to be? -I only sells to the b’ys now. Enough to pay for me own, that’s all. Nother beer? -Ya knows. What ever happened to Gavin Quinn? Landwash-Expressions of culture/s in flux
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-Ol’ GQ? You used to go out with him didn’t ya? -He popped my cherry. -Jesus. He’s married now to Cheryl Quinn. Cheryl Power, she used to be. They just built a house. He works off shore on the rigs. Doin well for himself. She’s knocked up. Yeah. They’re doin great. Why do ya ask? -Just curious that’s all. -Not lookin to rekindle your high school flame are ya? -Nope. Only my high school high. -You’re in the proper place for that then. Here. I sucked on the joint. One thing about Gully, he could always roll a good draw. -What about ya? You have either man these days? -Naw. Shag men. -You’re not one of them lizzies are ya? -No. Most of the time I’m not anyway. I needed to piss somethin fierce. I’d been holdin it for as long as I could. It was on my tongue. I didn’t want to walk across the room. He would look at me, I would have to ask where the bathroom was, he would think things about me while I was gone, then I would have to walk back in and have him watch me again. -Gully, where’s the washroom? -Straight up the stairs on the left. Only door on that side. I stood up. I was on a boat. A really tiny boat in a big huge storm and without my sea legs. I shut the door and had to catch my voice with my hand. The bathtub was completely covered with tiny black hairs. Somebody was after giving their pubes the chemo treatment and just left them there, caked on. I took a step forward toward the toilet but the boat heaved hard to the left, the side of my leg brought up solid on the bathtub. Arse over tit into the tub. Oh…my…god, oh my god, ohmygod ohmygod ohmygod. Covered in the curlies. He was playing the drummer from the Irish band’s album when I came back downstairs. -Gully? I was just wonderin. -Yeah? What were ya wonderin? -How do you live in this filth? Seriously? And with youngsters? Aren’t they sick all the time? I’m pretty sure I just saw the remnants of the jizz from your first jerk off on the bathroom wall. And I wouldn’t be surprised if those moldy flowers on the table were from your high school graduation. Aren’t you, like, forty now? -They’re flowers from my mudder’s funeral there the fall. No one invited ya here, Devi. Ya drank nine of me beer and smokes half me smokes. Why don’t you go the fuck back over the road out of it.
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-Move over b’y. I shoved him into the couch. -God, you’re some touchy. I’m just shaggin around. -Well you can fuck right off now. I’m serious. Get thee outta my house ya ungrateful, stuck up, townie bitch. -If I shows ya my tits can I stay? -Can I suck on a nipple? -Okay.
How do you live in this filth? Seriously? And with youngsters? Aren’t they sick all the time? I’m pretty sure I just saw the remnants of the jizz from your first jerk off on the bathroom wall. And I wouldn’t be surprised if those moldy flowers on the table were from your high school graduation. Aren’t you, like, forty now? -Listen, you bag of misery. Why don’t ya wake up and smell the dogberries? I remembers when you were a flat chested, sculpin face. Up there on back of the church jumpin feet first into the bog hole and slappin around in it. Black flies swarmin everywhere. Throwin handfuls of it at each other then runnin with everything to the pond and straight in to get the smell off. I let ya wear my divin mask and it got sucked into the bog and you said you’d buy me a new one. I never saw a divin mask before or after you rotten little shit. A lifetime of mudslinging. And what do you think you are now? Sophisticated, yeah. As a can of Vienna sausages. I pulled my tits out the neck of my shirt. Woke up at 6am with three cats and a blanket over me. My snowsuit was like pajamas just out of the dryer. I shoved two of Gully’s joints down in his half pack of smokes and pushed them into my pocket. I didn’t sleep with him. I’m not that bad. I waited on the doorstep of the house. Going in was always a thing. The place was so full of memories I could barely push the door open. And then a gull shit on my head.
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More tragedy than farce Jon Parsons
We were downtown on a sunny day when a cruise ship sailed into the harbour. A city block, tall as Atlantic Place, long as Bull Cook’s stretch of George Street, pulled up and parked on the waterfront. A portal opened, a staircase descended, and two thousand camera-clad tourists emerged. They wore hiking boots and carried those little ski poles people use in summer. Many went to take snapshots of the metal dogs in Harbourside Park. Others got on tour buses bound for Ches’s, or the Fluvarium, or other such attractions nearby. They scoured the shops for relics, buying the best of the ugly sticks and little pots of jam. They bought up all the Sou’westers, peppermint knobs, and 45 year aged Screech. Then the ship let out a bellow so loud it was heard in Carbonear. As quickly as they came they left, the tearing away of a band-aid. It was as if the city was squirted with desalinated water and put on a slide, the essence of the place swabbed into a Petri dish, the “there” and “then” of the moment peeled off like the skin of a shallot. The coast guard and navy vessels sounded a celebratory farewell and the massive ship squirmed through the sphincter of the Narrows. Then we locals looked around, the one at the other. It was the feeling of oblivion, a sudden numbness, the blankness actors feel after a performance that didn’t come off right, those shows without ovation, curtain call, or applause. “What did they think?” we collectively whisper. “Did the culture vultures find our liver sufficiently succulent? Did the nostalgia pilgrims taste the holy waters for their hemorrhoids and sciatica and varicose veins? Was it everything it was supposed to be?” Standing on the waterfront, watching the ship creep out of view, we answer: “Maybe they heard the jackhammers pounding. Maybe they saw the outstretched hands begging for change. Maybe it is us sitting in the audience, and this play is more tragedy than farce.” 16
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The Judgement Hans Rollmann
(The following is a work of complete and utter fiction, which may or may not bear occasional resemblance to things which may or may not have happened. But lest you have any doubts, depression, or distress, please rest assured it is decidedly and delusionally fictional.)
It all began when Jerry chopped down the power pole. Why anyone should have been remotely surprised by his act, I have no idea. He’d been talking about doing it for weeks. He talked about doing it every night, over every beer, over the Internet, over the phone and over the buzz of his neighbours’ chainsaws. Why did they ignore him? Perhaps because it seemed such a silly and inconsequential threat: chop down a power pole? Big deal! There’s a thousand more where that came from! Who would even care? Or perhaps it was because it seemed such an audacious and impossibly daring threat: chop down a power pole? Belonging to a multimillion dollar company from the Island? Who would ever dare! Whatever the reason, Jerry was ignored in all his bluster and outrage and spittling condemnations. He was ignored when he ranted about the power company; he was ignored when he raged about them flooding the land; he was ignored when he wailed about the company stealing their resources; he was ignored when he rumbled on about colonial masters from across the sea and ignored when he roared about the end of the environment. After all, what could any polite rational person do in the face of such impolite and inopportune nay-saying? Particularly in this era when hope, hurrahs and hydropower are back in fashion. So he was ignored. They ignored him; we all ignored him. And then one day he came up over the shore in a boat, Labrador flag flying proudly over one shoulder, axe slung over the other. He tied up his boat, marched into the field where they were felling the trees to build the power dam, laid his flag on the ground and hauled out a hand-written sign – a manifesto, boldly challenging politics and grammar alike – which he slung about the pole. And then he swung his axe, with a couple dozen onlookers staring alternately in astonished shock or broad admiring grins. And he chopped down that pole. Somebody cheered in the background: it seemed the thing to do when a finely chopped tree goes down under an axe. Only it wasn’t the company axe, and the tree was affixed to a power line affixed to a meter ticking off cash by the minute somewhere in St. John’s, and so it turns out a cheer wasn’t the appropriate sentiment, however much everybody felt the urge to join in. Under different circumstances – the good old days – Jerry would probably have been offered a cup of tea and a biscuit for his troubles before being seen off to his boat. As it was the cops came instead, and they put Jerry in irons. A cop was still a sight to be seen in these parts: most tourists could sneak off with a load of moose antlers or cull a whole herd of caribou without a license and you wouldn’t see a single one. But chop down a pole strung up by the power company and there’s a dozen you never knew were even in the neighbourhood. Times have changed, that much at least is true. 18
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I never really knew Jerry, before or after the event. I’m not from Labrador of course. I’m an Islander through and through; a townie, what’s worse. Labrador was just a temporary posting for me; an exile, vacation, and worldly adventure all rolled into one. Can’t say I minded my time up there. The place was gorgeous. I’ll never forget my first day. I was being driven along the shore for an orientation session, and Corporal Higgins who was driving the jeep – just me and him that afternoon – stopped by the side of the road for a cigarette. I stepped out of the car and stared out over a vista of trees as far as the eye could see. The trees were short and stubby like back home, and the air had a chill bite to it, but the reddish hue of the sky was the purest thing I’d ever seen. It was like the rosy breath of God breathing down over the forest: not a power line to be seen, nor a road besides the one we were sitting on. The clouds arched under the haze of red and you realized that pretty much anything could lie in those endless woods. The black flies were upon us the instant we were out of the car – hordes of them forming little black tornados – but they were a pale irritation in comparison to the majestic expanse of golden-red crowning the trees. Well, that was my little bit of romance: the towns were a lot shabbier of course. But I understood for the first time why people live here: whatever the winters, whatever the struggle, being surrounded by the chance to catch a fall vista like the one I’d just seen made it all seem worthwhile. But what happened after Jerry felled that tree, well that I will never forget. I saw most of it first-hand, given that I was interning with the Department of Justice at the time. I got to see the entire case go to court, in fact. Seeing poor old Jerry go to court was something else. He was no saint, but the man had pride. You don’t see that much anymore, at least not in the hovels I come from. People in the capital walk around either with their head up their arse or buried in the sand. Now I’m just a townie, so I got no problem with either the former or the latter, but there’s something to be said for a man who isn’t afraid to speak his mind and chop down a pole with an axe to prove a point. I mean I got to be honest: I giggled when I first heard the story. Who didn’t? It’s either a touchingly out-of-place romantic anachronism, on the level of George Washington’s chopping down a cherry tree, or it’s a silly bit of laughable foolishness. And what should the friggin’ power company care? When you’re raking in millions a year, what’s one foolish old pole? But they cared all right, cared to the tune of $8000. Now I may just have been a lowly apprentice in the ways of justice, but even I didn’t get that. I mean, it’s a wooden pole. I’m no economist, but I do know that if every pole were to cost the power company $8000, they wouldn’t be building no power lines in Labrador. I guess they were trying to teach poor old Jerry a lesson, sorta like how back in medieval times they’d chop off yer hand for theft, but really now. If you’re trying to eke out a living in Labrador, what judge in their proper mind would think you’ve got $8000 kicking around in your pocket to pay for a lesson in mainland morals? Especially to a company that’s come to break your river and flood your lands to line the pockets of investors on Water Street? Isn’t the ruination of your homeland punishment enough? But as I said, I’m a townie and I’m wise to the ways of justice. I wouldn’t be interning with the Department if I wasn’t. My dad was a deputy minister before me, and he taught me well: justice is only partly served in the courtrooms; the rest is served on gilt trays and fine china at an array of annual events. The tea party at Colonial Building, the Christmas Party at the former premier’s house, the summer barbecues at Clovelly. You don’t get anywhere in this field by brains alone my son. And I’m a good aspiring justice official, if you won’t mind me saying. I try to be as fair-handed as I can: I give equally to the Liberals, the Tories, and lately the NDP as well. I attend all their fundraisers, and I don’t discriminate. Objectivity is key in our field: justice is served by impartial ingratiation, as one of my mentors at the law firm used to say. Landwash-Expressions of culture/s in flux
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And sure, the first judge I ever worked with was married to the sister of one of the officers of the power company (so it was the power company that basically paid for his wedding, as well as the mortgage on his law office). So I learned early on that taking on power means taking on justice, and vice versa too I s’pose. Point of the lesson: don’t be at it. Still, I couldn’t help but feel a tinge of admiration for poor old Jerry as he sat there listening to the verdict. Funny thing about court-rooms: it often seems gravity lies heavier in the halls of justice than elsewhere. When a verdict is read out that subordinates pride and liberty to power, it seems heads hang lower than usual. Eyes are averted and lowered; glasses slide low over the bridges of noses as verdicts are read to the floor and necks crane at vertical angles. Only Jerry stood tall: integrity might not hold up much these days, but it holds up straighter than a crooked judge. Can’t blame the judge though: just doing their job. Uphold the law, which means upholding power. Anyway, the story I’ve got to tell only just began with the verdict. Jerry disappeared – never saw him again, in fact. I suppose he’s off in the woods earning his $8000 fine. But a week after the verdict, I had dinner with my supervisor. After a glass or two of wine, he leaned in as though to say something confidential. He hesitated a moment, so I topped up his glass. You learns these things at law school. “Have you seen anything…odd lately?” he asked me. I reflected for a few moments. In Newfoundland, and Labrador, you see plenty of odd things. The key is identifying what the other person feels is odd. Odd is a sentiment rarely shared in this place. It’s best to be clear and exact as to the precise parameters of your oddity. “Yes,” I said. “I knew it!” said he. “You too?” I asked, still not having a clue what he was talking about. Dinner discourse in these parts, of course, generally involves multiple levels of bluff. Eventually somebody’s got to accidentally slip up and let on what they’re talking about. “Yes!” says he. “I mean, I told him it couldn’t be, but deep down, I did have this feeling something was up.” “What do you think is behind it?” I asked. “Well that’s the question,” said he. “Has he got accomplices?” “Do you really think so?” asked I, sensing I was on the verge of a breakthrough. And then in barreled a bunch of our buddies from work, and the subject was aborted. The following Friday night, I found myself at a small dinner party with none other than the Minister himself. Although I mostly reported to my supervisor in the Justice Department, the Minister was nominally the fellow in charge of our joint office. Which Minister, you’re wondering? Why the Minister for Public Order and Natural Resources, of course. As a junior intern, it was a lucky posting. This was just shortly after the government cobbled that ministry together, asserting that in order to have natural resources we needed public order, and that public order of course necessitated the extraction of natural resources, and that since the end goal was to increase public (and private) orders for natural resources, the best approach, naturally, would be to resource public order therewith. Anyway, you get the picture. We shared a lot of resources with the Department of Justice so our offices were located in the same building. This was right after there’d been some local unrest in response to the hydro development, and the destruction of traditional lands, and the underfunding of regional aboriginal communities, and the clawback of worker salaries and benefits in the mines – all things that could only be resolved with natural resources, of course – so government decided to unite the two ministries.Sinergy, they called it. 20
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Or something like that. Word had it that it was The Minister who had pushed for the charges against Jerry, as part of enforcing public order (or was it natural resources?). Anyway. I was just a junior intern, so I’d hardly be the one to know. Anyway, back to the party. It was a pleasant little event, and after a couple glasses of sherry I found myself, unexpectedly, face to face with The Minister. I hoped to ask him for a reference at some point, so I tried to gather my wits as best I could. “How’s your evening?” I asked him politely. He looked a bit paler than I recollected. “The evening? Oh, fine,” he said, as though slightly distracted. He looked at me more closely. “You’re H---‘s son, aren’t you?” “I am,” I replied, feigning both humbleness and pride simultaneously. “My father spoke very highly of you sir. I have to say, I’m really enjoying working here this year.” “What? Oh, yes, yes, I suppose that’s good.” His eyes darted about; he seemed ill at ease. Glancing over his shoulder, he directed me toward the far wall, where there were less people. “I knew your father well,” he said. “Tell me, have you noticed anything…odd…around town?” “Odd?” I asked. “Well, I’m from the city, so everything’s a bit new to me here.”
This was just shortly after the government cobbled that ministry together, asserting that in order to have natural resources we needed public order, and that public order of course necessitated the extraction of natural resources... “No no,” he responded, impatiently. “I mean, anything…anything out of the ordinary?” I fumbled awkwardly at my sherry glass. “Well…” “I mean,” he leant in, whisper turning to a hiss. “Anything chopped down?” I jerked up unexpectedly: no real idea how to respond to that. “Well anyway,” he said, as though he’d said too much. “Keep your eyes open. Let me know if you see anything.” I nodded, and was about to extend my hand, but he was already gone, disappearing furtively into the shadows. Anything chopped down? Whatever could he mean by that?
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The funny thing is, once he mentioned it, I did in fact begin to see it. The very next day, quick-walking to the store in an effort to shake off the hangover, I paused at the cross-walk outside the computer repair shop. It was an intersection I walked by almost every day, and as I waited for the light to change, I noticed something odd about the light pole. It was dented: as though somebody had taken an axe to it. I studied it absent-mindedly for a few moments, wondering who would do such a thing, and why. It occurred to me that in these parts, the fact it merely exists is often reason enough to test one’s mettle against it – particularly if a gun or an axe lies close at hand - but then the light changed and I moved on, forgetting about the whole matter. The following Monday, however, as I was walking to work, I came upon a group of students standing along the side of the road by the crosswalk. It was almost 9:00am, so they would surely be late for school. I felt the need to investigate. “What’s going on here then?” I asked officiously, pausing at the edge of their circle. “Somebody’s chopped down the crossing sign!” young Billy, a fourth-grader whose parents I knew, announced proudly. I peered through the ring of children and sure enough, a small wooden pole lay on the ground in the centre of their circle. One end of it appeared shredded, as though by an axe. I shoo’ed the children on to school, and informed the front desk when I arrived at work. Karen, at the front desk, shook her head disapprovingly. “Fourth one today!” she proclaimed. “Fourth call?” I asked. “No, fourth crossing sign chopped down!” she replied. I would have puzzled over that, but had important work to do instead. If The Minister didn’t have his tea at precisely 10:15am, there’d be hell to pay. When I brought him his tea, The Minister seemed even more rattled than he had the night of the party. “You’ve heard?” he demanded, the moment I entered his office. I ticked my head noncommittally: affirming and declining any knowledge of what I should or should not know, depending on the case. “They’re everywhere,” he said. I offered him some sugar. “Rascal locals. Well they’d better bloody well learn their place. Us educated Islanders won’t stand for it! I’ve a law degree from Toronto!” he said, with a sudden surge of defiance. Then he sank back into his chair, defeated again. “How many of them do you think there are?” I shrugged. “Behind the crossing signs? It’s probably not a big deal sure.” I went for the jocular. “Just a few kids having a laugh.” He looked at me in distaste. “They’re after me you know.” I handed over the cream. “They never did like me, from the moment I landed.” “You’re The Minister! They’re not supposed to like you!” I said with a tick and a grin. I would’ve slapped him on the back, but he’s my boss: even while offering fake confidence, it’s important to maintain some workplace boundaries. “You watch it or they’ll be after you too,” he replied. I could see his hand rattling under the teacup. By the end of the day, it was the talk of the office. A dozen crossing signs chopped down.
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“Is it a conspiracy, do you think?” one of the other officers asked. Nobody replied. In a land where everybody owns an axe and chopping something down could equally be a sign of defiance or of boredom, blame is a difficult thing to commit to. “Do you think they’re against us?” asked another recent mainland recruit. A local-born officer, from Happy Valley Goose Bay, shoved him gently. “Who’s this ‘us’?” he asked. Islanders, Labradorians, and mainlanders all stared at each other warily. Our supervisor, sensing trouble, ordered us to disperse and go home out of it. That was it for a couple of days. But on Thursday it all started again. I was out escorting some American business tourist type around; he was flown in for a few days to look at sites for building a resort lodge, so the orders came from Confederation Building to make sure he was shown a good time. I never quite understood why the government in St. John’s thought public servants would be good guides for wealthy investors. But in their infinite wisdom they did, and as it turned out, the investor had good taste in wine (which he’d brought with him), and seeing as neither of us were responsible for flying the Search and Rescue helicopter he’d been loaned to shop for sites for his resort lodge (and thus had no good reason for sparing the wine) I didn’t get back to the office till late afternoon, having done my part for economic growth (and oenophilia). By then, everyone was lurking around the main office and it was abuzz with gossip. A gas station map was taped up on one wall with little X’s marked all around it. “Signs hacked down along the highway,” Corporal Higgins explained when he saw me examining it in curiosity. “All within the past 12 hours.”
By the end of the day, 20 signs hacked down.The office staff had largely abandoned any pretence at work, and lurked around the office instead, eagerly awaiting each newly phoned-in act of property destruction.
By the end of the day, 20 signs hacked down. The office staff had largely abandoned any pretence at work, and lurked around the office instead, eagerly awaiting each newly phoned-in act of property destruction. Whoever was closest to the phone got to put up the X. Small joys. As usual, opinions on the matter varied. “Conspiracy!” said one. “Drugs!” said another. “Drink!” “Revolution!” With such an array of scenarios unfolding, we could hardly be expected to focus on our work.
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Each week, for the next four weeks, events unfolded much the same. At least once a week, there would be a spate of axe attacks, seemingly random yet consistent in their style. It was as though a secret army were orchestrating a guerrilla campaign to make us paranoid, if nothing else. Sometimes it would be local infrastructure chopped down; other times it would merely be dents in the woodwork. It was debateable whether these last were even the acts of an axe, but The Minister was convinced they were (without even witnessing them), and such sure confidence as we heard in his voice convinced the rest of us that a dissenting opinion was not what the moment called for.
And then it came time for me to be reassigned, earlier than I had expected. I was to be transferred to a government office in Corner Brook, and as the day of departure approached, I found myself meeting it with mixed emotions. On the one hand, I was growing very attached to both the people and the place here. On the other, I had a boss who was becoming increasingly erratic. One day, while returning from the bathroom, I found him scrutinizing the fixtures in the outer foyer of the office. “Do you think,” he asked, gesturing me over, “Do you think these scratches might have been caused by an axe?” I sniffed the air for booze; sadly, not a scent. “Possibly…but I don’t really think so, sir.” He ignored me and continued pressing his hands over the tiles. I looked at my watch. Get him back to his office, or while away the time till I could clock out for the day? I was rescued by a call over the PA, and took refuge in responsibility. Events continued, and eventually reached the point that the local city council asked to meet with us, a week before my departure. We suggested to The Minister that he need not attend – he had in fact just come back from a couple days’ sick leave, so rattled were his nerves – but he insisted, and my supervisor asked me and a couple other officers to attend with him. City council was hopping, as they say, over the property damage. “See here,” said the councillor who appeared to be in charge. It’s a bad sign when they put a regular councillor in charge of an official delegation. A mayor or deputy mayor has to maintain a polite relationship with the powers that be; a councillor from a rural constituency, on the other hand, probably owes their seat neither to the money nor the influence of Prestigious Politicians. They can, in other words, go as rogue as they want (and be explained away as such, should the occasion later require). When a regular councillor is in charge, it means the gloves are off. “We can’t have these axe attacks continue,” he began, firmly. “They’re cutting into our infrastructure budget in a serious way.” 24
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“Yes!” took up another fiery fellow. “Whoever’s behind it, it’s got to end. We took a tally earlier today and the damage is up to…why it’s up to almost $8000.” A few heads perked up at that. We’d heard that figure before, somewhere. “Why haven’t you apprehended the culprit?” demanded another councillor. “After all, you’re the ones responsible for starting it all!” “We?” asked the police chief, incredulously. “What did we do to start it? “You arrested poor old Jerry when ye could have just let him go!” declared a councillor. “These attacks are pretty clearly a response to your heavy-handedness. Why didn’t you just release him? What would it have hurt you? One friggin pole!” “It’s about respect,” replied the chief. “If he didn’t respect the private property of the power company, how are we supposed to uphold the rule of law?” “Well while you’re at it,” said a councillor crammed in toward the back of the room, “How about ye respect the private property of the rest of us? I got a cabin due to be flooded by the friggin development down yonder.”
“It’s about respect,” replied the chief. “If he didn’t respect the private property of the power company, how are we supposed to uphold the rule of law?” An awkward silence ensued. This was not an entirely uncommon sentiment, but everybody knew that the Islanders – those with the power – generally didn’t understand it. “Let me repeat my initial question,” the lead councillor stated eventually. “Why haven’t you apprehended the suspect? Do you even have a suspect?” The delegation of councillors glared expectantly at us, the delegation of government officials. The police chief cleared his throat. “Well,” he began, glancing awkwardly at The Minister. The Minister nodded, encouragingly. “We have a clear sense of who the culprit is. He’s done this before. The problem is finding any evidence linking him to the crime.” “Do you mean old Jerry?” asked one of the councillors. “I knows Jerry well enough. If he’s gonna chop an axe into something, he’ll bloody well say so. What makes you think he’s behind this?” “Well…” the police chief ruminated on this for a few moments. “You see, we haven’t any actual evidence that Jerry is behind this. Of the factual sort, that is. But evidence is not merely a matter of proof. It is also a matter of circumstance.” The council delegation – and myself, I might note – collectively raised an inquisitive eyebrow at the chief. The chief, in turn, looked awkwardly toward The Minister. “What do you mean?” asked a councillor. “See here,” The Minister took over. “There’s two possibilities, really. Either Jerry is doing this, or there’s a broad-based conspiracy among the general public to chop things up with axes as a conspiracy to, well, to challenge the general prevailing political order! Perhaps out of some misguided loyalty toward… toward Jerry. Landwash-Expressions of culture/s in flux
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And even if the latter is only a distinct possibility, then it is important – in the event it might be true – that we deny the rebels any chance to gain political sympathy by catching them. So regardless of the dictates of proof, circumstances dictate that we find Jerry guilty of the crime. Because the alternative is worse!” He looked at us with an air of proud satisfaction after this little speech. The room was silent for a few moments, as we scratched our heads over it all. “There’s only one problem,” interjected a councillor. “What’s that?” asked one of the fellows on our side. “Well, last we heard, Jerry’s off in the woods three hours’ plane ride, two days’ hike and a short boat ride from here. On a good day! So it’s not really plausible that he was behind this. After all, it was you crowd that drove him off into the woods with a big-ass fine to work off in the first place!” Silence gripped the room for a bit. Eventually the deputy chief spoke. “The fact he is not here, it has been noted, is insufficient argument to presume he is not behind this. Nor that he does not have accomplices.” He paused; the councillors glared. “Nonetheless, it is also noted that the geography of Labrador, being what it is, makes it unlikely he was physically present when the crimes took place.” He looked toward The Minister for support. “We must therefore assume,” continued The Minister confidently, “that he has, if not psychic powers of the most unexpected sort, then earthly accomplices of the most undesirable sort.” “And I,” he continued, “as the primary representative of Island justice, which may not be impartial, and may seem inconsistent, but is at the very least not inconsequential, insofar as a certain impartial interest in the…investments, of the…itinerant interests of Island investors is concerned…I do hereby commit my professional reputation to rooting out any challenge to the prevailing order which may be presented by those whom, owing to their origin in this place, their connection to this place, or their care for this place, might misguidedly choose to levy an axe in support of this place, in opposition to the great Island projects which transpire here. After all, Island Justice may not seem fair, and it may not seem logical, and it may not even seem remotely desirable, but by da Jeesus, it is what it is, and that being what it is, let us respect what it is. For if we have not that, then what have we?” And with a fine speech such as that, there was little alternative but for our little room to applaud in cheer. Whatever it might mean.
And then, as suddenly as they began, the attacks ceased. No, the matter never was resolved to anyone’s satisfaction. Some – the police chief, for instance – maintained that Jerry was behind the matter all along, no matter where in the woods he might be, and no matter how many hours off by plane and foot and boat the spot might be. Others maintained that it was local supporters of Jerry, silently making a statement against the rule of Island justice here in the hinterland of the province, where Island justice had never been very much welcomed.
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A few – locals, mostly – maintained that it was all in our heads, that it was neither crime nor conspiracy, and that beyond a few harmless accidents, it was all the product of our own paranoid imaginations. What do I think? Well I try to be an objective sort, and given that there was no real evidence one way or the other, I tried not to make guesses. But to this day whenever I think back on the incident, I cannot help but hear in my head the words of my old landlady during that time, and what she said when the puzzle came up in a moment of idle conversation. “No use trying to figure it out,” she said. “Around here, the land looks after its own.”
And what of The Minister? A couple years later, when I was finally appointed assistant deputy minister in the Department of Environment and Mines, I ran into a fellow I’d met during that time in Labrador. We got to reminiscing, and I asked him whatever had become of the ol’ Minister, whose name I hadn’t heard mentioned in quite some time. “The Minister? Poor old feller,” he said. “He went from bad to worse. Became obsessed with the idea somebody was after him. Insisted somebody was gonna come and chop him up with an axe. He flipped out in court one day, insisted we stop the proceedings and search the court room since he was convinced somebody had snuck an axe into the building. A week or two later, they found him out on the ice. He was crawling around on all fours, and said somebody was chopping holes in the ice with an axe, and he could prove it. Well, shortly after that he went on sick leave. Nerves were shot, poor feller.” “Did he recover?” I asked. “Is he back in Labrador?” “Are you kidding?” asked my companion. “Things are tense enough up there with all the hydro construction. They had to bring in another squad of officers, given all the tension with the locals. The gall of them – think it’s their land, just because they live there. Can you believe the gall of it?” “The gall!” I repeated, with what I hoped was a tone of shock, for one does not argue with an indignant public official when one is hoping to run for election on the Island the following year. One can never open too many doors, however draughty the end result. “So what happened to The Minister?” “Him? Oh, he got the axe.”
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Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves Mona’a Malik The Slave-Girl Maybe she wore her hair in long charcoal tresses, fallen wisps tucked and re-tucked behind an ear when she was nervous. Maybe she walked alone in the desert when she wasn’t scouring clay pots, perspiring over fires, grinding her knees into the ground while brushing flecks of dirt from the entrance, her darkened skin peeling and burning in the Arabian sun. Morgiana Jade eyes wide and bright, boyish figure only now budding, slave to the poor woodcutter, Ali Baba. He was an honest man, they told her. As honest as the day was long, and the summer days felt very long in the dust and dry heat of the desert. Iftah ya Simsim! * Felling firewood, Ali Baba chanced upon the secret cave, heard the magic words. It was too much for poor Ali Baba. He took away the gold, and as many gems as he could hold.
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*Arabic. Commonly written as“Open Sesame” in English
The thieves came for Ali Baba, but his slave-girl foiled them again and again, killing the thieves in the night. Did she think while cracking eggs for breakfast the next day, about the heads she had cracked open, the round smoothness splitting joe nolan into a yolky redness, viscous liquid running down to their necks? Did she burn Ali Baba’s toast when she thought about how small they’d seemed, huddled in the oil barrels, where they rested before their intended attack? Morgiana performed the dagger dance for Ali Baba, demeaning herself as the slave-girl once more. Her hips oscillated to the drumbeats as the head thief stood disguised among the guests. She writhed and twisted through the crowd until she reached him. She struck out with all she had— the dagger pierced his heart. Morgiana was forever loyal to her honest master. Her jade eyes grew tired from saving him, lines crinkling around the faded green. Ali Baba rewarded her with freedom and marriage to his son: a different kind of bondage. Landwash-Expressions of culture/s in flux
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The Recipe
Martin Poole
The summer held certain emptiness that year. Florence felt it in the evenings when she baked bread, and noticed more flour than normal was getting into the deepening cracks of her hands. Cindy, Florence’s niece, discovered it on the paint-chipped patio while she sunbathed. She felt the sun had a single but magnificent purpose, and when it shone the dullness of her life was overlapped by its sheer presence. As she watched the sun disappear, the feeling of emptiness recaptured her more fiercely than before. Cindy had just turned twenty and with her natural copper hair she was quite beautiful. She judged her beauty by the interested stares from both men and women, while walking the streets of St. John’s. Their probing eyes didn’t matter much to her, although it was usually her sole interaction with people. From men it was a hopeful glimpse, a slight catching of her eyes in theirs; from women it was temporary ownership, of eyes both envious and jealous. It was all too much for her. She was submerged in beauty but it was by mere chance of some divine curator, leaving her presented to the world, as if she was hanging on a well-lit wall. The scent of bread seeped outside and Cindy leapt up from the lawn chair. She felt stings on her backside, legs and back, from where her delicate skin was pinched by the woven plastic. She went into the back porch, and before her eyes adjusted to the dark she slipped on the canvassed floor— forgetting that she had covered her feet in tanning lotion—and cracked her toe against the door frame. Her first impulse was laughter and it sounded foreign to her ears. She found her sandals, where Florence had stacked them on the floor mat only a few hours before, and went into the kitchen upstairs where Florence had just taken out four loaves and was placing another six into the oven. Cindy watched her work for a few minutes, and could see Florence’s motions were more deliberate once she realised she was being watched. Florence began filling the sink with soapy water. “You decided to make bread today,” Cindy said. Florence emptied some of the loaves onto a cooling tray, her hands capable and never flinching against the scalding heat of the brown surfaces. She placed the bread pans carefully into the water. “I did, yes. I think I get quicker with age. Or maybe time moves faster.” “You make so much.” Florence turned and looked at her. “You forgot to put lotion on your neck. It’s burning up.” Cindy touched her neck and could feel the heat resonating. “I guess I did.” “You should rub some aloe on it.” “Sure, ok.” She started for the stairs to the washroom where the aloe was growing on a window sill. The house was quite large, and it is a shared joke between Florence and Cindy as to what will happen when Florence is unable to climb stairs and will have to get every room brought to her. Cindy was happy to joke about such worrisome matters and Florence knew it. Even though Florence often reminded Cindy not to worry about life when one is still young, Cindy’s nerves became rattled at night time and she would lie awake in bed overnight, listening to Florence while she dusted every room of the house, even the unused bedrooms where she still changed the sheets weekly. Cindy was unable to ask her about her nightly habits, but she would at times walk to the bathroom and listen, and Florence would not make a sound until she believed Cindy was once again asleep. 30
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“Take off those sandals first!” Florence demanded. “Sure aunt, ok.” Cindy climbed the stairs and walked the short corridor to the bathroom and bedrooms. Sunlight beamed in through the large bathroom window and all of the surfaces and objects within shone brightly. In the corner was a small wash stand on which was laid out a men’s shaving kit, all polished and set in the precise order of a shrine. The smell of bread was in the bathroom too, while she followed Florence’s instructions. Outside the window two men walked by, and she overheard a little of their conversation. The excited baritone of their voices made her happy and left her mulling, like the exaggerated wonderment of a tourist. In the midst of her reveries, she looked at the shaving kit again in its spotless and unmoved state, in which it will remain until the next dusting, and felt an immense heat flash on her face. She suddenly held a small waste basket with one hand and used the other hand to push in all of the pieces; a straight razor, a safety razor, a small circular mirror, a badger brush, and the powdered soap, all taken into the basket with one smooth sweep of her arm. Remaining was the pristine surface of the wash stand. She then sat on the edge of the bathtub staring at the waste basket, and her hands darted for it again but she restrained herself. It was done. Her nerves soon settled and she found herself unable to let go of this new feeling that had now possessed her fully. She went back downstairs, walked through the living room where the old family photographs were set precisely on the wall for a walk-by viewing like a museum. She felt her arms motion to remove the photos but the smell took over again. She went quietly into the kitchen. Florence looked at her. “Feel better?” Cindy stared at the bread. “What’s wrong darling?” “I can’t do it anymore, aunt. I can’t.” Florence’s hands stopped moving, and her face poised. “Do what? What is it dear?” “They’ve been gone for three years.” “I know they’re gone. Of course I know they’re gone.” “But we still live with them.” Florence dried her hands with a cup towel, and walked off to the living room and then slowly upstairs. Cindy could hear her walk to the bathroom and after a minute her hands rooting around in the garbage can. Cindy walked to the back porch again, where her sandals were once again tucked neatly off to the side with soap bubbles dripping on the floor. She opened the door to the basement and went downstairs to the garage where the smell of wood, dirt and gasoline from the lawn mower was all she could smell. She looked around where everything was left in its disorder for years. She sat on a work bench, strewn with tools and woodchips, and almost started to give in but the electric buzz from the deepfreeze stopped her. She walked to the deepfreeze, the radiating coldness hitting her legs and feet. She opened the lid and was greeted by loaves of bread. Landwash-Expressions of culture/s in flux
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The romance of a Newfoundland winter Nancy Cater
Reflections of an ex-pat experiencing their first winter in Newfoundland in 10 years Winter in Newfoundland is a terribly romantic thing. It’s romantic in the way that a novel set in Russia at the turn of the 20th century is romantic. The adoration of nature and the tragic beauty of loneliness and isolation captured in endless reflections made whilst gazing over yonder scape kind of romantic. A Newfoundland winter makes me feel like I’m a fantastically melancholic character living in a wonderfully sombre novel. Everyone complains about having to shovel the snow or drive on the icy roads, which is annoying and harrowing indeed, but as a Newfie returning to my land and my culture I’m absolutely charmed by the winter. It’s been over six years since I’ve lived through a winter here, and I have missed it fiercely. It’s so very bleak and long and unforgiving. You have to trudge and trek through icy winds over mounds of frozen snow and slush to get anywhere, be it through a parking lot or up the hill to see some friends. And yet, sometimes it’s so calm and quiet outside and you don’t much mind the mounds of snow. Those nights where somewhere in the distance you can hear ploughs clearing out the parking lots, cars driving by slowly and silently on a road padded with snow. I go out for evening walks in the winter just to hear the quiet on those nights. The evening walk in winter is particularly romantic. You stroll around the neighbourhood, slowed down by a slightly more precarious ground. Everyone has their lights on because the sun has long gone down. Sometimes you can see families eating together if they’ve forgotten to pull the curtains as you make your way around the nearby streets. Finally, when you turn the corner and come back around to your place, you open the door and pets come scurrying out to greet you. Whatever was roasted in the oven for supper has filled the kitchen and front porch with warmth and the feeling of a full belly. The lamps in the house are giving off a very forgiving glow that erases under-eye circles or dusty corners. And it’s so very warm and welcoming. In the evenings, after supper has been packed away into Tupperware containers to take for tomorrow’s lunch, you and your wool-socked, slippered feet curl up together in the living room as you watch something on TV, read, or listen to what so-and-so said today at work. A cup of tea and a shortbread cookie, left over from the Christmas treats that went somehow uneaten, and you get through a few chapters or a couple of shows until it’s time for bed. Outside the window, the wind howls and the branches dance. The weather report called for more snow tomorrow and you pray to everything you can think of for a snow day. Inside your bed it’s toasty because you’ve changed over to the flannel set of sheets. Yes, it’s some cold out there and it’s some nice in here, you think. Indeed, winter in Newfoundland is frigid and feels eternal at times. But for me, winter here is picturesque, nostalgic, magical, and it’s the warmest thing I’ve felt in a long, long time. 32
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Thematic Cluster – Fog Each issue, we challenge our writers to produce a piece on a common theme. For Issue #1, the theme was ‘Fog’ – and three of our writers took up the challenge.
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A Night Like This Marion J. Lougheed She walked through the fog with echoes in her head. Disjointed memories rehearsed too many times. If home is where the heart is, then she knew hers must be broken. The yellow street lights had turned a dull orange against the white air, heavy with water that wasn’t ready to become rain. The damp crawled over her skin, but she wasn’t cold. Still, she pulled up her hood to hide her face from the creatures of the night. Some of the voices in her head whispered, scratching around the dark corners. Most were shouting. Angry. Loud. The fog was in her mind, blocking out everything around her. She bit the inside of her mouth to keep from grinding her teeth. The soft flesh provided a cushion. Her mother’s face flashed inside her, lips tight in a painted smile. Like a clown, hiding any real emotion underneath. The woman laughed and hugged, then turned around and cursed her son to an early death by driving him out into a foggy night like this. He had disappeared several months ago and his sister never saw a body. Their mother claimed the police retrieved it, and they had a funeral with a closed - and likely empty - casket. The fog drew her close for a moment, its fingers curling possessively around her body. She could only glimpse each square of sidewalk before her sneakers pushed it into the blurred darkness behind her. Headlights sliced the murk, reminding her that the world was not as dead as it seemed. It was still full of people and lives, even though they were hidden behind closed doors and cloud banks. The car slouched past, its movement slow and gelatinous in the surreality of the night. The driver had his window down and for a brief moment, she saw his red and silver hair and short beard, his dark eyes squinting into the orange glow before him. His backseat passenger was a white shepherd dog, its nose pointing out the wide-open window on the driver’s side. Its eyes shone white for a moment as they reflected back the fuzzy streetlights. The driver turned his head toward the dog and his mouth moved. She couldn’t hear his words but assumed that he spoke. Suddenly, the dog squeezed through the window like toothpaste from a tube and bounded toward her. She yelped and the dog replied with a single throaty bark. Wisps of common sense suggestions twirled together in her mind: run, stare it down, don’t look in its eyes, yell at it... but instead, she froze in place. She saw sharp teeth and burning gums at her face. Rancid dog breath pounded into her lungs. She pushed the warm fur away from her with all her might and the dog fell back. It ran in a circle, barked, and pounced again. As its teeth sank into her leg, she screamed and her vision blurred to match the fog around her. The pain was white, her thoughts were white. The dog pulled back, merging with the night air, and she heard a man’s voice. “Help me,” she called, collapsing in slow motion onto the damp concrete sidewalk. “Call off your dog.” Her voice was fading to a whisper and she pressed her hands to her leg. Stop the blood, she thought. It was all she could think before the pain knocked her thoughts away.
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Then the man was standing over her, his hand on the dog’s collar. She thought the dog was smiling, and the man, too. “Does it hurt?” he asked. She nodded as tears sprouted on her face. “Can you take me to the hospital?” She ground out the words. “I could,” he said and uncurled his finger’s from the dog’s collar. The man smiled, baring teeth as white as his pet’s and oddly as sharp. She stared through her haze. Her toes had gone numb and the blood on her calf glued her pant leg to her flesh. “Help me,” she whispered again. The tears disappeared as quickly as they had emerged. Her fingers tingled where she clutched her upper leg. The man made his dog sit. Then he knelt down to inspect her leg, probing gently with his fingers. She clenched her fists and jaw as he pulled up her pant leg. “That’s a lot of blood.” His tongue flicked over his lips while he worked. She squeezed her eyes shut, replacing white mist with black. “Can you do anything?” she asked. He bared his fangs in a smile as he spoke. “Foggy nights are the best time for hunting.” He pressed his mouth to the gushing flow from her wound and took a long drink.
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Cerebral Haze fog drifts fog lifts through soft folds of tissue blurs the edges of my words sentences unfinished drifting slow and easy afraid of fog of clouded consciousness thickening like soup I wake up shrouded in comic panels sliding together multiple exposure of dreams falling falling falling
Brain Fog Chloe Edbrooke
pillow soft folds occipital images temporal sounds an island found through fog so thick trew fog so tick we could have been lost forever a floating atlantis squeezebox shanties luring ships into the rocks like a mermaid’s song and you emerge eyes, lips, hands I wish for letters for fog to forever lift from your lobes tin cans woven tight with anchor’s hitches seams reinforced with stitches messages ringing clear from one hemisphere to another Landwash-Expressions of culture/s in flux
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If we should wake and find the world has disappeared, well, no matter. We can curl these bodies tight together wrapped in blankets of downy solitude, these
Seal Cove Dawn Hope Jamieson
hand-me-downs from our grandmothers Ocean and Sky and begin to build anew. Construct a universe of quiet in this gray shroud, a bright kingdom in the mist. A morning, soft, with edges blurred, smoky shades of seclusion and peace in the loving arms of this wise old weather and you, my lover in the fog.
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Watching
Dunderdale
resign: Media at work
Photography by Graham Kennedy
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An anchor in uncertain times
Hans Rollman Local literary journal Riddle Fence has much to celebrate - and to be celebrated for
January is a time of beginnings. Statutory New Year on the 1st, the much tastier Chinese New Year on the 31st, and in between a bevy of beginnings: the beginning of school, the beginning of an unofficial PC leadership campaign, the beginning of the end of a repressive regime in the Ukraine. Betwixt it all, we have too the unveiling – a beginning of sorts – of the latest issue of one of the shining accomplishments of the Newfoundland and Labrador literary scene: Riddle Fence, a journal of arts and culture. Riddle Fence began in 2007 as a one-off publication to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the Writers’ Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador (WANL). The brainchild of a team of local writers – including Mark Callanan, Shoshana Wingate, James Langor, Patrick Warner, Don McKay, Carmelita McGrath and others - it turned out to be so successful that the following year the writers incorporated the journal as a non-profit, established a volunteer editorial board and developed a regular publication schedule. In 2008 and 2009 it published two issues annually, and from 2010 onward became a thriceyearly publication. Over the years the journal has hosted the writing of Michael Crummey, Lisa Moore, Agnes Walsh, Robert Chafe, and many more. From modest beginnings, Riddle Fence has grown into a project firmly anchored in the provincial – and national – literary scene. Or perhaps not so modest. Describing themselves online as “upstarts” and “rabble-rousers”, from the beginning Riddle Fence sought writing and essays “that were more intellectual, more creative, more representative of the contemporary writing that was coming out of the province,” Executive Director Tamara Reynish explains. Modesty plays second-fiddle to the confidence and pride in her voice. Recognition came fast. In 2009 the journal was declared Best New Canadian Literary Magazine by Quebec-based Vehicule Press, and in 2010 was selected by the Writers’ Trust of Canada as one of the best literary journals in the country.
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Bringing the literature of Newfoundland and Labrador to the world But the journal doesn’t just seek recognition for itself: there’s the matter of having our literature and our writers (and artists) recognized and acknowledged more broadly as well. The geographical isolation of Newfoundland and Labrador has, it is often suggested, been the wellspring of so much of the creative inspiration driving our artists and writers. But it can serve as a double-edged sword, imposing a barrier that often keeps our creative productions from permeating the rest of the country and achieving the broader recognition they deserve. It’s why so many of our artists leave the province, and indeed why many of those who achieve acclaim here now make their homes elsewhere. And it’s a dynamic that Riddle Fence set itself to challenge, and perhaps change entirely. “The idea is that we want to put our literature alongside the literature from other parts of the country, to give our literature a place literally alongside, and also to limit the geographical isolation of our literature,” explains Reynish. The journal accepts submissions from all over the country and all over the world, but what it presents is a carefully curated balance of local works juxtaposed with those of artists from farther afield. “It normalizes our literature in a way, to have it alongside something from New York, or something from another province. That’s the idea…to normalize and cut out some of the bias.” It’s a daunting mission but a worthy one. It comes as no surprise that this province – more than any other, it often seems – punches far above its weight (and small population) when it comes to the creative arts. “I think it’s the reality of Newfoundland and Labrador,” Reynish says, reflecting on the matter. “I think it’s the stark reality of it. People here are more real, and wanting to express and convey that reality is inherent in your DNA. And I think that happens to you whether you’re born here, or from away. I think that inherent creativity inspires it in other people, too. And I think we have an extremely supportive literary community in Newfoundland and Labrador. Writing and making art is so solitary, but here you can get the supports to crawl out of your studio and office and get feedback on what you create.” It’s a pretty vision, but one sullied ever so slightly by the dramatic socio-economic and political changes that have been wrought in this place in recent years, and which offer a “stark reality” of a very different sort. Cutbacks to the arts and the meagre salaries and uncertain grants on which even the province’s most well-known writers and artists must eke out a precarious livelihood offer sad testimony to the fact that the “supports” so necessary to cultivate an arts scene – let alone a ‘creative economy’ – are still sorely lacking from the political and economic corners whose responsibility they ought to be. Reynish doesn’t say this, of course: non-profits daren’t make political commentary of that sort, but it’s evident in the fact that Riddle Fence’s editorial board and board of directors are all volunteer. They have a few contractual positions thanks to grants, donations and fundraising, but even Reynish herself draws only a part-time salary. It is therefore left to the likes of us (who are not beholden to such grants: we starve on our own dime, for better or for worse) to point out the sad irony that a journal which outshines any production of the provincial government and draws attention to this province on the shelves of bookstores and shops across the country is produced by a team of underpaid and struggling artists and writers not for a decent paycheque (which they would gladly receive, I’m sure) but for the love of their craft, and the love of this place. “It is,” Reynish sums up politely, “a labour of love.”
Spinning stories in uncertain times In the journal’s inaugural edition, reported Heidi Wicks in The Telegram’s 2007 coverage of its launch, editor Mark Callanan said of their name “that a riddle is one of the oldest forms of literature, while “fences keep things out or keep things in,” referencing a country that is “torn between its storied past (both a burden and blessing) and the allure of the future.” Landwash-Expressions of culture/s in flux
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And what role do artistic and creative endeavours like this play in turbulent and uncertain socioeconomic times like the present? A vitally important one, says Reynish. “Literature and art are record-keepers. They track the history and culture and occurrences of a certain place. In a hundred years you’ll be able to read a story by somebody and get a sense of that event, whether it’s accurate or fantastical.” “And literature and art are very grounding,” she continues. “They’re constants. In time of tumult I think going back to the basics of reading and writing and making art are very grounding. Artists tend to be in tune with the world around them and this helps to normalize the chaos that’s happening around them.” A heavy responsibility for this “labour of love”.
A new year, a new issue Barely a month into the new year and the hard-working folk at Riddle Fence have launched Issue 16, with a boisterous celebration at Leyton Gallery of Fine Art in downtown St. John’s. The launch event was in fact a celebration for the previous issue as well (they’ve been so busy putting out publications they haven’t had time to celebrate them all properly; a reversal from the problem plaguing most journals I’m familiar with, which are normally behind schedule in their publications rather than their celebrations). What can readers expect? Issue 15 – already in bookshops last year – features (among much else) cover art by Will Gill, and a special feature by Canadian curator Mary Egan on art as seen through the widely acclaimed Eastern Edge Marathon. The new issue - #16 – is a special dual issue, half produced by the local Riddle Fence team and half produced by Littlefishcartpress. Littlefishcartpress are an Ontario-based team that used to run a nationally acclaimed poetry press, and they’ve assembled a “taster” of what they consider the most important American contemporary “poets of interest”. The local material for the issue includes a special feature by local artist and playwright Sara Tilley on artists living with chronic pain, along with creative works by Shannon Webb-Campbell, Ann Simpson, Karen Foley, and James Langor. In an interesting twist they’ve introduced a feature whereby an editor critiques and engages with a work in the same issue, trying to promote dialogue around the material contained in the journal’s pages. Reynish notes with some pride that as far as she’s aware, they’re the only journal in Canada conducting that sort of editorial self-critique. Riddle Fence: in a land bracing for an uncertain future, it is indeed cause for celebration and appreciation that a vehicle for this province’s creative visions can not only take root but even grow in the midst of such challenging and adverse conditions as those which face creative producers today. And they have their eyes firmly set on the future; on providing a future for the artists whose voices are heard across the country through its pages. Sustainability is their goal, Reynish explains, but it’s one toward which they are still striving. They hope one day to have enough subscribers, donors and funding to establish offices “and continue trying to help writers and artists become established, and continuing to launch more careers.” What does the future hold for Riddle Fence, and for our province’s determined and struggling writers and artists? Such a question is a riddle indeed. But whatever the future holds, the journal’s accomplishments bear witness to how much a team of dedicated and talented creators can achieve when they set themselves lofty goals; and to the power and determination of the creative drive in Newfoundland and Labrador.
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Stock Boy
Charlene Paterson
Jumping ship, she enters a new realm with a Sagittarius. Through customs they take hasty strides, hoping to go unnoticed. The authorities better toast them when they get drunk on their duty free daquila and gin. A bearded musician playing from the hotel bench in Victoria, stalking travellers trapped in their guise. So many people dressed the same. Visors and digital cameras hanging from scrawny necks. People milling about like locusts swarming. Over great distances they consume and damage what’s beneath them. She’s seeking refuge with a busker, tapping to his melody.
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She’s disenchanted And suspended By inexplicable love. Her stock boy is writing his poems in French, far away as she is buying a skin drum from an elderly man in Alaska. She’s missing her lover’s lips and the taste of his smokey and dark roasted flavour. Appreciating the calm cradled between tall ships. She thinks of him and watches young buys running full tilt free in their form. Zigzagging between painted lines on cement wobbling and falling to their bony knees a soothsayer praising their stamina. She sees her future In those agile boys. Engines quiet. The road is closed allowing her a leisurely roam. A native boy selling polished teeth on a string by the port. People carving driftwood into masks. Contorted expressions captured. Selling their land to survive. She meets a girl who calls herself a “Concrete Indian”, and then buys a dream snare. From her. Made of antler.
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By morning, stumbling out from under floral sheets, they cycle into the humid air of the island down to the Rocky Mountain Café. Her drinking a chai tea while her sagacious friend orders an Americano “Not too much…just a drop of flavour.” She says resolutely and with her Scottish list. landing on Hornby Island taking a break under a shady tree, at noon hour. Later, sleeping near the ocean by huts that could be mistaken for a Portuguese villa. A far stretch from her upcoming arrival in Toronto. Missing her connection. finding that sixty bucks can only afford her a shady hotel with unsettled sleep scared out of her wits, fumbling into a cab the serenity of early morning hours escapes her. Traffic comes alive as she enters Terminal One. With no expectations this time. She downs an Espresso and gets lost in language. No longer a bystander she returns to her salty shores knowing her next stop will be going to find him.
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Sleigh Bells
Keith Collier I On Tibb’s Eve, one of the MacDonald brothers (nobody was sure which) told the little Kerry boys that Santa Claus lived in the woods, up where Abe Leroux cut his wood. He said that was how Abe got nice things for his children when they were small, that he used to meet Santa Claus there and trade him slab wood for toys. Stan, the youngest, was suspicious, but he was only 4 years old and did what his older brothers told him. They were 5 and 7, and knew better than him. Sam, the oldest, said he knew the way to the place where Abe cut his wood, because their father had taken him there once. He was proud that their father had taken him and not the other boys. He had in fact ridden there in the sled with his father, but had fallen asleep. But he was sure that he would be able to find it again. So on Christmas Eve, the boys set out to find Santa Claus, taking the path up the hill where Abe went with his horse and sleigh. They talked about the wonderful house Santa Claus must have, the candy and oranges there would be. Stan hoped they’d see reindeer, but Sam said reindeer were only caribou. II Joe Dollimont had been cutting wood for Bowaters for ten years, but last year someone accused Joe of claiming their wood as his own. They had fought about it on the wharf, and this year Joe was cutting wood for Abe Leroux instead. All along the coast people were rebuilding after a September storm swept homes and wharves from the rocks. Abe couldn’t keep up with the demand for lumber, and was paying well for a change. Joe had no dolls to buy, no pantry to stock, and he was going to spend Christmas in the country, cutting wood for Abe’s sawmill. Joe awoke on Christmas Eve, lit a fire and boiled the kettle. He had breakfast, then strapped on his snowshoes and slung up his small pack. He collected his axe and bucksaw, and noted that he would have to oil the sawblade that night. When he reached the place where he was to cut that morning, he set his pack down, selected a tree and set to work. He felled it with swift, even axe strokes, dropping it right where he wanted. He limbed it, then cut it into eight foot sections with the bucksaw. By lunchtime he had cut half a cord, and he boiled his kettle and ate his lunch, watching the sky. ************************************************ Joe was sawing his second log of the afternoon. The wind was picking up, shifting the trees around him so that snow fell from one tree’s branches onto those of another, a dead tree no longer able to hold the weight since Joe had cut down its supporting neighbour that morning. Joe heard the crack and felt the descending shadow, and jumped back. The tree landed across the one he was working on, snapping the blade of the bucksaw embedded in the trunk. Joe sat back and lit a cigarette. He could continue to work with the axe, but it would mean rough ends on the trees and Abe would claim he couldn’t get as many board feet out of them and pay him less. He would lose two days going back to the cove for a replacement, but having the bucksaw would make it up. He could drop in on a Christmas party too. He finished his cigarette and stubbed it out in the snow. He extracted the broken bucksaw and hauled the cut wood back to the trailhead. That night he sat up for a while sharpening his axe and watching the fire in the little stove.
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By the time Joe Dollimont went to bed on Christmas Eve, the three Kerry boys were very lost, and it had started to snow. Joe awoke in the night to find snow sifting in around the ill-fitting door, and got up long enough to bank the fire and wonder whether he would make it back to the cove the next day after all. III When the people gathered that night for the party, they were already worrying about the boys. It wasn’t unusual for children to wander off into the woods – that’s what it was for – but it was strange for them not to come home for supper. When the night turned snowy, the women went home to put bread and other things into bags, and the men finished their drinks and their cigarettes and put on their warm clothes. There were dozens of trails leading out of the cove into the hills. They searched in groups of two and three, looking for tracks or broken snow where someone may have gone off the path. After an hour or so they began to return home. The snow was too heavy, and they knew how easy it was for them to get lost too. By morning the snow had stopped, and the men again headed into the hills. Abe harnessed his horse to check his logging trails. There was no possibility of finding tracks after the snowfall, and all they could hope to do was stumble over them in the snow. ************************************************ Joe got up Christmas morning and cleared the snow from around the door. He examined the sky and decided the storm was over. He put on his snowshoes and slung up his pack. Suddenly he remembered the bucksaw. He had forgotten it where he was cutting the day before. The blade might be ruined, but the saw was fine and he couldn’t leave it there. The clearing where he had been working looked very different. The snow had been churned up and dirty, and broken branches and wood chips had covered the ground. Today there was only pristine snow and wilderness. He started clearing away snow to find the bucksaw, beneath the dead fallen tree. When he brushed away the snow, he found that the branches that had littered the clearing the day before had been gathered and laced together along the edges of the fallen dead tree. Beneath more snow and branches, he found a small pair of boots. From the trail he could hear the sound of an approaching horse and sled. IV The priest had come to the cove to say mass on Christmas Morning. The service was not long, for he had several communities to visit that day, but he stayed as long as he could. The men would return from the woods in twos and threes, have a cup of tea and head out again. When Abe Leroux’s sled came down the lane, the curtains were pushed back from windows throughout the cove. From their kitchens, people could see Abe’s horse breathing steam in the frosty air. Sitting behind Abe was Joe Dollimont, his beard white with snow and frost. Two of the boys sat next to him with wide and quiet eyes. At his feet was a large bundle, a closed flour sack, and the sound of sleigh bells filled the air.
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The Coast Ted Bonnah The sky hung low over the sea and Torngait mountains like a mouse-coloured skin, sounds echoing loudly off the waters and the boiling ceiling of mist. Tutauk paddled his kayak up the coast, moving swift as the shadow of a bird or a small beluga across the face of the night coloured water. He made sharp and risky turns, sometimes nearly grating the skin of his craft against late spring ice bits, unlike Father, who avoided any contact and steered his kayak in large arcs to his destination. Although Tutauk grew hot as his shoulders churned his bladed pau’tik through the waters on either side, he would not take off his tulik or parka. Even in spring one dip in this sea might steal his energy, and his life. Best to sweat a little now, then strip and dry off quickly when he reached his destination. He paused for a moment and gazed out at the sun struggling to burn through the mist over the ocean. When he was younger, he had asked Father what lay beyond the sea, and inland beyond the Torngaits. Father was carving sandstone, and would continue some while before stopping to answer any question put to him. Tutauk could not see what it would become yet, whether a nanook or perhaps a woman and child. These were the two things Father carved most, although sometimes when in a humour he would make an excellent narwhal or harp seal. “The mountains are where the first people came across. Through passes guarded by wind spirits who freeze your skin and bones, and Adlit who lure in travelers to eat their liver.” Father blew powdered stone off his carving and eyed it carefully. “Across the sea are more Inuit, the people. We use hi’ olik seal skin. They use u’djuk. They speak words funny. Sometimes they are friendly, sometimes not if they are hungry.” As he grew into manhood, Tutauk stopped asking questions. He went as far as he needed to hunt or to catch terns like those strapped to his kayak today, and no farther. This land was all he would ever need, and he would need to master it to survive.
The leaden sky oppressed Father Johannes this morning, as it had every morning since leaving Grönland. As the only priest on the ship, he was free from the arduous duties of sailing the carrack across the Atlantic, skirting spring gales, icebergs, and pirates or pressgangs. With the king of England fighting the Hapsburgs, maritime safety could not be guaranteed, especially as he rode in an English ship. Best get to the Labrador and hunker down with his new congregation while the wars of godless European rulers burned themselves out. He had always longed to go beyond the sea, to the empty spaces of the map, the places of savages, and do the Lord Our Father’s work among them. After two years’ apprenticeship under Father Yens in Grönland, he was finally ready for his own longed-after mission in the Labrador, and blessed that this English carrack had offered to take him to the wild coast there. Truth be told, Johannes hated the English. It was good that the Labrador and its natives had fallen under the mercy of the Moravians. If the English had care of them, they would surely degenerate further and be forever bereft of God the Father’s grace. The English sailors who crewed the carrack he rode were especially loathsome representatives of their race. They laughed at Johannes’ voice as he read scripture, dumb to the beauty of it, ignorant that their own bastardized language had sprung from his noble tongue. Although pride was a sin, he felt sorely wounded by their smirks and snickers. Still, he gave services daily as was his duty. 64
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This day Johannes felt generous. The captain had told him they would soon be in sight of the Labrador, near the place where esquimeaux were thought to have villages. Villages Johannes would be the first white man to see. In honour, he broke open his dear supply of wine and wafers to offer Communion to these heathen sailors. They lined up quickly for a sip of the rich crimson wine, yet half of them refused the ancient wafers. Johannes suffered through their abuse with good grace. “This is my flesh and blood. Eat of it and be saved.” “What is a man? Is a man’s face only white? His tongue only English?” A sailor yawned loudly. “I say to you no. God the Father has made men of all shapes and sizes, but all equally needful of salvation. In the beginning, God moved across the face of the waters. And now he moves me across it to do His work.”
Tutauk lifted the kayak onto his shoulder and carried it to the river, where he washed it, rubbed muck gently off with snow, then coated it with seal oil. Father had taught him how to preserve his boat and mend it, although eyeing it now he could not see that it needed any sewing. It would be essential for hunting seals in fall, but now he would take fishing and birding trips such as this for his pleasure and to keep his skill up. Once again he hefted his craft and walked towards the cache at the treeline where Father and he kept dried meat and other supplies for hunting when not needed. Tutauk would set tent here tonight and paddle back home tomorrow. Suddenly, a voice in beautiful loon-like song drifted down to him, singing a lovestory he knew well. Tutauk smiled and followed the singing into the trees, to where he noticed a small fire burning next to a caribou hide tent he had seen many times before. As he approached he called out “Caubvick! Caubvick!” The singing stopped and the tent awning was thrown aside. Tutauk watched smiling as Caubvick slowly emerged, first clean sealskin mukluks, then leggings, then a spring doeshirt. Caubvick smiled back at him. “I came near here with my sister and her husband fishing. I came here to await you.” “I am happy.” Tutauk hefted a brace of the terns he had caught. “I have had luck. Dinner.” “First, come in and clean up.” Caubvick returned inside the tent. Tutauk lowered his kayak and his catch, removed his heavy mukluks, then followed her inside.
Johannes could not sleep for the bestial singing of the crewmen. The captain had rationed out rum to all to keep the chill from their bones and celebrate the sighting of land, and the sailors had made the most of it. Between the noise and his excitement, slumber was near impossible. Johannes wrapped himself in his cloak and furs and left his cabin, intent on a walk in the moonlight, and maybe even to get a sight of the land. Johannes had half died from the croup on the journey from Europe, and still would often be wracked with coughs like those that plagued many people of Father Yens’ mission. Although he needed desperately to keep warm, the pestilent atmosphere of his cabin often forced him on deck to fill his lungs with keen Arctic air. Landwash-Expressions of culture/s in flux
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As Johannes passed rows of crates and barrels in the hold, a moan came to his ears, as of a man in pain. The priest peered into the dark, and was about to speak when his eyes adjusted and he beheld the groaner. Two sailors lay behind a keg, fornicating. The buttocks of one rose up and down, and now their mingled moans floated to Johannes. The priest spun on his heel and continued to the hatch under the forebroom. Although Johannes was terribly lonely, he would neither sin with men nor take any woman, save a bride from the fatherland once he established his mission and sent for her. It would be a hard life, but one they would share in the service of God the Father.
Tatuak lay in the tent under the covers, holding his lover Caubvick tight. Her long raven hair snaked across his chest and warmed him. Their naked bodies steamed, a sheen of his seed fixing his crotch to her hip and buttocks. There was no blood this time like when they had first made love before he went birding. Caubvick stirred and turned to look at him, her breasts hanging near his forehead, her shining eyes peering into his. “Tea?” “Yes.” She pulled on a light parka and crawled out to the fire, where water boiled in a shallow stone basin. From a hide sack she drew two cup-bowls and a handful of kayak-shaped dried leaves of orange and green, then scattered the leaves in the cup-bowls. She used a minkskin glove to tip the heated basin and pour hot water into the cups, then let the tea steep. When it was ready she knee-walked back to the tent door and gave Tatuak his drink. They sat sipping, he looking at her framed in the tent opening, she looking out down the hill to the sea. When they finished, Tatuak pulled on his clothes. Caubvick smiled at him. “What’s it like kayaking on the sea?” “Dangerous.” “Will you take me out sometime?” “Women ride the oomiak. The women’s boat.” “But why?” She faced him, serious. “You could teach me. And I could teach you useful things.” “No. Men use the kayak. Women the oomiak.” Tatuak sighed. “Stop talking.” “I will not. Father says women must be as strong as men.” Tutauk slapped her, the contact of palm and cheek echoing out over the hill, sending a shock through them both. He turned his back to her, watching the sea while he rocked on his heels. After a moment, Caubvick gathered the cups and tea sack then began to prepare the terns Tatuak had brought. “Food?” “Yes.”
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Johannes took one last look around the cabin he hoped never to see again. He swept up his pewter figurines of Christ, which his father had given him before leaving home, and the bone figures of the Nativity given to him by Father Yens before leaving Grönland. When he arrived on deck, the captain was peering at the land through a spyglass. He stopped and nodded to Johannes, then pointed and spoke. “There be an esquimeau on yon shore. Will you go to him?” The captain proffered his glass. Johannes pressed the greasy spyglass to his eye, then after a moment’s searching spotted the Inuit by the line of stunted trees above the beach, bending over a kayak, albeit smaller than the ones he had seen in Grönland. Further up the hill behind the man Johannes could make out rising smoke and the top of a tent. “Yes. Take me to him.” The captain made orders and his men jumped to remove a dory from its braces and hoist it up. Two sailors loaded Johannes’ meager possessions, his book, wine and chalice and tabernacle, clothes and dried food wrapped up in cloth and tied tight with string, then one jumped in and offered his hand as the other held the swinging dory steady. Johannes clambered into the boat and banged his buttocks painfully on the hard seat. He turned and nodded to the master of the ship. “God bless you, captain.” “I fear you will need His mercy more than I.” The second seaman scurried aboard, then the captain whistled and the dory was lowered down upon the heaving sea in bone-jarring jerks.
Tutauk could not believe his eyes. He had gone to retrieve another tern from his kayak and seen that something terrible lay on the sea, a large dark shape like an enormous rotted log or a dead whale with its ribs picked clean and sticking up at the sky. Was it an immense oomiak? The thought was insane, yet the shape was similar and he could see mannish forms moving like horseflies atop it. A few of the figures milled around on top of the craft, then unbelievably began to lower a much smaller oomiak from it with thick thongs, but of which animal hide Tutauk could not tell. Three figures rode the strange smaller boat, two rowing while one sat between them, this last all in black and clutching packages instead of lashing them down as any sane woman would have. Each wave lifted the three up and smashed them down, showering them with a freezing rain of salt sea water. Were they witless to risk their lives on these waves in such a craft? Or were they spirits of the sea who knew no danger upon it? Tutauk watched as the boat finally ground onto the rocky shore, then one rower jumped out and held it while the other threw the packages further up the beach. This done, the figure in black descended. The three men-things squawked at one another for some moments, then the rowers boarded their vessel and set off back towards the immense oomiak. “Hey! Boy!” At the shout, Tutauk was rooted to the spot like a pinetree. The manthing wrapped in black skins, the Qalunaat on the beach had cried out, but its voice was eerily human. Its face was pale as a corpse, but lined in thick and dirty brown fur. It smiled and showed its teeth at Tutauk. “Hey boy! “Ahé, ahé, thou tcharacou! I am friend!”
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Tutauk now mistrusted his ears. Could the thing be trying to say “Ai tutsiarakku,” to ask him drop his arms as men greeting one another did? Was it too stupid to see he had no harpoon, and no knife save a bird-scraper? Or was it testing him to see if he were undefended? Then the dark thing lurched closer, and Tutauk winced as he saw how its skins hung loose and left it cold, unlike a good parka. No man could survive in such loose skins. “Come not closer!” Tutauk picked an egg-shaped stone from near his feet and held it ready. He would protect himself and Caubvick. The Qalunaat halted, then raised its arms and repeated what it had said. Tutauk shook the hand holding a stone. “Come not closer! Leave this place!” The Qalunaat come forward again. Tutauk’s arm was a blur as he sent the stone arcing towards the thing and struck its exposed temple, one of the few hairless spots on its ugly face. The thing groaned like a man, then its knees buckled and it fell. Tutauk heard the soft footsteps of Caubvick behind him. “What is it?” “Nothing. A beast.” “I heard it speak.” Tutauk nodded. The Qalunaat had spoken a half language, almost sounding like Inuktitut, the language of the people at times. “What will we do?” “Be quiet.” Tutauk thought. Was this thing a Tornit spirit come down from the jagged mountains? No, he had seen him come from the sea. Or maybe a cannibal Adlet trying to catch Tatuak with his guard down? But it was not a person. Father would know what it was. “Go back to your sister’s husband’s camp. I will take this creature to Father.” Tutauk fished some strong caribou cords from his kayak and began to tie the thing’s hands.
Johannes trotted behind the youth’s kayak, his eyes tearful with joy, heedless of the cut on his temple or the tiredness of his feet. To find an Inuit so quickly he was truly blessed. Of course there had been a misunderstanding and blood drawn, but now Johannes was being lead back to their village. The bleeding scalp would be his mark of passage – was not Father Yens beaten by the men then tempted by the esquimeau women of Grönland before winning them over? This was Johannes’ Calvary, and he would happily bear what little suffering God The Father had chosen to test him with. The Bible and figurine packages that hung from around his neck thumped his chest with each step he took, reassuring Johannes and giving him strength. Now was the time to start his mission. “Sky father blesses you, my son. I forgive you.” The Inuit boy in the kayak did not look back or respond, merely continued rowing up the coast as the sky burned salmon-flesh pink, drawing Johannes along with his animal cord. The priest smiled. Caught and brought in like a lamb, it was he who soon would be the shepherd. 68
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“Sky father blesses you! My name is Johannes. What is yours?” The Inuit continued paddling as stars came out over the ocean. “I am Johannes. Who are you? Silence, then a pair of loons took flight low along the shore ahead of them. “Tutauk.”
The Qalunaat was insane. Tutauk remembered an uncle who had lost his spirit once, and who had talked in much the same way. Tutauk knew as anyone did that the spirits were all around them, but expecting sky spirits to come down and care for people was mere foolishness. Men fed and clothed themselves. The thing also kept forgiving Tutauk, but he had done nothing needing forgiveness. Tutauk was unhappy. He had looked forward to spending the night with Caubvick then returning at first light. Now he and the crazy Qalunaat drew into the family camp as darkness fell, and the cry of a wolf could be heard. At least the thing had been quiet the last little while, except for its ragged breathing. “Father!” Tutauk saw the silhouette of his father emerge from the largest tent, always limping from his accident with a mother seal when he was a boy. Father’s brow furrowed. “Early.” Tutuak bowed his neck and averted his eyes. “This strange thing has followed me. I don’t know what to do with it.” Father looked the Qalunaat over. It had collapsed as they entered the camp and sat wheezing in its loose black skins, insensate. Two packages hung around from its neck on braided cords. “Maybe it is come down from the Torngaits.” “I saw its oomiak. It was made of hard wood, open to the air, and it nearly threw this creature into the sea. It came from the belly of a larger oomiak filled with its kind. The Qalunaat seemed not to know how to use the boat, and two others rowed it. It tried to talk to me in the language of people. I left its tools with Caubvick’s sister’s brother.” “Hmmmm. Maybe it stole them from a sea spirit. Could be useful.” “What will we do with it?” Father bent his knees and rocked on his heels, eyes glittering in the starlight as he studied the creature. Behind him, Tutauk could see his little sister and brother peering out from the tent opening. He whistled them back inside, then looked up at the starlit sky, then the ground lighted by the rising moon. Father spoke slowly. “It is another mouth to feed, unless it can feed mouths. Yes it has arms and legs and looks like a man. But have you ever seen the bones of a polar bear? Nanook’s hand bones are as fine as yours or mine. Have you heard the cry of seal pup on the ice? It cries as a woman’s baby would, and you have to steel yourself the first time you kill one.” Father nodded at Tutauk, who nodded back. Landwash-Expressions of culture/s in flux
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Tutauk took a large rock in both hands, lifted it over his head, then brought it down on the skull of the Qalunaat. He did this two more times. The thing lay spread out in its skins as moonlight collected in silver pools about it. Father called out. “Mother, bring your bear skinning knife.” Father went through the two packages strung around the Qalunaat’s neck. Both were made of some soft fine cloth Tutauk had never seen the like of. “We will wash these and give one each to your Mother and sister.” After unrolling both packages, Father laid their contents out. One had contained a tooled black skin wrapped around a pile of white soft tree barks, covered with marks. The other had held several tiny figures of men and animals, like the sculptures Father made, but of bone and white not dark stone. Father peered at the bone figurines. “These are made by the people! How did the Qalunaat come by them?” Tutauk looked closely at the figures. It was as Father said, they were Inuit, but not any story or character he knew. Next Father took out several of the larger, white figures of Qalunaat, which resembled the one at their feet. Father rubbed them, bit a corner of one, then tested it with both hands. It snapped and Father cried out and drew back. Tutauk could see the jagged edge had cut the tip of his finger. “The colors are beautiful, but this stone is too weak for this land.” Father’s hand lazily sent the broken white figures out over the inlet, where they splashed into the reflected moon and destroyed it with the ripples from their impact. He kept the bone figurines. Father hefted the white tree barks wrapped in tooled black skin. “This will burn well.” Father threw it on the pile with the cloths, bundled it all in his arms and began walking back to the main tent. He nodded at the Qalunaat. “Drag that over.” As Tutauk grabbed the Qalunaat and pulled, a tickle in his throat set him coughing. He continued coughing all the way back to the tent, and could hardly breathe by the time he arrived.
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