Condition Other Than Normal: Finding Peace In a World Gone Mad. Gary Tetterington
deal on this point… interesting and unusual… and I’m satisfied. I’m content. What happened was this…
One last and fast double – check, to see everything was fixed and planted properly. Powder positioned correctly. Yes. Sure – fire connections and the fuse sputtering nicely. Yes. I surveyed the situation. It was a crude set – up. But all was well. It was a go. A done deal.
Then I was working on that 7 – min. time – frame and I was aboard that motor and beatin’ down those steel rails, sparks from the wheels flyin’ in every direction and it was hurried and hasty departure indeed.
With mercy and grace, I made it back to the lift area and lunchroom, where the emergency ladder to surface was located. I vaulted off my machine and reached for that ladder and with dispatch; I clawed and climbed my way to the top. I ripped out thru the head frame doors and I was delirious and deranged with hysteria and laughter. “Fire in the hole!” I shouted to the blazing northern sky, as I dashed and flashed across the road, my shirttail flapping in the early morning breeze and my eyes aglow with indignation and integrity. I dived into a deep ditch for cover and crawled and collapsed behind a large boulder, for safety and protection. It was the best seat in the house. I waited… waited… listen close…
Suddenly, the night sky was cracked and shattered by an awful thunder and a blinding and dazzling roar and smash. The explosion traveled from the soles of my boots, to the top of my head. It deafened me and made my teeth clatter. The air vibrated and tingled and the world trembled. The sky shrieked and divided into chaos, as the blast impacted and the ground shook and the earth fractured and heaved and erupted. Pieces of the head frame, black timbers the size of small trees, were floating and moving thru the night sky and it sounded like an incredible but brief artillery barrage and A – Shaft ceased to exist and I was glory and greatness and the creator of a deed terrible and immensely beautiful and I was in a special place and no man had ever been exactly there before. Silence…
Strange and ominous silence. It was over. It was over so quickly it could have been an illusion. Only a dusty haze, drifting softly and gently thru the spidery streaks of moonlight, remained as evidence that something had happened. The silence was supreme and was requital and a requiem for my hard – livin’ days.
I felt good. I remember feeling real good. About all I can remember, for certain and worth recalling, after the deed, was a white light inside my head and feeling good. Then I came back.
According to society’s virtues and values, I had done wrong and I knew I had to get away. I knew I had done a wrong thing and though feeling like a proud and noble, blue – blooded patrician, I was coherent and rational enough to know that possibly some manner of authority may not have seen things my way and might not have understood my stately account and explanation of the scheme of the inner – most workings of the Universe. No. Not on that rare and remarkable evening in Y.K., in 1976. No.
It was a furtive and cautious creep on back to the bunkhouse, where I fell into a deep and almighty sleep. Which seems odd, considering the deed should have made for much psychological trauma and consternation. Perhaps an amnesiac period of time? No. I remember. Everything. And I remember I was crazy but I was not insane.
The morning after and thinking over the deed and I could only conclude I would be going down hard. If I was stupid and didn’t bolt. The only fitting denouement to the deed, was for me to keep my head down and run like a rabbit. This subtle proposition I figured before breakfast.
Getting breakfast the morning after my bold stroke of the night before was a sly and sobering endeavor. Already in the mess hall were a number of unfamiliar men, men with curious and questioning eyes. They were not miner’s eyes. They were eyes which lacked a special kindness, a look of innocent betrayal. The bodies were squat and paunchy, the hands were soft and clean and the faces were much too calculating. They were men much too obvious. They were coppers.
The real men of Giant Y.K. Mine were not comfortable. There was very little eye contact. No one wanted to be centered out.
I grinned bravely and ordered steak and eggs. I needed a decent spot of cheer and chow, after my long and grim labors of the previous night.
Moving about on Giant property that same morning was an eerie proposition and undertaking. Even at such an early point in the comic proceedings, which were soon to follow, classical questions were being asked and looked over. “What happened?” “Where is the head frame to A – Shaft?” “What was that loaded boom and crash that had shook and rattled the world in the middle of the night?” No one knew anything for certain.
Wild speculation and ridiculous conjecture abounded. “A freak air blast?” “A stray spark?” “Atmospheric phenomena?” “A minor earthquake?” Detailed hypothesis and no easy matter to pin down.
However, there was no mistaking the small army of uniforms and suits that had converged on the site where A – Shaft had once stood and existed. About 50 keen – nosed and qualified trackers and spotters were busy sniffing and sorting thru the rubble and wreckage, which had once been A – Shaft, and I knew revealing and legitimate answers would not be far behind. I had to fly or die. Yes. Right smartly. Yes. A real good idea. Yes.
John was one of several Newfoundlanders working Giant Y.K. Mine in ’76. John and I had become close strangers after a drunken brawl, when we had gone at it hammer and tongs and had thereby inflicted heavy damage on one of the local booze joints in Y.K.
Thru John, I came to understand that N.F.L.D. exported men to all parts of the world, for whom mining was one way of life. Mining was survival to one class of Newfoundlander. Being victims of a mismanaged economy and a vilifying misuse of natural resources, had made it necessary for many N.F.L.D.ers to leave home and family, to seek livelihoods in other parts of Canada. John claimed his town and province had been the butt of exploitation and deceit from corrupt and contemptible politicians trailing as far back as Confederation.
Which came as no shock or surprise to me. I’ve always known or suspected that thieves and swindlers, in the guise of pure and plain politicians, have infested this great country and have flourished and prospered here since time began for Canada. Truth of this type, as spoken or expressed by any Canadian has never astonished or astounded me. No.
The only exception to the following accusation was Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Trudeau knew how to talk the talk and walk the walk. Any other Canadian politician…
Any Canadian politician is and always has been a deplorable and despicable parasite. Simple enough for you? The only sure way to fathom or comprehend a Canadian politician is to realize that he is one of the lowest of the low. Then you can’t go wrong.
I have never known of or had knowledge of a Canadian politician who was not a lying and thieving scum – sucking leech, who will fuck you in the ass in a second and while you’re not looking, precisely the type of man you wouldn’t stop to spit on.
The comfort and consolation I have these days, concerning every Canadian, is, every one of us, in the desperate and despondent end, will answer to our violations and masquerades.
Perhaps it might be premature of me to suggest hauling out the piano wire and go looking for tall timber? Maybe not. Any Canadian politician, at the end of his tenure, should have a gluey and gooey maple stake driven thru his fraudulent chest and heart, for the sake of ceremony. And I’ve often advocated a man should take his last pogey cheque for a walk and buy a weapon.
It is only a matter of opportune time before a Canadian politician gets shot dead. It will happen. Some brave hearted fool will say enough and will go for his gun and will do it. The one question I have regarding this justifiable scenario is, “What is the name of the man who will pull the trigger?” It will happen.
John declared, if a man lived in N.F.L.D., he mined, he fished or he existed on welfare. Any other form of income was a bonus. As in other parts of the world, it was a meager subsistence. In Detroit, a man built cars. In B.C., a man cut trees. In Alberta, a man knew oil. In Africa, a man starved slowly and solely for the state.
John was proud of his labor and thought it right and honorable. John was innocent and needed an
education