Shack 46

by Speranza

I've been gettin' up real early since there's so much to do. Gotta hunt, eat, fold up the thermals and the tent. Wind the ropes, pack the gear. Load it up, lock it down. One last check, tighten the straps, and alley-oop—I'm on, I'm off. Ride all day, couple hundred miles, search for shelter, set up camp, and do it again.

I'm going a little blank now and then but that's okay. Your mind goes blank and your hands just go on without you. Fold, stuff, tighten. Shift, drive, steer. Ignore the pain, ignore the cold. Just keep going and remember to eat.

This is almost second nature now. It's becoming instinctive, which is good.

I traded the GTO back in northern Manitoba, when it looked like the roads were pretty much all she wrote. That car...hell, I loved that car, but one way or the other I won't be needing her anymore. I'm moving up, moving out, plus the snowmobile's got a nice engine, too. I can really get the speed up if the wind's not bad, which I like a whole lot, even all cold and everything.

I figure it's maybe another three days before I make the ice highway, and then I'm gonna have to trade it in for dogs. If I make the ice highway—but that's the whole point, here, ain't it? One way or another, come hell or high water. Cause after four months of adventure with Fraser, maybe I do got something to prove. 3,500 hundred miles from Chicago to Inuvik, and if I can make it on my own...if I can make it...

Then maybe it's okay to stay. Then maybe I can look at myself in the mirror and feel okay about this whole thing. Less of a deadweight, more like someone who can maybe live in Buttfuck, Canada from now on.

I'm doing okay, I think, though this has been the easy part so far, I know that. One little slip-up, one wrong swerve and I won't make it, which you know is maybe okay, too. Anything is better than what it's been—useless up north, lonely down south. Trapped in an avalanche, wedged in the ice, frozen like a popsicle—that ends it, anyway. Fraser don't have to know, and he won't ever find out, since I covered my tracks but good with the usual sign-off, "Goin' undercover, see you when I see you."

Everybody bought it. Fraser won't have to know.

But if I have a little goddamn luck then maybe I will make it. And I can't wait to see his face when I knock on the door. "Hey, I'm back!" and I'll shove my way in—back into his bed, his life, the shack, everywhere he'll have me. Maybe I'll even let him fuck me this time. If I make it up there in one piece and semi-sane, everything'll be different, anything's possible.

Fold, stuff, tighten. Shift, drive, steer. He's up there. Remember to eat. Load it up, lock it down.

The End

← Back