A week later he had awakened with horrible taste in his mouth and a nose bleed. Through fuzzy peripheral vision he saw the shape of something black and shadowy leaving his doorway. When he went to follow it he tripped over Fiffy and bashed his head against the radiator. A few days after that he had turned over in his sleep to find a courtesy mint on his pillow. Marilyn Manson, at 3:06 in the morning, was blaring from his entertainment center. On his wooden floor was a Ouija board and Samuel Coleridge's poem "To a Young Ass" scrawled in pink crayon.
* * *
A town meeting was called after a break-and-enter at Mr Jagajivan's store. Meetings such as this always made Dirk feel self-conscious. He had only started attending after one of the high ranking band members told him that tribal meetings were a part of his heritage and that it would be a disgrace to his ancestors if he didn't start attending. Dirk was alright with offending most of his ancestors, except his great-grandmother. She would squish wasps between her finger tips, bullwhip rude miners, and chase ruffians down the street with her cane – if anyone would come back from the dead to yell at him about town meetings it would be her.
Despite promises by Mr Jagajivan that his older brother Alzeshi in Barkerville had arranged to send over "many sunscreens" by helicopter on Tuesday of next week, the town-hall could not be placated. The crowd began protesting the lack of sun protection and demanded governmental pregnancy prevention programs. Then things really started getting out of control. Two elderly woman in the crowd began throat singing and had to be pepper-sprayed. The meeting was dissolved.
The result of all of this was that Dirk could not, for the life of him, buy some canned peas for his dinner. The thieves had trashed the pharmacy section taking as many bottled lotions and muscled-male calendars as they could carry. They had also broken most of the windows, spray-painted "Black Power" on the walls and greased the floors with Crisco oil. The entire building was declared unsafe and had been nailed shut until repairs could be made. This made Dirk very upset, he had been counting on those peas to be able to restore some normalcy in his life.
That morning he had awakened to a terrific crash and a horrid smell. As he leapt out of bed he knocked over his water glass and stepped in something very shitty feeling. In his living room was a very angry 600 pound male caribou decked out with bells, a radio transmitter, and a red bow. It was trying to ram Fiffy, who was holding her own and had managed to give it a few good swipes across the muzzle. When Dirk left five of Aklavik's toughest men were trying to wrestle the thing to the floor, and Fiffy was going back for pot-shots. In other words his apartment was trashed and he had lost his damage deposit. He really needed those peas.
Miss Okalik found him outside his apartment building in a fetal position mumbling something about his mother. He told her about the caribou in his dining room, about Fiffy and the food, the homemade moccasins, his ex-wife, the men in black suits in Mrs Tulugaq's apartment, and his theory on radio alarm clocks.
She told him she was pregnant.
"I just hope that sunscreen comes soon. What if we get that skin cancer that has been going around Florida? That wouldn't be good for the twins. Oh, did I tell you? I just heard from my granddaughter down in Whitehorse, Mrs Tulugaq has given birth to two healthy baby boys, cesarian of course —poor thing's hips went out on the first push. And she has decided to stay in the small native community there for the time being, rest her bones. We have sent her a card, I signed it for you, and then we sent her some caribou meat because you know what the meat's like there. Oh there, there love, don't you worry about a thing, because we can't do anything about it now can we? But look, there's a cloud in the sky."
No – he couldn't do anything about it but with today's modern drugs at least he could make life a little less intrusive. That night, with Fiffy curled up between his legs, a couple of very strong tranquilizers and the gentle sound of wind rattling his blinds, Dirk fell into a deep sedated sleep. An hour later, Fiffy stirred, hissed and ran under the bed. Dirk's apartment door unlocked, opened, and was pushed to one side. Two men wearing matching black suits and ties stepped into the apartment and nodded at each other. One brushed bits of snow off of his companion's back while he straightened his lapel. Then with a sense of purpose he worked his way through the debris and caribou droppings into Dirk's bedroom. He moved the moccasins to where Dirk's old slippers used to lay, then he moved Dirk's water glass to the very edge of the end table and exited the room. His companion entered it and reset Dirk's alarm clock to 3:06 am. They nodded their heads stiffly at each other, then the men in black suits and ties left the building.