There's a sign on my back that says, "This sucker will help you."

Top of the morning gents,

On summer days, it's hard to believe how warm 33 miles north of the Arctic Circle can be. It was a bright sunny afternoon and while waiting for Bun I got a whiff of something familiar. I couldn't quite put my finger on the smell, but the far-back recesses of my reptilian brain registered the possibility that I might've put my dick in it.

I stood still, solid as a statue, looking with my eyes only, scanning for a dead dog, rotting food or decomposing bodies that smelled real damn strong. Strong like pussy, ripe like Low IQ Inupiaq Housing and mouth-watering as fresh seal oil and Lysol barf drying in the hallways of the KIC 29 or 41 units. Apartment buildings for creatures smudged and sooty from mud, bugs and drugs. I ain't kidding, the smell wrinkled my nose and was eye-watering strong like waking up next to a deceased black crack nigger, face-down, leaking sperm out all her holes. My sperm.

I scanned the back entrance of the Pondu where Chey Yuk got shot full of holes by a crazy Indian named Ethan Cooley. I visually followed his path as he staggered into the street suffering too many 22 rifle bullets in his bones, joints and internal organs and picked up by Frank Spazner (Hasner) and rallied to MMC. I scanned the back parking lot where Louis Rotman's and Steve Salinas' decaying heavy equipment was rusting to wreckage, then scanned left to the gazebo and the daycare building. I saw White Mike Baker taking the trash out, but he always smelt of weed and food he cooked fer the brown kids, not rotten pussy, dead bodies nor dead animals. Fuck, I couldn't find the source of my PTSD skanky stank anywhere in sight. No native apartment buildings neither.

"Nami Cigaq!" startled the shit outa me. Then I was jabbed in the back. Fuck I shit my pants. Not really, just air and juice, but the pucker-factor recoil snapped a few rectal draw-strings creating sounds like there was water in the mouth-piece. I turned around and saw (and smelled) the source of the rotten stink crotch-rot. Some scary monster old Eskimo lady had sneaked up behind me while I was standing still. Then she started jabbering at me in a zombie language centuries beyond the comprehension of this Finn's congenital retardation. After a start like that and seeing such concentrated ugliness, I should've laid on the ground, face-up to prevent me shooting shit like gray paint through a goose, all over this white space currently examined by a bunch of fucking cops.

To add to this visual and nasal nightmare, the reeking shitty Inu-biddie was wearing a parka, ski pants, mukluks and a beaver hat, and it was almost 80 fucking degrees outside in the midday summer sun. Fuck she was ripe. She was gesturing to me about smoking a fucking cigarette, scolding me some "tunnik" bullshit and poking me. I must have a sign on my back that says, "Sucker will help you."

"Here Laura, have one of mine." Bun appeared outa nowhere and handed the scary wrinkled shit-bat a cigarette. Bun and her lit up together and smoked a couple nasty-ass nigger-brand Salem LIghts. Smells can trigger awful memories and menthol cigarettes make me puke reminding me of waking next to dead black and white crack bitches I've fucked. Additionally, Menthol smells also ain't strong enough to cover up my gag reflex induced by horrid old lady quiff nor dead black or white girl pussy reek.

Bun had gone into the Kotzebue Senior Center to visit with her grandma, drop off some spending money and get some face time with the oldest native woman in Alaska. Her grandma's name has similar origins as my wife's: Bessie Tikik Kowuna, also known as Ootoyuk. She was really old. I'm talking fossil old and is the blueprint for me as I witness my wife age into her ancient years, in the identical pattern, in lock-step marching behind her grammy. Her grandma was born in the 1800's and bun was born in 1950 with similar time epochs separating their arrivals and departures.

Speaking of ancient natives and ancient history. Bun's gramma Ootoyuk was the offspring of Sukun Nunu, a Siberian native woman that was gang-raped by Russian soldiers, then banished from her tribe. She was secretly stashed in a kayak and paddled across the pond, to the land of the free, home of the brave new world, Alaska. Her banishment was a result of not fighting off a dozen armed soldiers sporting wood, all excited to pork some salmon cruncher pussy. Sukun Nunu's survival and escape spawned my wife's lineage and likely sole reason I'm talking to a bunch of fucking cops.

Greased lightening is the lubricant we gag on if we show up late to the party. It's the secret sauce you coppers labeled sloppy seconds, thirds and twelfths. Gang bangs bring the question to mind, "Why would you want to do that to another human being?" Bun's grammy never knew which soldier was her father, but he must've had the longest dick and the most powerful ejaculations to blast past all the other tiny cookoo rapists and reach the peach first, locking the ovum doors closed to all the other short retarded swimmers from the West side of the Lake. Yup, like rape, I'm gross, not funny.

During Bun's brief visit, I was assaulted by smells wafting outa Laura Frankson's putrid parka, poop-soaked ski pants, rank beaver hat and foul ass boots triggering memories that frighten me to this day. I can't be left alone for 1 fucking minute. You see, I've fucked every animal on God's Green Earth. Even Arctic and African First Nation's animals. My panic flashbacks worried me that I might've also fucked this Inuit crispy zoo creature by the name of old lady Laura. I hope not. My nose declares different and the nose never lies. I considered the possibility that she could've been one of my old girlfriends or someone's wife at KPD.

You likely remember old lady Laura Frankson. She was the old bat whack bitch always out front of the Kotzebue Senior Center (before it was closed down) chain smoking and stinking, fuming blended odors and memory-triggers that haunt men centuries later. Nostril-detected and ancient crotch sourced relapse-triggers, and also a source of great humor.

Me and Sara walked by Laura Frankson almost daily and I'd raz Sara with stupid quips like, "Hey Sara, isn't that your sister over there?" "Sure as shit smells like her."

"Shut up Karl, you're gross. She's your girlfriend and you wanna kiss her."

"No, I mean it Sara. She looks just like Tina. Smells like her too. Besides, Tina's got crooked eyes and boiled brains, just like Laura Frankson."

I'd mimic spastic brown kids, walk like a gimp-tard and chant "Itchy butt, stinky fingers. Right Cory?" Sara usually stormed off.

I liked to verbally challenge Sara because I myself am intellectually challenged. I also like making fun of retarded natives related to my in-laws and the bratty girl that adopted me. A bratty girl that cost me and my dad piles of money repairing her native teeth, repairing her native education and repairing her rude native manners to reflect a rich white bitch proper with an expensive education.

How far would you go to finance a child that's not yours? Before Dr. West would perform maxilo-facial reconstruction his office pre-billed all of our insurances and then politely asked we pay the $10,000 copay in advance. Up front. I must be an idiot. I sold off a shit load of rifles and pistols, all the LSD I had hidden and then me and bun zapped the remainder on our credit card. My father and I also financed specialized tutoring, Lasik eye surgery and high-dollar equestrian lessons on horses more valuable than yer fucking houses. Yup, I'm a moron.

Ain't none of ye get to bill yer kids for repayment. It's just a write-off. Kinda pisses me off that she's the sole heir to me and bun's estate when we blow chunks, choke and puke and die. Old dead men can't bequeath their estates to themselves. Little shit will inherit a ton of money derived from black and yellow slavery, drug, alcohol and child prostitutes imported into Alaska.

History may not repeat itself, but it sure rhymes. I'm excited at the opportunities the Ambler Gold Mines have to offer. Most Alaskan Gold Rushes actually yielded very little gold. They were flim-flam marketing scams that emptied suckers' pockets and created sex tourism destinations. "The real money is mining the miners" and only the derelict drunks and reprobates stinking up ghost towns tell visitors "there's gold in them thar hills." Us damn fools just gotta live long enough to get in during the mobilization stage of Alaska's next gold rush. Auction off our stocks of slaves, child prostitutes, opiate power bars, cannabis edibles and cocaine energy drinks. I'm pretty sure we can make bank on all of our stores of firearms too. What's ironic is that Ambler Gold may actually produce a TON of product.

Continuing my mystery sniffage story. The sad truth of the matter is that Laura Frankson wore her stinky Eskimo garb as a magic force field and caustic protection against repeated nightmares growing up in Point Hope similarly to Bun's great-grandma. Rape is a common factor in Eskimo life. Bun's first daughter, Tina was a result of a violent beating and raping, so I should be a little more sensitive. Bun's ordeal ended her in the emergency room with broken teeth, ribs and jaw. And pregnant with Tina. Go native ah?

Being retarded, if I was an Eskimo woman and had a pussy, I'd probably shove shit in there all the time too. Even my brothers' and uncles' dicks. What the fuck, being male I put my dick in anything twangy, living or dead, black, white and every color o' monkey in between. Even monkeys I'm related to.

Speaking of monkeys, I've marveled at a woman's glowing complexion and fullness once they've become pregnant. I've also marveled at a woman's glowing complexion and fullness if she decides to keep the little chimplet and not abort the fetal monster, preventing us boomers from harvesting pristine tissue and perfectly ripe organs. I've marveled at my own glowing complexion and fullness once I've thoroughly fucked and sucked at least a dozen young women on the floors of my dorm building. Every month.

I've had that pregnant glow myself, from delicious babes that displayed keen interest, irrational attraction and breeding ripeness to me. You boys know the extra bright smiles and extra erect tits and ass posturing pretty girls aim in our direction. In my anthropology lectures I learned these cues of attraction are called feminine displaying. I also learned that only 20% of the breast is dedicated to milk production, the remaining 80% of the breast is called mammalian ornamentation. God bless ornamentation.

I get hot returning these primate cues in class and lecture halls, harvesting a hunnert sumptuous dancing partners every scholastic year. Since marrying, I lost that pregnant rapist's glow. I miss glowing. If you ever try to slap a badge of integrity on my ass, I'll likely punch you in the throat, kick a boot up yer center, then put my dick in you too. I told you coppers before, I fight by prison rules and my real name is Turd. Ironically with the sign on my back that says, "Sucker will help you."

Enough about my 41 single years as a glowing shiny serial bed-hopper and back to married life and all those dullard responsibilities I'm ill-prepared to complete. My wife has specified to me that she wishes to be buried in Point Hope. She also reminds me that Point Hope is the oldest town site in all of North America with fossils and cultural artifacts and shit dating back 15,000 years, scattered all over the fucking place. Bun's dad (Charlie Tikik) her grandma Ootoyuk (Bessie Tikik Kowuna), and great-grandma Sukun Nunu, who was banished from Siberia are buried there. Laura Frankson is likely dirt-deep there too. Sort of a mud crypt for mud people. Just frozen solid like a concrete cistern full of brown midgets. None with my middle name Turd, yet products of generational rape.

I'm a wuss and fear the day I leave the hospital alone. I don't look forward to making arrangements for my wife's body to be prepped like boxed lunch, transported and planted next to her ever-growing clan o' frozen First Nation's Inuit kin and locked in permafrost burial grounds. Point Hope is a place where Finns fear to tread, so I'll have to take it on faith that those ass-raping ice niggers won't pick her bones clean before deep sixing my wife in frozen dirt older'n God.

As tough as I am, I'm scared of the day my wife passes and goes to be with the worms. I try to hide it by telling myself that I've had lots of experience with old native women insofar as telling you coppers that I wrote the book on the Care and Feeding of Elderly Eskimo Women. I just never reveal to the public what I fed 'em. You see, here at Senior Center #2 I sit with old men that tell me about the day their wives died. It ain't pretty. Them shrinking tough guys our age remind me of my grandfathers and repeat similar tales of sitting vigilant at their wives' hospital bedsides, patiently, until the exact moment their hands cool.

After you coppers bury yer wives, you'll likely tell me the same tales and I'll patiently sit next to ye and listen. It breaks my heart to inform you boys, but I'm guessing you'll outlive yer wives and like my neighbors here at the old folks' home, we'll spend a few hours every week, drinking coffee, taking apart guns and telling our stories to each other. Some men laugh at stupid shit they did (like waking next to dead wenchlets), some choke up and stop field-servicing my boxes of firearms, wipe wetness from their face, take a healthy fortifying drink of my overpriced coffee and liquor, then with trembling hands, resume their senior playtime gunsmith activities.

I perform a service to my fellow man. I brew rich expensive coffee, spread old guns all over folding board tables in my living room, dial in ghost stories and native music from KOTZ and talk about cars, boobs and guns. I try to keep it light and funny, but sometimes my old dudes get upset when our dead wives leap to the fore and all our hearts break in unison. Men are funny creatures but old widower men are especially challenging. I keep a bottle of Hennessy Cognac hidden for moments when we all get jammed up, eyes wet and can't proceed beyond the memories of our wives. Even if you haven't consumed any alcohol in decades, after your wives pass on, I wouldn't mind relapsing right alongside ye and top off our coffees with $40.00 bottles of cognac. Together. Fuck dudes, despite more than a dozen years clean and sober, I'd spark up a sticky pine bud Cheech and Chong monster doobie with ye. Long life as a widower is hell.

Back to the the story about Laura Frankson and walking all over Tagruk-spit. These tales are all true and I've told them to all my old pals in jail overseas and here at the Senior Center, exactly word for word. I also told you coppers and my cellmates about me, Dopey and Harley walking home after a late night smoking and joking at Albert Monroe's. I'd picked up a case of Everclear from the Post Office, put it in the sled and walked over to the Monroe's place to pay back a bottle I borrowed. Albert had scored a fat sack and was happy to party tough if I doubled up on the debt and left Petey an extra unit afterwards. Harley was happy to tag along, as long as we walked fast, he was freezing his ass off holding Dopey's collar outside the front of the Eskimo Building while I retrieved the liquor that Pim mailed me.

We walked down Front Street, grabbed some Cokes at Hanson's Trading Post for mix, then strolled over to the old house next to Bessie Cross's. Her house that had the propeller nailed to the front. Albert rented the place next door and grew some decent bud in the back room with a 1000-watt halide lamp I sold him. This was about 10 years before he had Inupiaq Housing build his new one. Fuck, I'm older'n dirt.

Me, Harley and Albert spent most of the night there, choking down plumes of spruce flavored green bud, pouring back way too much flammable fuel watching our faces redden and inflame, glowing like Irish men from 190 proof solvent we poured down our gobs. Mr. Monroe started to nod off, so Petey told us Albert had to work in the morning and it was gonna be a tough wake-up and getting him to work after our over-indulgence. Honoring our agreement, I handed her the extra bottle of Everclear and it was time to book.

Me, Harley and Dopey booted, gloved and jacketed up, then walked uptown all the way to house 676 on Caribou Street. We walked in -30 below temps that felt good on our faces and gave Dopey a frosty beard and a Doberman grin. Dogs are always happy to hang out with the guys and get fucked up. Since showing up on my front porch abandoned, Dopey sat and partied for years at Lem's Mortuary and Crack House, so in the same fashion, we blew monster bong rips into Dopey's face so rich and thick he'd sneeze and see dead people. Lots of 'em. Without Dopey the Doberman, I'd never make it home. He was my drunken Finn seeing eye dog when I'm wasted and can't find my way home. We made it to Caribou Street when Dopey took off and was sniffing and growling around the front of the house on the corner, adjacent to Peacock's and opposite Kim Nay's yard.

It was Daisy Land, face up, eyes closed and frosty. In similar fashion, waking me from the dead, Dopey barked at her, pawed at her, growled and tugged at her parka with his fangs. Me and Harley walked up to her and just stood there looking down at her. Dopey barked and growled at her again, dug his front paws into her and that frozen drunk old bat surprised us by waking up and laughing at Dopey. I guess she was alive. Harley asked me what the fuck we were supposed to do.

Old lady Daisy Land was laying face-up in the snow, near frozen to death and only feet from her front door. I told Harley we were gonna drag her inside her house. He looked at me scared. Despite possessing 6% Neanderthal DNA, he wasn't in the habit of lugging old frosty Inuit women on the ground like a cave man ordering pussy to go. This was decades before Door Gash or Cunt Hub apps were available to download to our phones.

I told Harley to grab her arms, I'd grab her legs and we'd just skid the crispy biddy inside her house. We grabbed her, Dopey barked at us and we started to drag her. Harley dropped her and said that her arms popped and cracked pulling so hard on her. So we swapped places and I gave him the boots to lift while I pulled her arms outa socket.

Which is what happened. Her arms felt like they were clicking, popping and separating from her shoulders and her entire spine cracked, popped and lengthened while Harley griped that she weighed a fucking ton. I told him that "dead weight" occurs when yer moving bodies from a car trunk to a burn pit, but it's also an Eskimo cultural practice to put cinder blocks of concrete in their mukluks. His retort was that the unconscious granny fucking pissed herself and it smelled like my old meth lab. I laughed and dragged her up her steps, through the porch and into the middle of her living room. The house was plenty warm and the furnace was running, so we simply pulled an old blanket off the couch, put in on the floor and lifted her on to it. Then we covered her with another smelly parka. A parka that had an odor that gave me flashbacks.

I buried my PTSD vaginal nightmares back into the recesses of my sick masculine prehistoric mind, rounded up Dopey and Harley, locked her front door and headed home. Fuck. Me, Dopey and Harley were so wasted and tired, I suggested we lay down face up in the snow to rest. Not.

A few days later, Harley, Dopey and me were walking by and that old bat Daisy Land came out her front porch looking way younger and taller, pointed at Dopey and laughed. It seems that non-Husky breeds of canines are humorous to old drunk Inu-bitches. Dopey walked up to her and nudged her again, likely to see if she was still dead. She certainly smelled like it. Then the foul ass bitch had the damn gall to ask me if I had any cigarettes "Nami Cigaq!" I wasn't gonna share my fresh-cut green bud with her. Old toothless native women tend to nigger-lip yer doobage and slobber yer fixin's.

Another tale of missing and freeze-dried old farts is Percy Ipalook Sr. He was missing and assumed frozen dead from a public service announcement on KOTZ 720 AM. The radio station broadcast his description, last known whereabouts, his daily haunts and routes. That day I was walking with Dopey the Doberman and Big Dumb Dale Campbell, my 300 pound human forklift. We were looking for old man Percy Ipalook, a frozen fossilized Eskimo Popsicle napping in the snow like Daisy Land. Dale was learning the new -30 below neighborhood after I flew him up to Kotzebue to help with yard cleaning, house restorations and give him a chance to escape my former white-trash ghetto and KPD Police Chief Don Beuler's former patrol sector: Mountlake Terrace, Washington. I sometimes question the wisdom of Beuler moving from Terrace to Kotzebue. It seemed like jumping outa the frying pan and into the bottom of an outhouse.

We stood aside as Wernecke bulldozed piles of snow ahead of us and that's when Dale started laughing. I was freezing my fucking ass off, so I asked him what was so funny. Dale said, "What if that old man Percy Ipalook was underneath that pile of snow and Wernecke just piled a million tons more snow on top of him." Okay, that was kind of funny.

We walked to the Post Office to check mail, then booked over to Hanson's to pick up groceries. We bought a pile of steaks that Mike the Meat Man recommended and put on sale, some bread-making ingredients and more overpriced coffee. On our walk back home, Dale suggested we pound some sticks into a roadside snow pile, then tie old boots on them. Dale thought it would create the appearance that Percy Ipalook Sr. was buried there with his feet sticking out. Okay, a little more funny.

That night, I sorted my beat up boots and found a stinky pair ready fer the trash. We walked over to introduce Big Dumb Dale to the Burnor's, smoke some pot, drink some liquor, but on the way, we pounded two sticks into the big snow pile behind the Eskimo Building. Then I tied my old boot laces really tight and forced them onto those two sticks. We argued whether to place them facing up or facing down. BDD (Big Dumb Dale) asserted that it's always funniest to find dead bodies with their asses pointed upwards, so we did exactly that. The boot toes pointed downwards and it sure looked like some dude was face down under tons of snow.

Regarding Dale's memories of dead bodies face up or face down, Dale was my accomplice killing and burning 3 gangster niggers that broke into Lem's Mortuary and Crack House in Mountlake Terrace. They died trying. Back then, 50 miles north at my grandpa's 7-Lakes property, he recommended we dump their bodies in the bottom of the burn pit face down so we wouldn't have to look at them as we piled timbers, tires and trash all over them prior to torching those shitty niggers.

Dale was also the poor sucker nominated to stomp on their skeletal ashes and assist me raking up their crushed remaining powdered bits. Dennis suggested we dump the powdered ashes into the bottom of the outhouse, cuz, who'd ever dig into decades of runny beer shits, brown toilet paper and thousands of gallons of drunk piss. He was right you know, nobody ever came looking for 3 dead crack niggers. Additionally, nobody dug into that foul shit-house looking for them either.

Back to Kotz. The following morning, Dale and I walked over to the Eskimo Building to check mail fer boxes of liquor and our dead man stunt boots were still there, looking a lot like a body was face down, dick in the dirt, underneath all that snow. Dale and I walked past two old women and he pointed to the boots and told them to call the police, cuz "that looks like where Percy Ipalook is buried." Those Eskimo gals looked, shrieked, then booked towards Ida Jessup's house to phone the piglets, bacon bits and Fire Hall faggots.

Fuck we were funny fuckers. Me and Dale could hardly stop laughing. We made rapid tracks home and on the way, saw the Fire Hall doors open with sirens blaring louder'n a motherfucker. We also saw patrol cars flying outa the front of KPD. We could easily assume their destination. I'm still laughing 40 years later. Cops and firemen make funny playthings.

When I was hired at KPD the second time, I told Blanchard about our stunt and he laughed so hard he spilled his coffee. I told him to keep it quiet, but months later, Wallace made snide jokes that a recent Missing Persons Bulletin was a lot like "the case of the buried boot stunt." When Bun's brother Billy went missing, John Mack phoned me at home from KPD to ask me if I knew where William Tikik was the night before. I told him that he was at my house loading a sled with cases of booze. Mack asked me if I was fucking with him, and I said no. He then further questioned me if this wasn't another boot under the snow pile stunt. I declared no knowledge of such stunt. Then we both laughed our asses off.

Regarding Billy Tikik gone missing, him and Riley Knox made it across Kobuk Lake (Hotham's Inlet) super fucked up. The sled became detached and after a few miles, drunk Riley noticed it gone, went back and found Billy passed out in the snow, face down. So being the proper criminal, Riley grabbed the cases of booze, reconnected the sled and booked back towards Selawik, leaving Billy Tikik, his partner in crime to freeze to death with his ass pointing skyward.

Billy woke up half past dead, with most of his body parts still attached, but frozen stiff. He staggered back towards Kotz, suffering a hangover worse than a motherfucker and made it to Snyder's Camp. He warmed up, ate their food, then barfed all over their cabin. Billy took a nap in the barf vapors, then ate the rest of their food and walked the rest of the way back to Zoo Tagruk, burping and farting like a dead crack bitch.

He was later found at Pizza House drinking coffee and smelling really good to flies, larvae and faggots. The Troopers and KPD canceled the Missing Persons Bulletin, phoned the VPSO office and had Riley Knox arrested in Selawik with all the booze in his house. Ramoth and Mashburn, the VPSO's on duty, found Riley passed out, booze right next to him. When I asked Ramoth and Mashburn if he was passed out face down with his ass pointed skywards, they looked at me funny. Ramoth commented, "Fuck Karl, who gives a shit which way his ass was pointing when he passed out." I know, I'm an idiot.

The bootlegging case didn't require me and Bun's testimony, nor did it need Billy Tikik's pissing and moaning about getting left behind to freeze face down in the snow. Like a dummy, Riley Knox freely admitted to Mashburn and Ramoth that he'd loaded the cases of booze at Billy's older sister's house 420, got wasted and lost Billy on the way to Selawik. Troopers seized the booze, snow machine and sled. Case closed. For obvious reasons Riley Knox likely slept face-up while in custody at AMCC. Contrary to my numb-nut readers, Eskimos know shit.

When my buddy Marto was helping me fix houses, he looked out past Paul Hanson's yard and asked me if that plane was upside-down on it's back. It was. Bering Air's twin engine Cessna was laying on it's back halfway down the runway. My guess was cross-winds flipped it on arrival. Marto asked if that happened often and I responded by stating in Alaska we have a plane crash every other day. Most are private planes, non-fatal and is the reason why you'll see so many wrecks strewn all over bush Alaska. On my hunnert official VPSO flights with Trooper Dial, he'd point out crushed flight plans all over the NANA Region even detailing the make and model of the crashed plane. The majority of these wrecks are never retrieved and got picked clean by scavengers like Ray Meyers, Tony Richardson, Mike Spezak, Commander Patterson and Kenny Euben. I know, real crew of impaired clowns and international criminal geniuses.

After Marto flew back and later that following winter, Bob Douglas phoned me and asked if I wanted to help him fetch his plane that lost power and was jammed in a snow drift across Kotzebue Sound. I said sure. I'm the guy with "Sucker will help you" stitched on his back. I thought we were gonna motor over on wheelers and hook the nigger up and tow it home. Nup, dumb old Bob Douglas had me jump in his dogsled. His dogs were familiar with me and friendly after the numerous rounds of Parvo and Rabies shots I gave them. The NW Arctic VPSO Canine Inoculation Log Book I kept, encouraged we inject any and all dogs, including mushing teams in our own village. Like VPSO's, mushing dogs travel a lot and can spread infection. Besides, I didn't mind. I was already their needle med-tech and his dogs needed a lot of weight to keep control of the sled, tie-downs, ropes and tools. That's me: dead weight.

After he hitched his entire dog team up, we left Front Street and tore out across the ice at break-neck speed heading left of center towards the hills you see in the winter sunsets. The dogs were likely smarter than the dumb shits they were pulling. Bob and I were scanning for his ditched plane, yet the dogs ran straight to it. Must have been the smell.

We shoveled some of the snow drift and cleared the skis under the plane, hooked up the ropes to the dog sled, and pulled the plane free. Bob anchored the dog team, climbed in and tried to start the plane, but no luck. So we hooked up his dog team to the airplane and he drove his dog team while I sat in the pilot's seat and just enjoyed the ride being pulled back towards Kotz. I served as dead weight a second time. The plane needed my 240 pounds to keep wind drafts from tipping it over as we cruised. I considered telling you that the plane lifted off at dog mushing speed allowing me to fly like a kite on a string, but you'd know I was a lying bullshitter and punch my shitty lips.

Those dogs were tough though. We rallied back in no time and were quickly alongside Front Street in front of Bob Douglas's house tying up his dogs and roping down his plane. Its funny but you'd think planes were heavy, but me and Bob could push it around on it's skis and position the fucker, facing into the prevailing winds quite easily. Not a bad way to spend a windy, freezing cold sunny day.

Throughout the 80's, me and Brian Higman worked at the District Office doing inventory for the entire NW Arctic School District. We'd fly out to every school and count all the desks, equipment and electronics, mark them off on the big notebook manifest, then fly back home. Each school took 3-4 days if we stretched it out, took our time, smoked fat chiefs and got chinked and fished anywhere nearby. We packed our fishing poles on the summer flights and doing the upriver triangle: Ambler, Shungnak and Kobuk, we caught a butt load of fish. Some we packed and sent back home on the School District's charge accounts, the rest we handed out to the grannies in town.

There are 9 remote village schools in the NANA Region, 3 upriver (Ambler, Kobuk and Shungnak), 4 downriver (Noorvik, Noatak, Kiana and Selawik) and 2 south (Buckland and Deering), so adding the schools in Kotzebue, me and Brian milked the job for nearly 8 months. Nobody likes the travel so me and Brian did that gig every year numerous times.

On one of our trips we ran into Carl Weisner, the administrator for Maintenance at the school district. He needed our help pulling sleds carrying jerry cans of gasoline out to his plane that he'd ditched just outside of Shungnak. It was on company time, so what the fuck. We loaded up and headed out, following Mr. Weisner and in no time found his plane. Except nothing was wrong with it. It was just sitting there like it was parked in the middle of a small lake with the last of the Brooks Range tapering off in the horizon. It was a sunny cold day and really pretty and it made sense to me and Higman why folks built cabins that far East of Kotzebue. Like over 300 miles inland or some shit.

I asked Carl Weisner what happened and why his plane wasn't wrecked. He just said "you'll see." We hiked up close to the plane and I could see what happened. Mr. Weisner had landed his plane, shut down the engine and climbed out of the cockpit and stepping off the skis and sank over his head in soft snow. The skis on the plane kept the plane way up high, barely out of his reach, so Mr. Weisner had to swim in powder snow away from the plane and crawl towards firmer footing.

Mr. Weisner put on a pair of snow shoes he brought in his sled. It was much colder and clearer out and after Mr. Weisner put cinched his snow shoes on, he grabbed the cans of gas, tied sections of cheese cloth over the gas can spigots and slowly walked the remaining distance to his plane. He didn't fall through the surface of the snow and managed to climb on top and pour all the gasoline into his wing tanks. Following the cans of gas, he poured in a couple pints of HEET on top of the shitty 87 octane village gasoline.

What's funny, is the bottles of Everclear Higman and I smuggled with us to Shungnak were identical to the HEET Weisner poured into his gas tanks. Both products were 190 proof or 95 percent pure ethanol. Ethanol being high-proof drinking liquor or better put: refined yeast poop. Blending ethanol (drinking alcohol) with gasoline burns really nice and allows water to dissolve in yer tank of gasoline, then flow through your carbs and burn with a little more kick. But HEET contains formaldehyde and cannot be made non-poisonous. So don't drink it.

On the topic of alcohols, as stated before, ethanol is derived from fermenting grains and fruits with yeast, distilled, dripped through charcoal filters and is for human consumption. Methanol is derived from surplus wood waste and scrap like chips and sawdust, heated and distilled in the same process as liquor but is used primarily for antifreeze. Methanol is also real poisonous and explains why folks leave bowls of antifreeze around for obnoxious dogs to drink. And die blind really fucked up, flipping spastic like Northern Lights Drinkers.

Years ago you'll remember the barrels labeled ALCOHOL that washed ashore in front of Wainwright, Alaska. A dozen kids and citizens opened these barrels and started knocking back shots, having a gay old time partying on the beach, catching a buzz in the midnight sun. The alcohol was industrial alcohol and for the life of me I can't determine what kind it was. The end result was the same as the dead dog trick though. Most of the kids and citizens either died or went blind, brain damaged and crippled. Party on Wayne, right? Or more accurately, party on WainWrong beach. I met one of the Beached Whaler Partiers, Larry Bodfish at Barrow's Samuel Simmons Hospital. He's Bun's age, and the last survivor of that toxic solvent Eskimo Drinks Party. He's also blind as a really old bat.

Isopropyl alcohol is derived from petroleum (oil) production. After all the valuable products like benzene, acetone, kerosene and octane are evaporated off, cooled and collected, there's a shit load of isopropyl alcohol remaining. This product is used extensively in medicine as a sterilizing washing agent and wipe and is commonly known as rubbing alcohol. I can't recall any historical data of humans trying to drink isopropyl alcohol, the vapors and flavor are just too chemical and too volatile. But, you haven't lived till some asshole pours rubbing alcohol over your deep cuts from prison fights or bullet holes picked up running a crack house. Yikes.

Back to Shungnak. Carl Weisner poured some other containers of fuel additives into the wing tanks of his airplane. One was a varnish and sludge dissolving agent like Gumout to keep his fuel tanks, fuel lines and carburetors clean. The last additive he poured in was an octane booster and lead supplement so that shitty 87 octane village gasoline is bumped up to at least the minimum 100 octane low-lead fuel Lycoming Cessna inline piston engines require.

When I worked at Ryan Air, snow machine racers would purchase jerry cans of av-gas from us. On top of the high price they paid for aviation gasoline, they'd add even more fuel additives so that their high-stress sno-go engines screamed super loud and fast. Cloudy, dirty village 87 octane gasoline don't have all the sweet additives we get in Chevron or Shell Supreme. After we were done fueling Mr. Weisner's plane, he removed the cheese cloth from the gas can snorkels and showed me and Brian quite of bit of rust and ice slush that was filtered out the gasoline. Rust and ice slush that kills airplane engines and kills pilots too. I learned a lot slumming and serving my penance in purgatory Alaska.

Me and Brian stayed a ways back as Carl Weisner cranked over his plane and after a couple tries the engine fired up. He gave us the Red Baron thumbs-up and powered away taking off leaving me and Brian in the middle of a lake to walk back to Shungnak while Mr. Weisner flew to Ambler to refuel to the tops and fly all the way back to Kotz. On our way back to town, we smoked down a couple bowls, looked for nice fishing spots and made plans to return to when we did the Shungnak school inventory next summer.

Must be the sign on my back that states, "Sucker will help you," but when we volunteer to help folks out, we get a mini-adventure in return. Life is nothing but time. Ye gotta fill that time doing something. Even if it's giving old men guns and liquor to putter with, giving dead smelling bodies cigarettes, dragging them into their houses, hoisting dead bodies into an ambulance alongside a bunch of fucking cops, or assisting mentally defective pilots with towing and fueling airplanes.

Of course, once in every lifetime, ye gotta hoist dead bodies into a fire pit.

In the big picture and in summation, you boys got good reasons to forgive yourselves. Ya see, nobody fucks up as good as me. Nor as often. I got mud-strays, runts and dog-pound reject children all over God's Green Earth, so don't beat yourself up for shit you made a mess out of. You're careers are full of divorces with promotions in rank duly awarded after your first payments towards child support, alimony, house foreclosure and bankruptcies. No cop has fewer than 3 ex-wives with uncountable mistresses, living or dead, black or white, animal or less.

There's no way outa here. That's us: public service morons labeled "suckers that will help you." Our good deeds and werks are just some of the proper Christian duties we perform. It's been a really long, hard life, and we possess an even longer list of violent sins we've needed atonement for.

I used to lean heavy on you copper to save my life when I thought I was going down for the last time. But in our old age and dubious wisdom, I found it's called Redemption and since arriving in Alaska, working alongside you coppers, we've almost got our heads above water.

Actually, according to my MBA Accounting and Quantitative Analysis, our tally sheets are pert near balanced. I recommend you hold yer wives’ hands and count their breaths till the hospital room is deathly quiet.

Widower-hood. This too shall pass.

Karl.