Roulette of the artist, genetic makeup of Neanderthals, death & dismemberment of a Sitka blacktail
This morning I watched the Pillar Bay, a longliner, pass out the topside window. Its orange buoys gathered like a bunch of circus balloons on the port side. And so we begin the slow descent into winter. Ludvig’s has closed. The days shorten. It’s as if everyone must be silent for at least a month before talking again. God hits the dimmer on the soul. The wind, rain, and cold menace. People cope with highly customized strategems that they are loathe to share – or unable to express in words, anything beyond “get cozy before the snow flies.”
What other news? L— on the XX, a boat tied up next to me, stabbed her lover K— the other night. Apparently he forgot to take his medicine and attacked her. He got hauled off in handcuffs two nights ago. For DV. He refused to come off the boat and MagLites danced from inside as the Sergeant retrieved him. K– had just gotten out of Lemon Creek, the local jail.
Meth alley here on the transient dock continues to do swift business. Perhaps abetted by the darkness. I’m considering becoming an addict myself. The low grumble of generators and flicker of TVs from boats not much larger than the TV itself reflects off the wet dock. I’m considering starting a transient dock newsletter. It will be called “Tranny.” Our masthead will read “Please Read Me Before You Light Your Fire.”
On Thursday we played poker by the woodstove on a table made of whale bone vertabrae Xander scavenged from Deep Inlet, now drying on deck beside the radishes – which are incidentally wonderful. The place smelled to high heaven, despite the aroma of my daube de deer – really fucking good if I do say so. We had to peel rotting whale flesh off the discs before bringing them inside – but wonderfully they were all the same height, and accomodated the felt table generously loaned by Brooks perfectly. Once again, humans, with our relentless creativity, rule the day, and manage to get our poker game in.
A week ago we went over to Fred’s Creek for dinner. We departed in the dark of morn, and – powered by Brooks’ twin 200 outboards on the Roamer –rode the grey chop west to the eastern shore of Kruzoff Island. A spray of rain flew general over the windshield. The cloud-cover lifted revealing the volcano.
We spent little time glassing the beaches before Dustin picked out deer. Dustin, who competed with his father and brother for seeing deer, with eyes – albeit colorblind – that saw things, quite literally, differently. I mean I could be glassing for an hour looking at a stump and a log and a big rock and Dustin would reveal, in the same view, three deer.
At about 8 we found a beach, glassed beyond the surf, and found two bucks. Read Dustin found two bucks, while I stared at a tree, insisting I could see a deer in the shape of the bark.
Dustin and I took the kayaks off the back of the boat and paddled in. Quiet as Indians. Thankfully, there was not much wave. We pulled the kayaks up in a tidepool, and tiptoed among the rocks, staying low. We posted up on a long flat ash-colored rock, dried lava really, crawling into a prone position.
Dustin picked his buck – the bigger one, as he saw the deer in the first place – and I lined up for the other, smaller, who had her back toward me. I didn’t like the shot – she was standing parallel, and I shot for her small head – and thankfully missed. Turns out I was shooting for the doe. Whoops.
Dustin hit his first shot, through the mouth, the bullet exploding out the other side of the skull. He dropped with little fanfare. I came up to higher elevation, to avoid the rock in front of me. And walking right into the crosshairs of my scope – turned from two to seven X magnification which helped. Ah yes. As if following direction, he turned just a bit more broadside. I shot him through the lungs, and he crumpled, jerked a few times, and lay still.
We gutted the deer there on the black sand, rivulets of water from the muskeg running between us. We piled the deer into the kayak, and paddled back out to the boat. First buck of the year. Pre-rut, so the meat would not be so gamey, with a nice layer of fat to boot.
Later on that day, paddling in, I managed to flip the kayak when a wave came from behind. I almost lost the rifle in the surf, and found its heavy weight, pulling it out of a tangle of seaweed. Embarrassing. Dustin got one more deer, while I cruised the timberline, seeing fresh bear track, walking trails made by animals much larger, and more ferocious, than ourselves.
We made it back by early afternoon. I hung the deer and canvassed its form to hide it from the ravens. That same evening I looked out to see Cal outside with his head up to the ears disappeared obscenely into the deers thighs. I yelled and bounded outside. He had eaten half a hindquarter. Now I’m not one for beating dogs – but sweet jesus.
The deer hung for three days. I soaked the heart and liver in salt to remove the blood. I borrowed Rick’s vacuum sealer and Xander came over to help butcher.
We made quick work of the deer, and in a short amount of time tenderloins, backstrap, and stew meat from the uneaten hindquarters were packed and Sharpeed and frozen – along with a big bowl of hamburger meat to be taken to Lakeside for grinding.
Over the course of killing and butchering I had Elizabeth Kolbert’s recent article “Sleeping with the Enemy,” in the August 15th & 22nd edition of the New Yorker, rattling around in my head. Usually she’s annoying with her self-righteousness and hammering on about global warming – I agree, I agree – but this article was readable. In it she outlined one researcher’s effort to map the genetic chain of Neanderthals, and the unsettling results of the studies – namely, the idea that one gene separates us from Neanderthals, along with other now-extinct human-like races such as the Denisovans. This one gene, Kolbert writes, codes for some sort of need for movement, some Faustian restlessness, that will not let us be. This desire to conquer, to create, to make anew – while perhaps our greatest asset, allowing us to overcome all obstacles in our path, such as what to use as legs for a poker table – also our greatest enemy. One day, she surmises, it will spell our downfall. We will, like a fire, burn ourselves to the ground.
She speaks of the Neanderthals, and their spread from Europe and Western Asia outward, until they hit some significant obstacle – namely, us, homo sapiens. Why this need for more more more? This push to put ourselves through challenges one after the other, to continue to press the envelope even against our best interests as a race?
Out there on Kruzoff, walking the timberline, following trails made not by humans but by bears that could eat humans, toeing through their feces, I thought on this. Of Timothy Treadwell, who died screaming, nevertheless the way he wished to go. And also Christopher McCandless, the dubious star of Into the Wild, who folks scorn up here. Why the push? Why do we need to go further?
I had no revelations while separating foreleg from ribs. Nor while whittling flaps of meat from between the ribs. No revelations while vivisecting the heart, or even just before sleep that night – except that perhaps, I should have showered. Nah. Wash the sheets in the morning.
But the article hung around like background music for both the hunt, as well as the butchering.
As did one more, this one by Adam Gopnik, also in that same magazine – different issue, I don’t recall which, I have the quote which I cut out hanging on the bulletin board. In it he writes of Paul Gauguin and Van Gogh, and their pitted relationship. Moving further he addresses what separates the artist from the layperson. Brushing aside natural ability, or simple inspiration, he instead approaches the act of artistic creation as a casino game. He writes:
“It’s true that the moral luck dramatized by modern art involves an uncomfortable element of ethical exhibitionism. We gawk and stare as the painters slice off their ears and down the booze and act like clowns. But we rely on them to make up for our own timidity, on their courage to dignify our caution. We are spectactors in the casino, placing bets; that’s the nature of the collaboration that brings us together, and we can sometimes convince ourselves that having looked is the same as having made, and that the stakes are the same for the ironic spectator and the would-be saint. But they’re not. We all make our wagers, and the cumulative lottery builds museums and lecture halls and revisionist biographies. But the artist does more. He bets his life.”
I got my stove in. The silicone collar has weathered one storm and works good. The salon heats up nice. I wish they had black adjustable 45s – I had to settle for stainless.
And here it is. Saturday night. Raining. Sitting by the fire, dog sacked out. I would like to have been a better gambler.
