Fluff Miner

By Dean Forêt

Hugh "Huge" Newman, a library school dropout, banishes himself to a subarctic mining town for the winter. There, he discovers a whole world in miniature, with two sides, management and union, in perpetual war against each other, the leading combatants strangely reminiscent

• Language: English
• Publisher: TPNI
• Release date: Nov 29, 2022
• ISBN: 9781738727919

Dean Forêt

Dean Forêt divides his time between north and south. He has worked political campaigns in all three of Canada's northern territories but likes to write in Central America. His novels include Fluff Miner and four mysteries starring Regina Colwell, an activist millennial who doesn't maintain the status quo but fights to change it, case after case after case.

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Fluff Miner

by

Dean Forêt

TPNI

Vancouver, BC

Copyright © 2022 by Dean Forêt

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For a copyright licence, visit accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

Cataloguing in publication information is available from Library and Archives Canada.

ISBN 978-1-7387279-0-2 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-7387279-1-9 (ebook)

Edited by Scott Steedman

Cover and interior design by Alex Hennig

Cover photo of Tahmoh Penikett by Brendan Meadows

Ebook by Legible Publishing Services

Dean Forêt / TPNI

[e-mail]

c/o TPNI

PO Box 31401

Whitehorse, YT, Y1A2C0

The Natalie Anger quote in the epigraph appears in The Life of Pi, and Other Infinities, The New York Times, Dec 31, 2012.

rook

Your doppelgängers may be out there and many variants, too, some with much better hair who can play Bach like Glenn Gould.

— Natalie Angier

Tahmoh

Photo of Tahmoh Penikett by Brendan Meadows

Prologue

Newman watches the trucks cross the frozen river. Their bouncing headlights pick out frosted ridges and snowdrifts along the route over the new ice bridge. Turning to head back to his trailer, he sees the headlights of George King’s truck dip briefly before arcing upwards to point towards the southern sky. In the next instant, Bobby Smith’s headlights skew off into the trees on the west bank bluff.

Bloody hell!

Newman turns. Running as fast as four layers of cold-weather clothing allow, he sprints back to the river. His sweat-heavy boots take him past the yellow Caddy, where Hot Dog sits behind the wheel, stunned and immobilized. He heads for the second truck, which is lying on its side, its radiator diving down into the water.

Blood-y hell.

Arriving at the drowning truck, Newman tries to open the driver’s side door but his mitts make his hands clumsy. Pulling off the mitts, his gloved hands fumble with the door handle. After what seems like eternity, he yanks open the door and grabs the hood of Bobby Smith’s parka to drag the trucker out onto the flooding ice. From a cut above his hairline, Newman sees blood running down into Bobby’s eyes. Re-establishing his grip on the hood of Bobby’s parka, Newman hauls him to the shoreline. Propping Bobby’s limp body against a poplar tree, Newman turns and slogs his way back to the flood.

Ahead of him, he sees icy water slowly claiming George King’s rig. Reaching King’s tractor, he reaches for the driver’s side door handle and pulls himself up to the driver’s side window. Through the glass, Newman glimpses King’s terrified eyes, his mouth motoring madly to form words, just as the tractor tips, dumping Newman back onto the ice. Slipping on a glassy patch of river ice, he tumbles to his knees.

Ignoring the pain, he finds his feet and stumbles backwards in the dark. Suddenly, the ice underfoot gives way. Newman’s right boot fills with ice water, bathing his stockinged foot in slush and loosening the boot’s hold on his toes. Next thing, he is up to his knees in overflow. Then his left leg breaks through. Terrified, he throws his body forwards, his hands instinctively clawing at the crusted surface snow as frigid water sloshes under his parka and leaks down his coveralls, soaking his pants and wetting his long underwear, the weight of the water dragging him under into the black flood racing beneath the white surface. With the river taking him down, he scrambles madly, like a wild animal, to reach safety on a shelf of shore ice.

With his heart hammering blood through his brain, he crawls out on all fours. Gasping, he reaches the bank and crashes through brush towards Bobby Smith. Catching his breath for a moment, he shakes Bobby’s shoulder.

Help me!

ActOne

1

Romance

Flying low over snow-carpeted lakes, black spruce forests, and stands of grey poplar, Newman searches for the places where humans have clear-cut evergreens, or where forest fires have turned them into ash piles and carbon sticks. On the hillsides, rusty brown outcrops stand out and, in the valleys, circles of willows around frozen and dried-up ponds.

The passenger dozes off.

The flight attendant, a toothy native woman in beaded mukluks and a bulky wool sweater, wakes Newman with a fist bump to the shoulder. The DC–3 banks and lands hard on a dirt strip. Looking out from his window seat, Newman winces as the wing tip almost scrapes the ground. The aircraft rocks back and forth and, for a second, Newman imagines his journey ending with a crash landing. Eventually the ancient aircraft bumps to a noisy stop.

End of the road, big guy. The attendant cranks the handle and the door blows open onto the northern night. Newman pulls on his ski pants, zips up his army-surplus parka and lugs his stuffed hockey bag down the metal steps. At the bottom, a bitter wind nips the tips of his ears. He flips up his hood, pushes his fingers into woollen gloves and pulls leather mitts over the gloves.

The pilot keeps the port-side engine running, while the co-pilot kicks chocks under the DC–3’s front wheels, holding the plane halfway down the airstrip. In the doorway, the shivering attendant hugs herself for warmth. A wicked crosswind rocks the plane’s wings as an RCMP officer drags a half-drunk teenager in handcuffs up the stairs and onto the plane.

Once the prisoner and his escort reach the top of the stairs, the Mountie releases his grip on the kid’s neck to push him inside. The co-pilot pulls the chocks, races up the retractable airstairs and locks the door. The ancient aircraft grumbles down to the far end of the runway, then growls off into the black night. Still shaken by the rough landing, Newman watches the plane go. End of the road.

Fifty yards west of the runway, Newman makes out a yard lamp swinging outside a tiny shack. Hoisting the hockey bag onto his shoulder, he trudges up the rutted path of frozen mud towards the shack. Close up, his ears pick up the sound of the metal shade rattling as the lamp swings wildly in the wind.

Affixed to the shack wall, a six-foot-square painted-plywood sign reads: CARTER CRICK, EVELATION 2000 FEET, DISTINCE TO: PARIS 4444 MILES, NEW YORK 4046 MILES, HIROSHIMA 4280 MILES, BELGRADE 5057 MILES.

Beside the sign, somebody has affixed a giant outdoor thermometer. Buffing the glass tube with his leather mitt, Newman clears enough frost to read the mercury marker: –21C.

Climbing the shack’s two-by-four doorstep, Newman peers through the frost ferns that cover its door’s tiny window. He pushes and pulls at the handle, but it seems frozen shut. With the butt of his fisted mitt, he hammers on the door.

Who’s there? comes a voice from inside.

Hugh Newman!

Who?

Newman! He yells his name twice but nothing happens. Gently booting the bottom of the door to break the ice seal around the frame, he leans in to force open the creaking door. Stamping the snow off his boots, he steps inside the plywood shack. Glancing around, Newman’s eyes take in a year-old company calendar, the interior’s only decoration. Asbestos the Miracle Fibre, reads the headline over the grid for October 1970. No warmer inside than out, the nails in the plywood wear furry hats and frond-shaped frosting glazes the square window on the wall facing the runway. Behind a waist-high wooden counter waits a wrinkled man with buck teeth and weeping eyes. The old guy’s watery gaze slowly scans a typed sheet as if it were the guest list for a fancy party. Without acknowledging his visitor, he wipes his nose on the sleeve of his quilted parka and waits for the visitor to announce himself.

Cold! Newman says. Twenty-one below?

The old man glances down at the list of arrivals and, evidently finding no Cold Twenty-one-below on the list, counters, More than forty below with the wind chill.

Okay.

Peering at the newcomer, the elderly guard tries again. Name?

Hugh Newman.

The guard peers at a list of names on a clipboard on the countertop. Don’t see your name here, son.

What?

If you’re not on the list, you cannot enter the camp. Cannot. No way!

Newman calms himself with a deep breath, then exhales slowly. The plane’s already left.

The elder’s rheumy eyes settle on Newman’s. Not my department, he says without the trace of a smile.

Mind if I look at the list? Newman reaches across the counter to grab the clipboard. He reads the list and points out his name. Here I am. Newman, Hugh John.

The old man shrugs and sniffs again. Got your paperwork, Chamber of Mines Medical Certificate? That lot?

Unfolding a brown envelope from his parka pocket, Newman hands it over.

The old man takes his time leafing through Newman’s papers. I’m John George, by the way. Everybody knows me around here. Nodding at Newman’s hockey bag, John George asks: Hockey player?

Bought it second hand.

John George ticks boxes. Let’s see: eyes brown, hair black ...

Dark brown.

Teeth white.

Newman wonders if it would be rude to mention the stream of snot dangling from the guard’s nose, which, with every shake of his wattles, threatens to soil the company’s precious documents. And you are the guard?

This is the guardhouse, John replies without irony.

Don’t mean to be inquisitive but what are you guarding? Newman asks.

John looks hard at Newman. I stand on guard for thee.

For me? From whom? Whom should I fear?

John shakes his wattles and the snot drops like a bomb. Whatever. The bush, the camp, the cold. Dark nights. Russians.

I see.

Adopting a friendlier tone, John asks, This your first time inside, son?

Newman shakes his head. I was at Silver Site, two years ago, and Canton Copper the year before that. Summer jobs. You?

Been up north for twenty years. I went from Lovely Lake to Pin Point to Carter Crick. Shivering slightly, John nods and his nose drips more mucus onto Newman’s documents. Downhill all the way, eh?

Hope not.

Guess that makes me a lifer. So what? Have you never heard of the romance of the north? Wiping his running nose again with the sleeve of his parka, he lifts his head to shout, I am passionate about the north. Passionate!

Yes? Newman wonders what the shout is about.

But I am worried.

What’s your worry?

Soviets, son. I’m worried about the Soviets invading, coming over the pole and taking over. Outsiders, son, outsiders taking over. How long you in for?

Eleven months. Plan to head ‘outside’ in time for school next year.

Shuffling through the paperwork, John licks his pencil before ticking a box. A boomer? Just here for the good times, eh?

Casting his eyes around his charmless surroundings, Newman nods, That’s me.

We lifers are here for the long haul. We protect this country. John pinches his nostrils between his thumb and forefinger, then wipes his fingers on his pants. So, what brought you here? Bad debts?

Breakup.

See plenty of that up here, John sniffs. She take all your money?

Yup, Newman sighs. Avril cleaned out the joint account.

John shakes his head sadly. Six months in isolation is normal for a breakup. For a death in the family, men often lock themselves up for a year or two.

Really?

John noisily inhales mucus. You miss her?

I’ll miss her kid, Juin. Hard not to like a four-year-old.

So, what went wrong? Another man? Another woman?

Trying to laugh off the question, Newman says, Maybe my dink was too small.

Glancing skyward, John indicates understanding. Always something. I’m a premature ejaculator myself.

You don’t say? Newman wonders if this whole conversation will be recorded in some company file.

Any questions?

Rolling a stamp in the big black inkpad on the counter, John briskly stamps every page of Newman’s documents before pushing them back across the counter. March up the hill. You’re in Bunkhouse 2, Room 9. Drop your kit there and grab some grub at the cookhouse across the yard. Got it?

Yes, sir.

Keep your nose clean, John says without irony as, once more, he wipes his beak on his sleeve.

Hugh Newman lifts his bag and tramps up the path. Faced with an endless winter in this subarctic mining camp, Newman comforts himself with the knowledge that the first day back inside is usually the worst and, having landed here, he will now be counting off the hours until he can escape with enough money to get him through grad school. But can he get through the first day? The first week? A month? One day at a time, Hugh.

2

Pinko

Newman squints into the wind, grateful that the trees, bending across the hillside, are tempering the most violent blasts before they reach down into the campsite. His miner’s boots, still heavy and awkward, squeak on the icy boardwalk, rude intrusions on the quiet night. Arriving at the cookhouse, he wrenches open the outer door into a cold mud room, dumps his bag under the boot bench, hangs his parka and ski pants on a spare wooden peg. Pushing through the swinging inner door, a steamy heat smacks him in the face. The savoury scent of grilled meat and steamed potatoes sting his nostrils, as the kitchen clatter and the clamour of male voices speaking a babble of foreign tongues assault his frozen eardrums.

A tidy mind had crowded one half of the room with rows of wooden tables and long benches, leaving barely enough space for the kitchen, with its freezers, coolers, stoves, steam tables and bubbling pots and pans. Along the far wall stand dessert racks, a Kool-Aid dispenser, a salad bar and a lunch table — the latter a do-it-yourself sandwich facility for those going on shift. Further along are the racks of used trays, dirty dishes and rows of garbage bins.

As Newman pauses, taking it all in, the clanging of pots and the table chatter all come to a halt as all eyes swivel towards him. From the wooden benches at collapsible tables, hard men size up fresh meat.

Tall, young — but not punk young — long brown hair. A hippy maybe. Canuck probably and, for sure, a Cheechako, a big man here for his first winter. Won’t last long; Newman reads the lifers’ minds. Turning his back on the room, he pulls a rubber band off his wrist and snaps it around his ponytail. Then, brushing ice crystals off his eyelids, he plods towards the food line shuffling along the west wall from the mud room doorway to the steam tables. By the kitchen doorway, a sign reads: NO MINORS PAST THIS POINT. Border control: a factual statement or another spelling error?

Behind the serving counter, line cooks press bellies to steam tables, taking orders and dishing out food from aluminum pans marked WELL DONE, MEDIUM, RARE, POTATOES (BOILED), FRENCH FRIES, CARROTS, PEAS and GRAVY. Men in work wear sidestep along the line, loading Melmac trays with steak dinners before heading to their favourite tables. Newman hears guttural vowels and dropped consonants. From those sounds and the pathways of those with loaded trays, he locates Germans self-selecting to one table, Slavs to another and Britishers to a third.

On the far side, cutlery clanks into a metal container, drawing Newman’s eyes towards the salad bar and the dessert tables, and the coffee urn against the far wall. He picks up a tray and shuffles up to the serving station.

Saturday, announces a wiry redhead behind him in the line. Steak night.

Newman turns and sticks out his hand. Hugh Newman, he says in a voice just loud enough to rise above the clatter and chatter. The redhead — skinny, thirty-something with pitted, acne-scarred cheeks — wears coveralls, a blue denim shirt and a bright red tie. Before taking Newman’s hand, he carefully wipes his palm on his coveralls. New-man? Bugger me! The Bolshies will be glad to see you’ve finally landed on Planet Earth.

Newman cocks his head. Bolshies?

What brought you here?

Newman wearily recycles his explanation, My dick’s too small.

Without missing a beat, the redhead answers in kind, Apart from my tickler, everything about me leans to the left. The lads call me Pinko. Pinko Deadrock. You got a trade, mate?

Trade?

I am a master welder and the chief shop steward.

Me? I’m an apprentice librarian.

Pinko chuckles. That hard work? Shushing and stacking? Pinko removes a wad of gum from his left cheek with one hand and pats down his hair with the other. Newman fixes his eyes on the redhead’s ragged buzz cut.

You like my do? Did it meself.

Very bush, Newman deadpans.

Very butch, you mean, Pinko jokes.

Laughing, Newman says, You sound like Keith Richards.

Bugger me! Do I still ’ave an accent? The lifers would like me better if I lost it. But I’m no ‘lifer,’ mind. I’m only here to save for the down payment on me dream home. Trouble is, I can hardly keep up with inflation, so I might be here for a while. How about you, old fruit?

Seriously, I’m working on my masters in library science, but I ran out of cash. Here for a few months, then back to school.

Hmmm. You may find that it takes longer than you planned. You’ll find surprising ways to squander your pay up here.

I promise to do my best, sir.

From an overhead speaker and an overloud tape player, Connie Francis launches into Where the Boys Are.

Pinko clamps his hands over his ears. Ouch!

Newman grins. Who chooses the music?

The mine manager.

Man of taste, is he?

Obviously not. He used to ’ave Elvis’s ‘Jailhouse Rock’ on his playlist but then some square told him it sent the wrong message. According to the boss, it were ‘unproductive.’

Or-der? A line cook slaps a meaty paw on the counter and yells at Newman and Pinko: Or-der!

Newman hesitates, but Pinko gently pushes him forwards. Step up, Newman. Order as many steaks as you can eat.

Two, medium.

Two, medium, the cook yells down the line.

Pinko says, One, well done, with extra smashed spuds, thank you, Farouk, my brother.

Farouk echoes the orders: Two, medium. One, well done, extra mash.

Cooks in fat-splattered aprons plate the steaks and potatoes. With a tilt of his head, Pinko points to the salad bar and the two load up on greens.

---

The room watches as the two men pass. Pinko whispers, This is the Huns’ table, and then says, Evening, ladies: Ernst, Heinrich, Addy, Benny.

A bullet-headed muscleman rises from his corner seat. Ladies? Pinko, I am a swordsman, a conqueror of many virgins. Just ask my wife.

Pinko looks about. She here tonight, Benny?

At the table’s head, Ernst, a furious-looking man with a military mustache, points at the chubby chap with the sausage dog face. "Holy Roly Poly Heinrich is the only virgin at this table. Benny hasn’t conquered you, has he Heinrich?"

Heinrich winces. No.

At the foot of the table, a skinhead with tattoos inked up to his neck sneers. Face it. Benny will dick a hole in a pizza box if he thinks there is salami inside.

Feigning anger, Benny plants his fists on his hips. Did you hear that, Pinko? Baldy is an ignorant bigot. As chief shop steward, you gonna do something about that?

Pinko says, Definitely, Benny. I’ll get right on it — after me tea break.

Ernst stabs his steak knife towards Newman. Who’s the fresh meat?

My dears, this handsome young inmate is Hugh Newman. To Newman, he adds: Ernst is a diamond driller and the alpha dog at the pit. Note the scars on his face and do not duel with him.

Newman dips his head towards Ernst.

It was a picket-line punch-up, Ernst growls, you ass-licking little Englander!

So you say, old sod.

Ernst gives Newman a hard look. How long you in for?

Just landed and, already, I’m planning my getaway.

Ernst laughs. Another baby-faced boomer boy!

Addy, Ernst’s thin-lipped seatmate, interrupts. Don’t listen to Ernst. Just do your job, Newman.

"Ja! says Ernst. Unless you get posted to the pit where I am top dog."

Bitch queen of the big hole, Pinko whispers.

Ernst barks at Newman: Listen and learn, new boy! And stay away from Pinko’s industrial strength hand soap. It’ll rot your root.

At that, Addy laughs out loud.

Pinko concedes the point. For the time being, I am indeed a retired heterosexual. This wins him a titter from the table.

As they move off, Pinko says, Addy is the mill operator.

Yes?

The lead hand, the one who keeps the mill milling.

---

Pinko and Newman slide onto opposing benches at the latecomers’ table in the southwest corner, soon to be joined by pastry chef Chuckwagon Windsor, who Pinko introduces as president of the union. Chuckwagon, a thin man with an aristocratic nose and a pained look, sets down a tray loaded with strawberry shortcake. Have some. I couldn’t let management eat it all.

Let them eat cake, I say, quips Pinko as he grabs a piece.

As Chuckwagon dishes cake, Newman studies the man. The pie-maker’s whites are immaculate and unwrinkled, and he speaks through his nose in the snooty tones of pleasant pastures far from Pinko’s dark satanic mills.

Newman wonders aloud, Is the union here an English gentlemen’s club?

Pinko shakes his head. No, the local union is truly international. We have Scots, Welsh, Irish …

Newman rolls his eyes in mock horror.

Seriously, everybody’s involved: Germans, Slavs, DPs, Third-Worlders …

Canadians?

Not enough. That’s how we ended up with Chuckwagon as union president.

Newman opens his mouth to say something when Pinko grabs his arm. See the bloke with the huge shoulders, manly hands and the Popeye forearms?

The Elvis hairdo heading this way?

He’s the truckers’ shop steward, as Canadian as beavers and woolly knickers. Pinko beckons the muscular trucker onto the bench next to Newman. Louie-Louie, meet Hugh Newman. Newman’s a new man.

Louie swings his leg over the bench, sits and, with an open hand, wipes breadcrumbs off the tabletop. Flashing Newman two rows of big white teeth, Louie asks, Where you from, Hugh.

Edmonton.

"Another prairie boy. I’m from Winnipeg, ou en fait, Saint Boniface."

Newman nods. "Je comprends."

You play hockey, Hugh?

No. I skate like a duck.

Louie folds his steak between two slices of buttered bread and bites down hard, chewing through his next words. Say, Pinko, you hear about the hockey game last night?

Fearing the worst, Pinko puts down his fork. No.

Louie spits it out, along with bits of bread and meat. Well, you know PP?

Pinko says to Newman, Pierre Philippe is assistant mine manager.

Right, Louie says, Well, I checked that pussy into the boards, an’ ’e got up so mad that he take a swing at me.

He did? I’m gutted. He seems such a gentle man.

"Gentleman, hah! So, I deck the guy. Flat on his ass he goes. Next thing, we was all at it. It was great. We won the game and the fight, and PP got such a black eye!"

Pinko swallows hard. Guess I’ll be hearing about this at camp committee.

Victorious Louie brandishes his knife and fork. Bet on it, Pinko.

Louie-Louie continues to eat noisily, his knife and fork clattering hard on the plate of meat, with Newman the polite librarian flinching throughout. Bemused, Pinko watches this little soap opera, then pats his tummy, readying himself to leave the cookhouse. Great steak. Too many spuds. Need a bit of a lie-down after that.

With his upraised cutlery, Louie-Louie holds him up. Say, Pinko, did the company hire a new doctor yet?

Thought you didn’t like the old one?

I went to him about my back, but he ask always questions about my mother.

Pinko lets that one go by.

Over coffee, Newman asks Louie about local tourist attractions. Is there a library here?

Louie-Louie laughs.

TV?

Pinko smiles. Such naïveté. The Canadian Broad-carping Castration Northern Service sends us four hours of taped programs a day.

Louie thumps the table. On Saturday, we get Hockey Night in Canada, last week’s game. Everybody knows already the score from the radio.

After that, there’s a ballet. Pinko’s fingers dance across the table. You watch that, Louie?

Hah! Louie-Louie climbs out of his seat. Tonight, les Canadiens play the Chicago Blackhawk — way to go, Jean Beliveau! — but I got to watch some replay.

Keep on trucking, Louie-Louie! Watching Louie go, Pinko says to Newman, I swear that man could start a fight in an empty room.

Tapping Newman’s wrist, Pinko points with his nose. Three tables away, in the middle of the room, a gloomy group of men in baggy work clothes sit mumbling in hushed voices. All Newman sees are male backsides hanging over a wooden bench.

That’s the Eastern Bloc, the comrades’ table, Pinko says. The one with his unpleasantly plump bum aimed our way is Boris, a mean drunk and dumb as they come. He used to be union, an old-time hard-liner even. But Boris took the king’s shilling and became a mill foreman, so now the working class can kiss his sumptuous backside.

Hard-liner, eh?

Reaching across his table for the salt, Boris’s pants momentarily part company with his shirt. Newman shifts his gaze from the vast globes of white flesh and the obnoxious butt crack, out of which now trumpets a clarion fart.

Pinko cringes. Harmless old dears they are, but Crusher’s crew still votes as a bloc at union meetings.

Newman tries hard to follow Pinko’s thought. Crusher’s crew?

And, speak of the devil, here comes the man himself!

Newman lifts a leg over his bench to see what’s coming. That’s Crusher? He’s so … short … and squat? Solid though.

"No, Joe’s not that