We stood outside the medical center looking out across the dull layers of gray, white, white, and gray. I bummed a smoke from Ricky, which was fine because he bummed from me all the time. There is a special smokers' ethos--gotta share if you've got one to spare. We're all in this addiction together, so denying a brother or sister in need... well, there's a special place in hell for those bastards, and it probably looks like an infinite queue of happy smokers, none of whom has an extra cigarette to spare.
Anyhow, this was one of those really cold days, the kind where we did the let's-try-to-hold-a-cigarette-while-it's-thirty-below dance. Like most Inupiat dances, there wasn't much foot movement--it was more like a one-cigarette juggle: right hand in pocket, left holds the smoke, right holds the smoke, left hand in pocket (at that point I wasn't skilled enough to do the Clint-style no-handed cig-hanging-from-the-lip maneuver--the smoke in my eyes got too irritating).
We danced and smoked looking like two michelin men, me because of all the extra clothing and Ricky because, well, because he was Ricky: typical Inupiat, 5'7" in all directions. Unlike me he also had a good shield of wind-blocking facial hair and a quality, hand-made Inupiat parkee, real seal in the body, and a thick beaver-fur hat. He also never tired of the same old eskimo joke, pointing across the Bering: "It's the damn Russians making it so cold. Be warmer if we nuked them."
A third and a fourth smoke came out of his pack as he told me why he quit drinking the previous spring.
"I took my pfd check to KIC and got the fastest snow-machine they got. Arctic Cat, racing one, thousand cc. Got real drunk and then rode toward Noatak. Real fast, there was a big big hole in the ice, I jumped off but the cat--" he made a loud *click*-- "I cried all week. My wife got pissed too, said she'll beat me if I do it again. So I stopped. I only drink beer now."
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