Take My Day
Vernon hated his father. The doctors told him that his father had cultural shock issues, post-traumatic alcoholism, late-onset Asperger's, depression and bipolar dynamism. Vernon knew him as a sullen, old drunk with a bad temper. The doctors disagreed, but they didn't have to live with his father.
The old-timers had insisted that they would sit in the ice-houses and watch the first rays of the sun as it made its first, brief ascent into the early Spring sky. This was the mark of the new year for them, as revealed by the turn of the Earth itself.
"I don't see why you have to get all layered up and sit there for three days in the dark," he quarreled with his father. "We could bus you up on the snow-mobiles the evening before. I'd come with you. It would be an honor. We could eat and drink a little, then come home to the warmth."
In a lucid moment his father would slur. "Only the eldest of each family should watch. There would be no reason to go if we made it a family excursion, a 'day out' for the children."
Vernon filled the coffee pot with water and set it on the electric plate to heat up.
"I have to get back to the realtors office," he grumbled. "Those kids don't know how to work the copier. The place will catch fire if I stay away too long."
His father shrugged and rocked his head in an ambiguous way. "I can make my own coffee. You go off now, and sell your family lands."
"The plots in the township were never sacred to us. Just some rocks where the seals passed though." Vernon sighed over the oft-repeated argument. It was his job to sell property and he did it very well, had a way with all sorts of folks. And in the back he kept the notion of historic lands; had maps and paid for research. His own sense of a moral exploitation was strong.
"Call me if you have any problems with the machinery," he mumbled. He reached for his padded jacket, suddenly eager to get back to some proper work. "There are crackers in the jar. I'll clean up this evening before I make your dinner."
"Machinery," his father spat. "A little thing to heat the water. But all the same. Those machines are everywhere. What do we need from them? What good do they do for us?"
Vernon chuckled bitterly as he pulled the hood up over his head. "My old father. You can light a fire with some sticks and heat your coffee the traditional way if you wish. But wait until someone is back home here with you. I can't sell this house if you burn it down."
His father was furiously mumbling at his sarcasm when he left the building and went out into the snow. Vernon walked past the snow-house in the back lot, little more than a childish igloo, where his father had attempted to stay out the previous evening. It had ended badly with much shouting and arguing. His father was close to freezing to death, despite the sheltered nature of the igloo's interior and the electrical heating. Vernon half-suspected that his father had accepted he might die. But that was not part of Vernon's personal culture and, if he bothered to think about it, would not have been part of the traditional Inuit thinking either.
Vernon climbed up to the driver's seat of the pickup and started the engine. He wanted it to warm up quickly. While the condensed water ran down the inside of the windshield, he pulled out his cell-phone and called his wife.
"Hi Beth. I'm heading in to the office in time for lunch. I need to check up on those morons from the agency; make sure they don't actually do anything apart from filing."
"Just keep your temper, Vern," she reassured him. "You can't spend all day typing and filing. We need those 'morons' to keep all the crap from building up. Then you can stick to what you do best."
"Can you do me a favor, my dear?" he asked.
There was a pause and a little sigh. "Have you left him to play with matches again?" she replied.
"I'm sorry, my dear. He seems alright at the moment. Could you just look in, in about an hour? You don't have to say anything to him. Just pretend you're picking up laundry or something."
"Alright. But just remember. If that building's on fire, I'm not going in to get him." Beth's voice was flat and serious.
"Oh, okay, Beth. That's good to know. At least give me a call if the house is on fire." Vern felt that he himself was already starting to smolder inside.
"Sure. I can spare one call for the old yeti. You or the fire-house. I can call either…"
"Thanks Beth. Just make sure he doesn't switch on anything."
Beth laughed. "If he's hitting the sandwich maker again with a rabbit foot, I'll just turn straight around and come home. I'm not his house-maid."
Vern sighed at the tired old story. "It was a bone from a snow-hair and he was only trying to look inside. He thought there something inside the hot-plates. Like an evil spirit or energy from space."
Vern hung up before Beth could do the same. No doubt she would head out for cigarettes later in the morning and look in on the house, whether or not it was lunch-time. For all her surliness, she knew the vague importance of his father to him. It just didn't have to be a major part of her life or her day.
When Beth turned up just after her lunch, the house was silent and dark. It was no surprise, though, that the old man distrusted the electric light. But after a few minutes looking around the cluttered rooms, Beth made her single phone call.
"Vern. Your father's disappeared."