tupilak (part one)

first, a quote: The aim of the Eskimo storyteller is to pass the time during the long hours of darkness; if he can send his hearers to sleep, he achieves a triumph. Not infrequently a story-teller will introduce his chef-d'œuvre with the proud declaration that "no one has ever heard this story to the end." The telling of the story thus becomes a kind of contest between his power of sustained invention and detailed embroidery on the one hand and his hearers' power of endurance on the other.


It was the fault of the storm. Really. He'd never have thought of the thing otherwise.

After just too many unsurfable days in a row, and small craft advisories still racing in urgent little letters across every local TV channel, Ben went sulking over to Cowell's -- the only halfway safe beach to walk on right now this side of town -- just to glare at the choppy grey water and brood. The weather was appropriate to his mood: dark, cold, dangerous, and blinding. The air was full of caustic water. The beach was scoured away, bringing to the surface half-rotted things buried in the cold currents of summer. Mingling with wrack and jetsam, menacing piles of trash scoured from the mountain streams and the coastal terraces and flung onto the beach by the jeering surf.

It wasn't the foul weather and the inability to surf that pissed Ben off. That just gave flavor to his sullen mood. The real source of his anger was his supposed partner Fred. For years they'd roomed together, copped their waves together, studied together. Trolled for work and girls together. Just here lately Fred just had to be a little bit better. All the time. Ben got a job: Fred got the same job, only better, with a better company, better hours, better pay. That was okay. Ben got an apartment. Fred got the next apartment available in the same building: of course, a better one, at a lower rent. Okay, it happens. Ben got a car. Fred got the same car, only better. And he talked the dealer into adding on a bunch of stuff for free. And he got better terms from the lender. Okay, Ben was still not jealous. Even though Fred gloated like a self-satisfied seagull all the time.

On the water it was getting painful. Ben's wetsuit wore out. He'd had it since tenth grade. So he got a new one. Not the fanciest available, but sufficient. Fred showed up next weekend in a better one. Even though Fred's old suit was perfectly fine, and only a year or two old.
When Ben's favorite board showed a hairline on it, he didn't want to bother with getting a new one -- because he really didn't want to start hating Fred. But the third time Fred came out of nowhere --flaunting all sensible safety practices -- and stole Ben's wave from him, despite having plenty of opportunities without endangering them both, Ben had to admit he was furious with the thieving gull-head.

All that was bad enough. But it got worse. Ben had been seeing a girl -- a lovely young woman who worked at a bookstore and made great coffee and rode centuries on her mountain bike -- and out of prudent instinct had kept that fact on the down-low. Not that Fred had ever quite acknowledged that he was deliberately planning all these one-ups and petty thefts. But the pattern was emerging. Anyway, it was a secret that didn't stay kept. The girl herself, initially turning down a date with Fred, mentioned Ben. What Ben didn't know, couldn't, was that she'd as good as come out and said she was in love with him. It didn't do either one of them any good.

The day before this lull on the storm Ben went to get Malena for a movie and pizza date. What he discovered when he got to her house was Fred's slightly better car parked in the driveway: Fred's slightly better jacket slung over the armchair in the livingroom: and Fred's slightly better patter nattering through the slightly more sophisticated music Fred had brought for Malena to listen to.

Malena was telling Fred off, but that only halfway cheered Ben. When she turned to him, Ben realized the damage was done anyway. Whatever had gone on before he got there may not have endeared Fred to Malena, but it had turned her off to Ben. "I'm sorry, I just can't do this," was all that she would say.

Ben was up all night, past the bad movies on the television and into the infomercials. He surfed the net till long past dawn. It wasn't like him to read sites unconnected with his sport of choice, but searching for other water sports took him from canoes and kayaks to reading about Inuits of Greenland, and now he was stomping on the sand at Cowell's, thinking murderous thoughts about Fred and blinking his eyes against the spray -- just the spray and the wind -- and the visions of violent Arctic spirits.

But if it wasn't for the storm, he would never have seen the bones. And without seeing the bones, no part of his foul humor or his newly-acquired obscure knowledge would have meant a thing. (Part Two)