The Night Visitor

The night wasn't over yet at the Mecca. While we finished eating an older man entered the bar. He was about my age and he bought cigarettes from the machine, but seemed to be looking for someone. He and I made eye contact a few times, but he always averted when I looked back at him. Eventually Jonas saw him and abruptly went to the men's room. The man followed him.

A few minutes later the man left and went outside. Jonas returned to the table and whispered something to Dave. They went back and forth until Jonas asked me to come outside with him for minute.

"Bring your parka and gloves." He was waiting for me by the door.

Outside we got into a large SUV and the man who had entered the bar was driving. We drove to a parking lot on the campus of the University of Alaska and found a space among the many parked cars and trucks, keeping the engine on to stay warm.

The driver was a friend of both Jonas and Dave. He was also in the Navy and essentially validated what I had already been told. He asked if I understood everything that I needed to know and offered to show me the site from a different perspective, if I had the time. Jonas explained that I was going to see some Eskimos tomorrow with Marie and he seemed to agree that was more important to do. He mentioned them by name. From his accent I could tell he spoke the Inuit language and, upon closer inspection of his face, I sensed he was ethnically Eskimo.

He asked Jonas where I had been taken to see the "farm," and agreed that was a good vantage to observe the installation. I was never formally introduced to this man, but he knew my name. That was how it was supposed to be.

Later, when he drove us back to the bar, he had a beer and ignored us for a while, then left alone. Jonas told me he worked in the "con" - control center of the heater - and that he had arranged for the snowmobiles we used the previous day.

It began to snow for the first time while we were in the bar. It made Fairbanks look more picturesque and the fresh layer of white reflected more ambient light, making the town seem brighter and happier. Nicki appeared and announced she had gotten off work early and suggested we go back to her apartment. The others declined but agreed to meet at the bar in the morning. Marie would be taking us to meet her friends then.

Nicki and I returned to her apartment. For once it was warm - almost too hot. She lit a candle on the floor and dimmed the lights. I heard "Hey Jude" begin to play in the background on the 8-track and she sat across from me with an old scrimshaw box.

"I take it you smoke?" She smiled at me, waiting for my response. I was amazed. I did, of course, but the idea of finding any marijuana in Alaska was so remote... but I was wrong.

My smile gave me away and she opened the box to reveal some familiar and attractive buds - the good stuff - and then stuffed a bowl in a small pipe that appeared to be made from bone.

Nicki was the best thing that had happened to me in Alaska. We smoked a few bowls and then played different tapes and talked. I could sense the same barrier that prevented any physical intimacy beyond holding her. But even that was special and substantial. The candle was burned up by the time we both fell asleep under an Eskimo blanket.

I slept like a log that night. In the morning Nicki awoke before me and made coffee. I pretended to be asleep and was touched when she got under the blanket with me again and lightly kissed my cheek. It had been years since I felt such a connection.

Looking back on that moment, I often regret that I did not kiss her back. Maybe things would have turned out differently - maybe not. It's just one of the many bitter-sweet things that have happened, but the memory still haunts me.

Soon Nicki's phone rang and we were rushing to the Mecca to meet Marie. My emotions were raw from smoking with Nicki and I was unprepared for what I was about to see and hear. These were the best of times and the worst of times; the warmest and the coldest times.