Dennis gets called on his fibs
Everyone needs a friend who can bring them down a notch or two when they get too far up on their high horses. I’m pretty damned lucky to have had one myself. His name was Lawrence “Lonely” Loreen and we grew up together in Inuvik. He was just a tad younger than me and that gave me a little authority, but it didn’t help much. A little aside, if you’re wondering; Lonely got his nickname because he was a bit of a loner at times.
We grew up together in Inuvik. There was a group of us who formed a core friendship, which remains to this day. Out of us all, Lawrence was the only one to graduate. The rest of us didn’t have the discipline that high school demanded and ended up having to “go in the bush,” as it was called, and try to scrape a living off the land.
I already had a gift of the gab and was half-ass decent on a guitar, and I liked to entertain people. My older brother and sisters were making a name for themselves as an RCMP officer and as CBC hosts, respectively, and I tried to keep up the family image. After a couple of beers, I became an expert on everything and would often try bullshit my way out of whatever scrape I found myself in.
I remember, one time in the bar, my friends asked me what the difference was between the New Testament of the Bible and the Old Testament. I made up some hogwash about the New Testament being written after the Second World War and that’s why it’s called the New Testament.
Lonely looked at me and shook his head as he lifted a long neck up to his mouth. “Stupid,” he said, then took a good long pull. “The old testament is the basis of the Jewish faith, and the New Testament is what Christians believe to be the manifestation of the Old Testament. If you don’t know what you’re talking about, then don’t talk about it.” He snorted.
“Well, that’s what I heard,” I shot back in defence.
“Well, I heard that the moon is made of cheese, but doesn’t make it true, does it?” The whole table burst into laughter.
Another time, a few of us went goose hunting in the fall. A flying goose is not an easy target. You have to lead the goose by about five feet to give the buckshot enough time to hit the goose. I couldn’t figure out my timing and went through three boxes of shotgun shells and ended up getting only one goose. But in the bar, it was a totally different story. I was sitting with a bunch of boys from out of town, and bullshit was flying like flocks of geese. I was knocking two geese down with one shot. I was making impossibly long shots. I was shooting from the hip and knocking geese out of the air. I was on a roll when Lonely walked in. Lonely stood over me as I took a swig of my beer. “You couldn’t hit a (expletive) goose if it walked up and shook your hand. Quit buying him beer, he’s only gonna get worse,” he said as he walked away.
After the ice went out in May, we’d go shooting muskrats after school and on the weekends. By then my shooting improved and I could usually keep up with the other crack shots. When we hit town, we’d split our catch and head home. But instead of skinning my muskrats, like my friends had to do, I gave them to my mom who would skin them for me. I tried skinning a muskrat once. You have to take the entire hide off as one piece, like pulling a parka off. But instead of ending up with one piece, I had six. So my “rat skinning” left something to be desired.
The annual spring Muskrat Jamboree was happening and I was standing with a bunch of pretty nurses who just got into town and was telling them about the significance of the muskrat to the people of the Delta, and about the history of the jamboree. Then they announced the muskrat-skinning contest and one of the nurses got excited. “Oh, Dennis, you should join. We want to watch how good you are.”
I didn’t want to embarrass myself so I made up some lame excuse about injuring my wrist playing pool. Just as I turned, I noticed Lonely was within earshot. He said (and I’m thankful for this to this day) under his breath, “You never skinned a (expletive) rat in your life.” Then he walked up and signed up for the contest. Lonely came in a respectable third to two of the most skilled trappers. The nurses abandoned me immediately after to take photos with Lonely. When I was slinking away, he said, “Bullshit contest next. Better sign up,” as he was walking away with those nurses.
Lonely is gone now, but I think of him every time I run into a group of tourists or if someone asks me about hunting, or if a group of pretty women want to know something about our way of life. In Lonely’s honour, I always preface with, “Some of my stories are true, but a lot of them aren’t.” So there you go. I wish you a “Lonely” in your life. We all need to be kept in check by someone.
