“”Artie’s new mindset is convenient for the rest of us,”
Now we have a bar that’s always open, a bartender  who never leaves his bar!” 
         When asked if he believed the bartender’s
story to be true, Mayor Frank Wilcox said, 
“Who cares?”
      Then the mayor added, “Who knows? Up
here anything’s possible.”  
      Quoted from the WAIT-A-BIT! newspaper, ‘The Evil Screed,’ Issue 3, Page 1, as quoted in the Vancouver Sun.

     In the twilight morning,     Frank climbs up out of the bunker and through about 5 1/2 feet of deep snow, covered with freezing ice…Takes a sniff at the air,stretches, beats his chest and shouts, “SMELLS LIKE SPRING!”
     In reality,there’s a pathetic path through the mountains of
snow, deeply encased with ice.
       “You ever build a snow fort when you were young?
Remember packing snow then taking a hose or
twenty pails of water and covering the fort with
ice?  That way the fort was half-way safe to crawl
through…?”
        Well, that’s what it was like outside the
round bunker door belonging to Hank and FRank
in the undiscovered  village of WAIT-A-BIT!

         Frank crawled up to a flat stump still
peeking out of the snow. The wind had cleared the
stump repeatedly… the more or less constant wind
from the West…But lower down, where the wind
didn’t often reach – the snow was deep.
        There was a ringing in Frank’s ears almost
constantly now. Same sort of ringing you get
if you fire off a large caliber gun in a small space…
or if you’d listened to your favourite hip hop band with
your head too close to the speakers…. or you and
your girlfriend were dancing by the speakers for two hours…
or had sex in front of the speakers and then fell asleep
mid-concert. 
       Well, if the two of you grow old together…
neither of you will be able to hear a damn thing
the other is saying.
        This is not a bad thing. Many people have 
spouses who cannot or will not stop
talking. So if you can’t hear too well,
it can be a blessing…
        But not always…

        “What if someone’s creeping up behind
you, wants to steal your poncho, or
your rifle… what then?” Hank asks from
down below, leaning out  the bunker hole.
         “Yeah, well then you want to be able to
hear… But that’s what the 6th sense is for –
to know when some fucker’s trying to kill
you,”Frank shouts back down.
          They both agreed. Hank pulled
his head back inside.
          “But this constant buzzing in my head –
can’t be a good thing…”

           Frank went outside in the first place
because he thought he heard a bird call,.
OK, he heard a crow… but they count too.
           For three months nothing had
made a sound outside…”Well, you can
hear the weasels laughing… but could be
that’s just in my head… I’m so used to the
sound.”
         “Wonder what they’re laughing at?”
Frank’s thinking…
         There’s no answer to such questions.

          For example, one guy says:   “I might be projecting laughter onto them…giving them human characteristics
they don’t really have.”
         ” Yeah, sure…” Frank answers, not interested in
such horseshit interpretations.

     “But all these stories of men raped by weasels…
Over the past few years…Are those stories true?” Frank
now is wondering, “Or are they just something I made up in the bar, when it was late,just to shut some drunken asshole up? Maybe it was one, or the other, or both.
      The problem was, Frank couldn’t remember
if he made it up or not… Did it matter?  
       Maybe it did.

           Frank remembered the look
in Artie’s eyes when he climbed back up
the hill. When Artie first got to WAIT-A-BIT!
he believed in protecting the wildlife.
        He came back that first night
 with a look of surprise on his face. 
He was a changed man…Wide-eyed…
and trembling. And he had a
very different opinion about protecting the
wildlife then.

        “One thing I won’t ever forget…”
 Artie was talking in his brand new bar, when he
first arrived.
        ” Jesus, it hurts!” he said to me, clutching
his ass.
        “Hmmm. I had to at least pretend to be
interested… What, won’t you forget, Artie?”
Frank asks in a quiet  voice.
         Before he answered Artie had a huge
slug of Shine .        (Remember – one ounce of
                             shine is about equal to 3 shots of vodka) 

         “I won’t forget!” he said,  “The weasel had me.
I couldn’t move… my ass in the air and
my face in the snow… It was his hot
breath on the back of my neck. Every
time I tried to move,he bit me… the hot breath
on the back of my neck, I’ll never forget that!“
         Frank read in his notes: “I smoked my pipe. I looked
across the room at Artie -wild-eyed with his pants
down and dancing from one leg to the other,
trying to apply Vaseline to his anus. 
          It was pretty clear Artie at least believed
something had happened.”
         “I’m the mayor, after all, and I suppose I’m
the police, also”. It’s my duty to investigate.”
         So I say to the man, “I thought animals were quick about having sex.. If a dog humps your leg…
It don’t take long…He knows he doesn’t have much time.”
       ” Same thing with wild animals – they know they don’t
have much time, either… before somethin’ bites em
in the arse or in what hangs below it,”Frank says 
       “This sex seemed to go on forever!”
Artie said.   
         “Artie’s got that same look on his
face right now.” Frank is thinking, “A mix of
horror, shock and surprise. He’s re-living
the initial experience.”

         Frank wants to change the subject.He
feels lazy. He really doesn’t want to think
about this.
        “First drink of the day..Taste’s
great!”” Frank nods at Artie.  
         They clink  tin cups together.

         But the amazed look on Artie’s
face never leaves him.
          “He had that weird look on his face – like
maybe he’s in shock.. like he had been standing,
couldn’t move – with a truck coming at night,
frozen  in the headlights.”
          “And at that last instant the truck is past! 
It can shake you up… especially if you’ve been half asleep
at the time, and the first sound you hear in the midst
of your pleasant dreams, is the blaring horn of an
eighteen wheeler. 
         (Frank has been considering the
situation for a long time.) 
          The shine is finding a place in him…

          Frank chuckles. He knows he shouldn’t say
this, but he can’t resist. After all, he has to investigate.

        Frank asks, “He had you down… face planted
in the snow and bare assed…. Why were your
bare-assed?”
          “I was taking a piss,” says Artie. “First
I had to drop my pants!”
           ” Oh boy, you have a few things to learn
about the Arctic!” Frank laughs, “When you take a
piss, your piss almost freezes before it hits the
ground.  No one takes their pants down up here before
taking a piss – not men or women! You might get
frostbite in a place you can’t  scratch.” 
          “You were afraid to move?” Frank asks.
          Artie nods his head, yes.
          “Well, this is kinda personal,” Frank says, trying not
to laugh.  “But I have to ask it…”
          “OK,” Artie says.

           ‘DO YOU THINK MAYBE THEY TOOK
TURNS ON YOU?”  Frank asks.

            Artie had looked alarmed already. Now he looks 
horrified:
            ‘WHAT DO YOU MEAN?” Artie shouts.
            “Well, this is a sensitive point. But they
had you face down. You couldn’t move…
Weasels are usually pretty quick about 
the sex act… so… if it went on for a long time…
maybe…. did you ever stop to think…”
            “What!” Artie shouts.
            “Did you ever stop to think…  
 maybe more than one weasel raped you?
 Maybe every male weasel in the area took you from
behind…”  Frank smiles in an understanding fashion,
“That’s why it took so long?”

           Artie is silent for a long time. He leaves
the bar and goes into the back…
           “Is that sobbing, I hear?” Frank
is wondering. No Artie’s back too
quick. Now he’s standing right beside me..
Oh, Christ! he’s got a gun!”
        Artie has the gun pointed at Frank’s
temple… His eyes look even bigger than before.
They’re bulging. His pants are off and his knees
are shaking…
          “NEVER…”
          Frank nods his head
          “EVER…”
          “Yes?” Frank says.
           “NEVER Talk to me about  WEASELS again!”
           “Yes, sure!  Of course, Artie! Whatever
you say!”
           Artie goes into the back and puts the large revolver
down. He stumbles back up to the front of the bar.            He sits down. He has a another big drink.
 He downs half the cup in one gulp. 
          “That’s about the equivalent of 8 shots
of vodka ” Frank says..”It’s
one hell of an eye-opener!”
         Finally Artie speaks up, his voice
slurring a bit now: “Thanks so much for that
image!”
        ”  I could have lived the rest of my
life, without ever thinking…  that!”
          Frank doesn’t say a word. It’s a good time
to be quiet.

           “THAT IS A HORRIBLE THOUGHT…
you planted in my head. I just relived the
entire experience!”Artie shouts.
           “I thought I heard you doing something
out back…”
           “Yes, I was on my hands and knees
again…trying to drink the snow…” Artie says,
“Just like that night!  Trying to remember
exactly…”
           “Wait a minute!” Frank jumps up off his
stool.  
            “You were on your hands and knees?”
             “Yes, I just told you…”
             “On your hands and knees, taking
a piss bare-assed…in weasel country,in weasel territory?  Right down near theirLAIR?”Frank asks,
not believing what he was hearing.

            “Yeah sure,I told you” Artie says. “I had to take a piss! I was drunk…  all of a sudden, I got really thirsty. 
I put my face in the snow and started drinking it.
             They both sat in the dark bar, thinking
and drinking lots more of the hooch. Frank, the mayor,
doesn’t say a thing. He’s trying to digest these facts.

              “You see…” Frank is shaking his head,
starting to understand. “They probably thought you were a female in heat!”
               “_________________” says Artie.
               “They smelled your piss.. and by
the time they had scrambled half-way up the hill,
they were probably horny and
they didn’t care who you were!”
              “He ripped out the seat of my pants
 right away! In a second he was on me!”
              “Jesus…” Frank says. “That explains
it… That’s how it got started! Wow!”

THIS IS CLOSER TO THE ROOT CAUSE.

              “I guess that explains the first
man-rape… But what about the next four or
five rapes… the ones reported after mine?”
Artie asks.
              “The only thing I can figure,”
Franks says, “They got a taste for human ass,
and they liked it. You were warm, you were
open and you were easy…Looks like you started
a trend.”
                “What a horrible thought,” Artie says.

                “So they jumped some other
human males,too, and raped them.They found those men were easy, too…’
                ” Female wolverines are not always  in heat…
But male humans are easily accessible & available all the time up here… There are  no women here… in the territories…”
                “Weasels probably thought you were a woman… or the weasels didn’t care…”Frank says. He is puzzling this out,  preparing a report in his head that he knows will never be written.
              “So the weasels got a taste
for human males…” Franks is thinking.”Just a theory!”
              ” But if we’re not careful.this might become a trait! Part of the psyche of the clever beast… in no time at all it’ll
be part of the weasel DNA!   We don’t want that!”

                 “It would be terrible for tourism,” 
                 They both laugh hard at that.

                “How many guys have the weasels
 surprised?” Frank asks.
                “Four admitted it, but  I suspect
they got Dexter, too. He doesn’t want to talk
about it.  Men don’t usually want to talk
about getting it up the ass. At least, up not here.
They might feel different about it at Church and Bloor.”
                “Dexter hasn’t said a word in ninety days.
He just keeps on staring off into the distance,
like he knows something no one else knows…
He’s got that faraway look in his eyes…” Artie
says.
            “Staring off into the Great Beyond!”

            “I know the feeling well.”
           “Me too. I had an aunt with eyes like that.
           You looked into her eyes, you saw the Great Beyond!”