Jeremiah

The guy on the far left in the bright blue atikluk is Jeremiah. He’s been one of “my guys” since September. Jeremiah was conversational and always polite when trying to sell me stuff. And he was always trying to sell me stuff. There were offers for an ivory fishing lure, earrings, and a ball of twine. About the twine he said, “It’s strong stuff. You could use it for just tying up just about anything.” As he stood on my front steps and practically begged for money, I couldn’t help myself but to laugh.

“Jeremiah, I don’t need any twine. Thanks.”

I first met Jeremiah, sometime back in late August or early September. I don’t exactly remember when but I do remember that it was after he got back to Kivalina from a stint in jail. I don’t know what petty crime he served time for but people knew that Jeremiah was back in town.

Never one to cause any real harm, he was always just looking for a little spending money. Always willing to sell you anything. I was never in the market for dolls that he had access to. But he was persistent. I remember one time when I answered the knock at the door to see Jeremiah standing there with a 3 ring binder of National Geographic type reference cards. He said he got it in the mail a long time ago and thought I could use it in my classroom for the low, low price of 40 bucks.

40 dollars was his usual asking price. Ironically, that’s also the known street value asking price of quaq. (Pot)

Eventually, I was able to get through to him about if he was ever going to make a sale to me it’d have to be a knife, some furs, something manly and tough – not dolls and jewelry or twine. Before Christmas break I bought some remnant furs off of my guy, Jeremiah. Cross Fox, Qavvik, and Black Wolf – nothing of great value and when I asked him where he got the furs, he told me they were his grandmother’s. I then, of course, had to follow that up with making sure that he had his grandmother’s permission to be selling them. She’s dead – the furs were rightfully his.

On my daily walks, I’d often run in to Jeremiah and he’d usually try to sell me something. Once he had a pick attached to some animal bone. He swore it was an antique. I didn’t buy it. Another time he asked me if I would buy a snowshoe. A single giant snowshoe. I declined but had to know why just one. It was his deceased grandfather’s. He lost the other one.

This morning Jeremiah was found dead.

He hung himself after a night of heavy drinking.

There was a funeral in Kivalina just yesterday. Last Sunday in Anchorage, a 50-year-old woman was found dead from “exposure”. “Exposure” can mean just about anything from hypothermia, to drug overdose. She was found unresponsive under a bridge. The woman was originally from Kivalina and her body was flown home and buried yesterday.

Jeremiah was related to her.

This is a sad place.

In Kivalina, it’s not just the shoreline that is eroding.

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I’ll remember his smile and his powerful dancing and I won’t soon forget that he owed me ten bucks.