“I can start to do that, Ittura. I can start to try. Would that be enough?”

“Of course! Do you want to go home?” Ittura starts to put his parka and pants back on.

I reach out my fingertips to him. He reaches out his to me.

The following Sunday I am smiling out at my congregation. I am back on the quiet tundra. I am home, back where I belong. We sing our jumbled out “Amazing Grace,” but today it doesn’t sound like a mess. It sounds like something that would play in the Vatican. It sounds beautiful.

I walk Tupik to the door of the church and hold her elbow down the stairs. She leans into my ear and says, “I hear you went to the city.”

I nod and smile at her. “I learned many things that day, Tupik. Ittura was good to me.”

Her face crinkles up and her toothless smile stays frozen for a moment. “He can be a bugger, that man! But he always means well. We have to see the good in everything, you know.”

“I think I’m beginning to. When do you expect to see him again?”

“Oh, I don’t! He’s off in one of the Lands. One of my grands called her dog ‘Ittura’ so he’s not wandering around anymore. She’ll be forced to treat that dog well, but it was me, I wouldn’t let him go for all these years. Wouldn’t let the new ones be named after him. Selfish, eh?”

“Not at all, Tupik. Not at all. He taught me things. Things that I needed to know.”

Tupik hunches over her cane and begins her long walk home. I feel a sadness come over me. No more Ittura at church. As I turn to head back up the wooden steps, I feel a soft caress across my forehead.

I stop and smile and whisper, “Ma’na anirniq.”

Panem et Circenses

A quiver of women. Every afternoon from two to six they are wine aficionados. Every now and then a man joins the group. They squirm if a man comes along. They slither and slide from side to side. Countless trips to the ladies’ room. Adjust lipstick. Comb hair. Return to the table acting coy and different from one another, yet they are the same.

They want one man to look at them. They want to feel wanted. They want his attention. What they don’t want is to fuck his brains out.

They want to feel as though they have him on a line that they can reel in and out. Play with him like a hooked fish. Whistle to him like a puppy. Of course, he must be eager to have their company.

They are all millionaires. Money is the cord that ties them to one another. Their common form of bondage. Their goal now that they have reached their later years is to accumulate more of it. That cannot be done without a man. A rich man. He must have more in his account than they do. He must be richer.