"Hey, where do I know you from?"
"I dunno. Uhm, you probably know my twin... Dina?"
That was it. I did know Dina - I'd met her briefly in Victoria before our journey had begun. The girl curled up in her jacket, shielded from the wealth of passers-by with her sign (entailing how BROKE and HUNGRY she was, obviously), was Squanch. How I recognized her, I'd never know - seeing her and her sister side-by-side six months in the future would prove that they didn't really look that similar.
Either way, this awkward introduction was enough to spur the beginning of a very interesting relationship. The ensuing conversation revealed that she, too, was interested in delving into the world of psychedelics. She left her hobo partner and joined our crew, adding her subtle, self-conscious voice to the music (noise?) of me and Fern's belligerence, the contemplative ring of Scrib's thought-provoking words, and the excitement of our new friend Hades.
There were five of us now, and we began making our way to the ferry terminal. We'd unanimously agreed to spend the duration of our acid trip on Toronto Island (a laughably named, man-made chunk of dirt that I'd never known to exist before.)
The ferry ride introduced us to another soon-to-be member of our psychedelic journey - Kevin. Kevin was a friend of Hades, and quickly proved himself to be more manly than any of us: he chomped back two of the ghost peppers I'd been smuggling around without so much as shedding (too many) tears. The mere smell of the bag was enough to make most people cry.
Kevin was a thick, put-forward fellow from Barrie, Ontario. His voice was laced with the residual sound of an adolescence cloaked in anger, but it seemed that he was now stepping away from the merciless, soul-crushing grip of gangsterhood. He wore a smile now, but it seemed to mask a childhood of difficult years.
His ability to rectify aggressive situations would come in extremely beneficial later in the evening - but we couldn't have guessed that. For now, our zealous chattering promised a colourful night filled with laughter and philosophy; there was nothing to foreshadow the psychotic and painful spiral that our acid-fueled night would offer. At the time, though, our hopes were high. We watched the eye of the island grow larger with every moment, unprepared for the heinous events that would forever tarnish my memories of Toronto Island.
Monday 16 December 2013
Tuesday 3 December 2013
Shitstorm
Scrib's morning jumpstarted into a confused shitstorm - quite literally. Clenching his buttcheeks, he vaulted from the chair he'd been crumpled up on all night. He had no time analyze his surroundings (other than coming to a quick conclusion that he had no idea where the fuck he was) before he bounded down the staircase of what seemed to be someone's front porch. He hustled into the back yard, exerting every ounce of his haggard consciousness towards keeping these furious turds safe within his bowels. Finally, once he'd leaned up against a fencepost and dropped his trousers, fully exposed and indifferent, he dropped a violent deuce fit for kings.
Relieved, he was met with another problem. He searched the yard for anything he could use as toilet paper and his eyes landed on an old, dewy paperback a dozen feet away. With his pants dangling around his ankles (and hoping that nobody inside whoever's house this was was watching him) he crab-walked over to the book. It was damp, its pages soggy and thus perfectly absorbent, and he wiped with glee before leaving his steaming pile and returning to the porch.
By that time, me and Fernweh had concluded that Aidan had most likely gotten ahold of one of his friends and organized a crash party for us on their front porch. Unfortunately, we had no recollection of who that might be, and Scrib had just shat upon their property, so we decided we ought to leave. The sun, looming overhead, promised an inviting day.
Little did we know how wrong the sun can be.
Since Scrib was trying to dodge the cops, and we'd grown tired of Queen street, we decided we'd bring our obnoxiously polite selves down to King street. We dove into our usual pastime of screaming and bellowing good wishes to passersby from across the street (or yelling pleasant greetings into their faces from mere feet away) earning us many awkward smiles, a few startled jumps and the odd returned greeting. Today, however, something different happened.
Today, our obnoxious pleasantries were received quite well by a young brown man named Hades. In response to our bloodcurdling shrieks of "HI!" and "HELLO!" and "HAVE A GOOD DAY!" he managed to squeeze in a few words. Those words, being: "Hey, guys. Wanna do some acid?"
Relieved, he was met with another problem. He searched the yard for anything he could use as toilet paper and his eyes landed on an old, dewy paperback a dozen feet away. With his pants dangling around his ankles (and hoping that nobody inside whoever's house this was was watching him) he crab-walked over to the book. It was damp, its pages soggy and thus perfectly absorbent, and he wiped with glee before leaving his steaming pile and returning to the porch.
By that time, me and Fernweh had concluded that Aidan had most likely gotten ahold of one of his friends and organized a crash party for us on their front porch. Unfortunately, we had no recollection of who that might be, and Scrib had just shat upon their property, so we decided we ought to leave. The sun, looming overhead, promised an inviting day.
Little did we know how wrong the sun can be.
Since Scrib was trying to dodge the cops, and we'd grown tired of Queen street, we decided we'd bring our obnoxiously polite selves down to King street. We dove into our usual pastime of screaming and bellowing good wishes to passersby from across the street (or yelling pleasant greetings into their faces from mere feet away) earning us many awkward smiles, a few startled jumps and the odd returned greeting. Today, however, something different happened.
Today, our obnoxious pleasantries were received quite well by a young brown man named Hades. In response to our bloodcurdling shrieks of "HI!" and "HELLO!" and "HAVE A GOOD DAY!" he managed to squeeze in a few words. Those words, being: "Hey, guys. Wanna do some acid?"
Monday 2 December 2013
Throne of Trash
Whether it was the drugs, the perfect form-fitting nature of our environment, or the quality of Toronto's garbage, we couldn't tell. What we could tell, was that we were far more comfortable we'd been since the journey started (except maybe for sprawling out on Carla's double bed back in Calgary.)
On second thought - this was way better.
"Right?" Scrib was in full agreement, and we both leaned back against our garbage bag thrones. We listened to the beating of the wind against the dumpster's steel casing and flashed a condescending grin towards nature. Dumpsters had saved us from the elements again.
Smoking drugs outside had proved difficult. Smoking drugs in here had proved excellent. Once we'd finished the first bowl of our jib, we fell into the most intense and hyper-motivated bro-talk I'd experienced since the days of being an e-tard in high school. We evaluated our entire friendship from the moment we'd accidentally laid eyes on each other at a party years ago; we pin-pointed our positive memories and repented in regard to negative ones; we analyzed and contemplated the reasons we were friends and why we were going to stay that way. We picked apart our contrasting personalities; Scrib's anger and my lax amiability made for an interesting balance - our shared desire in linguistics and freestyle poetry was a fantastic bond, and the fact that we were both introverts stuck trying to thrive in an extrovert's world held us together.
Apparently, however, reliving an entire friendship while smoking meth in a dumpster disorients you. (That's a sentence everyone should be able to say at least once in their lifetime... right?) The next time we checked our clocks and the bag of drugs, we realized that we'd been sitting in our trash castle for almost 45 minutes. 45 minutes that Fernweh had been left waiting in the blustering wind a block away, while we were inadvertently smoking his portion of the drugs. Fuck. There was too much dopamine battering our brains for us to remember how to feel sympathy, but we knew it was time to go back.
We vaulted out of the dumpster and hustled back to Fernweh and our new photographer friend, Aidan (who none of us really seem to remember, save for our lingering Facebook relationship that had sprung up and confused us the next morning.) He remembered us, though.
While me and Scrib had been elatedly experiencing the highest point of our relationship, Aidan and Fernweh had been stranded in the windstorm, their hair slapping their faces and their arms huddled up under their jackets, oblivious to our whereabouts. We tried to buy their acceptance. We didn't say sorry, but we offered the next best thing: food. Before we'd jumped out of the dumpster, we'd ripped open one of the bags and scored ourselves an apology gift - two boxes of KD, an unopened package of microwave popcorn, 2 cans of tuna, and a box of crackers - all prior to expiry. Great!
We'd expected rage, but what we received was worse: disappointment. We passed Fernweh the rest of the drugs and he trudged off into a corner to smoke them by himself. Me and Scrib's buzz hit the ground as guilt wrapped its hands around the euphoria we'd been unjustly experiencing. We watched Fernweh flick his lighter dejectedly while the wind kept beating the flame out, occasionally managing to blow out a meager puff of smoke.
He finished blazing the meth and stood up to walk back towards us. I guess he'd managed to get some decent hoots, because that was where everyone blacked out.
On second thought - this was way better.
"Right?" Scrib was in full agreement, and we both leaned back against our garbage bag thrones. We listened to the beating of the wind against the dumpster's steel casing and flashed a condescending grin towards nature. Dumpsters had saved us from the elements again.
Smoking drugs outside had proved difficult. Smoking drugs in here had proved excellent. Once we'd finished the first bowl of our jib, we fell into the most intense and hyper-motivated bro-talk I'd experienced since the days of being an e-tard in high school. We evaluated our entire friendship from the moment we'd accidentally laid eyes on each other at a party years ago; we pin-pointed our positive memories and repented in regard to negative ones; we analyzed and contemplated the reasons we were friends and why we were going to stay that way. We picked apart our contrasting personalities; Scrib's anger and my lax amiability made for an interesting balance - our shared desire in linguistics and freestyle poetry was a fantastic bond, and the fact that we were both introverts stuck trying to thrive in an extrovert's world held us together.
Apparently, however, reliving an entire friendship while smoking meth in a dumpster disorients you. (That's a sentence everyone should be able to say at least once in their lifetime... right?) The next time we checked our clocks and the bag of drugs, we realized that we'd been sitting in our trash castle for almost 45 minutes. 45 minutes that Fernweh had been left waiting in the blustering wind a block away, while we were inadvertently smoking his portion of the drugs. Fuck. There was too much dopamine battering our brains for us to remember how to feel sympathy, but we knew it was time to go back.
We vaulted out of the dumpster and hustled back to Fernweh and our new photographer friend, Aidan (who none of us really seem to remember, save for our lingering Facebook relationship that had sprung up and confused us the next morning.) He remembered us, though.
While me and Scrib had been elatedly experiencing the highest point of our relationship, Aidan and Fernweh had been stranded in the windstorm, their hair slapping their faces and their arms huddled up under their jackets, oblivious to our whereabouts. We tried to buy their acceptance. We didn't say sorry, but we offered the next best thing: food. Before we'd jumped out of the dumpster, we'd ripped open one of the bags and scored ourselves an apology gift - two boxes of KD, an unopened package of microwave popcorn, 2 cans of tuna, and a box of crackers - all prior to expiry. Great!
We'd expected rage, but what we received was worse: disappointment. We passed Fernweh the rest of the drugs and he trudged off into a corner to smoke them by himself. Me and Scrib's buzz hit the ground as guilt wrapped its hands around the euphoria we'd been unjustly experiencing. We watched Fernweh flick his lighter dejectedly while the wind kept beating the flame out, occasionally managing to blow out a meager puff of smoke.
He finished blazing the meth and stood up to walk back towards us. I guess he'd managed to get some decent hoots, because that was where everyone blacked out.
Saturday 30 November 2013
I'm sexy and I'm homeless
What is it that's so damn attractive about hobos? We made a lot of inquiries about our personas that morning, inspired by our group's most recent additions. Two gorgeous housecats (whose names have been lost in the realm of worlds past) had decided to dedicate their early hours to our presence.
Here they were, glowing, freshly showered, and scented like tropical flora. Here we were: stinky, homeless and drunk. Was it our
Dirty clothes? Probably not. A pair of blue jeans crusted black by hardened train grease doesn't sound particularly attractive. To me, it is: to shamelessly wear such filthy clothes glorifies an individual's confidence and their ability to defy cultural norms. Maybe these girls realized that, too. Or, maybe it was our
Confidence? Most hobos have developed an uncanny and sometimes ridiculous sense of self-assurance. Being stuck on the road with nobody but yourself for backup really helps solidify a person's view of themselves. Confidence is one of the most desired traits for pretty much any individual, but I'm pretty sure the winning factor was
Personality? just as the winning factor for any personal relationship should be. We liked them. They liked us. Nine out of ten hobos have an absolutely bat-shit ridiculous and incredibly unique personality that they've developed through months or years of relying on their own words and creativity to survive.
I watched Scrib, Fern and the two girls pass a pipe back and forth while I fiddled with my guitar until Ogre popped around the corner. He waved himself over and checked out my guitar for a moment.
"Hey, can I borrow that?"
Normally, I'd suggest never lending anything to a heroin dealer, but Ogre was more of a friend to me than a dealer. I saw him all the time and he'd never wronged me - he was the kind of guy who'd walk 5 blocks in the pouring rain just to bring a guy a joint, and it was for that reason I said sure. I didn't know I'd be leaving Toronto before I saw him again, but that was just as well because he gave me a bag of speed and a bag of weed as collateral. They didn't last long.
Scrib and I glanced up at each other, then back at the two girls with their glorious smiles and the soft, rhythmic sounds of the guitars they were strumming. They'd been too preoccupied to notice the transaction of two small bags swapping hands. The look me and Scrib exchanged said it wall: we wanted to get high, but we wouldn't disgrace the girls' company by using such a filthy substance in front of them. That shit was immoral!
Things worked out perfectly though. The universe tapped into to our thoughts; our addicted minds willed causality to bend for us. The two girls began packing up their guitars, we hugged goodbye, and once they'd turned their backs the three husbands exchanged some devilishly sly grins. Devilishly sly grins that only recreational drug addicts can seem to muster. Devilishly sly grins that implied that the night was about to get much more interesting. We bounded to the nearest bathroom to smoke up.
Here they were, glowing, freshly showered, and scented like tropical flora. Here we were: stinky, homeless and drunk. Was it our
Dirty clothes? Probably not. A pair of blue jeans crusted black by hardened train grease doesn't sound particularly attractive. To me, it is: to shamelessly wear such filthy clothes glorifies an individual's confidence and their ability to defy cultural norms. Maybe these girls realized that, too. Or, maybe it was our
Confidence? Most hobos have developed an uncanny and sometimes ridiculous sense of self-assurance. Being stuck on the road with nobody but yourself for backup really helps solidify a person's view of themselves. Confidence is one of the most desired traits for pretty much any individual, but I'm pretty sure the winning factor was
Personality? just as the winning factor for any personal relationship should be. We liked them. They liked us. Nine out of ten hobos have an absolutely bat-shit ridiculous and incredibly unique personality that they've developed through months or years of relying on their own words and creativity to survive.
Fervent pheromones fly forth from our fetid pores
as sweat pours
from the pits
of our hearts.
Spreading smiles can be awful hard work.
I watched Scrib, Fern and the two girls pass a pipe back and forth while I fiddled with my guitar until Ogre popped around the corner. He waved himself over and checked out my guitar for a moment.
"Hey, can I borrow that?"
Normally, I'd suggest never lending anything to a heroin dealer, but Ogre was more of a friend to me than a dealer. I saw him all the time and he'd never wronged me - he was the kind of guy who'd walk 5 blocks in the pouring rain just to bring a guy a joint, and it was for that reason I said sure. I didn't know I'd be leaving Toronto before I saw him again, but that was just as well because he gave me a bag of speed and a bag of weed as collateral. They didn't last long.
Scrib and I glanced up at each other, then back at the two girls with their glorious smiles and the soft, rhythmic sounds of the guitars they were strumming. They'd been too preoccupied to notice the transaction of two small bags swapping hands. The look me and Scrib exchanged said it wall: we wanted to get high, but we wouldn't disgrace the girls' company by using such a filthy substance in front of them. That shit was immoral!
Things worked out perfectly though. The universe tapped into to our thoughts; our addicted minds willed causality to bend for us. The two girls began packing up their guitars, we hugged goodbye, and once they'd turned their backs the three husbands exchanged some devilishly sly grins. Devilishly sly grins that only recreational drug addicts can seem to muster. Devilishly sly grins that implied that the night was about to get much more interesting. We bounded to the nearest bathroom to smoke up.
Wednesday 27 November 2013
Reasons not to eat out with hobos
Fifteen bucks for all you can eat for sushi? Hell yeah, man!
I'd been to this restaurant a year before and it had become an instant icon for me. I'd brought the boys here the week prior and we loved it, but we'd made a total ruckus. The three husbands suck at restaurants. Patience is a highly recommended virtue for restaurantiers, and the three of us lacked it.
Whilst waiting for our food, we'd fallen into a bored, hungry stupor. Boredom and hunger don't go well together. The combination results in a need to do something - anything - to pass the time between the moment the boredom hits and the time you get your food.
By the time the first course arrived, we'd succeeded in covering the table in the myriad of sauces the table offered, spilled almost a third of our water, and stacked everything that was stackable on top of itself. The waitress was appalled, but she kept her words to herself. We dove into our food.
The restaurant had a rule to prevent idiots like us from coming and over-ordering: if you didn't eat all your food, you had to pay a fee of 50c per remaining piece. The faster we ate, the faster she kept bringing us the rest of our order. Once it became blatantly obvious that we couldn't eat our entire meal, three things happened:
First, we started stuffing handfuls of sushi into paper towels, bundling them up and shoving them into pockets, backpacks and whatever else we could find.
Second, we realized the tremendous expansion of our mess. Mere soy sauce, water and stacked shit now seemed feeble in addition to the conglomeration of rice, fish, wasabi and prawn tails that now oozed all over the table. Nice.
Thirdly, one of our friends had popped into the restaurant to say hey. Her sly, sexy and seductive grin was ill-placed in the presence of our ungodly mess, but she wasn't nearly as disgusted by our "creation" as the waitress was. Our type of people aren't easily grossed out. Garbed in a studded leather jacket with torn skinny jeans, her punk outfit spoke of rebellion but the genuity that sparkled in her eyes when she smiled did not. I couldn't figure out for the life of me why she spent so much time hanging out with the Traincore kids.
She sat down next to us and we essentially force-fed her sushi while avoiding the prying eyes of the waitress, in hopes that we wouldn't have to pay any additional fees. Our surreptitious efforts failed us.
"You can't do that!" The waitress's abursdly Asian accent floated across the restaurant. She cast us and our mess and our punk friend a look of intense scorn that I thought to be extremely unusual for a member of such a polite culture. I also remembered that the Japanese culture places a huge amount of importance in regards to manners around food. Whoops.
Once the waitress turned around, we pilfered the rest of our food, paid the bill with a pound of freshly spared change, and left feeling satisfied that the waitress now had something to do for the next half hour while she cleaned up our mess. See? We could be good Samaritans!
Anyway, that was last week. This was this week. The same waitress was working. She made to welcome us, then hesitated once she recognized. She shifted her glance side to side, and then mumbled with the accent of one who rarely lies: "We do not do all you can eat, today."
"Uh, yeah you do. The sign's out." we pointed to the sign on the sidewalk that had offered us a warmer welcome than the waitress. We weren't getting kicked out without a fight.
"Not today."
"Okay. Well, we'll just order off the menu then."
"No, we are closed."
"No, you're clearly not closed." Pet peeve number seventy-four: beating around the bush. If you want to kick us out, just kick us out. Don't waste your time dishonouring yourself by fabricating lies. Either way, we realized that the argument wasn't gratifying in any sense, so we bounced and went next door to a Thai restaurant. The service there was better - so fantastic, in fact, that we didn't even feel the need to make a big mess. Lunch was served, and Scrib was beginning to get over the initial shock of being caught with drugs.
Things were moving forward again.
:)
I'd been to this restaurant a year before and it had become an instant icon for me. I'd brought the boys here the week prior and we loved it, but we'd made a total ruckus. The three husbands suck at restaurants. Patience is a highly recommended virtue for restaurantiers, and the three of us lacked it.
Whilst waiting for our food, we'd fallen into a bored, hungry stupor. Boredom and hunger don't go well together. The combination results in a need to do something - anything - to pass the time between the moment the boredom hits and the time you get your food.
By the time the first course arrived, we'd succeeded in covering the table in the myriad of sauces the table offered, spilled almost a third of our water, and stacked everything that was stackable on top of itself. The waitress was appalled, but she kept her words to herself. We dove into our food.
The restaurant had a rule to prevent idiots like us from coming and over-ordering: if you didn't eat all your food, you had to pay a fee of 50c per remaining piece. The faster we ate, the faster she kept bringing us the rest of our order. Once it became blatantly obvious that we couldn't eat our entire meal, three things happened:
First, we started stuffing handfuls of sushi into paper towels, bundling them up and shoving them into pockets, backpacks and whatever else we could find.
Second, we realized the tremendous expansion of our mess. Mere soy sauce, water and stacked shit now seemed feeble in addition to the conglomeration of rice, fish, wasabi and prawn tails that now oozed all over the table. Nice.
Thirdly, one of our friends had popped into the restaurant to say hey. Her sly, sexy and seductive grin was ill-placed in the presence of our ungodly mess, but she wasn't nearly as disgusted by our "creation" as the waitress was. Our type of people aren't easily grossed out. Garbed in a studded leather jacket with torn skinny jeans, her punk outfit spoke of rebellion but the genuity that sparkled in her eyes when she smiled did not. I couldn't figure out for the life of me why she spent so much time hanging out with the Traincore kids.
She sat down next to us and we essentially force-fed her sushi while avoiding the prying eyes of the waitress, in hopes that we wouldn't have to pay any additional fees. Our surreptitious efforts failed us.
"You can't do that!" The waitress's abursdly Asian accent floated across the restaurant. She cast us and our mess and our punk friend a look of intense scorn that I thought to be extremely unusual for a member of such a polite culture. I also remembered that the Japanese culture places a huge amount of importance in regards to manners around food. Whoops.
Once the waitress turned around, we pilfered the rest of our food, paid the bill with a pound of freshly spared change, and left feeling satisfied that the waitress now had something to do for the next half hour while she cleaned up our mess. See? We could be good Samaritans!
Anyway, that was last week. This was this week. The same waitress was working. She made to welcome us, then hesitated once she recognized. She shifted her glance side to side, and then mumbled with the accent of one who rarely lies: "We do not do all you can eat, today."
"Uh, yeah you do. The sign's out." we pointed to the sign on the sidewalk that had offered us a warmer welcome than the waitress. We weren't getting kicked out without a fight.
"Not today."
"Okay. Well, we'll just order off the menu then."
"No, we are closed."
"No, you're clearly not closed." Pet peeve number seventy-four: beating around the bush. If you want to kick us out, just kick us out. Don't waste your time dishonouring yourself by fabricating lies. Either way, we realized that the argument wasn't gratifying in any sense, so we bounced and went next door to a Thai restaurant. The service there was better - so fantastic, in fact, that we didn't even feel the need to make a big mess. Lunch was served, and Scrib was beginning to get over the initial shock of being caught with drugs.
Things were moving forward again.
:)
Hippie Core
There's not much one can say to console a best friend who'd was been potentially sentenced to jail. He hadn't gone to court yet, but we were pretty sure that whatever drugs had been pawned off on us carried a pretty gnarly sentence with them. I suggested two opens to Scrib:
- Skip the province. Head to Quebec with us. His court date wasn't for another two weeks - plenty of time to escape. This is what a lot of travelers tend to do when they have court dates, skipping from province to province while the number of places in Canada that they're legally allowed to visit dwindles, finally isolating themselves in some back-alley town in the boonies.
- Come for sushi with me and Fernweh. We'd gone last week for all-you-can-eat sushi on Queen and we figured a rendezvous at our tested and true place would be good for Scrib.
After a moment's contemplation, he figured that he'd only get a month or two of jail. This was his first offense in Ontario. Until his court date, he'd go stay with Snooze at her dad's house in Guelph. Solid plan. We kicked back to enjoy one of our last days together.
Observing our surroundings we noticed all the Traincore kids had vacated - save for one. Jorge (whore-hey) remained, a Mexican-Amreican littered with face tattoos with two massive pipes hanging off his torso that served as arms.
"Oh. You kids are still here." His look of disapproval seemed feeble in the absence of his friends. Was he really as much of a douchebag as he claimed to be? Maybe we were on to something..
"My nigga, we were curious: why do you hate hippies?"
"Um, well..." I'd never heard Jorge stutter before - mind you, I'd also never seen him apart from his friends. This really was like high school: these Traincore kids relied on power in numbers. The part certainly is not as powerful as the whole. "I don't really hate hippies."
"So it's just a mask? You're trying to impress your friends?"
"Well, no..." His deep voice, a powerful one at that, had lost its intimidation factor.
"It seems like it."
We'd seen enough. We'd seen through Jorge's thick, confident exterior and prodded the insecurities, we'd discovered a sense of realism that lay deep within. His body language melted as he mumbled "fuck you guys," and wobbled to his feet. He wandered off in search of more booze (probably.)
Our egos had inflated. There was something satisfying about being able to pick apart strong-headed people and reveal, even to them, that there is a person in there. Mind you, we were just as guilty as he was on relying on power in numbers (I doubt the same conversation would have proceeded had it been any of us and him alone.) Either way, we'd seen a new side of things, and there was an added benefit: Scrib's newly acquired confidence assured us that he'd come get lunch with us!
HIPPIE CORE!
Hippie Core
There's not much one can say to console a best friend who'd was been potentially sentenced to jail. He hadn't gone to court yet, but we were pretty sure that whatever drugs had been pawned off on us carried a pretty gnarly sentence with them. I suggested two opens to Scrib:
- Skip the province. Head to Quebec with us. His court date wasn't for another two weeks - plenty of time to escape. This is what a lot of travelers tend to do when they have court dates, skipping from province to province while the number of places in Canada that they're legally allowed to visit dwindles, finally isolating themselves in some back-alley town in the boonies.
- Come for sushi with me and Fernweh. We'd gone last week for all-you-can-eat sushi on Queen and we figured a rendezvous at our tested and true place would be good for Scrib.
After a moment's contemplation, he figured that he'd only get a month or two of jail. This was his first offense in Ontario. Until his court date, he'd go stay with Snooze at her dad's house in Guelph. Solid plan. We kicked back to enjoy one of our last days together.
Observing our surroundings we noticed all the Traincore kids had vacated - save for one. Jorge (whore-hey) remained, a Mexican-Amreican littered with face tattoos with two massive pipes hanging off his torso that served as arms.
"Oh. You kids are still here." His look of disapproval seemed feeble in the absence of his friends. Was he really as much of a douchebag as he claimed to be? Maybe we were on to something..
"My nigga, we were curious: why do you hate hippies?"
"Um, well..." I'd never heard Jorge stutter before - mind you, I'd also never seen him apart from his friends. This really was like high school: these Traincore kids relied on power in numbers. The part certainly is not as powerful as the whole. "I don't really hate hippies."
"So it's just a mask? You're trying to impress your friends?"
"Well, no..." His deep voice, a powerful one at that, had lost its intimidation factor.
"It seems like it."
We'd seen enough. We'd seen through Jorge's thick, confident exterior and prodded the insecurities, we'd discovered a sense of realism that lay deep within. His body language melted as he mumbled "fuck you guys," and wobbled to his feet. He wandered off in search of more booze (probably.)
Our egos had inflated. There was something satisfying about being able to pick apart strong-headed people and reveal, even to them, that there is a person in there. Mind you, we were just as guilty as he was on relying on power in numbers (I doubt the same conversation would have proceeded had it been any of us and him alone.) Either way, we'd seen a new side of things, and there was an added benefit: Scrib's newly acquired confidence assured us that he'd come get lunch with us!
HIPPIE CORE!
Tuesday 26 November 2013
Jailtime?
"Hey guys - wanna get hit by cars? AUUHOOWAHHEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Scrib's laugh provided a vision of a cackling, bearded baby as he bolted into the heat of Toronto's rush hour traffic. In Toronto, you can usually hear disgruntled drivers at any given time - but not to this degree. Scrib dove, jumped and twisted his way through an accelerating, blaring aluminum onslaught.
He waved to us with a smile from the other side as he caught us breath, while we waited for the flashing white man to wave us onward across the street.
Curb Shame: (n.)
/kəːb ʃeɪm/
The embarrassment and loss of self-worth one feels when other pedestrians ignore the rules of street lights and continue to cross the road unguided.
We crossed and deposited ourselves in the liquor store. Amdist staring at the liquor, my hangover decided to team up with the shitty feelings the speed had provided, and the two now grinding nails into my guts. I decided I`d head back to the bridge where we slept and wallow in self-pity for a while.
I made it back and tried to nap, but instead spent several hours rolling around in self-induced agony. I decided it wasn't really worth it to spend all day there, so I grabbed my pack and dragged my feet towards Queen. I had to force myself not to lose the lunch I hadn't eaten yet.
I found the boys at Alexandria Park, hanging out with Bear and his Traincore friends - of all people.
"Fuck. Now there's two didgeridoos?" Bear's deep voice was intimidating, but I couldn't tell if he was joking or not so I nodded and played him a riff on the didge just to irritate him. I still couldn't tell if he was joking or not when he told me he'd break my didge over my head if I didn't stop, so I stopped playing and sat down next to Scrib who hadn't said a word yet. I asked if he was baked.
He looked up at me. "I'm going to jail, man."
What? Apparently, in the time I'd been taking a nap, the group had been approached by a bunch of cops. Scrib had given the cops a fake name. They hadn't believed him - despite the fact that most of the Traincore kids had either given the cops fake names, or no identification at all. Cops always seemed to have it out for Scrib - why, we couldn't say. He didn't look any more like a criminal than the others sitting at the circle.
Anyway, after a few phone calls and computer searches, somehow the cops had discovered Scrib's real name - Scrib! They searched him for alleged identity fraud and found the flap of drugs that we'd been given by the city worker. The cops hadn't been impressed. His court date was in two weeks.
"I'm going to jail, man!"
Scrib's laugh provided a vision of a cackling, bearded baby as he bolted into the heat of Toronto's rush hour traffic. In Toronto, you can usually hear disgruntled drivers at any given time - but not to this degree. Scrib dove, jumped and twisted his way through an accelerating, blaring aluminum onslaught.
He waved to us with a smile from the other side as he caught us breath, while we waited for the flashing white man to wave us onward across the street.
Curb Shame: (n.)
/kəːb ʃeɪm/
The embarrassment and loss of self-worth one feels when other pedestrians ignore the rules of street lights and continue to cross the road unguided.
We crossed and deposited ourselves in the liquor store. Amdist staring at the liquor, my hangover decided to team up with the shitty feelings the speed had provided, and the two now grinding nails into my guts. I decided I`d head back to the bridge where we slept and wallow in self-pity for a while.
I made it back and tried to nap, but instead spent several hours rolling around in self-induced agony. I decided it wasn't really worth it to spend all day there, so I grabbed my pack and dragged my feet towards Queen. I had to force myself not to lose the lunch I hadn't eaten yet.
I found the boys at Alexandria Park, hanging out with Bear and his Traincore friends - of all people.
"Fuck. Now there's two didgeridoos?" Bear's deep voice was intimidating, but I couldn't tell if he was joking or not so I nodded and played him a riff on the didge just to irritate him. I still couldn't tell if he was joking or not when he told me he'd break my didge over my head if I didn't stop, so I stopped playing and sat down next to Scrib who hadn't said a word yet. I asked if he was baked.
He looked up at me. "I'm going to jail, man."
What? Apparently, in the time I'd been taking a nap, the group had been approached by a bunch of cops. Scrib had given the cops a fake name. They hadn't believed him - despite the fact that most of the Traincore kids had either given the cops fake names, or no identification at all. Cops always seemed to have it out for Scrib - why, we couldn't say. He didn't look any more like a criminal than the others sitting at the circle.
Anyway, after a few phone calls and computer searches, somehow the cops had discovered Scrib's real name - Scrib! They searched him for alleged identity fraud and found the flap of drugs that we'd been given by the city worker. The cops hadn't been impressed. His court date was in two weeks.
"I'm going to jail, man!"
Monday 25 November 2013
Dumpstercore
The encounter had turned out infinitely better than we could have even hoped. We'd experienced a moment of sheer, hungover terror - fear that we'd fall under the shoe of authority. Were these city workers coming to arrest us? Quite the opposite - instead, they'd passed onto us a packet of so-called MDMA.
We bee-lined towards the nearest dumpster and hopped inside to test the empathogenic waters. Oh, sweet dumpsters - they were little pieces of Home scattered across every city in the country! We settled back into our cardboard recliners and whipped out the drugs.
Inherently drug addicted fiends, as we were, there was much chattering of "Hurry! Where's the lighter? Where's the tinfoil?" (Yes, we smoke our MDMA. If nothing else, it's a method to ensure that we knew what we were smoking, and exactly how strong it was, without having to risk ingesting massive amounts, or wasting an entire day slowly increasing dosage.)
It's a damn good thing we chose to do this. Many people regard smoking any drug off of tinfoil to be in the style of doing drugs like junkies, but many people are stupid. As Scrib flicked the lighter, casting the cardboard around us and our faces into a romantic orange gelow, the "MDMA" began to bubble and turn black. This was our first uh-oh moment. MDMA is supposed to turn into a bloody crimson puddle before vaporizing.
The second uh-oh moment was Scrib's spluttering cough and the following facial expression, reminiscent of one who had just been force-fed their own feces.
"Fuck, that's digusting."
"What is it?"
"I dunno, yet."
As he waited for the effects to settle in, I grabbed the foil, roasted a toke myself, retched, made a similar facial expression as Scrib, and quickly passed the foil to Fernweh.
I tried to trick myself into feeling a placebo effect, I tried to pretend that what I felt was reminiscent of MDMA, but it certainly wasn't. There was no mind-boggling relaxation, there was no overwhelming sense of appreciation for the mundane, no love for the unlovable. Instead, my muscles had tightened, a sheen of static had subtly settled over my brain and I felt the budding onset of a panic attack. This ain't no MDMA. It was some kind of stimulant - a shitty one, at best - but not MDMA.
Fernweh and Scrib passed the substance back and forth back and forth while I reclined onto my cardboard and tried to combat the anxiety. I saw no reason to continue smoking such a hurtin' substance, so I spent the rest of the toke session identifying the drug. I came to the conclusion that it was speed, not methamphetamine (a drug that, while labelled with a terrible stigma for a good reason, is actually enjoyable when consumed) but amphetamine, which is tremendously similar to methamphetamine in the way that it entails ALL the negative effects with NONE of the positive effects.
Great. I needed beer to combat this anxiety. Once the two had finished smoking, we hopped out of the dumpster and into the day which now seemed excessively bright to our dilated pupils. There was only one thing to do now: hit the liquor store.
We bee-lined towards the nearest dumpster and hopped inside to test the empathogenic waters. Oh, sweet dumpsters - they were little pieces of Home scattered across every city in the country! We settled back into our cardboard recliners and whipped out the drugs.
Inherently drug addicted fiends, as we were, there was much chattering of "Hurry! Where's the lighter? Where's the tinfoil?" (Yes, we smoke our MDMA. If nothing else, it's a method to ensure that we knew what we were smoking, and exactly how strong it was, without having to risk ingesting massive amounts, or wasting an entire day slowly increasing dosage.)
It's a damn good thing we chose to do this. Many people regard smoking any drug off of tinfoil to be in the style of doing drugs like junkies, but many people are stupid. As Scrib flicked the lighter, casting the cardboard around us and our faces into a romantic orange gelow, the "MDMA" began to bubble and turn black. This was our first uh-oh moment. MDMA is supposed to turn into a bloody crimson puddle before vaporizing.
The second uh-oh moment was Scrib's spluttering cough and the following facial expression, reminiscent of one who had just been force-fed their own feces.
"Fuck, that's digusting."
"What is it?"
"I dunno, yet."
As he waited for the effects to settle in, I grabbed the foil, roasted a toke myself, retched, made a similar facial expression as Scrib, and quickly passed the foil to Fernweh.
There's some sense of substance
to substance abuse;
it's a reason to peruse
different sections of truth.
Life's too subjective
not to smoke new perspectives.
I tried to trick myself into feeling a placebo effect, I tried to pretend that what I felt was reminiscent of MDMA, but it certainly wasn't. There was no mind-boggling relaxation, there was no overwhelming sense of appreciation for the mundane, no love for the unlovable. Instead, my muscles had tightened, a sheen of static had subtly settled over my brain and I felt the budding onset of a panic attack. This ain't no MDMA. It was some kind of stimulant - a shitty one, at best - but not MDMA.
Fernweh and Scrib passed the substance back and forth back and forth while I reclined onto my cardboard and tried to combat the anxiety. I saw no reason to continue smoking such a hurtin' substance, so I spent the rest of the toke session identifying the drug. I came to the conclusion that it was speed, not methamphetamine (a drug that, while labelled with a terrible stigma for a good reason, is actually enjoyable when consumed) but amphetamine, which is tremendously similar to methamphetamine in the way that it entails ALL the negative effects with NONE of the positive effects.
Great. I needed beer to combat this anxiety. Once the two had finished smoking, we hopped out of the dumpster and into the day which now seemed excessively bright to our dilated pupils. There was only one thing to do now: hit the liquor store.
No wonder Rob Ford smokes crack
The next morning found our bodies and minds in a state of ambivalence.
Our minds were refreshed, lifted from the curse of racism that had been dispelled by our troop of Afrikaano hip-hoppers the night before. Our bodies, however, had twisted themselves again into an agonized state of animosity, assisted ever-so-often by our alcohol abuse. We stumbled towards the park, a 50 foot mission for me and Scrib, and many miles of a mission for Fernweh.
This park was a terrible sentiment for Fernweh. His experiences in this park from years past could fill books. I'll not dabble too deep into these details, but to Fernweh, this park was not the cheerful vision of kids laughing on swingsets and little Asian men walking dogs that I saw. Alexandria Park, to him, was only a memory of bloodshed, lives lost, screaming children fleeing the park, tears, and lost years. I was truly impressed that he was even able to be here- his determination and perseverance are always to be admired.
We collapsed onto a set of park benches a fair distance away from Bear and his group of provocative traincore retards. We'd been crumpled up for about half an hour before we witnessed a white F150 drive up onto the park grass. He was heading in the direction of the Traincores, who jumped up and vacated quickly. We were too haggard to move, so we maintainde our spot as the truck drove up and parked directly in front of us.
Great. We were going to have to deal with some ignorant wanna-becops.
The first worker got out of the vehicle, blazing with the same glow of the sun in his bright orange construction uniform. He made a beeline straight towards us and stopped in front of the bench. He didn't have the power to make us move. Was he gonna call the cops? Fuck... whatever. Let's hear what he had to say.
"Hey, guys. You want some MDMA?"
We shared surprised glances with each other before exclaiming the obvious "yes!" and jumping out of our hangovers.
The driver handed us a huge flap, nodded and humbly accepted our thanks before he got back into his truck and drove off. Wow! I'd been worried about getting busted by a rent-a-cop for possessing weed that I didn't even want to smoke - instead, we'd been handed down illegal narcotics from a city-worker. Sweet.
Time to go find a dumpster to do our drugs!
Our minds were refreshed, lifted from the curse of racism that had been dispelled by our troop of Afrikaano hip-hoppers the night before. Our bodies, however, had twisted themselves again into an agonized state of animosity, assisted ever-so-often by our alcohol abuse. We stumbled towards the park, a 50 foot mission for me and Scrib, and many miles of a mission for Fernweh.
This park was a terrible sentiment for Fernweh. His experiences in this park from years past could fill books. I'll not dabble too deep into these details, but to Fernweh, this park was not the cheerful vision of kids laughing on swingsets and little Asian men walking dogs that I saw. Alexandria Park, to him, was only a memory of bloodshed, lives lost, screaming children fleeing the park, tears, and lost years. I was truly impressed that he was even able to be here- his determination and perseverance are always to be admired.
We collapsed onto a set of park benches a fair distance away from Bear and his group of provocative traincore retards. We'd been crumpled up for about half an hour before we witnessed a white F150 drive up onto the park grass. He was heading in the direction of the Traincores, who jumped up and vacated quickly. We were too haggard to move, so we maintainde our spot as the truck drove up and parked directly in front of us.
Great. We were going to have to deal with some ignorant wanna-becops.
The first worker got out of the vehicle, blazing with the same glow of the sun in his bright orange construction uniform. He made a beeline straight towards us and stopped in front of the bench. He didn't have the power to make us move. Was he gonna call the cops? Fuck... whatever. Let's hear what he had to say.
"Hey, guys. You want some MDMA?"
We shared surprised glances with each other before exclaiming the obvious "yes!" and jumping out of our hangovers.
The driver handed us a huge flap, nodded and humbly accepted our thanks before he got back into his truck and drove off. Wow! I'd been worried about getting busted by a rent-a-cop for possessing weed that I didn't even want to smoke - instead, we'd been handed down illegal narcotics from a city-worker. Sweet.
Time to go find a dumpster to do our drugs!
Monday 18 November 2013
Nignorant
"You guys got didgeridoos? I gotta get the FUCK outta here!"
Grizzly threw his hands in the air and fled the scene with an aura of such prejudiced fear that I had to re-evaluate my entire view of the trainhopping community. Grizzly, and the rest of his friends (some of whom I'd partied with last year in Montreal) were the epitome of traincore.
Traincore (adj.) /treɪn kɔː/
Niggas who adhere strictly to the following three rules.
We joined a group of two young negroes. Before I continue writing, I'll care to inform those who are uninformed about the current use of the word nigger in frequent youth standing.
Nigger originated as a derogatory term that slavers would call their slaves in an effort to undermine their dignity. This would label them not as humans, but as animals. After the slave trade came mostly to an end, the black street culture adopted the word, altering it slightly to become the word nigga. This greatly reduced the impact that the word nigger had and its use declined. In more recent terms, the term nigger has been readopted by most western cultures to reference anyone - black, white, or yellow - who conforms to a certain set of immoral tendencies: disrespect, thievery, belligerence, etc.
That being said, there had been a lot of debate over the "niggers" that we'd seen at the drop in center the week prior. Since the folks that had been called niggers were, indeed, black, the word took on an entirely new level of intesntiy. It was hard to come to a general understanding that they were termed that not because of their skin, but because of their stupidity, their aggression and their inability to be civil.
Anyway, as I whipped out my leatherbound journal, the two boys' eyes widened and I shared some stories that I'd written down about the road. We struck up conversation about travel, and these conversations quickly twisted themselves into freestyles. These freestyles echoed in the doorway as we rapped about positivity and maintaining good mindsets. I liked these dudes.
Tragically, Toronto has a terrible predisposition in regards to black people. Stereotypes are often there for a reason - and the kids at the drop in center proved that. Though these kids we were with now were indeed confined to the streets, they weren't disrespectful. They were polite, happy, and willing to share their wisdom. Kids like these (and myself, I like to think) are the ones who can change a person's racist viewpoint. Hopefully, we'd have a chance to share these views ourselves.
As the case of beer emptied, so did our drawers of inspiration. The freestyles fell short, and the group came to disperse. Once me and Fernweh had time to ourselves, we laid back and let our new knowledge of prejudice settle into our brains. Fuck a label, man. We're all just people.
Grizzly threw his hands in the air and fled the scene with an aura of such prejudiced fear that I had to re-evaluate my entire view of the trainhopping community. Grizzly, and the rest of his friends (some of whom I'd partied with last year in Montreal) were the epitome of traincore.
Traincore (adj.) /treɪn kɔː/
Niggas who adhere strictly to the following three rules.
- Your must ink yourself out of society by tattooing your face. This separates you and your crew from any association with the bluecollar grind.
- You must respect and accept the Traincore Prejudice. Yuppies are unacceptable, "business-suits" are unacceptable, hippies are unacceptable (and didgeridoos, portrayed as "hippie-sticks" are even more unacceptable.) Any clique besides punks and traincore kids are to be disregarded. Any travelers who don't hop trains are also unacceptable.
- You must hang out with your traincore crew, talking about traincore things, having stupid traincore fights amongst each other.
We joined a group of two young negroes. Before I continue writing, I'll care to inform those who are uninformed about the current use of the word nigger in frequent youth standing.
Nigger originated as a derogatory term that slavers would call their slaves in an effort to undermine their dignity. This would label them not as humans, but as animals. After the slave trade came mostly to an end, the black street culture adopted the word, altering it slightly to become the word nigga. This greatly reduced the impact that the word nigger had and its use declined. In more recent terms, the term nigger has been readopted by most western cultures to reference anyone - black, white, or yellow - who conforms to a certain set of immoral tendencies: disrespect, thievery, belligerence, etc.
That being said, there had been a lot of debate over the "niggers" that we'd seen at the drop in center the week prior. Since the folks that had been called niggers were, indeed, black, the word took on an entirely new level of intesntiy. It was hard to come to a general understanding that they were termed that not because of their skin, but because of their stupidity, their aggression and their inability to be civil.
Anyway, as I whipped out my leatherbound journal, the two boys' eyes widened and I shared some stories that I'd written down about the road. We struck up conversation about travel, and these conversations quickly twisted themselves into freestyles. These freestyles echoed in the doorway as we rapped about positivity and maintaining good mindsets. I liked these dudes.
Tragically, Toronto has a terrible predisposition in regards to black people. Stereotypes are often there for a reason - and the kids at the drop in center proved that. Though these kids we were with now were indeed confined to the streets, they weren't disrespectful. They were polite, happy, and willing to share their wisdom. Kids like these (and myself, I like to think) are the ones who can change a person's racist viewpoint. Hopefully, we'd have a chance to share these views ourselves.
As the case of beer emptied, so did our drawers of inspiration. The freestyles fell short, and the group came to disperse. Once me and Fernweh had time to ourselves, we laid back and let our new knowledge of prejudice settle into our brains. Fuck a label, man. We're all just people.
Wednesday 13 November 2013
Jack in the Box
I've always wondered how cops can be so friendly while they're being complete douchebags. This takes ambivalence to an entirely new, authoritarian level. Fuck your laws, and fuck the fact that you could have easily just passed this off as nothing.
"Six up." Fernweh put the weed back into his tobacco pouch and began rolling a cigarette as the cop rolled up.
"Hey boys. Beautiful day! What are doing?" This cop had obviously smoked a lot of weed himself; or perhaps spent a lot of time around stoners. Or maybe he was just a master of masquerade. He seemed really chill.
"Just rolling a cigarette," Fernweh answered with a grin, holding up his rolling paper full of tobacco.
"Oh yeah? Let me see what else you have in that pouch..."
Really!?
The cop took the pouch and dug around in it until he found Fernweh's weed, which he promptly confiscated. He could have been even more of a douche bag and given us a ticket, but he let us go with only the knowledge that he was so bored that he'd search random kids tobacco pouches on the off-chance of finding weed. This was his lucky day, I guess.
Granted, we weren't in B.C. anymore. We shouldn't have been rolling a doobie in public - though, rolling a doobie out of a pouch of tobacco, filled with tobacco, didn't look suspicious at all. Whatever.
We jumped on a bus - courtesy of Fernweh`s dad, who`d sent him some cash - and had a quiet, hungover bus ride back to Toronto.
I felt a grim sense of satisfaction to be back home. As we've said before, home is where you can hang your hat. Well, I can hang my hat pretty damn well in Toronto, where drugs are more available than smile and a nod. Hell, I can throw my hat on the ground (if I wore one,) pass out next to it and call that home. It was time to do what we'd wanted to do before we left Guelph - get a shit ton of drugs.
It's funny how life seems to work against my intentions. My plans never work. If I want to ensure that I'll get something done, I have to organize a plan to do the exact opposite and begin to execute that plan. Once I start doing the opposite thing, the thing I no longer wanted to get done, will get done. So, naturally, planning to find Ogre resulted in not being able to find Ogre. We wandered around listlessly without luck until we realized that the only way we could find Ogre would be to plan NOT to find him.
So, we did. This created a perpetual paradox of planning not to plan to see people we planned to see, with the end result being that our plans didn't following through. This was probably for the better - nobody needs that much heroin.
We plopped down in the park and promptly grouped up with someone who changed our lives, though neither of us would realize it until a month later. We found ourselves soon sitting with Fernweh's old friend, Jack. We jammed for a few hours; Fernweh was still shredding his mandolin, and I was working on a new method of playing guitar with old sticks. The jam was strangely awesome; the curious notes that Jack puffed through his harmonica mixed well with me and Fernweh's inability to play together at the same rhythm.
Once we'd set our instruments down, Jack brought us back to "his" bridge. It was a few blocks down from the Spadina bridge where we'd slept prior. Jack said that he'd kicked many-a hobo out from under this bridge and had kept it reserved for himself and those he trusted. Why he let me there, I didn't know - he'd just met me - but he said that any friend of Fernweh was a friend of his.
We set up our Hobo Rollup and lay down, contemplating the nature of competition. We collectively decided that one day, the three of us would travel back from the east coast separately in a race across the country. With extremely good luck, it could be done in four days. Fernweh would obviously win, since he looks like a sexy asian girl. Me and Jack were at a disadvantage, since he was in his thirties and going bald and grey; and I was black (which, as far as I try and convince myself it isn't, is a huge disadvantage for hitchhiking.)
The prize? Nothing. We're hobos. We're too broke to afford prizes, but you'd win the gratification of flying across a country with nothing but a backpack and a sore thumb faster than anyone else who was doing so at the time.
The idea filled our minds with excitement as we spun a bottle of wine between the three of us. Once the wine was finished, our conversations began to hang low like our eyelids and soon we found ourselves sleeping. This bridge was a lot quieter than Spadina; the rumble of tons of steel rushing by above us was too infrequent to bother us as we slumbered.
"Six up." Fernweh put the weed back into his tobacco pouch and began rolling a cigarette as the cop rolled up.
"Hey boys. Beautiful day! What are doing?" This cop had obviously smoked a lot of weed himself; or perhaps spent a lot of time around stoners. Or maybe he was just a master of masquerade. He seemed really chill.
"Just rolling a cigarette," Fernweh answered with a grin, holding up his rolling paper full of tobacco.
"Oh yeah? Let me see what else you have in that pouch..."
Really!?
The cop took the pouch and dug around in it until he found Fernweh's weed, which he promptly confiscated. He could have been even more of a douche bag and given us a ticket, but he let us go with only the knowledge that he was so bored that he'd search random kids tobacco pouches on the off-chance of finding weed. This was his lucky day, I guess.
Granted, we weren't in B.C. anymore. We shouldn't have been rolling a doobie in public - though, rolling a doobie out of a pouch of tobacco, filled with tobacco, didn't look suspicious at all. Whatever.
We jumped on a bus - courtesy of Fernweh`s dad, who`d sent him some cash - and had a quiet, hungover bus ride back to Toronto.
I felt a grim sense of satisfaction to be back home. As we've said before, home is where you can hang your hat. Well, I can hang my hat pretty damn well in Toronto, where drugs are more available than smile and a nod. Hell, I can throw my hat on the ground (if I wore one,) pass out next to it and call that home. It was time to do what we'd wanted to do before we left Guelph - get a shit ton of drugs.
It's funny how life seems to work against my intentions. My plans never work. If I want to ensure that I'll get something done, I have to organize a plan to do the exact opposite and begin to execute that plan. Once I start doing the opposite thing, the thing I no longer wanted to get done, will get done. So, naturally, planning to find Ogre resulted in not being able to find Ogre. We wandered around listlessly without luck until we realized that the only way we could find Ogre would be to plan NOT to find him.
So, we did. This created a perpetual paradox of planning not to plan to see people we planned to see, with the end result being that our plans didn't following through. This was probably for the better - nobody needs that much heroin.
We plopped down in the park and promptly grouped up with someone who changed our lives, though neither of us would realize it until a month later. We found ourselves soon sitting with Fernweh's old friend, Jack. We jammed for a few hours; Fernweh was still shredding his mandolin, and I was working on a new method of playing guitar with old sticks. The jam was strangely awesome; the curious notes that Jack puffed through his harmonica mixed well with me and Fernweh's inability to play together at the same rhythm.
Once we'd set our instruments down, Jack brought us back to "his" bridge. It was a few blocks down from the Spadina bridge where we'd slept prior. Jack said that he'd kicked many-a hobo out from under this bridge and had kept it reserved for himself and those he trusted. Why he let me there, I didn't know - he'd just met me - but he said that any friend of Fernweh was a friend of his.
We set up our Hobo Rollup and lay down, contemplating the nature of competition. We collectively decided that one day, the three of us would travel back from the east coast separately in a race across the country. With extremely good luck, it could be done in four days. Fernweh would obviously win, since he looks like a sexy asian girl. Me and Jack were at a disadvantage, since he was in his thirties and going bald and grey; and I was black (which, as far as I try and convince myself it isn't, is a huge disadvantage for hitchhiking.)
The prize? Nothing. We're hobos. We're too broke to afford prizes, but you'd win the gratification of flying across a country with nothing but a backpack and a sore thumb faster than anyone else who was doing so at the time.
The idea filled our minds with excitement as we spun a bottle of wine between the three of us. Once the wine was finished, our conversations began to hang low like our eyelids and soon we found ourselves sleeping. This bridge was a lot quieter than Spadina; the rumble of tons of steel rushing by above us was too infrequent to bother us as we slumbered.
Ham Slappin' Separation
Scrib howled with gut busting laughter before hanging up the phone and doubling over, clenching his fuzzy stomach. I worried his spleen would pop from over-exertion.
The night before, me and him had been fucking around on Facebook together. We'd been telling each of our contacts to SLAP THE HAM!!!, which had become quite the running joke with us (and was to become even more dangerous and hilarious in the future.) For anyone living under a rock, "slapping the ham" is a term for female masturbation.
We had, indeed, told all of our contacts to slap the ham. Including Scrib's ex-girlfriend's mom.
She'd promptly googled SLAP THE HAM and discovered what it meant. She'd presumably nearly fainted from offense before she vaulted towards the phone called the cops on Scrib for a number of reasons, including sexual assault. She'd then called Scrib's grandma, who'd waited until the next day to call Scrib and inform him about what a crazy bitch his ex's mom was.
We all had some hearty chuckles and enjoyed the brief uplifted atmosphere before the mood went stagnant. We reluctantly resumed our prior mindsets - irritation, anger, condescension. Lately, our buttons had been getting pushed uncontrollably. Simple sentences would set a spark of livid hatred that would twist itself into an idiotic accusation. We'd spent too much time together - we were now each firmly convinced that ourselves, as individuals, were the only ones able to form a rational view of how our group should behave. In short, we were getting sick of each other.
We came to talk as our relationships about husbands.
"Guys? Maybe it's time we spent some time apart. We know we love each other, but this is stupid."
This is a tricky thing to say to anyone - be it a partner, a best friend or a travel buddy. Considering we were most of these, the conversation was tricky. We'd been together for over 30 days without separation, and we were getting damn close to our destination on the east coast. How could we separate?
The conversation dwindled down as we analyzed our surroundings and we came to realize that we were getting antzy for another reason: we'd been stuck in the same place for too long. We'd been at Snooze's house for 4 days. When you're chock full of wanderlust, 4 days is a long time to stay in a city - let alone a single house. Vagrants don't get stuck in the same spot.
This gave us a perfect opportunity to separate. Scrib had decided to stay with Snooze for the duration of her house-sitting gig, spending some time around Guelph with her. Me and Fern could now make our own way back to Toronto. Elated from the prospect of our separations, the three husbands and Snooze embraced before me and Fernweh hit the road for an hour long walk back to the train station.
The night before, me and him had been fucking around on Facebook together. We'd been telling each of our contacts to SLAP THE HAM!!!, which had become quite the running joke with us (and was to become even more dangerous and hilarious in the future.) For anyone living under a rock, "slapping the ham" is a term for female masturbation.
We had, indeed, told all of our contacts to slap the ham. Including Scrib's ex-girlfriend's mom.
She'd promptly googled SLAP THE HAM and discovered what it meant. She'd presumably nearly fainted from offense before she vaulted towards the phone called the cops on Scrib for a number of reasons, including sexual assault. She'd then called Scrib's grandma, who'd waited until the next day to call Scrib and inform him about what a crazy bitch his ex's mom was.
We all had some hearty chuckles and enjoyed the brief uplifted atmosphere before the mood went stagnant. We reluctantly resumed our prior mindsets - irritation, anger, condescension. Lately, our buttons had been getting pushed uncontrollably. Simple sentences would set a spark of livid hatred that would twist itself into an idiotic accusation. We'd spent too much time together - we were now each firmly convinced that ourselves, as individuals, were the only ones able to form a rational view of how our group should behave. In short, we were getting sick of each other.
We came to talk as our relationships about husbands.
"Guys? Maybe it's time we spent some time apart. We know we love each other, but this is stupid."
This is a tricky thing to say to anyone - be it a partner, a best friend or a travel buddy. Considering we were most of these, the conversation was tricky. We'd been together for over 30 days without separation, and we were getting damn close to our destination on the east coast. How could we separate?
The conversation dwindled down as we analyzed our surroundings and we came to realize that we were getting antzy for another reason: we'd been stuck in the same place for too long. We'd been at Snooze's house for 4 days. When you're chock full of wanderlust, 4 days is a long time to stay in a city - let alone a single house. Vagrants don't get stuck in the same spot.
This gave us a perfect opportunity to separate. Scrib had decided to stay with Snooze for the duration of her house-sitting gig, spending some time around Guelph with her. Me and Fern could now make our own way back to Toronto. Elated from the prospect of our separations, the three husbands and Snooze embraced before me and Fernweh hit the road for an hour long walk back to the train station.
Tuesday 12 November 2013
Baby Shower
The sun poked its head through the living room window and asked if we were hungover. We weren't, so the sun went back outside and decided to bother someone who was.
We woke ourselves up and pretended that we'd forgotten the arguments of the night before. Sure, the feelings lingered, but we put them behind us. There was no point in holding onto sour memories and pushing blame on one another - especially not this early in the A.M. Today was going to be a good day.
Today, Scrib and Fernweh were going to become parents. They were getting rats! Fernweh had had a rat on our traveling expedition the year prior; Zukuma had been his name. In a tragic turn of events, Zukuma had decided he didn't like the vagrant's lifestyle and decided to disappear into the wilderness one rainy night by Burnaby Lake. Now, it was time for Rat II.
On the way to the pet store, we ran into a group of hippie-assed mothafuckas. We got to talking and discovered that they, too, were from Vancouver Island. We conversed in compraison of Guelph to the Island - the were quite similar. Guelph was a small city with a small-town feel, similar to Nanaimo where we were from. That was probably the reason that the two groups had felt so comfortable there - the vastness of such a small population spread out over such a large area.
We parted ways, hit the rat store, and got a couple cute rodents. They were housed in a nice leather cage - bred to be roommates, whether they liked it or not - and placed on the table at Snooze's. We then proceeded to do what we'd came to do the night before - get absolutely shit-dick wasted.
The next thing I remember was coming to during the middle of the 5th episode of Star Wars. Apparently, during the midst of me tearing all my clothes off and gallivanting around the house with my pecker flapping in the wind, we'd started a Star Wars movie marathon. Awesome! Now that the entire group was conscious, we put the movie on hiatus, smoked a doobie and returned to the couch to be vegetables for a few more hours.
We woke ourselves up and pretended that we'd forgotten the arguments of the night before. Sure, the feelings lingered, but we put them behind us. There was no point in holding onto sour memories and pushing blame on one another - especially not this early in the A.M. Today was going to be a good day.
Today, Scrib and Fernweh were going to become parents. They were getting rats! Fernweh had had a rat on our traveling expedition the year prior; Zukuma had been his name. In a tragic turn of events, Zukuma had decided he didn't like the vagrant's lifestyle and decided to disappear into the wilderness one rainy night by Burnaby Lake. Now, it was time for Rat II.
On the way to the pet store, we ran into a group of hippie-assed mothafuckas. We got to talking and discovered that they, too, were from Vancouver Island. We conversed in compraison of Guelph to the Island - the were quite similar. Guelph was a small city with a small-town feel, similar to Nanaimo where we were from. That was probably the reason that the two groups had felt so comfortable there - the vastness of such a small population spread out over such a large area.
We parted ways, hit the rat store, and got a couple cute rodents. They were housed in a nice leather cage - bred to be roommates, whether they liked it or not - and placed on the table at Snooze's. We then proceeded to do what we'd came to do the night before - get absolutely shit-dick wasted.
The next thing I remember was coming to during the middle of the 5th episode of Star Wars. Apparently, during the midst of me tearing all my clothes off and gallivanting around the house with my pecker flapping in the wind, we'd started a Star Wars movie marathon. Awesome! Now that the entire group was conscious, we put the movie on hiatus, smoked a doobie and returned to the couch to be vegetables for a few more hours.
Reunion (7)
We were here! Guelph!
Cool?
I hadn't expected much, and we hadn't received much. We'd made our way onto a bus full of small-town kids, and the mixture on their faces was a mixture of awe and apprehension. Apparently they'd never seen traveling hobos; we were still a breed of homeless fairies that existed only in their imaginations and in ancient doctrines from the early half of the century. They weren't prepared for these dirty back-road, province-hopping rejects.
They warned us about the local gang. We laughed. The gang called themselves the Rats. Really? Any gang that called themselves the Rats clearly didn't understand a thing about terminology - that, or they just wanted to get their ass handed to them.
We ran into a few of these Rats as we got off the bus: saggy-pantsed, backwards hat-wearing Gangsters from Guelph. They stared us down until Fernweh shouted at one of him to pull up his pants and get a belt; the kid's tough-standing posture instantly melted into insecurity. He lifted up his shirt to reveal his belt and muttered something about the fact that he was wearing one. We shrugged the kids off with our laughter and went to go find Snooze.
We promptly forgot our task as a liquor store crested on the horizon and we started to beeline towards it; fortunately Snooze intercepted our path. Her obsession with Scrib had not abated. I'm not opposed to love, lust, even infatuation (though the latter can be dangerous) but when emotions come to such a degree that they interfere with your relationships amongst friends, I start to get worried. Me and Fernweh stepped back - we knew that in a few minutes, she'd hopefully be able to tear her gaze from Scrib and pass a few words our way. We had our own conversation about similar topics in the meantime.
An eon passed. Finally, Snooze turned and gave me and Fernweh a much less lustful greeting and led us back towards her house. Along the way, the group made a pact: tonight, we would black out. Tonight, we would get so sloppily slizzered that the very Earth itself would tilt 45 degrees to the side. Tonight, friends, would be a night to forget. There was not to be one wayward memory that weaseled its way into the back of our minds. We stopped at the liquor store and dropped the last of our 70 bucks on the cheapest, strongest beer we could find.
At Snooze's, we felt out of place. The house, her father's, was quite classy: middle class excellence that was pretty much as regal a place as a hobo could be without getting ushered out. Our comfortable mood began to subside in unison with the beers that we drank; our relaxed demeanor melted into varying scopes of immaturity. Me and Fernweh resumed our childish ways - name-calling, in-depth conversations about ass, etc. Scrib had become verbally aggressive; his words took on an intimidating factor and to interrupt him would be an instant confrontation. "Why is it that your speech is more important than mine?"
Naturally, there ensued a whole bunch of stupid arguments; a clash between three faulted points of view. We decided to call it quits - we'd only drank a few beers, and realized where the night would go if we kept it up. Fernweh and I traipsed to the living room, where we took all the blankets and pillows off of the couches and set them on the hardwood floor before we realized that we could have just slept on the couches. Our hobo instincts in full effect, we curled up in our Hobo Rollup and fell fast asleep.
Cool?
I hadn't expected much, and we hadn't received much. We'd made our way onto a bus full of small-town kids, and the mixture on their faces was a mixture of awe and apprehension. Apparently they'd never seen traveling hobos; we were still a breed of homeless fairies that existed only in their imaginations and in ancient doctrines from the early half of the century. They weren't prepared for these dirty back-road, province-hopping rejects.
They warned us about the local gang. We laughed. The gang called themselves the Rats. Really? Any gang that called themselves the Rats clearly didn't understand a thing about terminology - that, or they just wanted to get their ass handed to them.
We ran into a few of these Rats as we got off the bus: saggy-pantsed, backwards hat-wearing Gangsters from Guelph. They stared us down until Fernweh shouted at one of him to pull up his pants and get a belt; the kid's tough-standing posture instantly melted into insecurity. He lifted up his shirt to reveal his belt and muttered something about the fact that he was wearing one. We shrugged the kids off with our laughter and went to go find Snooze.
We promptly forgot our task as a liquor store crested on the horizon and we started to beeline towards it; fortunately Snooze intercepted our path. Her obsession with Scrib had not abated. I'm not opposed to love, lust, even infatuation (though the latter can be dangerous) but when emotions come to such a degree that they interfere with your relationships amongst friends, I start to get worried. Me and Fernweh stepped back - we knew that in a few minutes, she'd hopefully be able to tear her gaze from Scrib and pass a few words our way. We had our own conversation about similar topics in the meantime.
 | |
| Still missing some... |
At Snooze's, we felt out of place. The house, her father's, was quite classy: middle class excellence that was pretty much as regal a place as a hobo could be without getting ushered out. Our comfortable mood began to subside in unison with the beers that we drank; our relaxed demeanor melted into varying scopes of immaturity. Me and Fernweh resumed our childish ways - name-calling, in-depth conversations about ass, etc. Scrib had become verbally aggressive; his words took on an intimidating factor and to interrupt him would be an instant confrontation. "Why is it that your speech is more important than mine?"
Naturally, there ensued a whole bunch of stupid arguments; a clash between three faulted points of view. We decided to call it quits - we'd only drank a few beers, and realized where the night would go if we kept it up. Fernweh and I traipsed to the living room, where we took all the blankets and pillows off of the couches and set them on the hardwood floor before we realized that we could have just slept on the couches. Our hobo instincts in full effect, we curled up in our Hobo Rollup and fell fast asleep.
Friday 1 November 2013
Reasons not to take trains with hobos
Alright, now we were Guelph bound. It was time for us to feel some reprieve from the wretched walls of Toronto.
Sam had taken us out for some decidedly unimpressive "suicide hot" wings after we'd gotten ourselves kicked out of Dickhead's bar. The restaurant we ended up in promised us painfully spicy hot sauce, but after downing 20 wings, me, Fernweh and Scrib had barely broken a sweat. We'd been traveling across the country in search of true spice, and were still yet to find any (though this was bound to change in the next week.)
We walked to the train station with Sam afterwards, bid her a goodbye filled with warm embraces, and then proceeded to make our first mistake of the day: we paid for our Go! train tickets. Only once we were on the train did we realize how easy it would have been to just hop on.
Fortunately, after we'd made out way to the second deck of the Go! train, we recounted our money and realized that we'd vastly overestimated our ability to do math. We still had enough change left over to cover another set of train tickets back... which meant: beer. Now we were over-excited to get to Guelph.
We sat on the train, being our usual belligerently, assly selves. As we were proceeding to fill the air with banter and general ignorance, one of us pondered aloud, "how is it that so many people like us? We suck!"
"Who the fuck knows. Maybe people our overwhelmed by the contrast and the stark difference between our stupidity and our intelligence."
We debated the topic of our undeserved popularity for a while until the guy sitting behind Scrib turned around. He caught my eye, then reached into his bag and pulled out a mickey of vodka. He handed it to Scrib.
After we picked our jaws up off the floor, we thanked him profusely. Was our belligerence really enough reason for people to be so generous? Either way, we drank the mickey right there and proceeded to crank the volume up a few decibels. After chatting up a gorgeous muslim lady sitting across the aisleway, (and after having a few shots) we felt fully confident that our obnoxious demeanor was charming everyone on the train, so we kept it up.
Near the end the train ride, we went downstairs to have a smoke. We wrenched the automatic sliding door open and surreptitiously looked past the "NO SMOKING" sign. Instead we focused on the blur of a treescape that rushed past outside while we lit one up.
A few drags later, a red light blinked on and the train started to slow down, so we jammed the doors shut and bolted back to our seats. Moments after this, Blazer showed up.
We'd met Blazer earlier - he was the train's conductor. He'd disapproved of our playing didgeridoo earlier, and he'd told us not to play any music on the train. This time, when he found us, we were picking some single notes on the guitar out of sedentary boredom to pass time until the train started again. Despite not playing loud enough for the single passenger left on the train to hear, and despite the fact that, earlier, she'd told us she liked our music, Blazer freaked out.
"I told you guys. NO MUSIC!" We stayed silent, impressed at his determination to stay true to his asinine rules. "You guys weren't smoking any cigarettes?"
"No, sir." This wasn't a lie. We'd each taken a drag of a cigarette. Nobody had smoked a whole cigarette at all.
Blazer's warning was useless anyway. By the time we would have finished smoking a cigarette, we would have arrived in Guelph. Once we'd arrived and stepped off the train, we had a moment of train-hopping nostalgia... our cart had been on the end of the train, and the gate towards town was near the front. We hopped onto a pipe that was hanging off the train over the tracks. Holding on for dear amusement, we let the train bring us across the yard towards the gate.
Finally, we left the yard. Welcome to Guelph, boys.
Sam had taken us out for some decidedly unimpressive "suicide hot" wings after we'd gotten ourselves kicked out of Dickhead's bar. The restaurant we ended up in promised us painfully spicy hot sauce, but after downing 20 wings, me, Fernweh and Scrib had barely broken a sweat. We'd been traveling across the country in search of true spice, and were still yet to find any (though this was bound to change in the next week.)
We walked to the train station with Sam afterwards, bid her a goodbye filled with warm embraces, and then proceeded to make our first mistake of the day: we paid for our Go! train tickets. Only once we were on the train did we realize how easy it would have been to just hop on.
Fortunately, after we'd made out way to the second deck of the Go! train, we recounted our money and realized that we'd vastly overestimated our ability to do math. We still had enough change left over to cover another set of train tickets back... which meant: beer. Now we were over-excited to get to Guelph.
We sat on the train, being our usual belligerently, assly selves. As we were proceeding to fill the air with banter and general ignorance, one of us pondered aloud, "how is it that so many people like us? We suck!"
"Who the fuck knows. Maybe people our overwhelmed by the contrast and the stark difference between our stupidity and our intelligence."
We debated the topic of our undeserved popularity for a while until the guy sitting behind Scrib turned around. He caught my eye, then reached into his bag and pulled out a mickey of vodka. He handed it to Scrib.
After we picked our jaws up off the floor, we thanked him profusely. Was our belligerence really enough reason for people to be so generous? Either way, we drank the mickey right there and proceeded to crank the volume up a few decibels. After chatting up a gorgeous muslim lady sitting across the aisleway, (and after having a few shots) we felt fully confident that our obnoxious demeanor was charming everyone on the train, so we kept it up.
Near the end the train ride, we went downstairs to have a smoke. We wrenched the automatic sliding door open and surreptitiously looked past the "NO SMOKING" sign. Instead we focused on the blur of a treescape that rushed past outside while we lit one up.
A few drags later, a red light blinked on and the train started to slow down, so we jammed the doors shut and bolted back to our seats. Moments after this, Blazer showed up.
We'd met Blazer earlier - he was the train's conductor. He'd disapproved of our playing didgeridoo earlier, and he'd told us not to play any music on the train. This time, when he found us, we were picking some single notes on the guitar out of sedentary boredom to pass time until the train started again. Despite not playing loud enough for the single passenger left on the train to hear, and despite the fact that, earlier, she'd told us she liked our music, Blazer freaked out.
"I told you guys. NO MUSIC!" We stayed silent, impressed at his determination to stay true to his asinine rules. "You guys weren't smoking any cigarettes?"
"No, sir." This wasn't a lie. We'd each taken a drag of a cigarette. Nobody had smoked a whole cigarette at all.
Blazer's warning was useless anyway. By the time we would have finished smoking a cigarette, we would have arrived in Guelph. Once we'd arrived and stepped off the train, we had a moment of train-hopping nostalgia... our cart had been on the end of the train, and the gate towards town was near the front. We hopped onto a pipe that was hanging off the train over the tracks. Holding on for dear amusement, we let the train bring us across the yard towards the gate.
Finally, we left the yard. Welcome to Guelph, boys.
Thursday 31 October 2013
Do you shave your head to look like a dick?
We had to pull fourty bucks out of our asses for our train tickets to Guelph, and so far, our luck hadn't been great.
We'd only just sat down, but apparently we'd picked the wrong piece of sidewalk to rendezvous at. As soon as we'd sat, we were bombarded by a homebum and his less-homeless looking friend.
He spat bearded complaints about how he'd been using this spot to panhandle for the last 6 years.
That wasn't our problem - if you've been sitting on the same piece of sidewalk for 6 years, you should probably move somewhere - either a different sidewalk for a change of scenery, or a different walk of life to gain some different hopes.
Regardless, we left so our ears could find some reprieve from his haggard, scratchy excuse of a voice.
By the time we'd crossed the sidewalk, he'd already left. Fuck it. We went back and sat down, on the very same square that he'd just given us a lecture on being useless. This turned out to be the best decision of our day.
Once we returned, we held out our sign which attracted the right kind of people. One of the first donors we met was a young girl, our age, named Sam.
She bounded over to us and struck up a smiley conversation, with some smiley hand movements, before handing us a smiley 20 bucks.
I felt like I'd seen her before.
She kept talking to us and after a while, offered to take us out for lunch. Hungry as we were, we politely declined. Hadn't she already given us 20 bucks? That was more than enough.
She insisted, though, and helped us up from our seats on the concrete and walked us back towards Queen.
This girl was great. She was bubbly, she smiled a lot, and she was very... weird.
Not weird in a bad way, but weird like we were - open-minded and not afraid of the twisted and foul inner-workings of a broken psyche.
She was a computer programmer, so she had a ton of time to spend by herself, contemplating the awkward algorithms of a nerd's mind. Because of this, we had some great (albeit very odd) conversations.
Still, she reminded me of someone.
The four of us strolled down the road, the three boys collectively infatuated with this high-spirited angel. Together, the lot of us strolled down Queen, trying to figure out which restaurant to go to.
We left the choice up to her, since it was her money.
She decided against that - she was feeding us, so we should pick. We unanimously agreed to go to the first bar that we found, which happened to be only a few feet down the road.
In the double-doors we went, looking back at the reflections our filthy faces and our sparkling mentalities. We were turned around soon after, our elation twisted into outrage.
A tall, bald man who could only be described as a fuckface was waiting for us when we stepped inside, his arms crossed and his posture confrontational. He looked us over.
"Nope."
We paused and waited for him to finish. He didn't.
"What?"
"You've got to go." He spoke to us as if we were trying to sell his customers barrels of earthworms and maggots.
"Why?"
He first looked at Scrib. "Well, you need a shower," he said, apparently trying to single Scrib out (like most authority figures seemed to do), "and I can already tell that my customers don't like you."
Doubtful. There were very few people that we can't manage to put a smile on.
"Do you shave your head to look like a dick?" Scrib asked, "because you're doing a pretty good job."
We laughed, left, and spent a good minute emptying the phlegmy contents of our lungs onto the door before we left to find another restaurant.
It was then that I realized why Sam seemed so familiar. She had the exact same smile as my ex-girlfriend.
Weird...
I looked at her with a different eye from then on - not suspicious, though if anything, my gaze probably making it more obvious that I really liked her. Shit.
Infatuation is such a stupid thing... it's one of the only feelings that can make you disregard your plans, your morals, and your life for a few hours or a few days worth of satisfaction.
Infatuation; the Feel that allows you to find perfection in the apple of your eye for the simplest things.
She plays with her necklace the same was as you do? Oh my god, we're meant to be together. She has a tattoo on her arm too? We're soul mates.
Ridiculous.
Damn. Either way, getting kicked out of the bar by that douchebag had brightened our days. It had given us something to stand up for - it had almost entitled us to a sense of purpose.
Sure, maybe we weren't university grads, but at least we were able to piss off pretentious fucks just by being alive.
Thanks, man!
We'd only just sat down, but apparently we'd picked the wrong piece of sidewalk to rendezvous at. As soon as we'd sat, we were bombarded by a homebum and his less-homeless looking friend.
He spat bearded complaints about how he'd been using this spot to panhandle for the last 6 years.
That wasn't our problem - if you've been sitting on the same piece of sidewalk for 6 years, you should probably move somewhere - either a different sidewalk for a change of scenery, or a different walk of life to gain some different hopes.
Regardless, we left so our ears could find some reprieve from his haggard, scratchy excuse of a voice.
By the time we'd crossed the sidewalk, he'd already left. Fuck it. We went back and sat down, on the very same square that he'd just given us a lecture on being useless. This turned out to be the best decision of our day.
Once we returned, we held out our sign which attracted the right kind of people. One of the first donors we met was a young girl, our age, named Sam.She bounded over to us and struck up a smiley conversation, with some smiley hand movements, before handing us a smiley 20 bucks.
I felt like I'd seen her before.
She kept talking to us and after a while, offered to take us out for lunch. Hungry as we were, we politely declined. Hadn't she already given us 20 bucks? That was more than enough.
She insisted, though, and helped us up from our seats on the concrete and walked us back towards Queen.
This girl was great. She was bubbly, she smiled a lot, and she was very... weird.
Not weird in a bad way, but weird like we were - open-minded and not afraid of the twisted and foul inner-workings of a broken psyche.
She was a computer programmer, so she had a ton of time to spend by herself, contemplating the awkward algorithms of a nerd's mind. Because of this, we had some great (albeit very odd) conversations.
Still, she reminded me of someone.
The four of us strolled down the road, the three boys collectively infatuated with this high-spirited angel. Together, the lot of us strolled down Queen, trying to figure out which restaurant to go to.
We left the choice up to her, since it was her money.
She decided against that - she was feeding us, so we should pick. We unanimously agreed to go to the first bar that we found, which happened to be only a few feet down the road.
In the double-doors we went, looking back at the reflections our filthy faces and our sparkling mentalities. We were turned around soon after, our elation twisted into outrage.
A tall, bald man who could only be described as a fuckface was waiting for us when we stepped inside, his arms crossed and his posture confrontational. He looked us over.
"Nope."
We paused and waited for him to finish. He didn't.
"What?"
"You've got to go." He spoke to us as if we were trying to sell his customers barrels of earthworms and maggots.
"Why?"
He first looked at Scrib. "Well, you need a shower," he said, apparently trying to single Scrib out (like most authority figures seemed to do), "and I can already tell that my customers don't like you."
Doubtful. There were very few people that we can't manage to put a smile on.
"Do you shave your head to look like a dick?" Scrib asked, "because you're doing a pretty good job."
We laughed, left, and spent a good minute emptying the phlegmy contents of our lungs onto the door before we left to find another restaurant.
It was then that I realized why Sam seemed so familiar. She had the exact same smile as my ex-girlfriend.
Weird...
I looked at her with a different eye from then on - not suspicious, though if anything, my gaze probably making it more obvious that I really liked her. Shit.
Infatuation is such a stupid thing... it's one of the only feelings that can make you disregard your plans, your morals, and your life for a few hours or a few days worth of satisfaction.
Infatuation; the Feel that allows you to find perfection in the apple of your eye for the simplest things.
She plays with her necklace the same was as you do? Oh my god, we're meant to be together. She has a tattoo on her arm too? We're soul mates.
Ridiculous.
Damn. Either way, getting kicked out of the bar by that douchebag had brightened our days. It had given us something to stand up for - it had almost entitled us to a sense of purpose.
Sure, maybe we weren't university grads, but at least we were able to piss off pretentious fucks just by being alive.
Thanks, man!
Addicted already?
The sunlight smacked us all with rays of resolve as we vaulted out of our sleeping bags, baring our half-naked bodies to the glow of the azurean skies. Our gleaming nipples sparkled with determination.
Today, we had a goal.
Today, we were getting our bum cheques, and today, we were getting a shit ton of heroin.
We pummeled all of our shit into our backpacks with herculean might and watched the sidewalk as it sped by beneath us as we trucked towards the main strip.
We walked as fast as we could, but refused to run. Our subconscious was working quickly. If we ran, then we would have to accept that we were already addicted to heroin. If we walked quickly, then we were just making sure that we were punctual for our appointment with the welfare office.
The three of us separated as we entered the welfare office lineup. We met up ten minutes later.
Scrib had a huge grin on his face and a wad of bills in his hands; me and Fernweh wore huge frowns and sported empty pockets and curse words. Our cheques hadn't come in - but we still wanted our drugs.
As we poked and prodded Scrib to front us a couple bags of heroin, we realized that we could no longer pretend that we were free from the grip of heroin.
"C'mon, man. We'll pay you back as soon as our cheques get deposited. The three of us only need 200 bucks. Our cheques will be in soon. They'll be in soon, man! C'mon!"
It didn't take a third person perspective to realize how pathetic we seemed, swarming him like vultures trying to peck the cash from his pocket.
He aptly told us to fuck off and that we'd just continue with our other plans instead. We were planning to head to Snooze's parents' place in Guelph for the week. We could get drugs later.
That was (almost) alright with me and Fern. The allure of Snooze's parent's house sounded great. Since her parents were gone, we were promised three things: unlimited food, unlimited liquor, and unlimited access to small-town teenagers like ourselves that we could get rowdy with.
Whenever you have an opportunity not to smoke heroin, you should probably seize it.
Today, we had a goal.
Today, we were getting our bum cheques, and today, we were getting a shit ton of heroin.
We pummeled all of our shit into our backpacks with herculean might and watched the sidewalk as it sped by beneath us as we trucked towards the main strip.
We walked as fast as we could, but refused to run. Our subconscious was working quickly. If we ran, then we would have to accept that we were already addicted to heroin. If we walked quickly, then we were just making sure that we were punctual for our appointment with the welfare office.
The three of us separated as we entered the welfare office lineup. We met up ten minutes later.
Scrib had a huge grin on his face and a wad of bills in his hands; me and Fernweh wore huge frowns and sported empty pockets and curse words. Our cheques hadn't come in - but we still wanted our drugs.
As we poked and prodded Scrib to front us a couple bags of heroin, we realized that we could no longer pretend that we were free from the grip of heroin.
"C'mon, man. We'll pay you back as soon as our cheques get deposited. The three of us only need 200 bucks. Our cheques will be in soon. They'll be in soon, man! C'mon!"
It didn't take a third person perspective to realize how pathetic we seemed, swarming him like vultures trying to peck the cash from his pocket.
He aptly told us to fuck off and that we'd just continue with our other plans instead. We were planning to head to Snooze's parents' place in Guelph for the week. We could get drugs later.
That was (almost) alright with me and Fern. The allure of Snooze's parent's house sounded great. Since her parents were gone, we were promised three things: unlimited food, unlimited liquor, and unlimited access to small-town teenagers like ourselves that we could get rowdy with.
Whenever you have an opportunity not to smoke heroin, you should probably seize it.
Tuesday 22 October 2013
Negros
Drop-ins were an elementary aspect of Hobo Survival, and the Youth Link center in Toronto had always served me well. Nestled in the depths of a grimy alleyway that sunk between two unkempt sideroads; the door of YouthLink always provided a soothing waft of stale urine and a vulgar, yet intricate display of graffiti.
Inside, the scene was much more relaxed - usually. This year, it seemed like a crew of black folks had taken the drop-in over. Not that I've anything against black people, but these folk took the stereotypes to the next level. The only audible words that were shared amongst their slurred ebonics were "nigga" and "fuck." They traipsed around the room, pants strewn around their ankles, spitting incomprehensible raps and trying to bump into people and start fights. I felt ashamed to share a bloodline with these ignoramuses.
The three women working behind the counter were as sweet as always, though. Their soothing smiles and gleaming eyes invited you towards excellent conversation and an endless wealth of sympathy and seduction (well, the latter was more of a dream/objective for the kids at the center.)
After we'd eaten our meal (pre-cooked, ready-made egg patties and bagels. Much more appetizing when you slather sriracha sauce all over them) Fernweh decided he wanted to check his Facebook. He patted one of the dudes sitting at the computer on the shoulder and asked him when he'd be finished. The guy kicked his chair back, stood up, and stepped up to Fernweh while his chair slid to a halt behind him.
"Mothafucka, you don't touch me. You don't know a nigga like that. You got a mothafuckin problem?"
"Whoa, buds. I was just asking--"
"No, mothafucka. You get the fuck out of here, man."
Fuck it. The drop-in had been usurped. We had no reason to stay there any longer. We wandered the streets, dejected, broke, bored, and battered. The day passed extremely slowly - we had no energy to squeegee, yet, we had enough energy to stay awake. Eventually, we found ourselves back home at the bridge.
Scrib had the idea of lighting a fire. I voted against the idea, but soon, we were all gathering bits of wood from the bush beside the bridge. Soon, flames had ignited, and soon, the fire department had been summoned. I'd definitely envisioned this the moment the suggestion of fire had been offered, but I was willing to dodge authority for a little while. I just hoped this wouldn't heat out everyone's sleeping spot.
As the trucks began to arrive, glaring red lights illuminated the underside of the bridge; painting a picture of purgatory on the ground and the barriers, We fled towards the bushes and listened to the gruff hollering of firemen as they extinguished the fire. While we were in the bushes, we found an oddity: someone had created a dwelling in a crevasse that separated the bridge from one of it's supports and another thick wall. Candles were lit inside, tapestries were hung on the wall. It seemed that there were a few hobos who truly knew how to live off-the-grid, staying present on-the-grid.
As the firetrucks departed, we realized that today had been lame.
It was time for bed. Scrib and I bestowed upon ourselves the honour of finding ourselves some mattresses, so we hustled to Subway and looted their cardboard dumpsters. We retrieved massive lengths of cardboard that dwarfed us both in size and in width. We hoisted our monolithic mattresses over our shoulders as we marched across the street, obstructing all sorts of traffic and earning many satisfying honks from infuriated drivers.
At last, we arrived home. The final smoking embers of our fire smouldered an puffed grey clouds towards the sky as we set up our beds. Memories of ignorant African-Americans and burly firemen floated in my head as the embers faded into nothingness, and soon, slumber engulfed us.
 |
| A little bit grimier than this |
Inside, the scene was much more relaxed - usually. This year, it seemed like a crew of black folks had taken the drop-in over. Not that I've anything against black people, but these folk took the stereotypes to the next level. The only audible words that were shared amongst their slurred ebonics were "nigga" and "fuck." They traipsed around the room, pants strewn around their ankles, spitting incomprehensible raps and trying to bump into people and start fights. I felt ashamed to share a bloodline with these ignoramuses.
The three women working behind the counter were as sweet as always, though. Their soothing smiles and gleaming eyes invited you towards excellent conversation and an endless wealth of sympathy and seduction (well, the latter was more of a dream/objective for the kids at the center.)
After we'd eaten our meal (pre-cooked, ready-made egg patties and bagels. Much more appetizing when you slather sriracha sauce all over them) Fernweh decided he wanted to check his Facebook. He patted one of the dudes sitting at the computer on the shoulder and asked him when he'd be finished. The guy kicked his chair back, stood up, and stepped up to Fernweh while his chair slid to a halt behind him.
"Mothafucka, you don't touch me. You don't know a nigga like that. You got a mothafuckin problem?"
"Whoa, buds. I was just asking--"
"No, mothafucka. You get the fuck out of here, man."
Fuck it. The drop-in had been usurped. We had no reason to stay there any longer. We wandered the streets, dejected, broke, bored, and battered. The day passed extremely slowly - we had no energy to squeegee, yet, we had enough energy to stay awake. Eventually, we found ourselves back home at the bridge.
Scrib had the idea of lighting a fire. I voted against the idea, but soon, we were all gathering bits of wood from the bush beside the bridge. Soon, flames had ignited, and soon, the fire department had been summoned. I'd definitely envisioned this the moment the suggestion of fire had been offered, but I was willing to dodge authority for a little while. I just hoped this wouldn't heat out everyone's sleeping spot.
As the trucks began to arrive, glaring red lights illuminated the underside of the bridge; painting a picture of purgatory on the ground and the barriers, We fled towards the bushes and listened to the gruff hollering of firemen as they extinguished the fire. While we were in the bushes, we found an oddity: someone had created a dwelling in a crevasse that separated the bridge from one of it's supports and another thick wall. Candles were lit inside, tapestries were hung on the wall. It seemed that there were a few hobos who truly knew how to live off-the-grid, staying present on-the-grid.
As the firetrucks departed, we realized that today had been lame.
It was time for bed. Scrib and I bestowed upon ourselves the honour of finding ourselves some mattresses, so we hustled to Subway and looted their cardboard dumpsters. We retrieved massive lengths of cardboard that dwarfed us both in size and in width. We hoisted our monolithic mattresses over our shoulders as we marched across the street, obstructing all sorts of traffic and earning many satisfying honks from infuriated drivers.
At last, we arrived home. The final smoking embers of our fire smouldered an puffed grey clouds towards the sky as we set up our beds. Memories of ignorant African-Americans and burly firemen floated in my head as the embers faded into nothingness, and soon, slumber engulfed us.
Weedifested
Toronto was sweet for two reasons:
Either way, free money's free money. We made it to the Welfare office at 8:15. They had opened at 8. All the application spots had been filled already.
Wow, Toronto was eager to get its money. We sat outside, mumbling about our misery, soothing our wounds from the night prior. Fernweh had opened back up to Scrib, and I had come to realize that Scrib was, in fact, an excellent guy. I'd known that prior, but I'd recently realized that if I couldn't accept him for getting a bit too drunk sometimes, then I was no kind of friend. Everyone gets wasted. Hopefully he'd be able to keep the aggression toned down, though, because Fernweh didn't deserve to get beaten.
Either way, the three of us sat at a table outside some government office and fantasized about how fantastic it would be to have a bit of weed to kick off our hangover. Dissatisfied with the lack of herbs, I picked up my guitar and, being far too lazy to tune it, strummed a few dissonant chords. As I did so, I heard something rattling around inside. I turned the guitar upside down and awkwardly fished out what turned out to be a bag of weed.
Surprised, I dropped the weed and it fell to the ground. There it sat, begging us to discredit our existence. It was definitely a gram of weed. We jumped off the chairs and out of our melancholy mood, bailing onto the ground where we stood, hailing the bag of weed like a green, hairy idol. We rolled our herbs up outside the welfare office and puffed ourselves into an excellent mood.
- The availability of illicit substances
- The availability of free money
Either way, free money's free money. We made it to the Welfare office at 8:15. They had opened at 8. All the application spots had been filled already.
Wow, Toronto was eager to get its money. We sat outside, mumbling about our misery, soothing our wounds from the night prior. Fernweh had opened back up to Scrib, and I had come to realize that Scrib was, in fact, an excellent guy. I'd known that prior, but I'd recently realized that if I couldn't accept him for getting a bit too drunk sometimes, then I was no kind of friend. Everyone gets wasted. Hopefully he'd be able to keep the aggression toned down, though, because Fernweh didn't deserve to get beaten.
Either way, the three of us sat at a table outside some government office and fantasized about how fantastic it would be to have a bit of weed to kick off our hangover. Dissatisfied with the lack of herbs, I picked up my guitar and, being far too lazy to tune it, strummed a few dissonant chords. As I did so, I heard something rattling around inside. I turned the guitar upside down and awkwardly fished out what turned out to be a bag of weed.
Surprised, I dropped the weed and it fell to the ground. There it sat, begging us to discredit our existence. It was definitely a gram of weed. We jumped off the chairs and out of our melancholy mood, bailing onto the ground where we stood, hailing the bag of weed like a green, hairy idol. We rolled our herbs up outside the welfare office and puffed ourselves into an excellent mood.
Sunday 20 October 2013
Putting the Pieces Back
The burden of the previous evening was huddled in the back of me and Fernweh's minds as we awoke huddled side-by-side under the bridge. This morning felt strange; this was the first morning we awoke without Scrib and Snooze snuggled up with us.
I would have imagined that any sane person would have left Scrib to fend for himself that night. His incoherent, aggressive babbling wasn't doing anything for anyone; his presence could only ravenously swallow any positive energy that arose. I can't imagine why anyone would want to be around something that can communicate nothing but aggression. That being said, I supposed that Snooze's infatuation with Scrib was still blinding her into a state of irrationality. She'd stayed with him, baring the brunt of his blathering belligerence, if only to give him that very same slack-jawed, wide eyed look of utter awe. C'mon, Snooze. He's not Brad Pitt, and you're not a 14 year old girl being thunderstruck by getting a chance to meet him.
Fern and I dragged our corpselike excuses for bodies towards McDonald's to get ourselves some hydration. Once inside, my phone connected to the wi-fi and began spitting soundwaves at me to inform me that someone, somewhere, needed something from me. I checked my text message inbox and saw a note from Scrib. He'd gotten lost the night prior in a blacked out stupor, and wanted to find us. Fernweh stared over his glass of water at me, and I stared back at him.
Fernweh's eyes hadn't been the same since last night - not because they were injured, (at least, not physically) but because the soul that resided behind them had been crippled. Scrib's ego had dealt a nasty blow to Fernweh's own, and Fern's only response to a blow to his self esteem was to become extremely passively pissed.. Ever since Scrib's first explosion in Regina, the rope that tethered our relationships together had become frayed. I think last night had finally snapped that rope. Fernweh said nothing as he rubbed his bruised face and massaged his boken mindstate.
Me, being stupidly forgiving - to a point that it often becomes a problem for me - told Scrib that we were waiting in McDonald's for him.
He arrived ten minutes later. I was hoping for a conversation that would lean towards alcohol being the culprit for last night's situation, and I was hoping for an apology to Fernweh. We got neither. Instead, he acknowledged the evening with nothing but an avalanche of excuses, essentially blaming Fernweh for provoking the anger that "only comes out when someone's being stupid."
It was at this moment that I lost most of my respect for Scrib. The situation itself hadn't been the worst part. The situation had sucked for everyone. People make mistakes when they were drunk, sure, but I knew there was more to this blackout than mere alcohol. We hadn't even drank that much. Rage can have a Herculean effect on a lot individuals. I've witnessed rage cause blackouts by itself, without so much of a drop of alcohol being consumed. There's nothing scarier than a mindless body being piloted by anger.
That being said, apologies are usually issued after the blackouts occur.
Fernweh wouldn't say a word to Scrib, he could only sit back and observe him with a glare so cold that it made even me uncomfortable. I felt a bit shallow in my loyalty to Fernweh by trying to restore the friendship we'd all had. Despite Scrib's ego forbidding him from stepping back half a foot from his bloated self-sense, despite his inability to apologize for wrecking an evening and a potential friendship, despite my newly found lack of respect towards him, it was hard not to get along with him. He was back to his Scribby self, cracking jokes and telling whacky stories, and I figured jiving with him was far more productive than giving him the cold shoulder. He was here, his presence might as well be enjoyed.
Anyway, now that the crew was (somewhat) reunited, we had to go do what we'd decided to do today: GET OUR BUM CHEQUES!
I would have imagined that any sane person would have left Scrib to fend for himself that night. His incoherent, aggressive babbling wasn't doing anything for anyone; his presence could only ravenously swallow any positive energy that arose. I can't imagine why anyone would want to be around something that can communicate nothing but aggression. That being said, I supposed that Snooze's infatuation with Scrib was still blinding her into a state of irrationality. She'd stayed with him, baring the brunt of his blathering belligerence, if only to give him that very same slack-jawed, wide eyed look of utter awe. C'mon, Snooze. He's not Brad Pitt, and you're not a 14 year old girl being thunderstruck by getting a chance to meet him.
Fern and I dragged our corpselike excuses for bodies towards McDonald's to get ourselves some hydration. Once inside, my phone connected to the wi-fi and began spitting soundwaves at me to inform me that someone, somewhere, needed something from me. I checked my text message inbox and saw a note from Scrib. He'd gotten lost the night prior in a blacked out stupor, and wanted to find us. Fernweh stared over his glass of water at me, and I stared back at him.
Fernweh's eyes hadn't been the same since last night - not because they were injured, (at least, not physically) but because the soul that resided behind them had been crippled. Scrib's ego had dealt a nasty blow to Fernweh's own, and Fern's only response to a blow to his self esteem was to become extremely passively pissed.. Ever since Scrib's first explosion in Regina, the rope that tethered our relationships together had become frayed. I think last night had finally snapped that rope. Fernweh said nothing as he rubbed his bruised face and massaged his boken mindstate.
Me, being stupidly forgiving - to a point that it often becomes a problem for me - told Scrib that we were waiting in McDonald's for him.
He arrived ten minutes later. I was hoping for a conversation that would lean towards alcohol being the culprit for last night's situation, and I was hoping for an apology to Fernweh. We got neither. Instead, he acknowledged the evening with nothing but an avalanche of excuses, essentially blaming Fernweh for provoking the anger that "only comes out when someone's being stupid."
It was at this moment that I lost most of my respect for Scrib. The situation itself hadn't been the worst part. The situation had sucked for everyone. People make mistakes when they were drunk, sure, but I knew there was more to this blackout than mere alcohol. We hadn't even drank that much. Rage can have a Herculean effect on a lot individuals. I've witnessed rage cause blackouts by itself, without so much of a drop of alcohol being consumed. There's nothing scarier than a mindless body being piloted by anger.
That being said, apologies are usually issued after the blackouts occur.
Fernweh wouldn't say a word to Scrib, he could only sit back and observe him with a glare so cold that it made even me uncomfortable. I felt a bit shallow in my loyalty to Fernweh by trying to restore the friendship we'd all had. Despite Scrib's ego forbidding him from stepping back half a foot from his bloated self-sense, despite his inability to apologize for wrecking an evening and a potential friendship, despite my newly found lack of respect towards him, it was hard not to get along with him. He was back to his Scribby self, cracking jokes and telling whacky stories, and I figured jiving with him was far more productive than giving him the cold shoulder. He was here, his presence might as well be enjoyed.
Anyway, now that the crew was (somewhat) reunited, we had to go do what we'd decided to do today: GET OUR BUM CHEQUES!
Tuesday 15 October 2013
The Bottle Pops (2)
We found ourselves at the top of a staircase on a mezzanine outside someone's second story apartment building. Surely nobody would be home.
Just as we thought that, the door opened and a woman poked her head out.
"What are you doing here?"
We stated the obvious by looking at our bottle of whiskey. "Uhhhmm.. can we drink
here?"
She considered for a moment. "Yeah, sure. If you're quiet."
We weren't. The tables turned quickly. Such began Scrib's second act of severance towards our relationships.
Initially, we were gleeful and excited that this random woman had actually let us drink on her property. Our excitement was evident in our elated conversations, though, the conversations soon came to dwindle.Words were replaced by aggressive stumbles and aimless punches that flew through the air. There was no intention to this aggression - Scrib was simply acting as an icon of his current emotions. Fernweh joined in - he likes to hone his fighting skills - and I sat in the back with Snooze because I was too lazy and drunk to practice.
As Fernweh stepped into the circumference of Scrib's area-of-flail, the scene changed. His words - obnoxious, two dozen decibels too high if only to defile the kindness of the lady who's property we were on (she was surely now too scared to kick us off the property) [run on sentences are cool] - were senseless, violent and cacophonous. Finally, after a dozen minutes of rambling, he resorted into one of the most paleolithic methods of communication: violence.
With a glorious (albeit terrifying) shout, Scrib twisted his face into a contorted, screwed up mask of hatred. His eyes lost any sense of luster as he bellowed, "ALL I FEEL IS ANGER!!!"
He spun with the entirety of his 180 pounds of wait and clocked Fernweh in the face. Fernweh hit the ground and stood back up.
"What the fuck, man?" He stepped back. We'd never seen such mindless fury before; at least, not within one who we held in such high regard. It was scary to see someone you loved treat you with such disrespect.
"YOU ARE AFRAID!!" Scrib stepped forward towards Fernweh, who was leaned up against the fence that separated us from a story-and-a-half-fall. Every follicle that resided on Scrib's flesh flourished with fury as he backhanded Fernweh in the face again. Considering neither Fernweh or I had expected this, we weren't nearly prepared to jump into a state of hatred half as complete as Scrib's. We decided we were just going to leave - there's no point in beating the shit out of your friends. At least we were rational enough to realize that. The liquor was gone, anyways.
The first part of our walk sucked. Fernweh had been provoked, though at the time, he hadn't want to act on his anger. Now that me and him were alone, I had nothing to listen to but his furious rantings the surreal sound of Scrib's hand as it smashed against Fernweh's face. Fortunately, not far into our journey, we ran into a group of kids smoking a doobie. We struck up a conversation and ended up being passed a few tokes.
This happened no fewer than 5 times on our walk back to the bridge, and by the time we were there, we were so ripped that the night's aggression had diffused itself into a chink-eyed state of relaxation.
We set up our beds and laid down, trying not to let the distant memories penetrate our present mindstates. The night found us quickly.
 | |
| Once Upon a Friendship |
"What are you doing here?"
We stated the obvious by looking at our bottle of whiskey. "Uhhhmm.. can we drink
here?"
She considered for a moment. "Yeah, sure. If you're quiet."
We weren't. The tables turned quickly. Such began Scrib's second act of severance towards our relationships.
Initially, we were gleeful and excited that this random woman had actually let us drink on her property. Our excitement was evident in our elated conversations, though, the conversations soon came to dwindle.Words were replaced by aggressive stumbles and aimless punches that flew through the air. There was no intention to this aggression - Scrib was simply acting as an icon of his current emotions. Fernweh joined in - he likes to hone his fighting skills - and I sat in the back with Snooze because I was too lazy and drunk to practice.
As Fernweh stepped into the circumference of Scrib's area-of-flail, the scene changed. His words - obnoxious, two dozen decibels too high if only to defile the kindness of the lady who's property we were on (she was surely now too scared to kick us off the property) [run on sentences are cool] - were senseless, violent and cacophonous. Finally, after a dozen minutes of rambling, he resorted into one of the most paleolithic methods of communication: violence.
With a glorious (albeit terrifying) shout, Scrib twisted his face into a contorted, screwed up mask of hatred. His eyes lost any sense of luster as he bellowed, "ALL I FEEL IS ANGER!!!"
He spun with the entirety of his 180 pounds of wait and clocked Fernweh in the face. Fernweh hit the ground and stood back up.
"What the fuck, man?" He stepped back. We'd never seen such mindless fury before; at least, not within one who we held in such high regard. It was scary to see someone you loved treat you with such disrespect.
"YOU ARE AFRAID!!" Scrib stepped forward towards Fernweh, who was leaned up against the fence that separated us from a story-and-a-half-fall. Every follicle that resided on Scrib's flesh flourished with fury as he backhanded Fernweh in the face again. Considering neither Fernweh or I had expected this, we weren't nearly prepared to jump into a state of hatred half as complete as Scrib's. We decided we were just going to leave - there's no point in beating the shit out of your friends. At least we were rational enough to realize that. The liquor was gone, anyways.
Your portfolio presents nothing but provocation.
Your potential's being taken apart, piece by piece;
being picked at by narcissistic fingernails;
a story narrated by pain itself.
The first part of our walk sucked. Fernweh had been provoked, though at the time, he hadn't want to act on his anger. Now that me and him were alone, I had nothing to listen to but his furious rantings the surreal sound of Scrib's hand as it smashed against Fernweh's face. Fortunately, not far into our journey, we ran into a group of kids smoking a doobie. We struck up a conversation and ended up being passed a few tokes.
This happened no fewer than 5 times on our walk back to the bridge, and by the time we were there, we were so ripped that the night's aggression had diffused itself into a chink-eyed state of relaxation.
We set up our beds and laid down, trying not to let the distant memories penetrate our present mindstates. The night found us quickly.
Squids
It had been over a year since I'd awoken under this bridge. This time, instead of being cuddled up with a fine lass, I found myself cuddled up with my two homies and one of their girlfriend.
This was much more awesome.
We scrubbed the sleep from our eyes and decided it was best to go squeegee. We had been awake for five minutes already and had discovered no effective way to get beer, so we figured we'd hit the street corners and wash some windows.
Toronto's well known for its massively popular and massively efficient streets where gangs of squeegee kids take to the road and clean the fuck out of anyone's car that happens to be driving by.
Fortunately, while packing our bags, we found three beers leftover from the night before. We took them to a corner on Queen and sipped our sunrise beers while we orchestrated the soft slip and slide of our squeegees.
There's a ton of controversy about squeegeeing. Some drivers may consider squeegee kids respectful, in a sense, because they work for their money as opposed to panhandling. Other drivers consider squeegee kids (hereon referred to as squids) rude and invasive. These drivers aren't asking for their windows to be washed. Maybe their window was already clean?
We washed away for about an hour before the cops rolled up as per usual. A fairly normal conversation ensued.
"Do you know this is illegal?"
"Ye."
"Of course not."
This was much more awesome.
We scrubbed the sleep from our eyes and decided it was best to go squeegee. We had been awake for five minutes already and had discovered no effective way to get beer, so we figured we'd hit the street corners and wash some windows.
Toronto's well known for its massively popular and massively efficient streets where gangs of squeegee kids take to the road and clean the fuck out of anyone's car that happens to be driving by.
Fortunately, while packing our bags, we found three beers leftover from the night before. We took them to a corner on Queen and sipped our sunrise beers while we orchestrated the soft slip and slide of our squeegees.
There's a ton of controversy about squeegeeing. Some drivers may consider squeegee kids respectful, in a sense, because they work for their money as opposed to panhandling. Other drivers consider squeegee kids (hereon referred to as squids) rude and invasive. These drivers aren't asking for their windows to be washed. Maybe their window was already clean?
 |
| Yeah, my fly's open. I give this many fucks: |
We figured people shouldn't get so damn offended.
I understand if you don't want your car touched by a stranger, but I'm not touching your car. My squeegee is. The same damn squeegee that you probably use to wash your own window.
You don't have to be scared, either. Nobody's going to beat your windshield in for not paying us. We're used to not getting paid. If you do have a donation, though, we won't say no.
Everyone's gotta eat. And drink. Drink, mostly.
I understand if you don't want your car touched by a stranger, but I'm not touching your car. My squeegee is. The same damn squeegee that you probably use to wash your own window.
You don't have to be scared, either. Nobody's going to beat your windshield in for not paying us. We're used to not getting paid. If you do have a donation, though, we won't say no.
Everyone's gotta eat. And drink. Drink, mostly.
We washed away for about an hour before the cops rolled up as per usual. A fairly normal conversation ensued.
"Do you know this is illegal?"
"Ye."
"So, you can't do this anymore."
"Of course not."
The cop whipped out his ticket book and asked for my name.
I told him my name was Jamal Kingston and he left me a ticket inscribed with that identity. Sweet! This would make things easier. If you tell a cop that you haven't got any ID, you can use an old ticket instead.
Once you gain a repertoire of squeegeeing tickets, cops won't even question you. Hell, some businesses accept tickets as ID. Thus began my new life as Jamal Kingston.
I told him my name was Jamal Kingston and he left me a ticket inscribed with that identity. Sweet! This would make things easier. If you tell a cop that you haven't got any ID, you can use an old ticket instead.
Once you gain a repertoire of squeegeeing tickets, cops won't even question you. Hell, some businesses accept tickets as ID. Thus began my new life as Jamal Kingston.
In a normal situation, with normal cops, the encounter ends here, but as I bent over to pick up my squeegee, a gargantuan uniformed douchebag stomped his oppressive, steel-toed boot down onto my squeegee.
"Where'd you get this, kid?" Supposedly he wasn't an idiot. Supposedly he knew all the squids in Toronto steal their squeegees from the gas station down the road.
"I bought it. I brought it from B.C."
"It's a Mallory." (Mallory's a brand of squeegee.) "I can prove you're lying."
I hesitated, expecting to be ushered down to the gas station in a pair of cuffs.
"Whatever. Keep your squeegee. I know you're just going to steal another one." He left it on the ground, got into his cruiser and left.
Sweet. Now that the four of us were still here, we weren't apprehended, and we had money in our pockets, we decided it was time to go to the liquor store. We were gonna pick up a bottle of whiskey to truly celebrate our arrival in Toronto.
This was a bad idea. It's sad to say that getting ticketed was the happiest moment of our day, but it definitely was. Soon after we'd picked up the bottle, we stepped into some dark times.
Monday 14 October 2013
Fire in the Hole
We didn't beat the storm.
Sprinting through the torrential downpour, we finally found some shelter.
We dove out from the maelstrom of ice-cold needles and sprawled ourselves onto a concrete slab next to a hotel's entrance way. There was already a wise couple here, apparently as disgruntled by mother nature as we were.
We struck up an awkward conversation for a few moments before we realized how bad we were at pretending to be normal and seceded from the group to find ourselves our own spot to be incoherent and stupid.
The storm cleared out pretty quickly. We'd passed much of the time discussing the possibility of sharing lucid dreams and joining each other in our subconscious minds while we slept. It had been done before - there was no reason we couldn't do it.
The last drops fell from the firmament and we held this thought in our minds as we hoisted our bags on and headed towards the bridge.
It was only a ten minute walk to the Spadina bridge. This was the bridge of all bridges. Hobo central, Canada. It looked like things had changed a lot since last year though.
Last year, the bridge had been occupied by only the most revered of hobos. There had been six fairly large cubbies situated right underneath the main section of the bridge, elevated between the road itself and the ground by about five feet.
These had essentially been "rented" out to different hobos on a first-come, first-serve basis. It had been truly reasonable - shit never got stolen, people tended to get along, and those who didn't, didn't talk to each other.
I'd stayed in one such cubbie with a friend of mine, P-Dawg Williams. Her concrete cubby had been big enough to fit a single mattress, a couple loads of laundry, three people and enough room to hang her pictures on the wall. Homely.
Despite that, nobody was sleeping in the cubbies anymore. They'd relocated themselves onto a massive stack of pallets on the ground next to the cubbies, that must have been 20 feet by 20 feet across and was standing at least a foot off the ground.
There were a good dozen hobos sitting, lying, standing, drinking and smoking on top of this beastly structure, and they informed us that nobody was sleeping in the cubbies because someone had been going around torching them.
What the fuck? There's a hobo arsonist on the loose?
We didn't want to risk getting torched, and we were way too tired to deal with meeting a handful of hobos at this hour, so we trucked 'er down a bit farther past their camp and found some cardboard. We kicked a bunch of dirty needles out of the way before setting our tarp down and our cardboard on top of it to lay down for the night.
Well, it was nice to be back in Toronto. Now it was time to have some lucid dreams.
Sprinting through the torrential downpour, we finally found some shelter.
We dove out from the maelstrom of ice-cold needles and sprawled ourselves onto a concrete slab next to a hotel's entrance way. There was already a wise couple here, apparently as disgruntled by mother nature as we were.
We struck up an awkward conversation for a few moments before we realized how bad we were at pretending to be normal and seceded from the group to find ourselves our own spot to be incoherent and stupid.
The storm cleared out pretty quickly. We'd passed much of the time discussing the possibility of sharing lucid dreams and joining each other in our subconscious minds while we slept. It had been done before - there was no reason we couldn't do it.
The last drops fell from the firmament and we held this thought in our minds as we hoisted our bags on and headed towards the bridge.
Last year, the bridge had been occupied by only the most revered of hobos. There had been six fairly large cubbies situated right underneath the main section of the bridge, elevated between the road itself and the ground by about five feet.
These had essentially been "rented" out to different hobos on a first-come, first-serve basis. It had been truly reasonable - shit never got stolen, people tended to get along, and those who didn't, didn't talk to each other.
I'd stayed in one such cubbie with a friend of mine, P-Dawg Williams. Her concrete cubby had been big enough to fit a single mattress, a couple loads of laundry, three people and enough room to hang her pictures on the wall. Homely.
Despite that, nobody was sleeping in the cubbies anymore. They'd relocated themselves onto a massive stack of pallets on the ground next to the cubbies, that must have been 20 feet by 20 feet across and was standing at least a foot off the ground.
There were a good dozen hobos sitting, lying, standing, drinking and smoking on top of this beastly structure, and they informed us that nobody was sleeping in the cubbies because someone had been going around torching them.
What the fuck? There's a hobo arsonist on the loose?
We didn't want to risk getting torched, and we were way too tired to deal with meeting a handful of hobos at this hour, so we trucked 'er down a bit farther past their camp and found some cardboard. We kicked a bunch of dirty needles out of the way before setting our tarp down and our cardboard on top of it to lay down for the night.
Well, it was nice to be back in Toronto. Now it was time to have some lucid dreams.
Thursday 26 September 2013
Relapsed
Well, it was done. We'd all relapsed.
It wasn't as great as we'd expected.
I, myself, was having a pretty good time. The world had become ethereal, as it usually does when one is ripped on strong opiates. A whole new spectrum of vibrant colours revealed themselves to me (well - not new colours, per se, but colours I hadn't seen in a few months.)
Each person who sauntered past me would radiate with a sense of potential friendship, leading me to offer everyone my heartfelt greetings. Life had become worth living again!
Scrib, on the other hand, had receded so far into the interior monologues of his mind that it was impossible to get a word out of him. Questions would pass right through his brain as it twisted and turned, contemplating the sadistic inner workings of reality. There was a lot going on in there.
Fernweh, while not quite as reclusive as Scrib, had succumbed to one of the most prominent adverse effects of heroin - the Bothers.
Everything was bothering him - each sentence I spoke irked him, each misplaced shrub in the grass enraged him, the sound of the footsteps of passers-by infuriated him.
Thus, each word that he spoke was confrontational - whether it be to contradict what I'd just said, or to hate on something, or to talk down on someone. The Bothers always make for some truly lame social situations, where beneficial conversation is replaced by a competition between two egos.
People using heroin often find themselves vehemently arguing with each other, too busy thinking about how awesome they feel to realize they're both defending the same topic.
Snooze was extremely dissatisfied with our choice of relapse. We chose not to care - we sure as hell hadn't pushed the drugs on her, and it's not like we'd turned into psychopathic demons who weren't fun to be around.
Sure, Fernweh was grumpy, and Scrib was lazy and quiet, but that wasn't really much different than usual. Besides, I was having a great time with Snooze.
After I flailed around in the park for another half hour, our hobo bones began to creak. This is a telltale sign that something was coming... something... big. Something... wet...
We looked upwards and saw an army of storm clouds marching across the firmament. We hopped up, grabbed our bags and dashed towards the clouds and our destination: the Spadina bridge, where I'd slept last year on my journey through Toronto.
We'd beat the storm.
We had to!
It wasn't as great as we'd expected.
I, myself, was having a pretty good time. The world had become ethereal, as it usually does when one is ripped on strong opiates. A whole new spectrum of vibrant colours revealed themselves to me (well - not new colours, per se, but colours I hadn't seen in a few months.)
Each person who sauntered past me would radiate with a sense of potential friendship, leading me to offer everyone my heartfelt greetings. Life had become worth living again!
Scrib, on the other hand, had receded so far into the interior monologues of his mind that it was impossible to get a word out of him. Questions would pass right through his brain as it twisted and turned, contemplating the sadistic inner workings of reality. There was a lot going on in there.
Fernweh, while not quite as reclusive as Scrib, had succumbed to one of the most prominent adverse effects of heroin - the Bothers.
Everything was bothering him - each sentence I spoke irked him, each misplaced shrub in the grass enraged him, the sound of the footsteps of passers-by infuriated him.
Thus, each word that he spoke was confrontational - whether it be to contradict what I'd just said, or to hate on something, or to talk down on someone. The Bothers always make for some truly lame social situations, where beneficial conversation is replaced by a competition between two egos.
People using heroin often find themselves vehemently arguing with each other, too busy thinking about how awesome they feel to realize they're both defending the same topic.
Snooze was extremely dissatisfied with our choice of relapse. We chose not to care - we sure as hell hadn't pushed the drugs on her, and it's not like we'd turned into psychopathic demons who weren't fun to be around.
Sure, Fernweh was grumpy, and Scrib was lazy and quiet, but that wasn't really much different than usual. Besides, I was having a great time with Snooze.
After I flailed around in the park for another half hour, our hobo bones began to creak. This is a telltale sign that something was coming... something... big. Something... wet...
We looked upwards and saw an army of storm clouds marching across the firmament. We hopped up, grabbed our bags and dashed towards the clouds and our destination: the Spadina bridge, where I'd slept last year on my journey through Toronto.
We'd beat the storm.
We had to!
Tuesday 24 September 2013
Relapse (1)
Alright, well, a few things had happened since we'd landed in Toronto.
First, we realized how infinitely glad we were to be at least a few miles away from Habeeb's ignorance. The instant his car had pulled out of the parking lot he'd left us in, we muttered a few insincere thanks before hootin' and hollerin' as he crept out of the parking lot at his usual speed of 2 clicks an hour.
The second thing that happened was that I saw my old heroin dealer. Fuck. His stocky, pale, ogrish form ripped up to us on his skateboard before we'd even had a chance to find the person we were looking for in Toronto.
Ogre is actually a really cool guy. Despite this, I hadn't been making a point of seeing him while I was here. Last year, traveling with a group of traincore oogles had gotten me into some extra sticky situations with heroin. Needless to say, I wasn't too eager to reinstate an addiction like that.
Pft. Who was I kidding?
I opened the filing cabinet that categorized my life;
sidling through the different years that each folder held.
I pulled out my past memories
and sent them through a shredder;
I found my failed dreams,
stapled them together,
and mailed them back to who I used to be.
Once I'd cleared out the empty folders,
I found myself at rock bottom again.
The three of us handed him over a wad of cash and waited for him to return. (I know that the number one rule on the streets is not to give money to dealers and let them run off, but I'd known Ogre for some good time and knew he was a solid guy. Aside from the first impression that any dope dealer gives off, he's an intensely spiritual, verbally talented sympathizer. He just happens to make his profit off of other people's lives.)
 |
| Didgeridouchebags |
Anyway, we clunked down on the sidewalk and jammed out on our didgeridoos while we waited for Ogre and Snooze to show up.
Ah - Snooze. Last time I'd seen Snooze had been back in B.C.
Me and some of my old friends had introduced Snooze to Scrib and she'd fallen head over feels into a boiling vat of infatuation. Seriously - I'd never seen anyone fall so severely in love, so quickly. Despite our constantly hanging out together, she isolated herself from our group so she could ogle Scrib. Our words were lost on her; her words ceased to exist - her entire existence was revolving around putting Scrib under the scrutiny of a glossy-eyed stare.
Anyway, I'd hoped that her relentless lust (relentlust?) would diminish at least a bit between then and now, but it hadn't. She'd spent the first week apart sending me text messages demanding to know about Scrib's safety, and when it got so severe that I had no choice but to ignore them, she began calling me with the sound of tears in her voice demanding to know if Scrib had died.
Yeah. One of those relationships! Anyway, things hadn't changed. She offered Fernweh and I a quick hug before she threw her arms and her eyes onto Scrib and refused to let go of him until Ogre returned with our drugs. Right - the drugs. We had some explaining to do with Snooze...
Freedom from Habeebdom
Almost... there...
Almost...
There...
Habeeb's presence had become a suffocating grip that threatened to ensnare each one of us. Not only that, but we were getting irritated at ourselves for getting so irritated with Habeeb.
Fernweh, having dealt with Habeeb's unreasonable demands as much as we had
("you can't wave to strangers on the road!"
"why not? they waved to us... this is a perfectly rational and friendly greeting, man."
"no! you can not do that!"
"fuck you..." )
The excited demeanor with which we'd left Vancouver was quickly dwindling.
Finally, after one of the worst six hours in recorded rideshare history (that anyone lived to speak of), the highway began to twist itself into a network of spiraling highways, an endless current of on-ramps and offramps.
We were coming into the city, at last, and we'd be freed from Habeeb's grumbling presence and our own cynicism that he'd unearthed from within. We'd be freed from a mire of fetid foot-stench. We'd be freed from these daggers that so diligently stabbed at our thighs.
We'd be free!
sometimes, life's like a fable;
each frown gives way to a smile;
upside down lips melt into the brightness of day
and every grin
brings off the burden of sin.
Friday 13 September 2013
Super-Habeeb: Volume II
7 AM rolled around and we packed up our shit and went to meet Habeeb at the McDonald's where we'd promised. The next two hours passed in a stagnant swash of ambivalence.
7:30 - Habeeb hadn't shown up. This was to be expected - at the speed that he drives, I wouldn't expect him to be any less than an hour late.
8:00 - One hour late. We didn't actually expect him to take this long, but we weren't surprised.
8:30 - What the fuck, man. We were starting to weigh the pros and the cons of the potential situation. If he didn't show up, we'd have to hitchhike from Kenora to Toronto throughout the forlorn highways of Ontario. On the bright side - no more Habeeb!
We were considering calling someone to report his license plate number and have him tracked down, since he still had some of our stuff in his car. Between 8:30 and 9 he finally showed up. He bought us each an Egg McMuffin, presumably as an apology gift for leaving us sitting in McDonalds for 2 hours waiting for him.
Once we'd crammed back into his car, bent at unsightly angles and crushed by unnecessary amounts of our own gear, we witnessed another episode of Habeeb Driving. I swear, he was trying to follow his GPS out of the damn parking lot, because he ended up doing a bunch of half-circles around other people's parked vehicles at a max speed of 5kmph. I vowed never to let him park his car again before he let us out in Toronto.
We'd only driven for about half an hour before we saw the all-too-familiar red and blue flashing lights shining throughout the car's interior. Beebs pulled over and rolled down the windshield.
"Your insurance is expired, sir."
Idiot! You don't take a bunch of kids on a rideshare without letting them know that your insurance is expired. Granted, maybe we should have checked, but paying $180 for a ride generally guarantees the assumption that it will at least be legal.
We were convinced at this point that Beebs was going to have his car impounded and that either the 4 of us would have to hitchhike out of here, or that Beebs would get a ride to the impound lot and the 3 husbands would be stuck hitching. It was bound to be an excellent couple days, foodless and drinkless as we were, cast under the vicious beat of the sun.
Nonetheless, after the cop made a blatant point of assuming Scrib was a criminal by singling him out and asking for his ID, we were set free.
Later on, when the sun had begun to set, we were pulled over again. Apparently Beeb's headlight was blown out. Fuck, man. We pulled over in the next city to rest until the sun came up, so as not to get busted again.
Beebs passed out pretty quickly once we'd found our parking spot. Understandable, since he didn't have pounds of baggage crammed onto his lap. It took Scrib and Fernweh a while longer, and I wasn't even able to fall asleep - though I was able to bare witness to Beebs being an idiot, even after we'd all relaxed.
During Fernweh's slumber, he moved his cramped knee and bumped it into the guitar. The slight jarring of the strings awoke Habeeb and sent him straight into an outrage.
"DO you not SEE that I am SLEEPING?" he hissed; the car turned from a calm, collected, and uncomfortable stupor into a spit-filled growl-haunted chamber, if only for a moment.
I considered stabbing Beebs and taking his car, but decided against it because I don't have a driver's license. Whatever. One more day, stuck in this car, and we'd be there...
7:30 - Habeeb hadn't shown up. This was to be expected - at the speed that he drives, I wouldn't expect him to be any less than an hour late.
8:00 - One hour late. We didn't actually expect him to take this long, but we weren't surprised.
8:30 - What the fuck, man. We were starting to weigh the pros and the cons of the potential situation. If he didn't show up, we'd have to hitchhike from Kenora to Toronto throughout the forlorn highways of Ontario. On the bright side - no more Habeeb!
We were considering calling someone to report his license plate number and have him tracked down, since he still had some of our stuff in his car. Between 8:30 and 9 he finally showed up. He bought us each an Egg McMuffin, presumably as an apology gift for leaving us sitting in McDonalds for 2 hours waiting for him.
Once we'd crammed back into his car, bent at unsightly angles and crushed by unnecessary amounts of our own gear, we witnessed another episode of Habeeb Driving. I swear, he was trying to follow his GPS out of the damn parking lot, because he ended up doing a bunch of half-circles around other people's parked vehicles at a max speed of 5kmph. I vowed never to let him park his car again before he let us out in Toronto.
We'd only driven for about half an hour before we saw the all-too-familiar red and blue flashing lights shining throughout the car's interior. Beebs pulled over and rolled down the windshield.
"Your insurance is expired, sir."
Idiot! You don't take a bunch of kids on a rideshare without letting them know that your insurance is expired. Granted, maybe we should have checked, but paying $180 for a ride generally guarantees the assumption that it will at least be legal.
We were convinced at this point that Beebs was going to have his car impounded and that either the 4 of us would have to hitchhike out of here, or that Beebs would get a ride to the impound lot and the 3 husbands would be stuck hitching. It was bound to be an excellent couple days, foodless and drinkless as we were, cast under the vicious beat of the sun.
Nonetheless, after the cop made a blatant point of assuming Scrib was a criminal by singling him out and asking for his ID, we were set free.
 | |||
| At least he took us to see this. |
Later on, when the sun had begun to set, we were pulled over again. Apparently Beeb's headlight was blown out. Fuck, man. We pulled over in the next city to rest until the sun came up, so as not to get busted again.
Beebs passed out pretty quickly once we'd found our parking spot. Understandable, since he didn't have pounds of baggage crammed onto his lap. It took Scrib and Fernweh a while longer, and I wasn't even able to fall asleep - though I was able to bare witness to Beebs being an idiot, even after we'd all relaxed.
During Fernweh's slumber, he moved his cramped knee and bumped it into the guitar. The slight jarring of the strings awoke Habeeb and sent him straight into an outrage.
"DO you not SEE that I am SLEEPING?" he hissed; the car turned from a calm, collected, and uncomfortable stupor into a spit-filled growl-haunted chamber, if only for a moment.
I considered stabbing Beebs and taking his car, but decided against it because I don't have a driver's license. Whatever. One more day, stuck in this car, and we'd be there...
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