The Bottle Pops (pt. 1) (05-19-13)

This was way too much commotion to deal with at this absurdly early hour - 9:30 - and even more absurd was trying to figure out exactly what had happened and why.

Scrib had awoken blacked out, grabbed Fernweh by the throat and held him off the ground, screaming and spitting incoherent belligerence at his face for a while before coming to his senses. He soon apologized for what he claimed not to remember doing.

Scrib had always had anger problems, but prior to this morning, his anger had always been directed to himself. He used to punch himself in the head or cut himself when he was feeling upset, but things were different now. The Road has a tendency to change people - it weakens insecurities, heightens an individuals sense of self (having to live for yourself for so long will undeniably do that) and, whether in subtle or obvious ways, bloats a person’s ego. Scrib had definitely let the Road get to him - his ego had stretched far enough to allow him to take his anger out on the people around him, as opposed to internalizing it. We had hoped that it wouldn’t continue this way, but it looked like things were going downhill.

Once our heartbeats had settled, we recalled our day’s agenda. We had to make thirty more bucks before we could pay for our rideshare, and we only had a few hours to do it. To the highway!

We reached our super spot (exact locations will remain secret in accordance with the Hobo Code). The three of us made a most profitable team. Two of us would shred some strings on one of our instruments while the other sauntered up and down the side of the highway with a sign proclaiming our perverse desire for pennies and dimes. Not only were we thrown the thirty bucks that we needed in less than an hour, but we found an awesome opportunity to smoke a bowl of weed with a dude passing by in the oncoming traffic lane. As we passed him back his pipe, he sped off towards a stagnant green light while we grew slant-eyed and slack jawed.

We headed back to Marcellus’s house and sat around waiting for our rideshare to arrive.

Only two hours late, our short, gruff east Indian chauffeur rolled up in a car which was much smaller than any of us had anticipated. The look on his face said that we had much more shit to pack with us than he’d anticipated.

After a good twenty minutes of rearranging the useless contents of his trunk (empty bottles of tire lube and washer fluid, etc) which he seemed determined to keep, we finally managed to shove a couple of our bags in with them. The rest was destined to sit upon our laps as the four of us climbed into the car.

Scrib and I, packed to the point of immobility, sat in the back accompanied with two baby chairs, my huge military backpack, and a guitar. Fernweh sat in the passenger seat with his own backpack and his mandolin.

As our new driver (hereon known as Habeeb) pulled out of the driveway, we found ourselves on the road again. Unable to move any part of our body except our eyeballs and our mouths, the three of us wore sly smiles as we hit the highway on our way to Toronto. We bid good riddance to Regina, and thus began our extremely painful, irritable and unsavoury journey towards Ontario.

All-you-can-eat (05-18-13)

One lesson to never forget: you get what you pay for. we sure learned that as we sat down to the indulge in our ten dollar Chinese buffet. We chomped on incompetent excuses for fried wontons, slurped on failed attempts of sweet and sour pork, and devoured some truly eccentric egg rolls. Displeased not only with the service, but the food as well, we made a mountain of our disapproval by stacking all the dishes and leftovers in a filthy fashion all over the table.

We tossed the money amongst our (not-so)meticulous mixture of mayhem that we had strewn about the table and left with no desire to return. Scarfing down the stale fortune cookies, we exited with of an air of disgust.

On the way towards the hospital, we grabbed Aids a pack of her favourite cigarettes. We trucked down to the hospital and found her in her room. They had fed her, and she was doing a bit better than she had been the night before. She was able to come out for a smoke with us, and she was able to tell us that her dad had already booked her a plane ticket back home the next day.

This worked out perfect! The husbands and I had been thinking about seizing an opportunity for a rideshare opprtunity (we would pay for a direct shot to Toronto) the next day - we could not have done that, however, if Aids had been left in the hospital. We would have had to stay to ensure her well being. This, however, set all of our plans in to action. Aids would be free tomorrow, and on her way home. We would be on our way forward.

We smoked our smokes and wished each other good luck. Prior, wee had known that we were a travelling crew, and we had known that we would come to separate somehow. Such is the way that travelling always works. You can never be sure how things will turn out - either way, we were three now - me, Scrib, and Fernweh - and we needed to make 60 bucks each to pay for the 30 hour ride we had ahead of us.

Onward and outward!!!!!!!! The husbands pressed forward, leaving Aids with three fresh kisses on her forward. Onward and outward, the husbands went to acquire their two hundred-odd bucks. Onward and outward, the journey continued.

Concussed (05/17/13)

Getting woken up by a huge thump isn`t that weird of an occurence. Shit falls over in the night all the time. Thunder crackles. Deer run into fences. This thump wasn't any different, so I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep. I heard Frank get up and head downstairs as I rolled around in my sleeping bag. Him and Aids were saying something downstairs, then the sound of Frank's footsteps carried him back upstairs to the attic where we'd been sleeping.

I awoke later to the sound of sobbing. At first I dismissed it as someone struggling with a bad dream and tried to go back to bed, but the crying continued.

Must be a really, really bad dream.

I got up and went downstairs to see if Aids was alright. She wasn't. She lay crumpled in a ball on the floor, directly beneath the lone hole that perforated the floorboards separating the attic from the garage. That whole was the perfect size for Aids to slip through, and it didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened. On the other hand, it did take a genius to figure out why she'd slept parallel to a gaping hole in the fucking floorboard. These were questions for later, though. Right now, she needed water and some help.

I grabbed her some water and gently nestled my pillow under her neck. Through her sobs, she kept telling me she was okay, she was okay, it was fine, it was fine. Not knowing the severity of her injuries, and not wanting to make things worse than they were, I sat with her for a while until her tears subsided.

The next morning, we found out that things were indeed not ok. Her collarbone was belligerently broken, threatening to burst through her fragile skin. Her coordination was off, perhaps due to a strong hit to her head... she was susceptible to concussions on any day, let alone on days when she fell 10 feet onto concrete.

We snuck into Marcellus's house and awoke Deany. Deany, with the great motherly instinct that comes with birthing a child, jumped up from her doze and drove Aids to the hospital. Me and my husbands decided to go for a walk to go meet her there; Frank seized this opportunity to secede from the group. He didn't know Aids too well, and he didn't want to make things awkward in her hospital room. Besides, Scrib and Fernweh weren't on the best terms with him.

So, we parted ways, and the three husbands hoisted our hearts onto our shoulders and headed towards the hospital to soothe our pet Aids.

Whiskey and Family (05/16/13)

FUCK YEAH! 

THE FAMILY WAS WHOLE AGAIN!

The excitement, however, was short-lived. Our multicultural family had only been reunited for a few hours before we'd fallen back into our asinine routine of talking about phallic devices and contorting our faces into painful positions.

So much for personal development. I'd hitchhiked here solo in an attempt to regain some sense of my mind, but it had reverted so quickly back into retardation. Oh, well. It was okay. It would have to be.

Frank had returned to his old ways. He hadn't said much since he'd gotten here - not much for big groups, I figured - so he was well received. It's hard to pass a negative judgement on a silent man.

We soon found ourselves at Marcellus's house. Marcellus - a pot-bellied, mohawked, projectile puking father of a newborn, had taken me on the road for my first time a few years ago.

I'd met him when I was in high school. He'd stumbled into my hallways during the period between class change and was demanding of different kids to tell him where the water fountain was. His flailing dreadlocks and tattooed, beer-stinking biceps seemed to frighten the other kids away, but they drew me towards him. I took him on a walk to the water fountain and he told me to come shotgun a few beers with him. We did, behind the bandstand, until the principal decided to show up. Marcellus and his partner fled the scene as the principal dragged me back to the office, telling me that if I wanted to shotgun more beer, I should meet them at the mall after school.

I did, and this meeting blossomed into the gradual definition of my entire life.

Regardless, we were different breeds. Marcellus is a punk with a short temper and a raging anger problem; I'm stupidly laid-back and frequently referred to as a hippie. Strong bonds are often formed between opposites.

It was great to see him again - along with Ally, Mat, and Deany, his two best friends and his baby's mama, respectively. These were the other 3 folks who'd been with us on that fateful journey that introduced me to the world of travelling.

They were all doing good - as was evident by the two 60 pounders of whiskey that greeted us as we arrived. As the whiskey dwindled away, the volume rose, and the conversations grew less sensible. Soon, drunken threats were being growled back and forth across the table (fuckin' whiskey...) and Frank was quick to threaten to beat the shit out of Marcellus for pronouncing his name wrong.

Fortunately, Marcellus took this as a joke (for if he hadn't, Frank still would have been in the hospital.) However, Fernweh and Scrib took this as an insult to their own persons, and the night escalated into a flurry of headbuts, pushes, shouting and other macho stupidity. These flying fists and fighting words built a barrier between the group. Frank was now separated from the rest fo the family.

I still liked him, but the rest of the crew weren't down with him anymore. The rage slowly simmered down as the alcohol filtered itself out of our systems. As we sobered up, the fact still remained: Frank had been ostracized. He needed to leave.

Swass, for lack of a better title. 05/16/13

We were going to get picked up.

The universe had no choice in the matter. We were getting a ride - I don't care what fate said.

We did end up getting a ride, but we had to split up first. Hitchhiking with two guys is rarely an easy task, so after an hour, we decided to separate. The moment Frank stepped off the highway to let me hitchhike solo, a blue pickup truck rolled up behind me.

I jumped in and listened to Graeme as he regaled me with tales about his efforts in assisting people in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. He told me about some of the dangers of being a white man in the hoods where he'd worked - racial prejudice hung over such areas like a dark, bigoted blanket. An armed bodyguard had had to accompany him at all times, just to protect him and the colour of his skin.

Fortunately, we weren't in the hood right now, but the place he dropped me off was almost as shitty. I spent the next hour and a half having violent battles with armies of mosquitos and faltering under deadly rays of sun as they both worked to annihilate my skin.

Hope had just started to fade when a crimson station wagon pulled over in front of me. The passenger seat was loaded with an awesome site: a smiling Frank.

I slid into the backseat and let the ride to Regina pass fairly quickly, trying to take in the nonexistant Saskatchewan scenery. Despite its absence, it is, somehow, still beautiful. The stretch between the Current and Moose Jaw is the flattest part of the prairies and potentially the world; so long and desolate that you can see the curve of the earth.

I was quite satisfied with the outcome of the last few days - a reunion with an old friend, banking $35 just from the people who had picked me up, and repairing my broken brain to the point of being able to hold an intelligent conversation again. We rolled into Regina bursting with fresh excitement. I was ready to take on my family again. I missed those bearded, blue-haired, asian fucks. Hopefully they'd get along with Frank... wouldn't they?

Shed Party. 05/15/13

The ride to Swift Current passed swiftly (ha.)

Our chauffeur was an interesting man. He portrayed himself as a thug - a tough-looking, tough talking bulky dude. Yet, despite the thuglyness, hidden amongst his manliness was a repertoire of spontaneous poetry which would randomly brought his words to life.

Once we'd arrived in the Current, Frank and I headed straight to the 7/11. Broke as we were, we didn't need to go into the store to feed ourselves. We only had to go to the dumpster, flip open the lid, and find ourselves staring into a garbage bag of pure metaphorical gold: six footlong subs, wrapped up like treasures perched atop a throne of garbage. We tossed them in our bags and went on our way.

Two subs down and three hours later, we were still standing on the highway. We hadn't gotten picked up, and the wind was starting to whip its invisible talons at us. We figured we'd call it quits before we got hit by a storm, so we headed back towards town with our thumbs hanging out (and how stupid it feels to be hitchhiking while walking against the direction of traffic.)

As we wandered, Frank babbled about his girlfriend relentlessly as if the memories of her were glued to his frontal lobe and he was incapable of thinking about anything else. The conversation was like a mirror: one sided. I couldn't get a word in. It soon came to an end, though, as the Gods of the Road bestowed another coincidence upon us.

Not only had the Gods united me and Frank, they now set our paths to intertwine with another group of travelers. One of these travelers had been Frank's valentine the year before. Was this pure chance? I think not.

We took our instruments to the liquor store and threw a hat on the sidewalk, quick to discover the generosity of the Current's residents. Every single person who walked by dropped us a couple bucks! One hundred percent of everyone! (Not to mention that there were only four people who passed by.) I suspect they were taken by surprise, as travelers rarely hang out in the Current. There was really no reason to stop here, unless you were stuck in our position and needed to crash out for the night.

By the time we'd made enough for the case of beer we'd wanted, we realized that the liquor store had just closed. We noticed that the person who'd dropped us our last dollar was also the cashier who'd just closed shop. Damn.

Oh well, that meant one thing: we had money for breakfast tomorrow. Whoppers. Tomorrow would be motha fuckin' Whopper Wednesday, the best day of the week. Once we realized this, I was more excited than I was for the beer.

We receded from the liquor store and made our camp in a row of small sheds that stood unlocked in front of Home Depot.

There's no feeling quite like the safety of a roof over your head. It's better than the lid of a dumpster, for sure.

Reunion (5) 05/15/13

The sunlight swept into the dumpster at a quarter to six and I freaked the fuck out.

I didn’t know what province I was in, I didn’t know why I was in a small confined space, and I didn’t know where the hell my friends were.

As the morning haziness abated from my perceptions, I realized that I had just been having dreams of being with my travel mates. Awakening without them had been something of a shock to me, but I was glad to see that I was just in a dumpster and not some 5x5 basement at the mercy of some sadistic bastard’s whim.

I hopped out of the dumpster, hit up McDonald’s for a coffee, and headed back to the highway in preparation to hitchhike and further attempt to repair my battered brain.

The hitching spot was looking nice in the grace of a 6 AM sunset, and with the absence of the tormenting sand twisters that had beaten me down the night before. I’d been standing with my thumb out for about twenty minutes when the silhouette of a backpack emerged over the horizon, traunching towards me. As he stepped closer, his face became clear.

It was Frank! Of all people... Frank was a friend that I’d met in Victoria back home on the Island. We’d  spent a few nights drinking and shooting the shit there, and then the last time I’d seen him, he’d showed up in Nanaimo when I was staying at my mom’s.

This had been a couple months ago, when he had been traveling with his girlfriend. That fateful night, we had all drank too much whiskey, blacked out, and woken up scattered across the city. I hadn’t seen him since then.  It’d be nice to catch up.

We sat down next to the highway; two wayward travelers united by fate. Such is one of the best parts about the traveling community: you’ll end up running into the most random people at the perfect times. We decided that we’d travel to Regina together.

We spent 3 hours on the highway trying to catch a ride. After the first hour passed, we concluded that we weren’t going to get picked up, so we spent the next 2 hours not particularly waiting for a ride. Instead, we waited for the liquor store to open.

As soon as the clock struck 9, we headed to the boozery and grabbed ourselves a 6 pack. We sat down in a bush next to the highway. The ground was littered with beer cans, plastic jugs and food wrappers - clearly, this was a hobo camp spot. We drank and talked.

Odd - Frank had always seemed very quiet and withdrawn. Perhaps he was only like this in groups, but I could see now the reason for his frequent silences: he thought a lot. His words were well chosen and wise, uplifting, yet, repetitive... A wisdom that was intertwined with a grain of narcissism.

We finished the beer, hit the highway, and got picked up before we’d even thrown our bags down. Awesome. Our chauffeur said he’d be taking us to Swift Current, so, off we were.

The Wrath of the Wind (05/14/13)

Well, I’d finally made it somewhere. 

Medicine Hat was seeming pretty friendly already. The fellow who’d dropped me off, a jolly Christian man who resided in the Hat, had left me with 12 dollars and a smile. He’d been fun to talk to - one of the more open-minded religious folk who didn’t let every conversation dwindle into endless preaching.

Sweet. He dropped me off at a Wendy’s and I promptly stuffed my face. Everyone here seemed fascinated by my smelly aura and filthy backpack; their eyes followed me across the room as I set down to devour my burgers. I sensed no condescension though - everyone smiles, a few waved. This place was nice.

I was soon to find out it would get even better! The hitchhiking spot was perfect. The #1 highway faded into a double-lane road as it passed through Medicine Hat, and I chose a spot right before the highway. The speed limit here was 50 clicks, no nobody would be ripping past without at least giving me a glance.

As the sun began to fade into the distance, decorating the sky with brushstrokes of orange and yellow, I realized the spot wasn’t as great as I’d hoped. Next to the highway where I stood was a massive construction zone. The ground was covered in loose sand, and as the wind picked up, the earth began to cast massive tendrils of grit into the air. These sand tornados blew with such freakish force that they obscured my vision, not only by filling my eyes with dirt but because the air was so thick with the shit that I couldn’t even see oncoming traffic. This sucked. I was gonna give it a try tomorrow.

I left the spot, scratching dirt out of my matted hair. I trekked across the highway a few blocks until I found an abandoned Wal-Mart. There was a covered section around back - perfect rain shelter - but it was surrounded by a 15 foot fence that was locked. I fiddle with the lock for a moment before I heard a furious shout.

’’GET AWAY FROM THERE!’’

I turned around to see a piping red, fat face shrieking at me through the window of a blue pickup truck.

’’CALM DOWN,’’ I shouted back, countering his freakish overreaction with my own.

The security guard drove up to me. I explained that I was just trying to find a place to sleep where I could avoid any potential rain, explained where I came from, and explained the shitty situation with the dust. He quickly took pity on me and my instrument, and his rage melted away. While he affirmed that he couldn’t legally let me stay there, he lent me a hand by driving around the parking lot until he found a big blue tarpaulin bag for me to carry my guitar in. He apologized about fifty seven times before I bid him goodbye and went off to find somewhere else to sleep.

There was truly nowhere with shelter. I ended up around a strip mall and checked a half-dozen dumpsters - they were either locked, filled to the brim, or in terrible locations.

I spotted a trailer with a billboard attached to it that was parked on a field a few hundred yards from my latest failed dumpster expedition. I hopped the barbed wire fence and tickled my knees as I strolled through the waist-high grass towards the trailer. Once I got there, I dropped my stuff on the ground and prepared to sleep... until I looked up a final time and found myself staring into the unimpressed eyes of a massive cow. I threw my shit back on and fled the field, not wanting to have another bad experience with cows (I’d once been picking shrooms on the Island when a herd of fifty-plus cows came storming towards me, causing a quick evacuation of the field.)

Well, fuck. I spent the next hour dejectedly wandering around, convinced that there was nowhere to sleep. During this time, I absentmindedly strummed the same dissonant notes on my out-of-tune guitar. These notes aligned perfectly with the repeated thought of ’’nowhere to sleep, nowhere to sleep’’ and by the time I found somewhere I could lay my head, I found myself feeling quite schizophrenic.

The place I found was, most ironically, a cardboard dumpster situated beside a bed and mattress store. I ogled the plush feather beds that lay within the store as I crept into the riveted and tremendously uncomfortable dumpster to hole up for the night.

My dreams were with the memory foam that lay not even a dozen feet from my vestibule.

Progress (poetic stance)

Wise words fly by my mind
like mosquitos buzzing by,
trying to suck the sanity from my soul.

Lost mid-sentence,
my thoughts flail like a lanky kid swimming upstream;
my curiosity careens past me
with more strength than the current;
intelligence intercepts my conceptual balance
like rapids, rumbling underneath my cerebrum so sullenly.

Yet, it is a wonder
that one can cast out a question like an oar,
and use it to pull themselves to a more sensible shore.

With feet once again planted on sandbanks of knowledge,
we can stand united in our mental progression,
while our bodies withstand an intended regression.
While we wither behind a blurred veil of sterile deception,
we have accepted the fact that we will reap no repentance.