Today was the day. We'd spent too long time in the intoxicated environment of Toronto, and it was time to direct our energies towards a less blue-collar, business-driven world.
We arose from our sandy beds, vacated the beach and hopped on the first streetcar to ride the rails back towards Queen West. Passing through Toronto felt like it should have been nostalgic - we were leaving our home, once again- but instead the drab cityscape only heightened my desire to leave.
We jumped off the streetcar. Hades grabbed his last paycheque from work. Fernweh bought a luxury condominium for his rat, who'd grown tired of his tiny leather case. We hit the subway and rode it twelve stations eastwards to meet our rideshare.
The man hosting the rideshare was another East Indian fellow (strange that nine out of ten rideshares are all offered by East Indians. Perhaps brown people find the industry more lucrative.)
I'd gotten a rideshare last year from this fellow; at the time I'd seated myself next to a golden-grilled African crackhead-converted-Christian. He'd expressed disgust at the state of my clothing and my apparent stench - which, unless I'd just grown used to my own stench (quite likely) was simply an attempt to degrade me. He demanded that he get a ride without me - in otherwords, that the driver kick me off. The driver, already dissatisfied with the obnoxious side of my backpack, offered the black dude a chance to pay for my ride, at which point he would have taken the money and left me to my own devices at the subway station.
I'd already been sick for battling an addiction with drugs, and was too out of it to put up an argument. I soothed the raging fire of my anger as the argument about ostracizing me from the van panned out in front of me. The driver ended up sticking a woman in the middle seat between me and my fellow negro, and the conversation ended, leaving me stewing in prejudice.
This year, he seemed much nicer. He welcomed the four of us and our backpacks, accepted our cash and let us stuff ourselves into the back seat.
All this time, Fernweh had been developing the Grumps from all the precocets he'd been popping. His face had twisted itself into a sidelong scowl and his half-open eyes glazed with a twisted fury. I'd been so glad to have him back from the hospital, and was upset to see him falling into the Grumps like me and him had so many times.
Whether it was the rage or not, it was becoming clear he didn't like Hades. Whenever Hades spoke, Fern would either roll his eyes, cast Hades a sick glance, or ask him bluntly how he could be so fucking stupid as to say something like that. It was senseless to ask him to relax - that would only perpetuate his anger.
Either way, the four of us were jam-packed in the back seat. A woman and her baby sat in front of us, and I learned something new that day: what true anger feels like. Somehow, she'd managed to sneak satan spawn into the car. I've never heard a baby cry like this in all 21 years of my life. The sound, unfit for an infant vocal chords (or any human's, for that matter,) was that of a thousand rusty nails grating down a skyscraper-sized chalboard. The agonized wailing sunk into the deepest depths of our irritation, stirring hateful feelings that we'd never known to exist.
Fern, in his state of Grumps, was livid - particularly in knowing that there was nothing he could do. I wanted nothing but to hurtle the baby out the window and laugh as it smeared itself, tumbling down the highway at terminal velocity sending snapped limbs flying about as its body disintegrated. I felt a vei npop in Fern's head.
We stoped halfway to Montreal to smoke somem weed that Hades had brought. Fern got up first, told Hades to shut the fuck up before he'd even said anything, told me to fuck off, popped another perc and slammed the door behind him on the way to the bathroom. Hades and I puffed away, our silence standin as a mutual dissatisfaction (and pondering what would happen if our chauffeur decided to leave us stranded here for smoking weed)
Freshly baked, we returned to the torturous depths of the van-transformed-into-dungeon by the sadistic wailing of the baby. Three more hours, man. Three more hours.
The idea of bringing a baby in there front seat of a car to me seems bioth ridiculously unsafe, and, especially with the overcrowded backseat, like a fast one way trip to getting pulled over. Babies are also the worst, I can't deal with them at all. If there's even one on the bus crying unless there's an hour until the next one, the weather sucks, or I'm not in walking distance, I generally get off and either wait for another bus, or walk to where I'm going. There was one baby so bad once, that despite the hour for the next bus and torrential rain I got off and walked the 20 minutes to a different bus route, then waited another 15 for one to come in soaking wet clothes, with no shelter, with howling wind blowing horizontal streams of freezing water in to my face and body with enough force that they became tiny bullets, I actually got a couple bruises. It was totally worth it. That baby was one of the worst sounds I've heard in my life to this day, and today I heard what a small dog sounds like when it's dropped out of a tenth story window in a small, clear garbage bag ten feet from you. This is how I picture the baby in question in this ride share. As though there are poltergeists taking residence in it's windpipes.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, you seem to have much better luck with rideshares then myself. I got picked up hitchhiking by a rideshare once, it was full of crazy Quebecers who were going to northern New Brunswick because of something to do with a religious cult, tried to convince us to come, to the point they wouldn't drop us off and we had to jump out when we stopped at a stoplight going through town an hour and a half off course (which in northern nb can be a full day in my experience). Luckily the person I was with had already flailed his bag in Barrie, which isn't in itself lucky, but meant my backpack was across our laps instead of them both in the trunk, and so we only lost one bag, not both. My other rideshare experience was kind of the opposite, I paid this guy to drive me to Calgary, and he kicked me out in Montreal at 3 am. He was pulling a trailer, which we'd both gone to sleep in around midnight, woke up at 3 am speeding through the outskirts of a city when we hit a bump so bad it knocked me right off the bed I was on. Next thing I knew, as I'm still collecting myself, both off the floor and mentally from the rude awakening, he'd pulled over, came in the trailer, grabbed my bag and threw it out, while demanding I do the same. This came with little explanation and a refusal to give me any of my money back, because my "lifestyle" (traveling?) implied that I would spend it on drugs, not you know, to eat on the rest of my journey or anything, seeing as the food and my water jug I had stored in the trailer's fridge didn't get thrown out after me. The worst part was, he left me at a metro station that wasn't open, in the dark at night in a shit part of town with an almost dead phone and nothing open like a tim hortons or anything around it, knowing I don't speak French. I ended up having to pay my parents back almost $250 bucks and not getting a birthday present that year because I got discouraged, made it to a greyhound station, and got them to get me a bus home. Oh, and he also went on my phone while I was sleeping, got said parents phone number, and called them the next day telling them not to believe anything I say, that I told him that I was going to tell them he kicked me out, that I'd asked to get dropped off and that I'd been smoking crack and guzzling methadone and codine cough syrup the whole time. Thankfully my parents realized it didn't add up, between my frantic 3 am voice mail and my calling them at 6 am crying asking for a bus ticket, especially when they asked him how he got their number and he said I gave it to him in case of emergency, something they know I wouldn't do. My parents did have a sit down "are you smoking crack Sam" conversation with me as soon as they picked me up though, which is not the best conversation to handle with poise and grace after being up 36 hours, 24 of those cramped in a bus seat on an over airconditioned bus with a stranger beside you and only 3 smoke breaks the whole trip.
ReplyDeleteSorry for the multiple comments, they limit the amount of characters per comment. I'm bad for drawing out my stories in person, but way worse through technology. I blame growing up in the days of snail mail, and then actual letters via email, I'm no good at long story short. This is why I don't have a twitter and barely text, can't say shit in 250 characters, and why I still snail mail. It's also the same reason my poems are long as fuck and I've always sucked at writing haiku.
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