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.
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