Charles

Our first ride was from a highly unmemorable individual of unmemorable age and gender. He or she faded out of our memories as fast as his car faded out of eyesight after he dropped us off at a cute rest stop in the middle of Butt-Fuck, QC. We spent an hour or so milling around, checking out the dumpsters (which contained some exquisite loaves of bread and cookies) asking the odd passerby if they were heading east. Either today was a horrible day to travel east, or everyone was lying and didn't want to deal with their cars being infested by crusty homeless nomads. Either way, our wait was well rewarded.

Watching the sun begin its nightly journey beyond the horizon left me pondering whether we should sleep out front or behind the truck-stop. The back would probably be safer; the odds that a passerby would wake us up to offer us a ride was slim, the odds that they would try to steal our stuff seemed a bit higher. Our debate was distracted by the most colourful individual we'd seen since leaving the lurid atmosphere of Montreal (aside from ourselves, painted by the dirt of the half-dozen provinces we'd seen.)

He strode from the door of his vehicle like a prophet; light rays shone through his grizzled orange hair. He was garbed not in the blue jeans and flannel that the patrons of the rest stop adored, nay, he donned a blazing orange pair of trousers and a luminescent, emerald green jacket. He knew. Oh, he knew. Before we'd even waved him over to pop the question, he'd cleared the distance between us.

"You need a ride?"

Not quite as divine of a statement as I'd expected, but it was as good as I could've hoped for. This, and his LCD-bright eyes and the fact that he'd offered to help instead of waiting for us to ask, labeled him as a saint. Me and him both realized the benefits of taking a piss before a long drive, and our first conversation was shared over a backdrop of urinals.

I took an instant liking to Charles. His demeanour epitomized everything I aspired to be at the time - wise and learned, good-humoured and deeply spiritual. I'd only met a few people in the 20 years of my life who could permeate divine energies with the mere sound of their voice, and he was certainly one. Each carefully chosen sentence hung in the air like an angelic rope, tethering Charles to a deity of unparalleled benevolence.

Any judgements and negatives were unpacked and left at the truck stop as we sped away from the setting sun. We shared conversations of spirits, senses and civilization (and one particularly awesome conversation about his friend's chill pepper garden that resulted in me trading a handful of my ghost peppers for a bag of fresh habaneros and thai chills. Further resultant effects from this conversation included me shutting fire for a week.)

As we reached Charles' destination, he offered to shelter us for the night as his communal(isn) house (more about that in a bit.) Me and Squanch, both crippled by social anxiety on a normal day, had declined into something of an antisocial stupor after being together for the last few days. Having no outlet for our stress, we'd only been able to bounce our anxieties off of each other. Despite that, with the skies staining themselves a darker hue, we realized that our only options were to accept his offer or sleep on the side of the highway. Charles smiled and pulled off the highway; we veered further into uncharted territories. St. Germain, Quebec. Population: too insignificant to even mention.

Transition (emo junkin')

I suppose I should attend to the nature of me and Squanch's relationship, since it hasn't been written about in great detail. That's mostly because there were no real details - our relationship thus far had consisted of infatuation (or, my libido's inability to differentiate reasonable people from idiots,) shitty sex, silence, brief mumbled conversations shared between two excessively anxious individuals, a shitload of irritating questions and the mind boggling irritation of Squanch's indecisiveness. It's one thing for a person to wonder aloud how a new town will treat them, quite another for them to expect you to know everything about the place. I'd never been to Quebec either, Squanch. How the fuck am I supposed to know where there's food? Probably at a food store. Why would I know where the liquor store is? How the hell am I supposed to know how much a French bus costs? Why the fuck would I suddenly be able to translate French signs for you?!

Four hours of this daft ignorance, coupled an inability to converse about anything except recycled snippets of conversations we'd had last week, left me seething.

That's not to say we hadn't had a couple laughs, but they had been far and few in between.

The armament's loaded, the opposition's forces have arrived

bazookas are loaded with ignorance; rocket propelled stupidity cracks my barricades.

My tiny soldiers armed with anger cock their guns and start to fire back.

Since I'd managed to hold my tongue for so long, she still held regarded me with loving eyes, but I'd recently begun to lash out at her. Patience always runs thin when you're stuck alone with someone, and one of the things the road (more specifically, Squanch) taught me is that I'm not nearly as patient as I thought I was.

ANYWAY - after the pleasantries of the ferry ride, we were dropped on the other side of the river and began the during hike up a 45 degree slope that mocked us every step of the hour-long journey to the highway. We were rekindled with a lifelong acquaintance of any traveler - swass. Our lubricated buttcheeks slid against each other, creating a chasm of apocalyptic friction that left our bums quite chafed. we trudged up the mountain towards the highway, too exhausted to question the houses that were built at seemingly impossible angles. Finally we found our salvation - an off ramp that led to the highway. Our hiatus came to an end; we were on the Trans-Canada again.

Lost in Quèbec

"Just let us out on the off-ramp. We need to keep hitching."

"Oh, yes!" the old lady chirped as she sped past the off-ramp towards Quèbec City. If she wasn't so frail I'd have been worried about her kidnapping us.

"We don't need to go downtown," we shouted, as if raised voises would pierce the language barrier.

"Yes, this will be downtown." We sighed. I'm not sure if she ever understood where we needed to be (or what an off-ramp was) but by the time we arrived downtown we'd made it clear that we weren't supposed to be there, and that we had no money. Essentially, we were fucked. Tabarnack.

She sympathized with us once she realized the situation and began driving us to god knows where. She took us through an old windy Quèbec road - rustic buildings rose like rickety flowers to blot out the sun, mustaches reigned and I felt the lack of accordion music rather unsettling. She dropped us at ferry terminal with ten bucks and good wishes.

I've heard that Montrèal is the only English-friendly town in Quèbec - and the city solidified the rumour. Bemused locals grinned and pointed at our bags and my didgeridoo, intrigued smiles melted into contemptuos glances once it became obvious that we spoke no french. Unfinished verbal exchanges left a sour taste in the otherwise beautiful city. Montrèal had been much more inviting to outsiders, but the brash lack of bilingual accommodation spoke ill of our presence in Quèbec. Hell, French WARNING signs and Quèbecois safety posters promised they'd just as soon see us die than be protected.

Cash transactions, fortunately, speak a universal language; we managed to pay for our ferry tickets without issue. Nature, too, spoke the same language as always; the river ushered us towards freedom as the ferry sailed across the silky sheet of water, carrying us towards salvation - a town callled Levis.

Separation (4)

A great flaming ball of apprehension hung in place of the sun this morning, its beams serving only to make us anxious as they beckoned us towards the east coast. There were already three people at our hitching spot - dudes, nonetheless - and me and Squanch couldn't hitchhike until they were gone.

Hitchhiking rule #237: If a group of odd-numbered people separates for hitching efficiency, the individual always reserves the right to leave first.

Me and Fernweh breathed sighs of relief. Finally - we could separate. We can only ever spend so much time with each other - a couple weeks leaves us tearing each other's throats out. Stifled smirks and sullen "bye"s were our parting gifts.

A parting embrace can heat the embers of a dying friendship;

smoke signals communicate what spirits are afraid to say.

How often can "I love you," be an insult ?

How many times can smiles be reflected as threat?

The three others at the spot told us of their plans to hitchhike to the nearest train yard and hop from there to Halifax; we exchanged phone numbers and enthused plans to meet up at the train yard and have a five-man crew to command the next train to Halifax.

They got picked up soon after and we never saw them again. Hell, we didn't even remember the name of the town they'd told us the train yard was in - cities named in foreign tongues seem to avoid ever crystallizing into solid memory.


We commandeered their spot but were quickly beckoned to the adjacent parking lot by a cop. God damn! Would we ever be allowed out of Quebec? Rain, cops, and drugs had so far sucked us into staying in Quebec for days longer than we'd planned - it seemed the stronger our will was to leave, the more that shit kept us glued to the Quebecois soil. We trudged through an overgrown ditch to receive our reprimand, but the officer's smile spoke not of malice.

He stood next to a bubbly old lady who was babbling away in French with the giddy energy of a child. The officer translated: she wanted to take us as far as Quebec City.  Awesome! We jumped into her car and proceeded to stifle ourselves in awkwardness.

Traveling with a woman who barely spoke english was a bit of a detriment, for a few reasons: first, conversation was limited and strenuous- forcing small talk, even without a language barrier, is boring enough. Secondly, the limited conversation didn't provide enough informtaion to judge whether or not the woman was a serial killer and if we should tuck and roll (though her excited attempts at English spoke with an ingenuity that said otherwise.)

Thirdly, her inability to really understand what we were saying left us stranded in Quebec City, surrounded by pretentious French douchebags who took a sadistic pleasure in the fact that we clearly didn't know what we were doing, where we were doing it, or how to do it properly.

The Final Evening

Lonely places had once seemed stranger;

now desolation's been deemed devoid of danger.

The only demons that roam these streets

are the ones lost within our heads. 

No street signs are designed to lead your mind the right way.

Stick out your thumb,

pray that your morals have enough fuel to get you out of this rut.

With Hades out of the picture, it was Fernweh's turn to spring for a motel. No matter how angry Fernweh can get with his friends, he will always live by a strong set of morals - and his friends and their safety are always at the top of the list. Through the years of our friendship, I've not seen a man sacrifice so much of his comfort for his friends; Fernweh would tear the clothes from his back to blanket a shivering soul.

His pops had sent him a couple hundred bucks for "expenses to leave Montrèal" which so far had consisted of heroin, beer, and a bus ride. Anyone who's been addicted to drugs knows the guilt associated with blowing their parents' money on substances, so I'm sure it was more than a relief when we found a nearby motel on my GPS and he had something more reaosnable to spend his money on.

After half an hour of fiddling around on my phone in a nearly failed attempt to figure out which obscure town we'd neded up in, we found ourselves. The town (whose name never earned a spot in our memory) didn't have much of a map - just a few scattered streets. Downtown was naught but a figment, but a motel lay about two miles from where we were.

Fernweh graced me by sharing the last of his down with me in the bathroom. In a hilarious attempt to be inconspicuous, the two of us crowded into the single bathroom stall. When a third patron came in to drain the main vein, Fernweh - not wanting his feet to be seen - tried to stealthily slide himself up onto the toilet seat but succeeded in bailing into the toilet itself. The ensuing splash and our spluttering laughter undoubtedly piqued our guest's curiosity, but he finished his pee without question. We finished our drugs (singing a silent epitaph to the last toke as the smoke became part of the void) and joined the Great Stupid Squanch back at our table. Through half-shut eyes, we watched as the heavens dumped barrel after barrel of rain onto the desolate French highway. The road wept tears of oil that streamed across the tarmac and into the wilted grass that bent under the rain's weight.

As soon as the sun risked breaking through the cloud cover, we made our escape, hustling down the highway towards the motel that we hoped still existed.

Depleted of drugs, Fernweh had grown angry again - he realized now that nothing he said to me would calm him. He distracted himself by leading our hopeful trio towards salvation. I felt guilty - I was appreciative of his generosity, but I couldn't vocalize it. Fernweh finds my heroin voice to take on a tone that makes even my thanks sound like an insult.

Our hope began to fail as we lost sight of the town behind us and saw only an endless expanse ahead; there weren't even any bridges in sight were we to need shelter for the night. It was the prairies all over again - minus the incessant thunderclaps and lightning forks that preyed on lonely travelers.

Finally, we saw a bump on the horizon. A small dark splotch... could it be? We held our hopes low - no point in getting worked up over nothing. A streetsign, maybe. An abandoned tractor. At least a tractor could shelter us if need be...

We towed ourselves down the road for another twenty minutes and found the mysterious apparition to be more than illusion - we were approaching a building. We'd found our motel.

We checked in, Fernweh spent the last of his money on beer at the gas station across the road, and quickly we began drinking to forget the fact that we were still together. Had we been a more amiable crew, we could have spent the night reminiscing on the times we'd spent together, but grumbling about spending a week being drunk, wet and pissed off wouldn't have made the night better. Nay, instead we drank to pass the time faster, for in the morning, we would no longer be a group. Fernweh was to hitchhike by himself, I was to hitchhike with Squanch. We'd rendezvous - hopefully on better terms - in Halifax.

The thought of our golden destination and a recharged friendship coaxed me and Fernweh into an eager sleep.

Transition

An hour of poetry production had left me drained; my prophetic vision of myself pumping out words to the sunrise dissipated as I crawled into the tarp nest I'd haphazardly set up last night. Sand crawled into my socks and refused to leave. For a few hours, I pretended that the perforated protection provided by the tarps was any sort of cover, but once again, we arose sodden, angry and anxious. It was time to get the fuck out of this annoying wet province.

Our first realization was that the off-ramp to the highway was way too far to walk to, so we headed back to the metro station to dry off for a while and take a bus further east. Fern`s caring nature was showing this morning,  but his impressive fury was off the hook this morning. I've never seen somebody so angrily buy other people breakfast burgers. He hurled them down on the table, kicked his chair and sat down to eat his burger with livid eyes. When Squanch declined to eat hers we both snapped at her.

Ten minutes in a security guard came to tell us to leave because we were making a mess, we told him to fuck off because we were paying customers. He went and got the station's manager, a big black dude in a fancy uniform, who took a look at us eating our burgers, dripping wet. He took a look at the defunct old security guard who was hassling us, shook his head in pity and walked off. We took our time eating the rest of our breakfast and staring down the security guard before hitting the bus stop.

Fernweh's hatred was quelled by the bus driver. Hospitable as he was, and due to the lack of anyone else on the bus, he drove us ten minutes off the sanctioned transit route (way faster than a bus should be driving) and dropped us off directly on the highway. Cool.

Of course, it was still pissing rain in the tradition of our journey through Quebec. Fortunately it was only a few hundred meter walk to the nearest overpass, so we headed there. We tried hitchhiking with futile hopes that cars would pull over in a sort of slalom between construction workers and Bobcats, but they didn't, so once the rain stopped we started hiking the highway eastwards.

We'd only made it half a mile before getting picked up by a cop who sympathized with our situation. He gave us a ride to the closest "town," if you could call it that - a gas station, and A&W, a hotel and a few houses. Here, we could await good weather and establish a more solid hitching plan.

Junkin' out

Anal Bead Village was aptly named by me and Fernweh, after the small pink bulbs that were strung over the bulk of Rue St. Catherine. They dangled above sparkly flamboyant guys, pudgy mistachioed Italians who looked awfully misplaced, well-dressed French yuppies who dreamed of pretentiously sipping wine, and a shitload of junked out squeegee punks. This street was well-known for the ease with which one could get high.

Within fifteen minutes of standing at NameRemoved park, Fernweh had a sixty dollar pebble of heroin in his pocket. It was the most expensive down we'd ever bought, (prior to the heroin recession in the west coast we faced months later) it was of a strange flaky texture, foul smell and disgusting taste. Skeptical at first, our apprehension melted quicker than the drugs as we vapourized them off ancient sheets of crinkled tinfoil.

The Lady caught us off guard. Once we exhaled, e sluggishly stumbled onto the subway, seduced by the intoxicating allure of Lady H She wrapped her silky legs around our motor skills and slithered into the furthest regions of our minds, swiftly transforming our entire bodies into erogenous zones and straddling the most sensitive parts of our entirety.

We nodded the subway ride away. Arriving at the easternmost station, we decided to try our luck hitchhiking - but not before taking a few hoots. We both quickly succumbed to the Grumps - though we didn't realize at the time. It's impossible for one to admit they have the grumps. We were convinced we were perfectly rational as we started vocalizing our displeasure with Squanch. She looked extra sad today, so we had to mention. She was extra whiny today, so had to tell her to shut up. Her questions were extra stupid today (which was probably true) so we had to counter by calling her an idiot and reminding her that she passed grade school for a fucking reason. This, I still justify - Squanch's oblivious ignorance was unsurpassed - I doubted that she could tell the difference between the men's and women's washroom. She was the only person I've ever met too dumb to hold a cardboard sign properly.

Another hoot later and I came to an unsettling discovery that reminded me of some unpleasant scenes. In days past, walking along Hastings street in Vancouver, I'd seen junkies traipsing around, flailing their arms at weird angles, half-convulsing, half-sleeping. I'd always wondered what state of mind they'd been in, and today I was to find out. As my mind collapsed under an overdose of dopamine, my body collapsed under an overdose of nausea. The two combined left me with the enthusiasm of an adrenaline fiend and the brainpower of a terminally ill patient; I stampeded around the station with half-shut eyes, trying to make sense of the gibberish coming out of my mouth. My movements contorted into an array of whacky, wavy, inflatable arm-flailing movements as we made our way out of the terminal.

I lurched like Frankenstein towards the beach that Fernweh led the three of us two. He was handling his dope very well. He, too, had the grumps, and was extremely annoyed with Squanch - but I knew him well enough to avoid speaking my mind to him. This always avoided confrontation.  Because of this, he seemed to be fine with me - or at least, he held his irritation well. I later realized that this was no way to pursue a friendship, but I'm glad that his aggression could buck my insecurities and keep me shut up. If I'd spoken my mind more, I'm sure he'd have lashed out at me like he had at Hades, and we'd have parted ways before all the fun we had together in Halifax.

Anyway, we arrived at the beach. Fernweh was tight-lipped, angry and generous; Squanch was silent and sub-intelligent, I was clutching my stomach and stumbling around the rocks, babbling in Tongues to the refined spirit of Opium. Fernweh offered me another hoot, I declined. He climbed into his sleeping bag, I tossed mine onto the ground and fell onto it. Squanch cuddled up next to me (and how the fuck she wanted anything to do with me after the things I'd shouted at her was beyond me.)

It was apparent I'd get no sleep that night, so once I could stop myself from rocking back and forth, I sat on a flat rock and watched the horizon swallow the stars with my notebook perched open between my legs. This came out:

Souls can't separate our gaze from their essence.

Tears can only represent the difference between a glimpse and a stare.

Two eyes can work together,

but nothing can separate

a lonely gesture

except the empty spaces it createss.

A soul's resurrection takes more than its host.

 

To raise suspicion in the wake of curiosity is asinine.

Answers plummet to purgatory;

knowledge kneels down to pray to nothingness.

Subservient to satsfaction

an insatiable lust to know more

learns nothing but what it wants to hear.

Greed breeds its own seeds.

An answer can't be pleasured

by anything except the spread of its knowledge.

Farewell Hades

Darcy and Steve were substantially less creepy once the sun had risen - perhaps because they were wary of people seeing their faces, perhaps because they were oblivious to how perverted they'd been being. Regardless, we shrugged off the remains of last night's differences by cracking the last two of our forties.

We were drunk by ten AM. Me and Fernweh had a moment of intoxicated contemplation which resulted in us deciding that today we'd continue our journey eastward. The perversion and stupidity was killing us - we'd already left Calgary to escape our own retardation, it but it had followed us here. (A more thoughtful observation would have been that we naturally attracted idiocy.)

Once we popped the topic, Hades decided he'd stay in Montrèal. Squanch debated staying with him and basking in Montrèal's cultural diversity, but apparently the allure of the east coast and her addiction to my phallic region drove her towards Halifax. I foolishly agreed to accompany her the whole way.

So, that was it. We were three, now. The shift of a group's dynamic is always a powerful experience, akin to losing a digit. Travel partners are like conjoined twins - you're dedicated to each other, whether you like it or not. Me and Fernweh have always maintained unspoken pacts with our travel partners - we will not leave the city unless having prior spoken to our party, despite how angry we might be.

Leaving Hades was like leaving a baby on a doorstep. We'd helped him ascend from the mindless grind of society and had shown him the pearly gates of freedom - but he had a lot to learn and a lot to experience. He was like a kid in an amusement park - he had to ride every ride, taste every morsel, win every prize. It was cute that he still thought the lifestyle was all fun and games, despite having his shit soaked for a week straight. I wondered how he'd survive when his savings ran out.

This was his life, though, and I couldn't stick around to parent him for the rest of it. He had his own hopes, his own dreams, his own destination, and for the time being, his destination was here in Montrèal.

Fernweh, on the otherhand, was just stoked to ditch him. Me and Hades hugged, said a few unnecessary parting words (goodbyes have always been trivial. Why spend more time worrying about how it's gonna suck to be separated? Just get over it. Besides, I'd see Hades again. I knew it.) and went our own ways.

Me, Fernweh and Squanch made our way to Pops. If there was a top-ten list for Canadian drop-in centres, scrawled onto cardboard with a JUMBO marker, nailed to a 2x4 somewhere, Pops would be second on the list. The ARK in Halifax would top that list, but I'd never been.

We grabbed a quick lunch (massive servings of quiche, bottomless fruit salad and a drink fountain that was never dry,) and ate at a table, crammed in between disheveled hobos who chewed with their mouths open, confused Anglophone vagrants and violent Quebecois squeegee punks armed with Mallories and twisted faces.

Fernweh frolicked about, fraternizing with hippies and thugs alike, letting names fly over is head as he met everyone in the whole damn room. His uplifting sociability is intense on a normal day, but his relief from being freed from Hades showed today in the fact that he was bloody ecstatic. I sat, cynically debating whether or not these people were worth meeting. Squanch sat stupidly.

Once our meal was finished, we neglected the art room, smoke room, laundry facilities, music studio and dog kennel and decided it was time to hit the road. We had a half hour subway ride, an hour-long bus ride and then a sixteen hour drive towards our final destination. It would be a during journey, and there was one thing that would make that journey more palatable: drugs.

It was time to rendezvous in Anal Bead Village.

Squibbles

The glory of Tamtams became of less importance as we became aware of a more immediate distraction - the one within our heads. Butterflies were starting to beat their wings against the insides of our skulls and we decided we should probably get away from the huge group of people at Tamtams. It was nice to trip in smaller groups.

We could no longer call our mushroom trips that, though - the trip, the journey, had pretty much ended the night before. With Hades' decline into insanity and Fernweh's growing intolerance to the group, the adventure had pretty much come to a shitty, anticlimactic standstill. Still, we pumped ourselves full of substances in hopes that drugs would fuel some sort of bonding.

Fernweh's snide remarks about Hades were starting to grind me. I understood that Fernweh was an irritable person and I was very patient (strange how we had formed such a strong relationship - we both had much to learn from each other.) but the way he spoke to me about Hades made me feel obligated to share his hatred. I didn't, and that was the reason I was irritated myself. There was nothing else for us to talk about, and understandably so - being trapped travelling with a group half full of people you hate tends to be a pretty prominent bother. Still - couldn't he put the negativity on the back burner?

No, this was no longer an adventure, but a perpetuation of our own stupidity - with two new contributors to boot. We'd encountered Steve and Darcy, two of Squanch's friends from Toronto. They matched her intelligence nicely.

Steve we'd met once - he'd appeared under our bridge in Toronto one night, failed to woo us with senseless drunken statements, and invited himself to join us for the night by stumbling to the ground and passing out. We didn't see him the next morning. Darcy we'd never met, and hardly planned to meet again (though unfortunately we did a month later when he was missing half his hand.)

Hades, in his relentless and spontaneous generosity, had welcomed the two into the trip and provided them with psychedelia. Hades and Fernweh stayed on the mountain to grumble and babble with the two newcomers while me and Squanch went to go squeegee up some beer money. We found a small group on the closest corner to Tamtams - a stoic blonde dude, shirtless and wearing leopard print pants and a couple of preppy native girls enjoying the spectacle.

We made enough for a few forties with plans to bring them up to the mountain. Unfortunately, the nature of Montrèal prevented us from doing that right away - since it's so easy to make money, you can rack up enough for another 40 before you've even finished drinking your first one. Following that cycle we drank three or four forties on the corner until Fernweh got so upset about us waiting around that we found ourselves heading up some backtrails towards the mountaintop.

After whipping up a quick bonfire, the night got crappy. Squanch, being the only girl, became the target of Steve and Darcy's inebriated infatuation. Sexist slurs were uttered, arms were left lingering over contemptuos shoulders. Eventually, we had to tell the two to fuck off, ta which point Steve got up, tried to fight Fernweh, and promptly fell over like a dead tree and passed out.

Darcy, hindered by the loss of his creepy pal, decided to stop hitting on Squanch and went to bed - we quickly followed suit, eager to end the evening and finish drinking in the morning to make sure we weren't clear-headed for a full day.

TAM TAMS!!$@*#$&(@#&$ (part 1)

Our clothes still weren't dry and our relationships still weren't mended. The patches we'd drunkenly sewn onto our friendships had become unstitched. Fernweh had resumed bullying Hades, and my patience with Squanch was running thin as I came to realize that her brain wasn't as fabulous as my penis had convinced me it was. Hades still wasn't functioning properly. The group had resumed its baseline aridity as our dehydrated eyes braced the glow of the morning. If only we could use the moisture in our clothes to hydrate ourselves...

Our clothes may not have been dry, but we were - and it was helpless to pretend that we hadn't fallen victim to alcoholism. The first sip of the evening prior had cast our problems into oblivion; passing the bottle between us had allowed us to pass our differences to another place. This morning was another story.

We grumbled and groaned, our hopes for ever having dry clothes crushed as we compacted our soggy shit into our packs like piles of seaweed. We walked for half an hour, took a subway back to Mt. Royal. Once there, were finally rewarded with something to brighten our days: a treasure trove.

Avenue Mt. Royaol was holding a street bazaar with a ton of hot food for sale - that meant that each garbage can was laden with oodles of crispy jewels, pertaining to whatever stalls were on the block. Me and Fernweh bounded from trashcan to trashcan, howling with glee as we pulled gleaming styrofoam chests from the bins. Our hands held high, we offered our newfound gifts to the heavens, dashing about while we stuffed our faces with samosas, french fries and kebabs. We were well fed that afternoon.

After our meals, Hades decided to trade the last few brain cells he had for even more mushrooms. That paved the way for an interesting evening. We picked them up from Beardo, the dude who we could always rely on to be sitting on the same bench in the same park with the same backpack filled with the same crappy mushrooms. After that made our way to the top of the street towards the mountain itself for motha fuckin' TAMTAMS!

Tamtams was a weekly festival that I'd heard much about, but everything I'd heard had still left me vastly unprepared for the degree of excellence that ensued. The heart of Tamtams  - a circle of more than 50 drummers beating instruments of massive variety - was some of the most powerful energy I'd ever witnessed. Big and small djembes, portable kit drums, dumbeks, and cowbells were all hammered in unity; God's voice made itself heard in the complexity of dozens of rhythms beat to the same tempo. A jolly brown woman blew a horn, stoic indians murmured chants. Entranced, Fern and I teetered towards the music, failing to keep our jaws shut for long enough to contribute any proper didgeridoo riffs to the magic.

Surrounding the circle was the rest of the mountain, its entirety dotted with hundreds (thousands?) of hippies passing joints, stumbling punks dropping beers, youthful grandparents with big smiles, babies taking their first steps towards happiness. Few times in my life have I had to ask whether or not I'd been dreaming - this was one of them. I skipped the mandatory pinch on the cheek but assumed that I was, indeed, dreaming.

I didn't know what to do. None of us did. This happened every Sunday? Wow - this shit was too incredible to believe - so, we did what any sensible idiots would do: began chomping mushrooms.

Hooker Love

We were sick of this fucking rain. After half an hour of trudging around in our sopping clothes, our clothes weight down by wetness and our souls weighed down by disappointment, we found a Starbucks. We hopped inside to use their wifi, searched for a hotel and found one that was reasonably priced. There was a laundry facility we could dry our shit in - perfect. The only problem was that the distance between us and the hotel.

We went outside and flagged a taxi (another culture-shock moment for me: flagging taxis had always been a luxury that could only be afforded by actors in movies) and took a thirty dollar ride to the ghetto outskirts of Montrèal.

The place was truly rundown. Fat, questionably pregnant black and women and scrubby, mustachioed Frenchmen roamed the cracked sidewalks, muttering gruff commentaries. The taxi driver (courtesy of Hades who, even with his mangled brain, maintained an incredible sense of generosity) deposited us at the hotel and drove off.

We soon found that the hotel was full, despite our call confirming vacancies an hour earlier. Bullshit. We recalled another motel that wasn't too far from here, so we made the moist journey there. Our discovery was unpleasant - the hotel was twice as ugly and twice as expensive, and there was no laundry facility. Our two options were to either book a room here, or pay another thirty bucks to go back where we'd just come from.

Hades booked us a two-man room and the four of us snuck in. We hung our clothes to dry on every table, cupboard, heater and surface in the room, effectively transforming the vicinity into a humid stench-pit. Once we were nicely settled in the pungent atmosphere, we began flipping through the TV channels. French, French, French... and... what's this? There's porn on public TV? And it's... English? Great! Even if it hadn't been English, everyone understands the language of pleasure, so we left some grubby trailer park porn on for a while before Hades got really horny and kicked us out so he could order a hooker.

Alright, cool. Everyone needs to get laid. Me, Fern and Squanch left the room somewhat haughtily and went to go kill some time. Hades had paid for an hour with his hooker, so we spent an hour idling in a nearby park, talking to Frenchmen who were doing the same thing that we were. Once we decided we couldn't chat up foreigners (locals, I guess - we were the foreigners) or watch birds any longer we headed back to the hotel and knocked.

"Uh, come back in a bit.""

Fifteen minutes later we knocked. There was no response, so we peeked through the window and had to duck for cover as we were shot with the gleaming full moon of the hooker's bum. Sshe was leaned over Hades in some position that looked both uncomfortable and impossible, but she didn't seem to think that was nearly as funny as we did. She gave a frightened shout and slammed shut the blinds as we hustled off, for fear of her (or her pimp's) rage. We sat in a bush opposite the room, watched a black BMW pull up five minutes later and drive off with the girl, then let ourselves back into the dank atmosphere. Hades was elated.

"Wow, I think she really liked me. She was like, really nice, and she liked me." Nice - Hades was learning how to speak again.

Fernweh scoffed. "She's just doing her job, buds."

"No, I know, but, I'm pretty sure she really liked me..."

Fernweh shook his head. Me and Squanch sat down before realizing how drunk we weren't and convinced Hades to front us a box of wine. Under any other circumstance (considering Hades had just burned a hundred bucks getting us to this safe, dry area) we wouldn't have considered asking for a loan, but the alcoholism was beginning to take a tax on us. Mornings, prior to our first sips of liquor, had become lethargic and unpleasant.

He agreed, I went to the store and picked it up. As I returned to the hotel carrying the wine, I realized that I'd been looking at the situation backwards. I wasn't holding the bottle - the bottle had a hold on me. I contemplated smashing the wine on the pavement to prove a point, making a concrete decision to stop drinking, but I used my better judgement and took it back to the others.

Tensions alleviated quickly - Fernweh and Hades were having civil conversations, even Squanch had loosened up a bit. It seemed that Hades had begun to learn how to speak again (though it's possible the alcohol was simply dumbing the rest of us town until we felt balanced.) He kept mentioning how much the hooker had stolen his heart and how he hoped he'd see her again.

Two hours later, Fernweh and Hades were watching porn in the master room while me and Squanch made our own porn in the dark on the bathroom floor. The sex - purely physical - was uncomfortable, awkward, and full of later regrets, though in the drunken time-being I had no complaints.

Once we'd finished we discovered yet another stint of Hades' generosity: he'd sported for Chinese food. I busted out the remainder of my ghost peppers for me and Fern to chomp on, we promptly munched our way into a sweaty, agonized state of satisfaction. With our bellies fed and our senseless arguments defeated by alcohol, we all crawled onto the bed into a massive cuddle puddle and let ourselves dream of the dry clothes we'd have tomorrow.

Mexicore

The bridge we'd chosen to shelter us crossed the (shallow) depths of a man-made lake. Obviously the lake had been emptied (just for us, I like to think,) but we woke up just as wet as we would have had we attempted to sleep underwater. We'd misjudged the integrity of our bridge: rain had snuck through cracks in the wood planks, slowly at first, until buckets of the stuff began pouring down on our already-sodden huddling mass. Our cardboard disintegrated, our teeth chattered, our socks sogged. Thanks again, Quebec, for another fantastic morning.

We rose with great irritation. Hades was ruined. We couldn't talk to him anymore. The psychedelics had tarnished his beautiful, fragile mind and reduced him to a yammering chatterbox. Fernweh, at least, could make sense - but none of his aggressive accusations could benefit the group. I believe it was this lack of solid conversation that allowed me to misjudge Squanch's stupidity by holding the few conversations we did have in such high regard. For the time being, it saved me from insanity.

A few determined joggers cast us queer glances through the sheets of rain as our dripping, zombie-esque figures packed our shit. Our first order of business to grab ourselves a 40 - I'd warned Hades and Squanch that Montrèal's liquor prices could turn even the most seasoned of hobos into alcoholics, and we were about to step off the alcohol cliff sending us far deeper than we hoped. We'd been drowning ourselves in the stuff already, but we'd been so preoccupied with psychedelics and hadn't truly danced with the devil yet. To the depanneur!

With our 40 and ten cents left our names, we headed across the street from the dep to set up camp for squeegeeing. Another catalyst for alcoholism - being the squeegee capital, you can literally make money at any intersection in the city. Everyone`s used to it. This opened up endless doors for cheap drugs and drinking.

We had shit luck this morning though. The first car who drove by apparently called the cops, but we didn`t realize until after we`d squeegeed the next car. Some fat Mexican fuck threw the door open and jumped halfway out, ending up in a bent-over position that wasn't nearly as intimidating as he'd hoped it would be.

"Are you fucking stupid? I'm a CRIMINAL," he roared. Unsure of what he was implying, I feigned stupidity.

"You mean... squeegeeing's illegal?"

He growled. "Don't play stupid, punk. I'm a fucking criminal, and I'd better not see your fucking face around here again. I'll be coming back with a nine millimetre."

It wasn't the first time I'd been threatened with gunplay while squeegeeing - usually empty threats - but we figured we'd go somewhere else anyways. Once the guy drove off we sat down to finish our 40 before leaving - that was when the cops showed up. The woman-cop got out of the car after the dude-cop who had already seen our 40, but we shoved its lidless entirety, upright, into our bags before she could ese it. They strode over and lectured us about squeegeeing.

As they were about to leave, the man-cop starred to say something about our 40 as we simultaneously took a spotlight interest in the female cop. The dude-cop couldn't get a word in sideways, and eventually just gave up and headed back to her car. Victory. We stopped hitting on the she-cop and waited for them to drive off before taking our victory slams.

Stuck in a Loop

We'd hoped - nay, we'd expected that Montèal would shine the love that its renown to onto our eager faces. Unfortunately, so far, we'd seen naught but rain, misguided belligerence, and anger. Last night's mushroom trip had entirely crippled Hades' brain, Fernweh's anger was getting out of control, and to top that all of our shit was soaked.

Apparently God had gauged me worthy this morning because I'd woken up awkward sandwiched between Squanch and the wall - the perfect position to only get half-soaked.

In a shit situation (and waking up to a cold rain with nothing to change into is pretty high up on the list) optimism can make or break the day. A cheerful "good morning!" flew right over Fernweh's head - he responded with a grumble and a sadistic glance towards Hades. The greeting flew over Hades' head, too, because he was too busy yammering fractured sentences about his need to replace the mushrooms he'd lost the night before.

The greeting also flew over Squanch because everything flew over her head, but I didn't 'realize that until later. For the moment, my libido convinced me that she was just quiet and introspective, a worthwhile companion for a fellow introvert.

I took Hades away from Fernweh so we could talk without Fernweh telling him to shut the fuck up after every sentence he spoke (though, today, I began to feel it necessary. The wisdom had plummeted from Hades' face, his glazed eyes, leaking nostrils and drool-stained stubble was not a picture of the guy I'd decided to travel with. The new scenery, the overwhelming allure, and the psychedelics had thrown a circuit off in his brain.)

"Listen to yoursellf, man. You're losing it."

"I, uhm... where... we need mushrooms..."

"Buddy - you're insane."

"Yeah, just... once we get mushrooms, we'll..."

For six hours me and Squanch listened to the senseless babbling about shrooms and the one-sided squabble between Fernweh and Hades. Six hour slater, Hades had managed to find his mushrooms. The first real words he spoke all day besides need, more and shrooms were "can I get an ounce?"

A replay of the night prior quickly begun. Hades got so dumb and Fernweh so furious that me and Squanch found ourselves in a dilemma. If we left to avoid the conflict, Fernweh might snap and lose it on Hades - but staying in this situation was surely not good for our sanity. We meandered the park, less-than-entranced by the thick, viscous visuals that these mushrooms offered - sluggishly pushing our way through a multichromatic wave of static jello. The luminescent fog that surrounded us was almost as thick as the fog that obscured our brains. So thick, in fact, that when we decided to set up camp under the park bridge, we collectively agreed that it was a good idea.

 We hadn't known it was possible to get wetter than we had the night before.

Reboot

Today was a critical day for the group's relations, in the sense that Fernweh could no longer pretend that he saw something worthwhile in Hades. He began to  consider Hades' every word to be a freakishly miscalculated attempt at intelligence, a waste of breath that sounded stupid and left people questioning why he was talking. The look of Hades' face was enough to enrage Fern (though I must admit, as Hades fumbled with change in a hungover attempt to buy cigarettes, his mouth hung ajar and a thin stream of mucus dribbling towards his chin, I could see his point.)

I knew how Fernweh felt. I'd met people similar to what he considered Hades - our pet Hippie from the year before could agitate me without speaking a word. Hades, on the other hand, I believed maintained his wisdom beneath his hungover, stumbling person. The whole dynamic left me largely silent - I had nothing to say in response to Fernweh's berating of Hades, yet speaking to Hades resulted in garbled sentences and contemptuous looks from Fernweh.

Fireworks burst, fading into once-bright ideas
whose points have already scattered throughout galaxies;
fragments of intelligence degraded to dust,
innovation crushed and blasted off to the moon.
you can't throw cognitive trash in a compactor,
your brain's got no bin to recycle,
rewrite, rehearse, reconsider -
ten billion terabyte trains of thought 
are worth allocating your RAM.

As the day progressed, I began to lose faith. Travelling had bewildered Hades. Overwhelmed by the heaps of new stimuli, adn by the incredible freedom of vagrant life, his neurons had misfired. There was too much to do, too much to see, too much to process - all of which was more important than forming a proper sentence.

Reboot yourself,

24 hours until automatic shutdown
unless you choose to postpone your powerchecks,
stand-by while creations clatter to the floor
soon to be swept back into the dustpan,
through the trashcan,
out the door and into the dumptruck.

Hades' first order of business was to toss a hundred bucks down on mushrooms. I was all down for this - we were in the party capital of Canada! Break in the celebration! I was a little bit worried for Hades dropping psychedelics in this mindstate (and rightly so) but the ease with which we found mushrooms convinced me that it was meant to be. Maybe a psychedelic journey would align him.

Nope. Things went awry once we ate the fungi. The shrooms (purchased from a bearded fellow who'd taken residence on a park bench) were unusually large and decidedly foul, and the effects were unlike any other. An hour later, we were struck by thick, hazy and unnatural hallucinations that came alongside a lethargic mindset. Thinking (let alone speaking) became too much effort, we were left wandering aimlessly in a city park painted grey by the sardonic hands of entheogens.

Hades' prior disposition and inability to think, coupled with this unproductive and peculiar mindset, led to him quickly lose his bag of mushrooms. His mind, exponentially degrading, told him to start flailing around, screaming to the Gods as if they would heed his calls and lead him towards his mushrooms. This sparked the incline of Fernweh's irritation; each cry that Hades wailed sent a twitch through Fern's temple. Finally, the two ended up in a screaming match which was compromised by Hades deciding he'd just by more shrooms the next day.

By now, rain had started falling with vigor and the shroomish lethargy had dragged us towards the most viable excuse for shelter around: a locked cabin. The four of us huddled under the foot-wide awning, sprawled across each other and blanketed by leaking tarps. Fernweh took the far right side, stewing in rage; Hades sat between him and Squanch, thinking unfathomable thoughts, me and Squanch lay huddled on the left side. Despite the water that was slowly sleeping through our sleeping bags and into a skin, the indolence provided by the psychedelics allowed our minds to shut down for a few sub-par hours of sleep.

The next morning cast away any last hopes we'd had for a good time in Montreal.

Introducing: Alcoholism

Slip, slup, slap,

drip, drop, drap;

crip, crop, crap.

molecules dance against the window to my soul;

atoms procreating; producing protons

and negating neutrons for the sake of a Friday night party.

Drunk on plasma; my electrons are stumbling across

the Void in a feeble attempt to find a home within a singularity.

It's a long walk home when your entangled partner

is two thousand galaxies away.

Hopefully this black hole spits you out somewhere that you want to be.

Mont-Royal. Matched only in splendor by Butt-Bead Village, Mont-Royal was my favourite region of Montrèal. One of the plateau's attractions, Avenue du Mont Royal, is a fantastic street garnished with dozens of local businesses, cute coffee shops and quirky restaurants. Here, we could finally study the anthropology of Montrèal.

The square outside the subway station was bustling, as per usual. A crew of Quebecois buskers lightened the atmosphere, pumping a beautiful melody through an accordion, a guitar and some beautiful vocals. Mustachioed men and women with their hair tied into buns stood entranced by the music; sluts rocking the new Montrèal fashion - booty-shorts riding so high that buttcheeks hung loosely and wedgies sunk so deep into the crevasse that bums seemed to become black holes - strode by with pretentious disregard. Two massive decorative chairs stood thirty feet high; kids hung off the armrests while parents chastised them.

The sound of Montrèal was different, too. Instead of being bombarded by the sound of English's simplicity, we were gifted with the sharp elegance of the French language as it floated through the air. We didn't have too much time to soak in the culture - me and Fern had to show Squanch and Hades why Montrèal was such a stark pit of depravity for hobos. There were three main reasons, and all revolved around alcohol:

• Availability: The shit was everywhere! Basically anywhere in the city, you're a block away from a dépanneur (roughly translated: corner store) which all stock beer and wine.
• Strength: Montrèal is the only place I've found 10.5% forties of beer readily available.
• Price: Five bucks and a quarter was enough for one of these forties, which is both good and bad. Five bucks can be made in ten minutes squeegeeing and a forty is enough to get one person pretty wasted, which can lead to an instantaneous alcoholic spiral.

Thirty bucks in hand, we certainly did get wasted. We grabbed five forties, traunched to the northern tip of Avenue Mont-Royal, and began climbing the spectacle of the region: Mont-Royal. It was tough to define Mont-Royal as a mountain, yet far too big to call a hill. Either way, it was beautiful to see the stark defiance of nature, Mother's resilience towards civilization baring its tree-speckled entirety. We climbed halfway up the mountain and set up camp, grabbed our forties, and popped the top off our next two weeks.

Hades and Squanch heeded our warnings - we had told them about the foul flavour of Molson ten-point-ones (we couldn't find Black Bull forties - the 10.5% whose flavour, while still equivalent to fermented horse piss, bested Molson's) but they were unprepared. Gags and retches ensued until they'd grown used to the flavour, at which point they were already getting drunk. Hey - you can't pay 5 bucks for alcohol of this potency and expect a good taste.

Within an hour, we were shitfaced and the significance of our arrival in Montrèal didn't seem so significant anymore. We were drunk, in a forest, just as we always managed to be when we arrived anywhere. It was around this point that I realized I was tired of drinking my way across the country; there were so many things to see and do (I drank the money I was going to spend climbing the C.N. Tower in Toronto, I chugged enough money to take me to Niagara Falls and back) but I was too busy getting wasted to appreciate them. Not to say that drinking's not fun - it is - but alcohol makes it easy it is to forget that other things are fun, too. Hell, when you enjoy sitting in the bush in the pitch black, yelling at empty spaces where you think your friends are sitting, you don`t need tourism to have fun.

Yes, we were shitfaced, and I was banging Squanch on the crinkly blanket of my tarp. Fuck - it didn't take me long to regret this decision, but not before repeating it a few times due to an inability to control the flow of blood to both my brain and my schlong.

For the time being, though, I was drunk, sweaty, and satisfied. Fernweh and Wade had fallen asleep to the rhythmic song of my thrusts, so me and Squanch figured we might as well, too. The distant rumble of cars was much more melodic of a sound to sleep to than the incessant raging of the beasts as the roared by on the bridge above us in Toronto. One rarely realizes how lame Toronto is until they leave, for it's easy to forget life outside Urbania. It's only when you leave that you remember how beautiful life can be.

Squeegee City

The traffic was bloody outrageous by the time we reached Montreal, which worked out perfectly for us. Instead of dropping us off in some distant, obscure Francophone district, as Habeeb had planned, he was forced to drop us off downtown. Me and Fernweh had explored Montrèal in years past, though we had ever witnessed the downtown core - we preferred to spend our time in more relaxed areas such as Mont Royal or Anal Bead Village.

Squanch and Hades themselves had never even been in the province, so their eyes lit up in wonder upon stepping foot on French concrete- though I failed to understand why. Downtown Montrèal looked the exact same as any other city: monoliths dwarfed the cityfolk who wandered the streets, claustrophobia ran rampant; cracked streets had aluminum beasts coughing smoke at you.

We'd been deposited in an entirely blue-collar area, devoid of shops and stalls. We were surrounded entirely by office buildings and there wasn't even a French sign for us to compare the rest of Canada to (save for the street signs, formatted a la Rue Sanguinet instead of Sanguinet Road.) Skyscrapers tottered above us, mocking us in the same language that urbanization had always spoken. The only difference between Montrèal and Toronto so far was the dearth of pedestrians (turned out we'd been dropped in pretty desolate part of downtown) and a slight change in the accent on the people who did walk by. Hell, the first few people we saw weren't even speaking French.

We received our first bit of culture shock after me and Squanch hit the street corner so we could make money for booze. The first car we squeegeed rolled down the window, babbled some incomprehensible French pleasantries and tossed us a toonie. We reciprocated with an off-guard "merci." I guess anglophones stand out like sore thumbs when we speak, because the driver instantly flipped her french/english switch and thanked us in English before driving off.

We grinned. It's always a good sign when your first car drops you a toonie. Or a five bill. We weren't prepared for the next half an hour, an onslaught of excited drivers commuting from work to their Friday night festivities who were more than eager to hurl money out their windows. Toonies were tossed left, right and center, loonies were laughing their ways out windows, quarters were clearing air like it was nobody's business. Montrèal really was the squeegee capital of Canada - and, the soon-to-be squeegee capital of my heart.

Hades returned from the liquor store right as we'd made thirty bucks and traffic had started to die down. He was baffled - we'd just made as much money in twenty minutes as he'd make in three hours at work. Introducing someone to a hobo's source of income is always mind-boggling; a newcomer can be presented with fresh cash, can even watch the cash being made, and still fail to believe the simplicity that it comes with. Needless to say, he was glad that he'd traded his stable job for a volatile and unpredictable life on the streets. If anything, he was addled with a bit of regret for spending so many hours in the kitchen at work.

Beer and money in hand, we hopped over the ticket counter at the subway station (just 'cause we had money didn't mean we were going to pay the Man to take us from point A to point B) and took the train towards the beautiful Mont-Royal. We sped from the cavernous depths of the downtown core and readied ourselves to step into the lucid culture of Montrèal.

Habeeb (3)

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.

Scribbles

You don't know what you've had until it's gone.

Things were immensely different. Most noticably, the group's volume had halfed. The dynamic of me, Scrib and Fernweh had resulted in a semi-permanent state of belligerence as we deafened innocent children,  squawking profanely down city streets. Hades, while talkative, was by no means loud, and Squanch hardly spoke at all. When she did, she brought nothing interesting to the table. Why I gauged her worthy of being a travel partner, I never figured out. Fernweh's suspicions soon became well justified.

Anyway, with Fern being physically crippled, (and mentally crippled due to taking too many percocets) the group was on a fairly low vibrational level. Hades relaxed with Fern, enjoying one of the only two stable days the two ever spent together. Hades didn't want to squeegee - having just quit his job to come travel with us, he was still loaded with cash - and had another cheque coming. We'd decided we were going to leave once we'd collected his last paycheque.

To remedy our own bankruptcy, Squanch and I hit the corner. She was great to squeegee with - she could hold her own and was quick, but we decided to tag team cars and split the cash. Squeegeeing's way more fun as a duo (or a trio - or, for that matter, any number of squeegee kids. Last year, same spot, we'd had a crew of a half dozen people who'd storm the intersection, obstruct traffic and give cars the "god damn, MOTHA FUCKIN SUPREME SPECIAL," as Marcellus called it. Whether or not they liked it, every window and mirror on their vehicle was getting washed.)

We made what we needed quickly, which gave us some downtime to rest. This gave me time to think on our separation with Scrib. I missed him already - his grin, hidden behind a grizzled beard; his endless wealth of wisdom, his intricately improvised freestyle poetry, the ease of which conversation flowed with him. Particularly, I longed for his lack of prejudice and negative judgement - a positive reinforcement that had helped me lots when Fernweh had grown too aggressive. It would have come in more than useful in the following week.

Things were settled, in an unsettling way. It was going to take time to adjust to a lost family member. Even during the moments in which visions of Scrib weren't floating about in my head,his silhouette always seemed to saunter a few feet behind me; a lonely ghost trying to communicate with an entrapped mortal soul.

Oh well. This was necesary for him, for Fernweh, for me. Besides, you can't expect anyone to take the same path as you for your entire relationship. That, and we had new relationships to attend to: Hades and Squanch had passed our two day travel-buddy trial (though two days is hardly enough time to gauge someone's character well enough - especially if you're planning to hitchhike with them) and were now officially part of our group. 

We were ready to hit the road. We'd planned on getting a rideshare with another Habeeb tomorrow after Hades picked up his paycheque, and in the meantime we decided to try something new. Me and Fern had grown tired of sleeping under bridges, so we followed Hades' recommendation of having a beach fire. A bus ride took us to a beautiful beach that overlooked the calm waters of Lake Whatever-the-fuck. The stillness of the water washed over us, a manifested metaphor to the silence instilled since Scrib's vacation from the group. We were quick to set up a bonfire, marinate a meal of scallops, potatoes and other delights before the sound of waves breaking on the shore cooed us to sleep.

The Beginning of a Goodbye

The first thing today brought us was Fernweh! Thank God - the hospitals hadn't lost him. I jumped from the mattress of Hobo Conglomeration and bounded towards him.

He limped towards me with a mighty grimace gouged into his face, clearly pained by the recent cracking of bones that ought not to have been cracked. I approached cautiously - the hospital stay had surely aggravated him. With a wave and a smile that clearly took more effort than raising a flag (and that spoke just as beautifully) he dispelled my assumptions.

"Do you... want some percocets?"

I grinned. Obviously, I did, but for once, he legitimately needed the opiates for pain. He insisted though, and handed me one; I popped it quickly and the day began to start much more smoothly. Instead of stepping off the acid train into a jagged, rocky and otherwise desolate mindstate, the comedown rolled softly into the station and deposited me in a more functional mindset.

As me and Fern returned to the group, tension snowed down onto us; we were blanketed by the subtle chill of insolence. Scrib and Fern couldn't speak to each other. There were no apologies, there were no accusations, there was just guilt and resentment. It was then that we realized today was to be a pivotal day in our journey.

The group couldn't continue as it was. Scrib and Fern couldn't maintain themselves in this dynamic of bullying. Scrib decided that he and his rat would stay at Snooze's house until his court date , at which point he figured he'd end up in jail and wouldn't make it to Halifax. I sincerely hoped that wasn't true and that he'd make it to the East Coast - prospectively, in a better mood. Fern, me, Squanch and Hades were to hit the road and keep on trucking to the East Coast. We'd spent far too long bathing in the drug bath of Toronto, scrubbing our souls with filthy washcloths.

Fern, having been excited at first with the addition of Squanch and Hades, was beginning to become apprehensive about letting them join our crew. Were they really that cool? Were they really worth our time? I put that up to typical Fernweh cynicism - his prerequisites for travel partners are pretty high - and for a good reason. He'd been stuck on the road with shitty partners too many times to repeat the scenario, and being stuck in the middle of nowhere with nothing to look at but passing cars and the irritating face of your hitchhiking partner can grind a person's patience into dust.

I was less picky - for now. Patience proved to be a profitable virtue for a traveler - little did I know, though, Squanch would be the first hobo to break mine. Regardless, our priorities at the moment consisted of assimilating these new cats into our group and parting ways with Scrib. We walked him to the youth drop-in, ate a last (and largely silent) breakfast together, and bid him goodbye. Things became immensely different from then on.

I SMOKE MORE WEED THAN THE MOON WEIGHS.

It turns out, my dick was ripped in vain. My phallus had be fileted for feeble reasons - there had been an alternate entrace to the alleyway, and my fence-hopping was entirely unnecessary. Mike (the hairless methhead) and his woman were crouched in the alleyway, defending their lighters from the wind in a valiant effort to smoke a bowl. I hopped down, pecker held in a protective hands; explained my situation and joined them in blazing a bowl. The smoke hit my mouth like a tsunami of bleached marshmallows; tissues within my throat and lung seemed to peel from the bones they rested on. The hands of the Grim Reaper clawed at the inside of my trachea, damning my cilia and promising them an early grave.

We proceeded out the exit, each yammering about topics that we found far more interesting than they ever should have been. Words tumbled from our mouths but neglected to make their way into anyone`s brains - instead we vomited sentences like verbose volcanoes, witnessing wasted wordplay as it fell flat onto the concrete.

Acid and speed always makes for an interesting combination. The open-eye visuals from the LSD were drastically hindered (doubly so today, on account of acid's merciless tolerance and our experience the night before.) The mindset, however, remained. I was electrified, an energetic enigma, ready to blabber and babble about on-the-spot philosophies that my inebriation convinced me was worthy to rival Socrates.

We returned to the yellow mattress with the rest of our friends and chatted (read: exploded with hyper-fueled conversation fillers) until sunset, until one by one the group began to fall silent. I'd been right - the trip was nothing beneficial. There'd been laughs, there'd been debauchery, that was about it. Not a bad night, but usually on a drug bender I'm at least able to reformat the brain cells that I'm not killing, so they can adapt a new perspective, or absorb some new knowledge. Tonight, they just died.

We began to fall into the sleeplike stupor one finds themselves in after an acid trip, though a few remained awake. I listened to their conversations as I watched a screen of LED lights battle across the galaxies painted on my eyelids; Voyagers struck down Enterprises, cosmoses rose and fell at my will. The conversations outside my world seemed pretty dull in comparison, but I noticed a recurring pattern: the voices seemed to be debating the same views. How could two people argue the same point so vehemently?

"I fucking love drugs."

"No, I LOVE drugs."

The voices continued arguing a series of similar viewpoints until the jaded conversation came to consist of shouts of "I'm FUCKING AWESOME!"  I opened my eyes to see who was flaunting their excellence and was blown away to see tha Tyler had been the only one talking this whole time. He'd been standing by himself in the middle of the street, hootin' and hollerin' with enough vigor for me to believe he'd been an entire gang of retards.

"I smoke weed, so much weed, I SMOKE MORE WEED THAN THE MOON WEIGHS NIGGA."

Baffled by his inflated head, his stupidity, and his insatiable desire to advocate himiself to the world, I lay incredulous until sunrise, when he finally returned to the cuddle puddle and started fondling the only single girl here - Squanch. I gauged the situation before deciding not to intervene - Squanch's chuckled "no's," spoke no ill, they spoke only of carnal desires that couldn't be filled in front of a group of hobos. Stage fright?

Eventually the situation blossomed into more defiant "no's," a flurry of mixed messages, confusion, and not enough punches to the head. Squanch's "no's," combined with her positive body language left a lingering scent of irritation and confusion in the air so the group ignored her and Tyler's malfunctioning flirt session and returned to their dozes. The next morning found everyone clothed, happy (if not haggard) and ready to move on.

A Jibtech's Journey

When you're on top of the fence, the grass doesn't look too green on either side.

With our heads held high with hopes for Fernweh's safety, Squanch and I sauntered back to the park where we'd left Scrib and Hades. Kensington park was always an bustling, odd place - plump moms walked their babies past jabbering jib-techs, creating a stark contrast between the addicted and the inspiring. Kengsinton - despite the high concentration of drug fiends - was a kind of haven. It'd be unlikely to find conflict here unless you went looking for it.

Apart from druggies swooning MILFs, there was also a pile of hobos conglomerating on a massive yellow foam mattress by the side of the park. This is where we found Scrib, Hades, and a host of other weirdos that Hades seemed to know. Tyler was there, a narcisisstic oogle

oogle: (n.) street kids with no street knowledge; or individuals who resorts to the street lifestyle as a method to inflate the ego; panhandling to be "cool," fantasizing about hopping trains to feel "worthy." Often oogles have homes available to them with food, electricity and shelter. Essentially, wanna-be veteran hobo.

whose ego would later be the source of our evening's amusement; Sara, a smiley and thoroughly promiscuous girl who would later become very close to (part of our) crew, and some bald dude who was too deep into crystal meth for anyone his age (or any age, for that matter) to be. The rest of the group, filling the remaining spots on the mattress, failed to fill a spot in my memory.

This would be quite an interesting crew to explore psychedelics with. It'd be up to us to maintain any mental productivity - the collective IQ of this group seemed to gravitate towards the double digits.  Nay, this would not be a night to evolve, this was to be a night o fdebauchery, cheap laughs and feeling "cool."

Haces was quick to dish out tabs of LSD, but before we dropped, Ogre appeared. Ah, Ogre... if ever a dealer was prophetic, it was him - a poet and wordsmith, synchronous with the city's desires - Ogre would always appear when you needed drugs (or, in this case, when you didn't need them.) Regardless, he offered us a deal on speed that we couldn't refuse. Had he shown up twenty minutes later, the acid would have been in full blast and we would've declined, but I took up his offer. Sometimes I feel like Ogre bent the will of causality to make sure he was in the best places to make sales at the best times.

Scrib, still offset by the injuries he'd caused Fernweh, declined my offer to smoke the jib and remained silent, seated on the ground next to the mattress. Even though he'd broken my other husband, it was painful to see him dealing with such guilt. My heart went out to the both of them, my distaste went out to the idiocy of their arguments.

On my journey to find a smoke spot, I encountered the overwhelming stench of heroin wafting from a building  next to me. It seemed like an Asian activity centre; signs baring Chinese letters hung atop the roof and a herd of chairs sat unoccupied in an ampitheatre-esque room.  I stepped inside. The building was vacant except for two very lethargic Asians, slumped in rickety chairs at the front of the hall. The lingering stench of heroin told me that I'd just stepped into an opium den.

I racistly assumed that the two Asian folk wouldn't understand me if I asked them for heroin (or a bathroom to smoke drugs) so I left. The next place I stepped into was a restaurant owned by a fat Italian cunt who was ignorant to my needs to "relieve myself of this explosive diarrhea." He told me to find somewhere else, I told him "fuck you, I'll just shit in your back alley." I don't know why I didn't just drop my pants and deuce right there, but something held me back. Instead, I got antsy and decided to blast my speed in the next available spot - indoor or outdoor.

Unfortunately, that spot happened to be on the other side of an arched, wrought iron gate. Somehow, I hoisted myself up and over it, but I managed to flip myself upside down and tangle myself in the arched section of the fence. In a flailed attempt to disarm myself from the fence's grip, my dick got caught on one of the arches the instant I unlatched myself. As I tumbled downwards, my poor schlong stretched beyond reasonable dick-stretching limits and snapped back like a broken guitar string. I was rewarded with a new phallic scar, and a surprise: two of the kids we'd dropped acid with were already in the alleyway, and they were toking speed too!

Cracked Friendships

A choice to cloud your judgement is redundant.

We were awoken by a paramedic the next morning. She was standing next to a slouched Fernweh who wore a deathly grimace and pale skin. The paramedic was far from her natural habitat, surrounded by dirty backpacks, crumpled sleeping bags, escargot remains and smoking embers.

I snapped to alertness - Fernweh wasn't one to make acquaintances with medical personnel. He hated hospitals - their presence, their power, the people who worked for them, the people who suffered in them. He'd always told me that he'd rather die than check into a medical facility, so I was more than worried about how he was doing.

"I've got to take this guy to the hospital."

The paramedic's words, like icicles, solidified my fears. We hadn't known Scrib had hit Fernweh that hard. His slaps, while sting-worthy, hadn't seemed too powerful. I was even more blown away that Fern was accepting the help. He must have been in a bad state.

The paramedic had found Fern wandering Toronto Island by himself, wheezing like a malfunctioning grandpa, and had done a quick checkup. Her resulting assumption was that his sternum was cracked, broken by an intense blow. The entire group glanced at Scrib (undoubtedly invoking curiosity within the paramedic) but said nothing. Scrib didn't so much as blink.

After the paramedic hauled Fernweh away, we packed up our stuff and started a largely silent walk back towards the ferry terminal. Scrib's face slowly fell into a fearful grimace. Was it fear for Fernweh's safety? Or a fear that he'd stepped over the line and lost some good friends? Perhaps (and more likely) he was afraid of the demons that hibernated within his soul, scratching the surface, craving fresh air and howling to be set free.

 A line had, indeed, been crossed. The line had been crossed so far that it couldn't even be seen - but we could not be too enraged. Fernweh and I had known that this would happen - Scrib was our friend, and we loved him. That being said, we knew the repercussive effects of drinking with him, and we stood by him in that - but Fernweh had been unwise to drink four litres of wine with him. Like juggling dynamite over a bonfire, things could take a turn for the worse.

Along the way, somehow we decided to drop more acid (Scrib exempt) but we figured we'd get back to Toronto, check up on Fernweh in the hospital, and grab a case of beer beforehand.

After a short ferry ride and another stint of Hades' generosity (he'd already supplied acid and our ferry tickets) we had a case of beer in our hands. We hustled towards the hospital, but Scrib declined to journey the entire way. His words were laced with regret, but he spoke no word of apology and said he'd wait for us at the park. Hades decided to join him. Squanch and I left the case of beer with them and brought three - one for each of us and one to smuggle in for Fernweh.

He wasn't at the hospital. The nurse said he hadn't been registered; she called the other hospital and he wasn't there either. I assumed he'd either used a fake name or was still in E.R., so we figured we'd check back tomorrow - hopefully he'd be out by then.

We slammed his beer on the way back to the park, a cheer to battles lost and futures won.

Demons to Demons pt. 2

A friendship is harder to crack than bone, but an ego will never break.

Fernweh had no desire to get slapped out - again - by Scrib, especially during the midst of an experience that had promised to be amazing. If it had been a mutually agreed scrap, or Scrib was to mentor Fernweh, things would have been better, but there was no benevolence here. This was a battle between Innocence and Hatred; Scrib's grizzled, hissing stature stood for all that was foul; Fernweh's thin, fearful pose was everything that hatred loved to hate.

Through entheogenic eyes, the battle was beginning to look like a war between demons - a myth unfolding before our eyes. Perhaps this tale would be told for years to come; perhaps this night would be the catalyst to a new cult. Fernweh, the belittled god and Scrib the Devil.

We didn't know what to do about the situation.  Scrib's anger was vehemently focused on Fernweh; whenever one of us stepped in to remind him that he was supposed to be a friend, he (rather, the demon that looked through his eyes) would offer us a brief glance that whispered of a tortured mind and a battered soul. His lips would form the shape of a word, but before growling it he'd return his efforts to Fernweh.

Finally, Kevin - the only one bigger than Scrib (who, fortunately, had enough sense left to realize that Kevin could tune him if he stepped out of line) told him that he had three options.

a) if he really had beef then they could duke it out. I regret to admit that we were starting to see the situation from a selfish viewpoint. We wanted peace and quiet; if a decidedly unbalanced fight was the only way to return that, then we would welcome it. We were no better than heartless dictators ushering their troops towards failure.

b) there was a powerful energy flowing between Scrib and Fern that spoke of hushed desires. Their second option was to go off and fuck in a bush to satisfy their secret carnal urges. (In response to this, Fernweh, who'd lost any sense of how to speak, said - entirely straight faced with a serious intention - something about "I love you, just the tip of Scrib's dick in my lungs!" to which I burst out laughing.

c) Kevin would just knock one of them out to get the show rolling.

His threats proved useless once he realized that it was not his battle to win. Instead, we surrounded the two like a group of people placing bets on a cock fight; craning our necks to peer into the psyche of Scrib and unintentionally prod Fernweh's fear.

This is how nobody wants to spend an acid trip. Once it became clear that we were powerless to control the situation (and it's funny how acid has a way of calling upon synchronicity, diverting your energies towards attracting situations that resonate on similar frequencies with your intentions) I decided to bounce and explore Toronto Island by myself.

After a ten minute walk, I spotted a light in the distance and gravitated towards it like a moth (of which I soon found billions.) The building it was attached to was curious; it seemed a combination of a firehouse, a vacation home and an abandoned office. There was a door leading to a washroom, which I wagered was locked considering it was past midnight, so I spent a good 20 minutes scouring the outside of the building in hopes of finding a tap so I could fill my water bottle and bring the group some hydration.

After I'd given up, I checked the bathroom doors which were miraculously unlocked. Nice. I filled up my bottle and brought it back to the group, hoping for them to have reached a denouement. No such luck - fires were raging just as much as they had been before. It wasn't  my place to intervene (anymore) so I went for a walk with Squanch back to the bathroom to fill up the rest of our water bottles and contemplate whether or not we should fuck. Sexual energy is a deviant on acid, difficult to harness but once you've mastered it then one can be a master of attraction. It hovers above you, an elusive rope begging for you to grab hold - once you've gripped it, it'll be smooth sailing towards wherever your desires lay. Unfortunately I either didn't care or just wasn't feeling sexy enough that night so we returned with full water bottles and unsatisfied genitals.

When we returned, the situation had dwindled a bit - though acid trips are never so simple. Welcome to the rollercoaster: Scrib's bottomless rage would return for a while, lessen, return, lessen, and as we crested each bump of the ride, the bumps would decrease in stature. Finally,  the world seemed to heave a great sigh; each wave that floated through our world breathed in, every sparkle that dotted the glimmering night sky breathed out. We realized the situation was over. We'd talk about it in the morning.

The last words of the night, from Fernweh:

"You can only shit your pants so many times before somebody else shits them for you."

Demon vs. Demon (part 1)

"HELLO? HEY... HELP?... FUCK!" 

At last - word from our comrades. I'd almost given up hope on a rendezvous with them; they'd been lost for a good six hours.We were soon to find that they'd spent three of those hours belligerently wasted on wine, trying to find us.

Well, they'd found us. We could hear them crashing about in the bush a few hundred meters away, shouting for us.

I guessed it was time to face the fury of psychedelics and leave my shell. I crawled out of my sleeping bag like a snake shedding skin; offering Hades and Kevin a mumbled greeting with haggard eyes. Gathering myself, I joined their conversation, sharing answers and responses that I'd concocted in regards to Hades' philosophies.

Fernweh and Scrib continued to lumber towards us through the underbrush. As their voices came within reasonable distance, we arose and went to help guide them towards our camp spot. We found them barely fifty feet away, presently stuck in a prickly ravine; lost and guided only by starlight.

There was nothing we could do to help without sticking ourselves in the mass of sharpened agony - all we could do was chastise them for neglecting to notice the path that lay ten feet next to them.

They eventually made their way out, and the night's atmosphere twisted itself upside down; a trapeze artist flipped to come crashing on its head. We found out that Fernweh hadn't just been screaming for help identifying his whereabouts - he'd been shouting to something above, shouting for some sense of liberation from Scrib. Scrib had resumed the bullying that he'd inflicted on Fernweh the week before.

The scene the week prior had been more than enough - Scrib's fists would fly through the air unmediated; his presence too profoundly infuriated (and infuriating) for anyone to intervene. If anger had a physical form, it had been Scrib that day - and anger's favourite meal was fear. Today, Fern was clearly afraid, and Scrib was a starved vulture. He hissed threats, growled demands and promised to provoke Fern into a fight before the end of the night. The last time I'd heard Scrib snarl this sadistic voice had been enough to burn it into my memory; writing this paragraph digs up charred sections of burnt remembrance.

The psychedelics enhanced the intensity of Scrib's rage and, likewise, our perception of its incredulity. Scrib's rage had become manifested into his entirety. The four of us remaining could feel his fury as it transcended past his outer shell and into our own bubbles; the waves that breathed around Scrib's body pulsated with vermillion and crimson. His words, however veiled by his rage, remained articulate and terrorizing.

"YOU ARE SCARED.
YOU ARE AFRAID.
IF YOU TRULY LOVE ME
THEN YOU WILL FIGHT ME."

Foreshadow (2)

Smooth sailing today.

We watched the eye of Toronto Island grow larger with each passing moment as we glided across the harbor. We docked and vacated the vessel.

Stepping foot onto Toronto Island was nowhere near as transcendental of an experience as my last ferry ride. Stepping onto the mainland of Horseshoe Bay after leaving Vancouver Island is always an interesting experience; leaving the serenity of Nanaimo reminds you of how the mainland's been corrupted by the scars that huge cities has left on the country.

We set foot onto what was essentially a massive city park - that happened to be an island. It was fairly obvious that its entirety had been fabricated by man - the trees, young and meticulously manicured, said so. There wasn't a single sense of nature's feng shui here, yet, the manmade forest was far more beautiful than the asphyxiating atmosphere of Toronto's concrete jungle (except for the thick clouds of mosquitos that didn't understand personal space.)

We wandered past a map on our way to our undiscovered destination. What a huge island this was! Toronto Island boasted a theatre, a small theme park and a small commercial sector loaded with pizza shops and donut stands, as well of miles of paths that cut through the immaculately organized grass patches and sparse forests.

While we journeyed, Hades whipped out the acid and cut a few hits off. The five of us munched our psychedelics and wandered far enough off the beaten path that we felt safe from the civilized section of Toronto Island. After we'd dropped, Fernweh and Scrib absentmindedly wandered off with the bag of wine we'd collectively paid for, but we weren't worried. We'd find them soon enough - with or without the wine. We did find them, but we were hardly prepared for how dire the circumstances would be.

The remainder of the group - me, Hades, Kevin and Squanch - found an inviting patch of grass and graced it with our butts. Kevin promptly impressed me by showing his incredible tolerance to pain by chomping down two of the bhut jolokia (ghost) peppers that I'd bought in Kensington Market. Ghost peppers, bested only by the Trinidad's moruga scorption peppers, are the second spiciest in the world. Merely passing them to Kevin and licking my fingers provides a burn strong enough to cause sweat to bead on my forehead, and I consider myself to be an aficionado of spicy food. Kevin didn't even bat an eye before he chomped and swallowed both of the peppers. Damn.

The four of us set up a fire and began to descend into our psychedelic adventure au francais by roasting up some Hobo Escargot. Squanch found a snail and passed it to Hades, who de-shelled it, popped it on a stick, and cooked it over the fire for a minute. He sprinkled a bit of caesar seasoning and a flake of a ghost pepper onto it and munched it down with a grin.

The sun sank beneath the distant cityscape in Toronto as our minds began to vibrate at an all-too familiar frequency. Unfortunately - as I'd anticipated - this resulted in a massive panic attack for me and I receded into my sleeping bag to try and nap the anxiety off. As any psychonaut knows, sleeping during the peak of an LSD trip is like trying to sleep in a mosh pit - though, instead of being bombarded by elbows and fists you're being attacked by powerful thoughts that leave you far too awake.

This most recent discovery:
              Sanity comes in pill form;

you can now put your thoughts in your pocket

and carry them around

until you're ready to take a razor to your brain drippings,

lacerating each loose idea,

chopping creativity into the dust of stars.

                                           Sometimes it helps to have a switch for your brain,
a switch that you can only flip by popping that one last tab.

I pondered the essence of life and my existence while I listened to the conversations that ensued outside my sleeping bag. For six hours I listened as Kevin and Hades spoke. It seemed Squanch, too, was isolating herself from the group for anxious reasons, as her voice was unheard.

I learned much from the two boys. Hades - a philosopher, a deeply curious soul who had grown tired of letting himself be shacked by society's chains - guided the conversations. He knew that here was more for him to see than the charred grill of the restaurant he worked in; he expressed his desires to drop everything and come traveling with me and the boys (a conversation nearly identical to the one that me and Scrib had had a month before.) Hades had been born in South Africa and had thus already traveled halfway across the world, so he figured he might as well explore Canada while he was here.

Hades had a pleasant way of poking at people's inner personalities. He seemed to be bringing Kevin out of his shell; Kevin's "gangster" armor was wearing thin and his soul had begun to leak through the cracks. Soon the two were sharing their opinions on life, love, and laughter. This was a beautiful moment - a classic bonding experience, accentuated by the loving (albeit dangerous) push of acid.

Things would have been much better if the night had stayed this way...

Dreams of a Black Man #1

Stupid Car Thieves

The vehicle was hazy, serene, and utterly silent save for the sizzle of the joint`s ember and the rustling of our jackets as we passed the cannon back and forth. If one were to look hard enough, deep within the depths of the smoked out car, the intoxicating fog had encapsulated two slack-jawed, red-eyed males. One flaunted shaggy brown hair and a goofy grin; the other sported a red hat was worn at an angle that was both impossible and awkward. From outside, the sun`s rays were diluted by the ambient, aromatic atmosphere we`d created for ourselves in the sedan.

The smoke was so thick that we weren`t aware of the people standing outside until the door was swung open. The smoke was quickly whisked into the atmosphere, as was the serenity, sanity, and relaxation we`d surrounded ourselves with. The entire mood was sucked out of the car as if the outdoors were a huge vacuum. One of the guys spoke.

“We're stealing your car.”

“Oh,” I answered.

“Yeah. It's okay, though” Two guys and a girl let themselves into the back seat and sat down.

The guy who'd announced their intentions spoke up with a grin. “My name's Jeff,” We shook hands.

“Nigel, nice to meet you. You want to get high?”

“Hell yeah!”

“Sure thing,” I answered, passing him the joint. He grinned and brought the doobie to his lips while I was introduced to the other two.

“So, yeah. We don't really have any weapons,” Jeff said as he passed the doobie around the back seat where they'd taken up residence. “So we figured we're just going to call BCAA and tow the car away from you.”

“Right, sounds good,” I answered, taking the doobie back. The air in the car had thickened again; the humidity of our new passenger's breath mixed with the greensmoke to create a dense, Amsterdam-esque environment.

“Let me just grab my laptop out of the trunk, and any other valuables.”

“Yeah, sure thing man.”

“Really?” I was incredulous. “You'll let me do that?”


“Sure, we don't care.”


“Shit, man! If I was stealing a car I'd go the whole nine yards and take everything in it!”

Jeff shrugged as I popped the trunk. I went and stuffed my laptop back into my pack and returned to the driver's seat.

“Hey, wait,” Jeff mused. “This is a robbery! You guys aren't supposed to feel comfortable. We're supposed to kick you out, or something. Or you can just get out. Either way, you're not supposed to feel comfortable!” He paused and thought for a moment. “We'll just get out, I suppose.”

Jeff and his two accomplices let themselves back out of the car and stood around awkwardly outside.

Peter and me looked at each other with glazed eyes and kept passing the joint until the tow truck showed up.

“Let's get the car towed to Mill Bay!”

I nodded and rolled down the window. “Hey, guys. You should probably get the car towed to my friend Ky's house. That's a great place to take a stolen car.”

“Yeah?” Jeff asked, slowly fading in to visibility as the smoke that separated our faces began to dissipate. “Sounds good, You guys go tell the truck driver how to get there.”

“Okay, sounds good.”

Once the car was rigged up on the tow truck, me and Peter hopped into the cab to give the driver directions. We waved goodbye to the thieves and towed “their” new car to my friend's house, and they waved back stupidly as their potential harvest was towed to somewhere they didn't even know existed.