Holy fuck, I said. We’re fucking stuck good.
Yep, said Doc. We’re fucked.
Doc got out the driver’s side door, and I got out after him. The passenger side was taking on water. I tried to push the truck out, Doc working the gas, but to no avail. We were fucked.
The whole goddamn thing had started when we dropped of Danger at his place. I was only a couple blocks from my place. Doc said, Do you want to go find some mud?
Yep, I said. That was that.
Doc drove on south out of town, passed the park on the perimeter where that dude got raped last year. Now, Doc aint a doctor, he’s just a buddy of mine whose advice and prescriptions I follow when it suits me. This was such a time.
We passed the entrance to the park, and Doc said, There’s a great road just up here for mudding. This’ll be great.
We tore up a dozen roads, a half dozen open fields. Somewhere along the line, we took a wrong turn. I can’t recall what was playing on the radio, but it must have been a country song.
We stood on the road, looking at the truck stuck half way out of a fucking bog of a ditch, knee deep in wet mud between two sodden fields of cow-shit and lentils. Fuck, I said. Fuck, said Doc. It was pitch black, the fields soaked in fog. It was just after five in the morning.
We’d been drinking with Danger all evening, picking tunes and hitting lines. The mud in the road had eaten both of our shoes, and we were both wet up to the knees. Well, Doc said. We better get walking. We pointed ourselves at the closest light in the haze, back up the road we’d come barreling down minutes before, and started walking. This was still September, but it was fucking cold.
Up the road about a mile was a spread with a few cars out front and a garage. Walking there, through the thick, heavy mud, we wondered about coyotes. That’s all we’d fucking need right now, said Doc. Fucking coyotes. But we didn’t hear any.
We stood in the drive way of that first house, under the white light, and we looked around us. There’s no tractor here, Doc said. We need a goddamn tractor to pull that truck out. We turned around, headed back for the road.
There was a light up ahead, about another half a mile. The road was less muddy, but it was getting colder. Shit, one of us would mutter every dozen steps. Shit, shit. We got to the second place. There was a big barn across from a nice house.
There’s a tractor here, Doc said. There was a car out front, new, clean. Look at this place, he said. We looked around, found the front door. We rang the door bell. Once, twice, three times. Someone started moving upstairs. We rang it once more, for good luck.
A man in pajama pants and a beer t-shirt came to the door, wiping his eyes.
We’re really sorry, Doc said right off. But we were wondering if you had a tractor…
Our truck got stuck, I said.
Real stuck, said Doc. We’re really sorry…
The man sighed. I don’t have one.
Shoot, Doc said.
But I can drive you boys to St. Norbert. Just wait around the side.
We started thanking the man up and down, but he closed the door on us, sighing a second time. We went around to the side, stood beside the car. Five minutes later the man came out, shoes on, sighing again. He opened the car, handed us each a plastic shopping bag to put our feet in. We got in.
It was a fifteen-minute drive to St. Norbert through mud and fog. I didn’t know where in hell we were, and the man just chuckled at us, said, Shit boys, good luck getting her out. Five minutes out of the Norb we passed three coyotes lurking in the ditch. Their eyes burnt red in the head-lights.
The man dropped us off outside of the St. Norbert Hotel, where we called CAA. The air was foggy and cold. The cement was, too. The St. Norbert Hotel restaurant opened at eight, on Sundays. It wasn’t yet seven. The lady who was opening the joint up let us in, and poured us coffee while we waited for CAA.
We waited for that CAA truck for an hour and a half, and they sent their biggest asshole. The first thing the driver said was, Don’t spill that coffee in here. Just about the first thing Doc did, was spill his coffee.
On the phone, Doc told CAA we were two kilometres from the highway, an out right lie. We passed what CAA thought was the two klik mark, and he said, This is way farther than two kilometres off the highway.
I’m covered, said Doc.
CAA mumbled on, but kept driving. We passed a long, high chicken wire fence. I wonder what that’s for, I said. I hadn’t seen it the night before.
Doc looked at the fence, the ground you could see through the fog behind it. Looks like a tree farm, he said.
It was the county dump.
CAA got us to the road that the truck was stuck off. He stopped the tow-truck, got out. You couldn’t hear him grumbling over the engine, but you could tell he was. He stomped around in the mud for a minute, then came back to the truck.
No way, he said. No fucking way I’m getting stuck in that, too.
He turned around, and drove back to the Norb. We sat there, stewing, hungry, and cold. You’re lucky they didn’t send the rook, the driver said. Then you’d be real stuck. Real. Stuck. Lucky.
Doc shook his head, bit his lip.
CAA dropped us off where he’d picked us up. We closed the door, and he drove off without a word. We walked back into the restaurant, and sat down at a table out of plain view.
Cold as we were, we were both sweating out booze by this point. The waitress, bless her, brought us breakfasts, and more coffee. We read the Sun, put it down more than once in disgust. This fucker can’t even finish a proper sentence, Doc said. I drew speech bubbles on the photos. Clever things like, I shit my gitch, and Puke.
We called everyone we knew in the city that owned a car. There were few of them. Fewer answered. We called 411 and got the numbers to random individuals our relatives knew in the area, but it was the same. Nobody would help us out, not even on God’s day. Fuck, Doc kept muttering, thinking about work on Monday morning, out of town. Jesus fuck. The regulars eyed us incessantly.
Finally we got a hold of Danger. We’d dropped him off at home about five hours after earlier. He sounded haggard on the phone, confused as to what we were even talking about.
I’ll come get you, he said, after a pause. Let me get my life together.
After he hung up we drank more coffee, and complained about the CAA driver, about the damn water in the ditch, about the Sun. An hour later, I called Danger back.
Shit, he said. I fell back asleep. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.
An hour later, Danger showed up. We were back, standing in the parking lot beside the highway in our bare, muddy feet. When he rolled up, Danger just laughed. We gave him directions, and he drove out, back down the muddy road for our third time that day.
We got to the road that the truck was off, covering Danger’s car in mud. We all got out, and Danger shook his head, incredulous. Oh my God, was all he said. We turned around, drove up to a couple farms along the road before a third farmer agreed to pull us out, for fifty bucks. We ponied up the cash, and he walked over to the barn. His son, whose eyes seemed to bug out, vacantly, from his forehead followed, to get his quad. We drove back down the road.
With a chain, the farmer got the truck out, no problem. Bug-eyed boy watched, helped with the chain. He war real friendly, but Christ, his eyes.
Water poured from the doors when we opened her up. We all got into the truck, drove out of the mud back to Danger’s car. I jumped in with Danger.
Doc said, Well, thanks Danger.
Everybody gets one, Danger said.
Well, said Doc. I’ll see you boys back in the city?
Yep, I said.
When do we play, again? Doc asked.
I checked my phone for the time. In about two hours, I said.
Shit, said Doc. The sun had burnt away all the fog, and it was clear out, and hot as hell. I’ll see you in two hours.
Next day, Doc locks his keys in his truck cleaning the beast out at work. When he called CAA, guess who shows to open her up? No fucking kidding.
Yep, said Doc. We’re fucked.
Doc got out the driver’s side door, and I got out after him. The passenger side was taking on water. I tried to push the truck out, Doc working the gas, but to no avail. We were fucked.
The whole goddamn thing had started when we dropped of Danger at his place. I was only a couple blocks from my place. Doc said, Do you want to go find some mud?
Yep, I said. That was that.
Doc drove on south out of town, passed the park on the perimeter where that dude got raped last year. Now, Doc aint a doctor, he’s just a buddy of mine whose advice and prescriptions I follow when it suits me. This was such a time.
We passed the entrance to the park, and Doc said, There’s a great road just up here for mudding. This’ll be great.
We tore up a dozen roads, a half dozen open fields. Somewhere along the line, we took a wrong turn. I can’t recall what was playing on the radio, but it must have been a country song.
We stood on the road, looking at the truck stuck half way out of a fucking bog of a ditch, knee deep in wet mud between two sodden fields of cow-shit and lentils. Fuck, I said. Fuck, said Doc. It was pitch black, the fields soaked in fog. It was just after five in the morning.
We’d been drinking with Danger all evening, picking tunes and hitting lines. The mud in the road had eaten both of our shoes, and we were both wet up to the knees. Well, Doc said. We better get walking. We pointed ourselves at the closest light in the haze, back up the road we’d come barreling down minutes before, and started walking. This was still September, but it was fucking cold.
Up the road about a mile was a spread with a few cars out front and a garage. Walking there, through the thick, heavy mud, we wondered about coyotes. That’s all we’d fucking need right now, said Doc. Fucking coyotes. But we didn’t hear any.
We stood in the drive way of that first house, under the white light, and we looked around us. There’s no tractor here, Doc said. We need a goddamn tractor to pull that truck out. We turned around, headed back for the road.
There was a light up ahead, about another half a mile. The road was less muddy, but it was getting colder. Shit, one of us would mutter every dozen steps. Shit, shit. We got to the second place. There was a big barn across from a nice house.
There’s a tractor here, Doc said. There was a car out front, new, clean. Look at this place, he said. We looked around, found the front door. We rang the door bell. Once, twice, three times. Someone started moving upstairs. We rang it once more, for good luck.
A man in pajama pants and a beer t-shirt came to the door, wiping his eyes.
We’re really sorry, Doc said right off. But we were wondering if you had a tractor…
Our truck got stuck, I said.
Real stuck, said Doc. We’re really sorry…
The man sighed. I don’t have one.
Shoot, Doc said.
But I can drive you boys to St. Norbert. Just wait around the side.
We started thanking the man up and down, but he closed the door on us, sighing a second time. We went around to the side, stood beside the car. Five minutes later the man came out, shoes on, sighing again. He opened the car, handed us each a plastic shopping bag to put our feet in. We got in.
It was a fifteen-minute drive to St. Norbert through mud and fog. I didn’t know where in hell we were, and the man just chuckled at us, said, Shit boys, good luck getting her out. Five minutes out of the Norb we passed three coyotes lurking in the ditch. Their eyes burnt red in the head-lights.
The man dropped us off outside of the St. Norbert Hotel, where we called CAA. The air was foggy and cold. The cement was, too. The St. Norbert Hotel restaurant opened at eight, on Sundays. It wasn’t yet seven. The lady who was opening the joint up let us in, and poured us coffee while we waited for CAA.
We waited for that CAA truck for an hour and a half, and they sent their biggest asshole. The first thing the driver said was, Don’t spill that coffee in here. Just about the first thing Doc did, was spill his coffee.
On the phone, Doc told CAA we were two kilometres from the highway, an out right lie. We passed what CAA thought was the two klik mark, and he said, This is way farther than two kilometres off the highway.
I’m covered, said Doc.
CAA mumbled on, but kept driving. We passed a long, high chicken wire fence. I wonder what that’s for, I said. I hadn’t seen it the night before.
Doc looked at the fence, the ground you could see through the fog behind it. Looks like a tree farm, he said.
It was the county dump.
CAA got us to the road that the truck was stuck off. He stopped the tow-truck, got out. You couldn’t hear him grumbling over the engine, but you could tell he was. He stomped around in the mud for a minute, then came back to the truck.
No way, he said. No fucking way I’m getting stuck in that, too.
He turned around, and drove back to the Norb. We sat there, stewing, hungry, and cold. You’re lucky they didn’t send the rook, the driver said. Then you’d be real stuck. Real. Stuck. Lucky.
Doc shook his head, bit his lip.
CAA dropped us off where he’d picked us up. We closed the door, and he drove off without a word. We walked back into the restaurant, and sat down at a table out of plain view.
Cold as we were, we were both sweating out booze by this point. The waitress, bless her, brought us breakfasts, and more coffee. We read the Sun, put it down more than once in disgust. This fucker can’t even finish a proper sentence, Doc said. I drew speech bubbles on the photos. Clever things like, I shit my gitch, and Puke.
We called everyone we knew in the city that owned a car. There were few of them. Fewer answered. We called 411 and got the numbers to random individuals our relatives knew in the area, but it was the same. Nobody would help us out, not even on God’s day. Fuck, Doc kept muttering, thinking about work on Monday morning, out of town. Jesus fuck. The regulars eyed us incessantly.
Finally we got a hold of Danger. We’d dropped him off at home about five hours after earlier. He sounded haggard on the phone, confused as to what we were even talking about.
I’ll come get you, he said, after a pause. Let me get my life together.
After he hung up we drank more coffee, and complained about the CAA driver, about the damn water in the ditch, about the Sun. An hour later, I called Danger back.
Shit, he said. I fell back asleep. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.
An hour later, Danger showed up. We were back, standing in the parking lot beside the highway in our bare, muddy feet. When he rolled up, Danger just laughed. We gave him directions, and he drove out, back down the muddy road for our third time that day.
We got to the road that the truck was off, covering Danger’s car in mud. We all got out, and Danger shook his head, incredulous. Oh my God, was all he said. We turned around, drove up to a couple farms along the road before a third farmer agreed to pull us out, for fifty bucks. We ponied up the cash, and he walked over to the barn. His son, whose eyes seemed to bug out, vacantly, from his forehead followed, to get his quad. We drove back down the road.
With a chain, the farmer got the truck out, no problem. Bug-eyed boy watched, helped with the chain. He war real friendly, but Christ, his eyes.
Water poured from the doors when we opened her up. We all got into the truck, drove out of the mud back to Danger’s car. I jumped in with Danger.
Doc said, Well, thanks Danger.
Everybody gets one, Danger said.
Well, said Doc. I’ll see you boys back in the city?
Yep, I said.
When do we play, again? Doc asked.
I checked my phone for the time. In about two hours, I said.
Shit, said Doc. The sun had burnt away all the fog, and it was clear out, and hot as hell. I’ll see you in two hours.
Next day, Doc locks his keys in his truck cleaning the beast out at work. When he called CAA, guess who shows to open her up? No fucking kidding.
Obama-Rama is set to ride the Hillbilly Highway here. The President-elect is set to make his first official visit after Inauguration to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Harper's (minority) government has done all but lick the ball's of the outgoing administration since they won a minority mandate from the out-going Liberals, what, four years ago? Harper's backwards good ol' boy schtick worked wonders with Dubya's Cowboy-themed policies on everything from the Environment to Foreign Affairs, but I wonder what shift he will take to get in the good books with Barack... How will Steve spin his own administration when dealing with the "Change-a-Coming" style from South of the Border? Time will tell...
Regardless, there will be many things on the table when the Obama train rolls into town... Afghanistan, climate change, a failing economy, & massive energy projects in the north of North America will undoubtedly be a part of the briefing, & it will certainly be interesting to see where Obama stands on these issues as regards Canada's involvement. Will he be for destroying the northern boreal forest for cheap oil, or the displacement of indigenous nations in Canada's Far North to satisfy demand for natural gas & arctic sea access? Will he lean on Steve & Co to continue sending Canadians to die for pipeline-safety in Afghanistan?
Again, time will tell....
It would be a shame for all the Canadians who championed Obama to have to deal with the bitch-slap of reality that is likely looming. Regardless of what Change is Coming for the US, our southern neighbours are likely to have energy security high on their priority list, which, anyway you slice it, comes down to Bad News for anyone in the way....
Regardless, there will be many things on the table when the Obama train rolls into town... Afghanistan, climate change, a failing economy, & massive energy projects in the north of North America will undoubtedly be a part of the briefing, & it will certainly be interesting to see where Obama stands on these issues as regards Canada's involvement. Will he be for destroying the northern boreal forest for cheap oil, or the displacement of indigenous nations in Canada's Far North to satisfy demand for natural gas & arctic sea access? Will he lean on Steve & Co to continue sending Canadians to die for pipeline-safety in Afghanistan?
Again, time will tell....
It would be a shame for all the Canadians who championed Obama to have to deal with the bitch-slap of reality that is likely looming. Regardless of what Change is Coming for the US, our southern neighbours are likely to have energy security high on their priority list, which, anyway you slice it, comes down to Bad News for anyone in the way....
Hillybilly Highway
check out some old articles on Federal Canadian Politics, printed in The Manitoban over the past year!
I'll be posting similar things up here now, so keep yr eyes pealed if yr interested in what Harper & Co. are doing today to fuck over yr rights & freedoms while digging future Canadians so far into an environmental & economic piss-hole that the government services they are cutting today will be sorely missed tomorrow.
http://www.themanitoban.com/columns/hillbilly-highway
check out some old articles on Federal Canadian Politics, printed in The Manitoban over the past year!
I'll be posting similar things up here now, so keep yr eyes pealed if yr interested in what Harper & Co. are doing today to fuck over yr rights & freedoms while digging future Canadians so far into an environmental & economic piss-hole that the government services they are cutting today will be sorely missed tomorrow.
http://www.themanitoban.com/columns/hillbilly-highway
Hey Tony, play me some fucking mountain music
E & M buzzed up to my room at 2.30 Saturday morning. "We got someone with us," they answered to my drunk "HELLO?!" "Get down here & let us know if he's cool or not, so we can get him a cab or something." I went down the 12 floors to the lobby, where E & M were holding up a stumbling, bleeding, pissed drunk kid who, after a blurry moment, I recognized as Tony Two-Fist.
"We found him on the ground in front of the Albert," E told me.
"His buddy's ditched him," M said, "N someone beat him up good."
"If he's too fucked," said E, "We'll call the poor bastard a cab."
"Are you too fucked up, Tony?" I asked the kid, sticking my own wasted face into his.
Tony's head swung, slow, up to face me. "Who are you?" he asked me. He was missing a tooth (from before) & his face was bleeding (from the nite).
"Load him into the elevator," I told them. "If he gets rowdy, we'll throw him out."
We brought Tony up to my place, where a half dozen of us had already powered thru a couple flats of Lucky, & were getting into the third. When E & M had buzzed me down, we'd been on a frantic cell phone search for drugs. Someone got into a bottle of left over malaria pills, & the box of Sudafed was going around, at this point. Tony got put in a spot on the corner of a couch, & somebody cleaned up his wound for him, before he could get blood on the sofa & the white floor. He sat there, mumbling, mostly, & passing out, for rest of the night.
I remembered the kid from a number of punk rock basement shows I'd thrown at my old house, a nearly condemned pigeon coop of a place that barely stands on its hundred year old crumbling foundation. I doubt it will last the winter out, thank God I don't live there anymore. Dan does, though. For now.
Dan wasn't here, but Tony was. His poor face was a mess, again. Every time I seemed to see the poor bastard, it got worse. He got it regurlarly from fists, guitars, microphones & stands, empties, boot heels, you name it. Since I'd first seen the kid, & the crew of young fuckers who were just getting out to these shows, at one of our basement gigs that got out of hand, & since then I've seen the fuckers every time I mistakenly venture out to some show that might, possibly, allow minors to get wasted- or at least, made it easy for them- looking for something I can never remember & never, as of yet, seem to stumble across, these days.
Tony Two-Fist, here, he's become that kid every single time. That one you've seen at every fucking show, who all look, in glaringly obvious bad light, no matter where you go or how far you think, maybe you were away from it, the same. That fucking kid, stumbling around, drunk & stinking, who runs into you & spills your drink, drooling, half blind. Grunting, Arg! Belching, Punk rock! Gurgling, thru burst, bloody lips, Kill!
He was out for most of the night, & the rest of us finally found our drug connection, & spent the night snorting pretty decent cocaine on top of stomachs full of cheap beer & random prescription malaria pills. When that ran out, at about 7 in the morning, a few tabs of pure MDMA were pulled out, from somewhere, & crushed, & things kept going till almost noon, when, everyone else long gone, I kicked E & Tony out, telling Tony he couldn't sleep there no more.
He grumbled some thanks, & they left. I remembered, then, earlier, before the full haze of madness & blasting country music, him telling me, You aint punk rock.
Yr goddamn right I aint, I told him, laughing. Play me some fucking mountain music!
E & M buzzed up to my room at 2.30 Saturday morning. "We got someone with us," they answered to my drunk "HELLO?!" "Get down here & let us know if he's cool or not, so we can get him a cab or something." I went down the 12 floors to the lobby, where E & M were holding up a stumbling, bleeding, pissed drunk kid who, after a blurry moment, I recognized as Tony Two-Fist.
"We found him on the ground in front of the Albert," E told me.
"His buddy's ditched him," M said, "N someone beat him up good."
"If he's too fucked," said E, "We'll call the poor bastard a cab."
"Are you too fucked up, Tony?" I asked the kid, sticking my own wasted face into his.
Tony's head swung, slow, up to face me. "Who are you?" he asked me. He was missing a tooth (from before) & his face was bleeding (from the nite).
"Load him into the elevator," I told them. "If he gets rowdy, we'll throw him out."
We brought Tony up to my place, where a half dozen of us had already powered thru a couple flats of Lucky, & were getting into the third. When E & M had buzzed me down, we'd been on a frantic cell phone search for drugs. Someone got into a bottle of left over malaria pills, & the box of Sudafed was going around, at this point. Tony got put in a spot on the corner of a couch, & somebody cleaned up his wound for him, before he could get blood on the sofa & the white floor. He sat there, mumbling, mostly, & passing out, for rest of the night.
I remembered the kid from a number of punk rock basement shows I'd thrown at my old house, a nearly condemned pigeon coop of a place that barely stands on its hundred year old crumbling foundation. I doubt it will last the winter out, thank God I don't live there anymore. Dan does, though. For now.
Dan wasn't here, but Tony was. His poor face was a mess, again. Every time I seemed to see the poor bastard, it got worse. He got it regurlarly from fists, guitars, microphones & stands, empties, boot heels, you name it. Since I'd first seen the kid, & the crew of young fuckers who were just getting out to these shows, at one of our basement gigs that got out of hand, & since then I've seen the fuckers every time I mistakenly venture out to some show that might, possibly, allow minors to get wasted- or at least, made it easy for them- looking for something I can never remember & never, as of yet, seem to stumble across, these days.
Tony Two-Fist, here, he's become that kid every single time. That one you've seen at every fucking show, who all look, in glaringly obvious bad light, no matter where you go or how far you think, maybe you were away from it, the same. That fucking kid, stumbling around, drunk & stinking, who runs into you & spills your drink, drooling, half blind. Grunting, Arg! Belching, Punk rock! Gurgling, thru burst, bloody lips, Kill!
He was out for most of the night, & the rest of us finally found our drug connection, & spent the night snorting pretty decent cocaine on top of stomachs full of cheap beer & random prescription malaria pills. When that ran out, at about 7 in the morning, a few tabs of pure MDMA were pulled out, from somewhere, & crushed, & things kept going till almost noon, when, everyone else long gone, I kicked E & Tony out, telling Tony he couldn't sleep there no more.
He grumbled some thanks, & they left. I remembered, then, earlier, before the full haze of madness & blasting country music, him telling me, You aint punk rock.
Yr goddamn right I aint, I told him, laughing. Play me some fucking mountain music!
MAY 2010
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MARCH 2010
FEBRUARY 2010
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