Compunction Junction

Rueben deGroot and All Kinds of Trouble (another epic)

9:43.  Two hours before my first class.  It's my last week of school before my summer vcation.  I'm pretty excited about that.  It's been raining all but two days for the last 2 weeks, but no matter with holidays approaching. 

Everytime I have a vacation coming up, I think back to April 2001 and the messed up experience I had hitch-hiking.  After returning from a hitch trip from Edmonton to Saskatchewan, I had heard from my musician buddy (Rueben) that we had a gig in Vancouver in two weeks. 

The two weeks passed quickly enough.  We were leaving Deadmonton on a thursday early morning with two guitars, a mandolin, an amplifier and a pack.  The trip down was uneventful enough.  We got picked up by this middle aged woman by Jasper and the three of us road loaded (drank as we drove) for about 3 hours.  In retrospect, it wasn't the smartest thing to do but no one was all that messed up: Roob and I had most of the 12 that we got.  In Kamloops, we were picked up by a trucker at around midnight and we moseyed into Surrey (to Roob's parent's place) at around 3am.

Roob's parents live on this fantastic little hobby farm and it was nice to spend some time going down into their gully and gettin' some blackberries and watch their two gay incestual cats mess around in his brother's barn/art studio.  We went into Vancouver in early mid afternoon.  I was struck by how green everything was in Vancouver in the middle of April.  Edmonton, by this time, had seen the snow melt to be replaced by flattenned dead grass that looked not too unlike a desert: bare branches with no leaves made clattering sounds.  Edmonton sans snow is sunny, but Dull.

Vancouver, on the other hand, was vibrant, lush, sensual.  It smelled like a rain forest and looked like a postcard, even though it was overcast and spitty.  I didn't see the sun the whole 36 hours I was there.

We met some friends that Rueben had chanced upon at a open stage a month before.  They lived in a fantastic little house with a beautiful set of steps which is a style in Vancouver that was necessitated to restrict the number of rats in the houses.  Somewhere I have some pictures...

We got ready.  We played out show at a "Smoke Easy": A place where smoking pot, though not technically legal is "not really noticed".  It was called "Blunt Brothers".  It was an institution among pot smokers travelling in, and native to Vancouver: That despite the incredibly unimaginative name.  The show (on a Friday night) went fine.  It was great to hang out with these amazing musicians who, in a few months, would become my neighbours.

I had to be at work on Monday and, though keen to stay in Vancouver for ever, hit the road on Saturday morning at around 8pm.  We went out to Surrey and then walked to the highway.  We waited on the side of that 3 lane for about an hour and a half.

As we were standing their with our thumbs up, we noticed a 10 tonne with flashing lights on the roof, safely but quickly, dart across the three lanes to mosey up beside us.  We openned the door "Where're ya headed?" croaked a rather deshevelled lookin older native fella.

"On our way to Jasper.  Think we can get a ride?".

"Sure, put yer stuff in the back and climb aboard".

We do that and get in.  He pulls off.  This truck is nice.  This truck is ......niiiiiiice.  Virtually everything was digital OR push button: EVEN the transmission was merely a set of glowing buttons.  There was a big crane on this bad boy too: In my construction days, we called this type of huge flatbed with a crane a "Picker Truck" though i'm not sure what the technical name is.  In any case, this truck looked to be very, very expensive.  We were not sure how such a messed up old far managed to get his job driving this truck but why ask questions when you got a free ride non?

Then we noticed the dude didn't have any shoes, or socks.

Then he started talking.

Then our ears perked up.

"Yeah, so I'm not really keen on pickin' up folks on account of my last experience", he mumbled.

With all innocence, we asked, "Oh really? What happenned".

"Well I picked up some guy and he pulled a knife on me eh?  We ended up running the border into Washington so he could find his kid and take him back".

We didn't expect to hear that.

Silence.

"Terrible day to be stuck outside eh"

"Well, it was worse yesterday.  It was a bit chilly today but nothing too outrageous," Roob had said to placate the man.

Somewhere along the highway twisting through the lower mainland, there is a huge lot that is basically a strip mall with car dealerships.  There was also a Tim Hortons.  He suggested we pull over and get some coffee.  He obliged.  While driving around in the parking lot, this fella got pretty confused and we ended up in the middle of a bunch of Miatas with this huge truck.  He backed up.  He parking this huge truck, NOT in the place designated for large trucks, but up the curb and into this abandoned lot.  He stayed around the truck, we went in to get coffees and donuts. 

Came back out, he was talking to another fella.  Saw us.  We went to the truck, loaded back in, and then spent about 15 minutes trying to exit this (admitedly) tricky lot.  In the end, we went the wrong way down an entrance road and he forced about 4 cars to back up.

By this point, we were feeling a bit sketched.

To get back to the highway, he missed a turn and we ended up driving along a service road parallel to the highway for about 15 minutes before he realized that the two didn't meet.  So he doubled back.

It's pushing 3 hours and we still haven't got passed Chilliwack.  When we finally got back onto the highway he really let fly:

"You see that stuff there? [a new sheen in his eye we hadn't noticed before]  You see these cars spinnin' on by?  You see this stuff in front of you?  That is real.  That stuff behind you, man, that ain't real?  It's all wires and circuits, there is nothing there".

"Oh yeah".

"Yeah, and you think that because one of them is back there, they don't exist, you don't see them cause they're behind you."

Slight pause.

"You know I got this computer at home eh?  And I talk to him?  You know his name?"

Roob and I exchange uneasy glances and start to figit a bit "No, what is it?"

"Fred.  Yeah, Fred.  "Fucking Retarded Electronic [couldn't think of the "D" word]"

Roob and I, "Haha.  Nice."

"Yeah, Fred tells me that there ain't nothing back there.  This stuff in front, it's..."  He stops for no real reason.  "Actually, this is my buddies gas station right here, I'm just gonna pull off here".  The man makes a right turn and is now driving perpendicular to the highway we should be on.

Roob and I now feel pretty uncomfortable: Well, I shat my pants.  Roob looked pretty collected.  We point out, "Hey dude, we have to be driving that way along the Highway."

He replies, a little more coherently than before, "Oh yeah, you're right.  I'll just turn up here".  About 10 minutes later he makes a left turn so we are again, driving in the right direction, perpendicular to the highway.  

We follow the road which makes another hard left and forces us to drive directly towards the highway and as we see the highway ahead, Roob, in all his quick thinking glory said, "Oh hey man, I think my aunt lives just over that hill.   You can just let us out here man, this would be nice to have some of my aunt's cookies".

"Oh yeah man" I reply, "That sounds gooood!"

The driver looks pretty uneasy but says, "Uh... Okay.  I'll pull over here".  He pulls over and we get out stuff out. He drives away, we remember the license plate.  There is a police man about 200m down the road giving someone a ticket.  My buddy walks over to the car and the effer just pulls away.  About 5 minutes later another cruiser comes and we talk to him.  He gave us a ride about 10 minutes into Chilliwack and sounded grateful.  He tells us a good place to hithhike and takes off.  He comes back 20 minutes later and asked us to come in and make a statement.  We did just that, though we felt pretty uncomfortable walking around the police station with pot in our pockets: not much but more than you want to take into a police station. 

There is MORE to this hitchhiking story: Like our exciting night in Clearwater; our close quarters in the hotel, how we managed to skyrocket up to only 2 degrees of Kevin Bacon, and the exciting conclusion of this mess with this wackjob.  I'll try to get it down later.