Traffic Life : Passionate Tales and Exit Strategies
Edited by Stephan Wehner
An Anthology
 
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 154                         Goulais River     By three I pass out on the couch, jostling for space with the dogs, my head a total mess. The prospect of tomorrow: driving through Northern Ontario, almost certainly with a killer hangover and a vehicle that might well fail me at any time, haunts my dreams.    Considering everything though, I sleep more or less sound- ly for four hours until the house rouses. All around me are people hustling here and there, cheerful, bacon frying, dogs growling, jokes, laughing, teasing ... and I'm a wreck. Don't these people get hangovers?    Fade the rest of that day to black and return to Chet's yard. Nine hours later. Same people, same place. Same fucking problem.    In short: I got up, pulled myself together and drove off. Things went smoothly for a couple of hours until that same burning smell returned, and an almost carbon-copy of the day before ensued. I pull over. Call Chet. He and Cindy come get me. We go back to the house, drink beer and start trying to figure it out.    So here I am, sitting in the same lawn chair, drinking with the dogs again, talking to Amelie about the Leafs while a couple of lads try to figure out what my problem is. (Aside from the fact that I am an idiot for buying an ancient muscle car, trying to drive it across the country, and that I am currently missing work and pissing my family off). Kojak figures it has to be that the shoes are rubbing against the wheel well, and eventually a consensus emerges: it's the brake shoes. We can either get a pair shipped tomorrow from the Soo, or maybe someone will drive me into town to get some. One way or another, I'm not going anywhere West tomorrow, and this situation is now definitely going to cost me a coupla hundred, even though Chet says he'll only charge me for the tow again.    The evening unfolds pretty much the same as the one before. Like Jeff says: 'We drink anyways, but its sure good having a visitor to party with.' This time the watermelon wine comes out too, and we get more guns and Little Bill sets up the targets in the woods. Then late, we all troop across Highway 1 to Kojak's place, to shoot pool and test
  
                          Matt Hern                       155  his 'wine' out.    The evening is a good one, but this time I don't sleep well. Not even close. I go to bed in Kojak's basement guest room, and its already getting light out. The watermelon stuff is not sitting well with me. I want to chuck, my head is ruined, I'm freezing, I have no blankets, I can't stomach the moose that Cindy fed us for dinner, I need water, there are mosquitoes everywhere. I'm a mess.    I don't actually sleep at all. I enter that passed-out too- drunk semi-sleep state for a few hours, and my thoughts turn very evil. I am full of rebuke and self-recrimination. I hate my car. I want retribution. Why did I buy it? Why not take a train? Now I am losing money and time and patience in big chunks.    I lie in misery, my car, the traffic and the highway re- lentless in my head. I'm hating cars, the noisy, polluting, expensive motherfuckers. The greenhouse effect. Global warming. 650 million cars world-wide emitting four billion tons of carbon dioxide per year. And the bastards are re- producing like rabbits. A new car every second. 60 cars a minute, 3,600 cars an hour, 100,000 cars a day. The num- ber of new cars is increasing by about 38 million a year. Pollution, noise, money, urban disaster, death? the bas- tards are coming for us. The cars are winning the battle and we're not even fighting. I, in particular, am losing badly here.    Now I'm up. Full of righteous anger. I hate my pathetic little 'muscle' car even more, but I am propelled by righ- teousness, I'm on fire with justification. Someone is going to pay. Something is going to pay. For my predicament. For this whole mess. If I don't start turning the tide, who is?    I reel out of Kojak's basement, tear on some pants and my boots, can't find a shirt, no matter. The early Saturday morning sun dazzles me, but its only six-thirty and still cool in the Goolie. Staggering through the carport I reach into Kojak's truck and grab his wrap-around sunglasses.    The highway is empty. Chet's house is deadly quiet. Either everyone is asleep, or maybe out fishing already. Whatever. I'm on fire, and my prey sits on its own, within

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