New Years Day on the border of Buffalo, NY. I'm sitting in a customs waiting room with approximately 200 Norwegian hockey players. I'm hungover, I've had my pockets emptied and I'm being hassled by a squat middle aged customs clerk with a .45 revolver strapped loosely to her hip. When she laughs the beads of sweat on her face drip lines over her brow and the revolver shakes in its holster. She is now dealing with us after our good friend Akil handed us over to her trust. I'm looking over at Jack and then at the Homeland Security logo taped over whatever American agency used to run customs. There is a plaque on the wall commemorating the open border between Canada and the US. I have been fingerprinted three times and am not allowed to make phone calls or talk to Jack. Jack looks like he is about to flipout. Happy fucking 2006 you sons of bitches.
New Years eve and I'm at some party I can barely remember now. I vaguely remember a big rosedale house filled with the extended band of downtown dropouts that form the backbone of what should be recognized as a "displaced people". The vortex of the improbably attained critical mass in the summer of 2005 and now a community of like minded freaks and outcasts, a few hundred in total has come together. Ofcourse, none of them get along.
Instead the hoard twists and turns with new vendettas and alliances, always meeting up together at mostly the usual places. Meeting up isn't usually about being happy to see someone, its more about making sure everyone else knows you're still around. So the crew of the good ship Queen Annes Revenge arrived at the party standing proudly as one of the factions in this roving leper colony. Adopting the standard pillage that is associated with any house party. I had decided to leave early, a good choice considering mention of a gunfight shortly after my departure. There are many things I do not need to see first hand, small arms warfare is one of them. And if I do ever have to see it, then it better be during work hours and not on my own time.
I arrived at the girls house. I had been with her since Sept. But on arriving at her place she was lying on the ground with a mirror covered in white powder. She had done lines of Ketamine. This drug is marketed as a cat tranquilizer. But it also happens to be nearly exclusively the drug of choice of gay men and my ex-girlfriend. It makes me wonder if the company that makes it has ever wondered why its profit margins go up around the time of gay pride day. So on finding out that my girlfriend had decided that her New Years eve would be skyrocketed to the level of a supreme party by stuffing cat tranquilizer up her nose, well I was a little unhappy with my choice in company. My ability to seek out and befriend the most awful human beings on this planet can only be as a result of a curse put on me in Spain by a gypsy when I was 17. Either that or I shouldn't throw stones. The only word of advice I can give on that topic is, Never try to beat a gypsy at their own game. They take that shit seriously.
That was the state of affairs surrounding me like flies on a dead raccoon. 4am on the first day of 2006 we sat reflecting on an already bizarre night when depression set in. My apartment at the time was the place to be. It rivaled any freight storage facility or garage in the area. When I rented the place it was described as a "studio flat". I have since gone back to the original advert and edited it into some semblance of reality.
Tenant wanted for Soviet-Hip style apartment: Semi-Furnished.
Plenty of standing room for one, this 10ft by 10ft box is equipped with all the modern conveniences of 1950's Tajikistan. Enjoy sleeping on couch cushions while your head and feet touch the opposing walls. Kitchen sink (located conveniently adjacent to cushion bed) gives the impression of tap running water to impress the third world. Don't be fooled though, the only water from this sink is the leaking pipe that will soak you in your sleep, giving you a refreshing nights rest. Refrigerator is climate cohesive (warm room, warm fridge). Bringing new tastes to your food (if you have any). The hot plate that serves as your oven comes equipped with open concept wiring. Remember, only one light can be on if hot plate is in use otherwise the power shorts out. When you wake up wet and refreshed why not have a refreshingly cold shower? It'll keep you on your toes when every 34 seconds the water changes to scalding hot and leaves burn marks on your skin. Windows are taped in place for your security. Night Owl? Hope you like roommates, because you'll be bunking with atleast 2000 roaches, 5 mice and atleast 2 rats. They stay up late and will tend to wake you up. The party lasts all night as you feel your fellow tenants swiftly crawl over your feet at night. If your claustrophobic filthy apartment drives you insane, Indulge! Go ahead and scream! Your new neighbor on the left is a low key convicted sexual predator and your neighbor on the right was just released from CAMH mental hospital and will enjoy talking at you through paper thin walls about her feces.
All this and more can be yours for $550 a month! Can't afford it? No problem! Your mincing homosexual landlord will be more than happy to making passing remarks regarding the exchange of sexual favors for rent! No point in locking your door, Most people have a key so its like an open concept criminal adventure!
Call Today 1-900-Sex-Party (just ask to speak to George!)
So Jack and I sat around being depressed drinking whiskey in my Christmas Light decorated storage shed of an apartment when the idea hit. Coming up with a solution to the worst night of the year to date required inventive thinking. Self-diagnosing advice is what led me to the vortex in the first place. And it was what was going to get me out. Hopefully.
6:50am and We're sitting on a Greyhound bus. We're still trashed and hoped that by bringing some whiskey with us we could keep a hangover at bay for a few hours atleast. All precautions were taken care of. The ever resourceful Bob was on call incase something bad happened. And despite the fact that the night before, someone had slipped 6 hits of LSD into his drink, he was willing to assist if shit hit the fan. Shit, That's like going through a train wreck and saying "Ok, things get bad we've got insurance".
10:04am (I think). Jack and I have always had infinite confidence in the decency and hospitality of our southern neighbor's. They've always been friends and willing to even go out of their way and even to your country of origin just to say hello. Look at Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq again, Panama, Vietnam, Korea. So when we arrived at the border without passports we assumed without a doubt that this was going to be a short stop. However, we didn't count on how spooked they've become. We also didn't count on Check-Point Akil, The Syrian-American customs agent.
3 hours into our lovely conversation with Akil, our bus has left and we've been entered into atleast three government databases as possible "evil-doers". Maybe I'm not giving the Americans enough credit. Maybe they could smell trouble coming. For all I know, they saw the plagues of locust and storm clouds that accompany me well ahead of time. None the less, I learned a valuable lesson. The only thing more dangerous than an armed American is an armed American bureaucrat. So by 2pm Akil had us more ways than a sorority girl looking for inventive ways of paying tuition. Fingerprinted, Photographed, questioned. Our id had been confiscated, pockets emptied and I believe at one point they even made us do a little dance. We sat in the waiting room while 200 Non-English speaking identical Norwegian clones had their immigration cards filled out for them by the authorities. And finally someone came and spoke to us.
"you're still here?"
After hours of waiting and being processed they had forgotten about us. Well I suppose it's a better option than Guantanimo Bay, but the comparatively liberal immigration laws in Cuba would have been a nice change from the Orwellian policies that the United States has instated. Eventually they gave us back our id and shipped us back to the Canadian side. 2000 Mexicans enter the United States illegally each month and yet I can't even get passed the border for a day trip. I think it comes from years of insulting their god. Regardless, we were back in Canada. Beautiful downtown Fort Erie. Home of Steve's ROBO-MART. This border truck stop was the last bastion of my hope. As Jack and I walked toward the ROBO-MART sign I prayed to Baal that somehow this truck stop was secretly a transforming Japanese Robot standing guard against the heathen Yanks. That if we only explained to its controller/store clerk how we were treated, that he would immediately change into a motorcycle helmet and colourful spandex ski-suit and take command of ROBO-MART to smite our enemies.
The 15 year old kid at the counter was playing stupid and the forced blank expression on his face indicated to me that apparently I wasn't "in" enough to talk about the stores secret abilities. A cold wide-eyed stare also indicated to me that I shouldn't mention the Japanese robot again in public. Well Fuck it. With an hour to kill, Jack and I walked to the banks of the half frozen Niagara river staring silently across the water to the land of the free that rejected us so completely. I've dealt with rejection before, but usually it was due to muttered drunken comments about women looking pregnant. I would never make such a comment about Lady Liberty, even if she is a silver-backed coug' at 120 years old. Hours later we were off the bus in Toronto. Scorned by the lessons of God. Dejected and in shock, we sat in a coffee shop with the overwhelming feeling that we should both go to our respective homes and think about what we had done. We saw nothing of the birth of punk, the economic engine of the western world, That rotten apple. Instead we do what we do best, we made it into a story.
"God bless America". I'd believe it. Only a total bastard like him would. God is an American, and I am afraid of Americans.
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