Ditch Doc

Like the other night, when I finished up a ten hour lab day in Calgary, stumbled out into the snow, and wandered through the streets looking for a burger joint. No burger joint appeared, and I slowly became aware that I had wandered myself into the ritziest part of what should be a far more down-to-earth city. Music thumped vaguely out of every door, and as club followed club, I wondered how much I was willing to pay to stop walking. I was about to bypass yet another polished, unfriendly house of overpriced dim lighting when I glanced out of my hood and saw the first approximation of my state of dress in the last several blocks. Our paths converged just as a sleek black overcoat stood out of the Mercedes at the curb. My fellow itinerant sized me up: unshaven, hands in pockets, no car, coat too heavy for the chinook. I watched his gaze shift, and as I passed the car, the first words I’d heard in an hour of glittering lucre were: “Hey, can you spare some change?”

The hostel’s heating system had broken during the day, so we sat in our coats in the second floor kitchen, watching a bitterly cold Edmonton wind tear down the dark street below. A greying Newfoundlander, eyes droopy with sixty years and one very hard night, weakly swayed in his chair and rambled aimlessly across the steel strings he’d forced upon a tiny classical guitar. An enormous smooth-headed Djiboutian, wrapped to the chin in a new pea coat and matching black scarf, sat back with his hands in his pockets, quietly observing from across the table. Between his smattering of English and mine of French, we exchanged names and a few broken sentences before lapsing into silence. The drunken rambling took on words and direction: it had become an improvisation on love, directed at the only dedicated audience member, whom I now knew as Pierre. Pierre flashed a black Cheshire grin and chuckled. “I love you too.” We exchanged an amused smile as the Newfie struck out on the theme of a heartbroken girl. Pierre felt around for the right English: “He makes up his own music…directly,” he said. The singing stopped. “No, no…” slurred the musician. “It’s ahff de coff.”

One of the little modifications to your daily routine in a northern winter is two stops at every stop sign: one before the road to check for cars, and one before the sidewalk to check for snowmobiles.

Greydog phone tree: “Using your telephone key pad, please enter the first four letters of your destination city.”

Ditch: “3678″

Greydog: “For Fort Assiniboine, press 1 … Fort Macleod, press 2 … Fort McMurray, press 3 … Fort Nelson, press 4 … Fort St. James, press 5 … Fort St. John, press 6 … Fort Saskatchewan, press 7 …

Glad I wasn’t looking for Fort Vermilion!

…when you pick up the phone to call the station for your schedule, and can’t remember the number.

Got this one from the notorious Russian. Let’s file it under questions you hope a cop will NOT be asking you on your way to a shift you’re about to be late for:

“Afternoon. Mind if I see your pilot’s license?”

The decidedly gray nature of my work status that summer after grad began to make me uneasy, and I wondered how to explain to Cait that I’d be missing her grad, and probably her wedding as well. I liberated all the charm at my disposal and contemplated how to make it sound perfectly natural to apply for a year’s work visa, stay in the States for three months with approval pending, and then go home before getting an answer. I carefully crafted a response that would truthfully answer the customs official’s question and give her a sense of confidence in my honesty, all without suggesting any further lines of questioning. I swallowed hard on the inside, smiled casually on the outside, and said ”Because I went home.” Bullseye. We returned immediately to pleasantries, and she explained that that anonymous college had passed over the check box for people who’ve just gone home and ticked the one for crack dealers and members of Hamas. My name well on the way to being back on the feds’ don’t-watch list, I breathed a sigh of relief and headed for the food court. I polished off the single worst egg and cheese bagel in the universe, slept through the half hour delay for engine trouble, and woke up in the skies over St. Paul Minneapolis. In closing I have one question: can anyone tell me what those huge white mushroom-looking things are all over the city?

There was nothing for it: I booked myself onto the last flight of the day to leave town, at a price that, had I laid out a couple of weeks previously, would have gone a good way toward buying a new, non-explosive car. No matter; the overwhelming relief of hearing that my ticket was booked and that only divine intervention could now prevent my getting to Edmonton was almost worth every penny. I was asleep before we started to taxi. The next morning, I made my way to US customs, hoping my luck would change. The official was friendly at first, but a nearly visible cloud of doubt fell across his face when he swiped my passport. Containing his fear, he escorted me into the terrorist triage room and directed me to the laser fingerprint scanner/mug shot taker, and thence to a seat. I watched a “random bag check” victim come and go, so I knew I wasn’t one of them. I tried to see if the suspicious looking Asian ahead of me would be arrested or just denied entry. I looked back over my chequered past, wondering which heinous act had finally caught up with me. Had I been fingered as the guy who accidentally poisoned all those California poppies at the trailers? Had someone found out about our unlicenced show in New York? Was it the Serbs? My name was called. The interrogater started by exchanging pleasantries. “Yeah right,” I thought. “Cut to the chase.” “After college, you terminated your Optional Practical Training visa early.” Her gaze turned to steel as she stared searchingly into my eyes and said “Why?”

It’s generally accepted that going from a town of five thousand to a city of five million is a shock to the system. Not that I’ve noticed. On the other hand, going from having no Catholic Friends in town to being surrounded by them is like having your soul melted down and recast.

Having secured a ride back to town for myself and the remains of my car, I began to look for ways to get to Edmonton in 16 hours on no notice. It was looking like hitchhiking when a friend called and told me there would be an airvac to Edmonton the following morning. Since the plane would be empty on the way down, I could hop on for the ride. This was even better than my original plan. I went to sleep happy.
At shift change, I called dispatch to confirm the plan. “No, we ended up doing that flight from Fort St. John.” In a panic, I phoned every company at the airport, even the fuel depot. No flights until the afternoon, not by anyone. I started exercising my thumb. My flight that day was toast, but I could still hang out at the commercial scale shack and wait for a trucker headed south. After two hours, I was comfortably acquainted with the scale operator and a good part of Fort Nelson’s local shipping, but I wasn’t any closer to Edmonton. Then the operator had to close early, and my latest plan had gone the way of all its forebears.