Luckily, nothing was under the floor mats except for dust and a candy wrapper. After a couple more minutes of cursory checking he was finished and said I could go. In the end, after my pejorative comment about the lax security in his country, the grilling hadn't been so bad.
It was snowing pretty hard now and the windy mountain road that led to the small town where my whore comfort would be was heavily trafficked with logging trucks, even at 1am which it was by this time. The going was slow and treacherous as they thundered past me without a care, throwing heavy snow slop onto my windshield temporarily blinding me until the windshield wipers made their next pass a second later.
I made it down the mountain safely and limped into this town. All would be okay now, my broken heart safely in the arms of a woman paid to hate me (and not in the fun way) while sucking my dick. That would make me feel so much better, I just knew it would. Unfortunately, I was mistaken about the rampant border sex available all across Canada. The sexiest thing in this town was a cheap hotel. No strip clubs, no whore houses, not even any street walkers out there in their parkas. I stopped at the local diner for a cup of coffee. No whores there.
I was alone. With myself. Nothing to distract me from the sadness. Remember, I don't drink, drug, smoke or rage so if I can't act out with sex.... Well, there's still eating thank God so I can stave off enlightenment for one more day at least. I got a box of Canadian doughnuts and a pint of Canadian milk. They didn't even have American products in this town to Mcsooth me. I got a hotel room. It was fucking pathetic. Dirty, a chained TV in the corner on the ceiling so small and far away I couldn't even see any of the three Canadian channels it got. I chowed on the box of doughnuts being careful not to touch anything and planned. Should I keep driving North tonight or sleep in this shit hole and maybe feel better in the morning.
But then, as they are want to do either to sabotage a nice day or make a bad one even worse, a paranoid thought slammed into me.
Wait, you idiot. You can't enjoy this Canadian winter trip because every second you're here, in the back of your mind, will be the fear that when you cross back into the states, they'll find that kilo of coke in the side panel of your truck the rappers left behind. You can't live with that kind of stress! You better go straight back to America right now and just get it over with one way or the other!
By now, having read me for months, most of you know that these thoughts in my mind are absolute truths to me but just in case, because they seem so far fetched or amusing to you and you can't really believe anyone would actually make decisions based on them, let me remind and assure you that they are no joke to me when they occur. They are as real as any. Usually more real.
I checked out immediately. It was around 2AM I think and I drove as fast as I could back up the slippery snowy mountain, avoiding a new set of logging trucks that flashed bright lights and snow drifts in my face which made the accent really scary, and approached the American border shack adjacent to the Canadian one I had just been through 90 minutes before.
I knew this looked way weird and I was actually now going to be a prime suspect, a straggly looking white guy (not ethnic so even more "out of profile" and therefore more strange and apt to get a PC backlash) having been in Canada for less than two hours. But I came up with a fool proof explanation. There was only one guard in the shack by the gate. Freedom in America was five feet away, just past a flimsy wooden crossing plank that would be risen by the push of a button in a few minutes after I bonded with the Custom's Officer who looked like he had left his day shift at Denny's, changed uniforms and now was our country's first line of defense there in Montana.
"Hey, how's it going?" I said chirpily, but not too chirpily as not to seem as though I was trying too hard, wanting to play him.
"Good thanks. American citizen?" He asked pleasantly enough.
"Yes, Sir." I said proudly, stars and stripes shooting out my ass like sweet smelling farts wafting his way, displacing the bad aroma of his cheap cup of coffee.
"Photo ID please." I handed him my passport. I always carry it with me when I travel even in country, never knowing if I'll meet a girl I'll want to fly off with, or want to fly off alone to try to meet a girl.
"How long where you in Canada?" Excellent. I could spring my genius explanation on him.... Which actually was partially the truth.
"Two hours! HA!" I said with a smile, searching his face for any reaction that belied he would end up on my side. I whispered the next part in that manly way two men whisper even when there's no one else around for miles so that the manness of the manly things they're speaking about can land in a manly way.
"I was bored and figured I might find some strip joints over the border in Canada so I took a little drive but there wasn't shit over there." I tried to sound a little country, roughing up the edges of my usually refined educated east coast speech.
I came off sounding like a bad actor I think but even me sounding like a bad actor is better than a bad actor sounding like a bad actor so in the end I probably just sounded like what I was going for.
He looked up at me after looking through my passport for a second. A slightly delayed reaction to my story, but with a smile.
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah. It was dead over there. I didn't know. I'm from New York. I've just been on a little road trip for a week and figured that over the border like in Montreal, they'd have some girls, you know?"
"No problem." He handed me back my passport. I was good to go. Whatever drugs accidentally left in my car by the previous renters that would land me in jail for life would have to go undetected this night and tomorrow I could go to the nearest Hertz and trade this piece of shit in for another car that even I was sure would not have drugs in the side panels.
"Thanks a lot. You have a good night," I said and put the care in drive.
"Would you just pull your vehicle into that structure for me, Sir." What?! I looked up, and with the grace of a demonic synchronized swimming team, a tightly bunned frauline, white with death and without even the faintest traces of any smile lines, stood twenty feet away manning the button that was raising the steel shed gate of a hanger that would be my grave.
"Is there a problem?" I asked?
"Just a routine check." My stomach immediately became nauseas as if I had just chugged a quart of rancid milk after the best batch of chocolate chip cookies and hadn't stopped until the end of the carton and at that point tasted for the first time that it had turned.
It was 3AM. I was exhausted and had a really bad feeling about this. Like vomit that must come out now, I wanted to object but I could just tell that any word I said at this point would add hours to my stay and heaps of shit to my already guilty case. I pulled the car into the garage sneaking a look at the German-executioner-without-any-make-up-on as I passed her. She was a stone killer. Expressionless. Once inside, she shut the mettle gate on us. Every rumbling CHUNK CHUNK CHUNK as it descended equaled another ass raping I would soon be enduring in prison. I was so fucking dead.
The man guard entered the kill chamber through an adjacent door and locked it behind him. They both put on rubber gloves. I longed for the Canadian Mountie. Couldn't he do this inspection too?! Or just talk with these folks and tell them I was okay?
"Get out of the vehicle Sir and stand over there," he said as he snapped his rubber glove tight and approached me. He didn't seem like he worked at Denny's anymore.
To be continued...
Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 6:55 AM