They stopped on top a hill just outside Espanola. The car was packed with stuff but they squeezed me in anyway. They had started at Wisconsin and had just been hitchhiking themselves, across Newfoundland. Apparently they acquired a car (I didn’t inquire) and were headed for Winnipeg.
The girl seemed tired but they guy was really friendly. Maybe too friendly, were they fighting?
There was a lot of stops at construction sites and I nodded off a few times. The radio was droning away in a monotone, half AM talk-show half static, that no one was paying attention to, so I offered some tapes for them to choose from. The girl chose my Mr. Bungle tape because the other side of it was labeled “Make Your Momma Puke Mix”, a mix tape a friend had made for me back in Barrie. We listened to the whole Mr. Bungle side and they decided it was too weird for them. I tried to explain the other side was a completely different style but they weren’t really listening due to their stop and go construction malaise.
As the grateful passenger I offered up full control of the music, my scissored and taped Pot o’ Gold chocolate box I’d fashioned into a compact, space efficient tape case and packed with used cassettes at a hock shop in Sudbury (I discovered I could fit in more by crammin them in upside down on the rightside up ones). They chose Cypress Hill and played it side to side about five times until the machine inevitably ate the tape as we rolled into Sault Ste. Marie. They apologized profusely but I didn’t really care. I still had Billy Idol. I offered the silver lining “Hey, now I got room for a NEW tape”. They dropped me downtown Sault where I walked to a hostel as they went for dinner. I ran into them leaving town as I strolled out of the hostel, baggage free-what a luxury. Maybe I’ll run into them in Winnipeg……
This I wrote in Sault Ste. Marie:
Walkin down the Street
in my bare feet
Left my boots at home to cool down ’cause they were hurtin’ me
Hope you caught the irony
it’s what inspired me
To write a song about
the walk down to the
beach and back in agony
Disappearing the Quick 