Chapter 16

There are several alternate endings, When I find a way to set it up and you can choose the one you like best. In the mean time please leave any comments here, if you see something in the story that didn't make any sense, or if there are some unanswered questions that the story needs to explain.

Chapter 15

Chapter Fifteen

I often wondered what became of Tom. I would hope that he is off sailing the world somewhere. After I left for the west I only ever got second or third hand news about him. He would be at this or that persons place for thanksgiving or Christmas, then, no one sure exactly whose place he had been to for Christmas, until, eventually, no one had heard from or about him for a long time. Then the answers to how Tom was doing became "I don't know." The last I had heard was that no one had any idea where he had gone off to. Years passed and no one ever heard from him again.
Tom's life was one of hardship, after being drafted for the Vietnam war as a young teenage boy, he learned that he was going to be sent into the worst battle zones of the war if he did not sign up for a second tour. Tom did not respond well to such black mail, and while back stateside he ran into a group of Mennonites who had a way of getting Americans across the border into Canada.
He was only a boy, barely able to shave, and real world adult pressures were upon him. The Mennonite groups made it all seem so easy, and so right. Tom was very impressionable; he had seen how the US was not even trying to win the war. He had seen them put grown men on the moon, while sending boys to die in the bloody rice paddies of Vietnam. It angered him that the United States had it attentions divided, going to the moon was fine, but he felt it was owed to those boys that were sent to kill and to die, that they should at least get full undivided attention of the nation that sent them. They could go to the moon anytime.
It was all set up; it was so easy, But Tom was uneasy about it all. But they were persistent, and when they drove up to him on that rainy Chicago morning they told him "All you got to do is get in…it's all set." With it all brought down to that one simple decision it didn't seem like any big deal. The choice was to either get in the car, or not. Getting into the car seemed like no big deal he had gotten into lots of cars. He knew he did not want to go back to Vietnam, the thought sickened him, and the prospect of it hung over him like a dark cloud. Yet he did not want to turn his back on everything he knew, his friends, his family, his country.
In his mind he was fully prepared to go back to Vietnam, until he ran into these people he had not even considered anything else. Perhaps it was the rain; perhaps it was that all it seemed like was that he was just getting into a car, out of the rain and cold. Whatever it was, he was surprised to see his arm reaching to slam the car door shut as he sat down. The car immediately sped off, as if to imply that there was no turning back now. Tom tightened his grip on the door armrest and turned towards the rain swept window and rested his forehead against the glass. He was terrified.
They approached the Canadian border, Tom was now more unsure than ever; he wanted out in the worst way, and he made them stop the car. He got out and leaned over with his hand on the left rear quarter panel of the old Ford Fairlane. He could not hold his stomach and began throwing up, he had never been so nervous in all his life.
They coaxed him back into the car and continued toward the crossing. "Stay cool" the driver instructed him. This made Tom even more nervous, he knew he was anything but cool now, he was sure he couldn't pull this off. "Hold on…something doesn't look right….who are all those guys? There are way too many people at that border house…this isn't right, this can't be right…something's up…." The driver warned.
"Get me out of here!" Tom screamed in as demanding a voice as he could muster.
"No wait…there is no place to turn around…"
"Damn you! You son of a bitch! You turn this car around now! Drive right over that curb! Do it! Do it now!" Tom was freaking out big time. He was sure that they knew he was coming that it was all some kind of set up. "Go!" Tom reached over the back of the seat and cranked the wheel hard to the left. "Floor it!" he shouted.
The car jumped and bounced over the curb, and they sped away from the border crossing. Tom had decided it was a bad idea and wanted to forget it all. But they calmed him down and convinced him that they knew of another crossing where the guards were sympathetic to their cause. They drove all night, and made to a border crossing some where in New York State that led to Quebec. Tom was asleep when they crossed the border; they woke him up as they crossed the Saint Lawrence River at Laval. "You’re officially a deserter now!" they told him. Tom never felt so dirty in his life than he did right then.
He looked back and watched the American sky disappear over the horizon behind him. He could never go back. If he did, it meant Leavenworth prison for sure. If he turned back now all it would be is absent without leave, but he was not sure where he was or where he was going, he was committed now, whether he liked it or not. He was just a young kid, still in his teens. These were older people, he had been taught to respect his elders, he was sure they knew what was best for him.
Tom never grew to love Canada, the only good thing he found here was Nancy, and now she was gone. Since we have lost contact with him we all feared that he was rotting in some prison cell in Leavenworth, but I hoped he was sailing the world in some beautiful little skiff, and in my heart, that is where he is. I’m glad he doesn't know that I am in here.

The sound of the guard bringing my food was enough to bring me back to reality. I was probably never going to see more than a pint of water at a time again for the rest of my life, let alone a river or a lake, or an ocean. It was good to let my mind wander like that, I had resisted it at my first coming to this place, it seemed wrong for some reason then, but now, it was a new friend. The years of letting my brain vegetate in here had taken its toll, and so my little reminisce caused me to need to sleep. I slept better that night than I had in a long time.
But then when I awoke I found myself slipping into the depression of my reality. I spent the day resisting any memories that might distract me from what was real. It was a false sense of well being that I got from retreating into my mind, and some how it bothered me, as if it was a tease. Besides it took time from my wallowing in self-pity. At some point even wallowing in self pity gets old, and so I found myself day dreaming about days gone by so long ago and so far away from this place.

My sister Nancy had a soft spot for me, I’m sure of that. One time, I wanted to get this bike that a kid in my class was selling, but my mom said that there was no way I could get it. One weekend we came home from the cottage, and Nancy and Tom were there at the Milliken house when we arrived. Behind the living room curtain was that bike, it was a wonderful surprise. Nancy and her boyfriend Tom had gotten me the bike. Or rather, Nancy made Tom buy it for me. So Tom, wanting to impress Nancy bought it for me.
The image of Nancy's pretty face beaming with a big smile as she pulled the curtain back to unveil the bike is burned into my memory forever. It is one of the few contexts I can recall her in that I can picture her face. She became immortal in that act, at least to me, her memory lives more vivid on that day than any other. If she had not done that, I may not be able to recall her face so well. So it was two gifts in one.
My dad had died in May, and Nancy played guitar at his funeral and sang for him. She played some of his old favorites, and several new songs that Nancy had wrote. My dad’s health had failed rapidly due to the onslaught of diabetes. He had been neglecting his medication for many years, opting rather for faith that God would heal him, I am sure God healed him of something, but it wasn't diabetes, and it slowly and mercilessly killed him.
Less than a week later, Nancy fell into a coma, caused by a cancerous tumor in her head. She had cancer for several years, ovarian cancer, and it was malignant. In the seventies medical science had little success with this kind of cancer. Myself, I knew little of her plight. I only knew what I had overheard as I walked into a room where my sisters and mom were talking. Upon my arrival they would cease their discussion. I would ask what was up, but they would say nothing, or that it was none of my business.
I never pressed the issue; it was not my style to do so. But, when Nancy died I felt cheated somewhat. I learned post mortem what she had been going through, I never had the opportunity to offer any support or even prayers; I had no idea that her condition was so grave. I knew she was somewhat ill at times, but I was always told that she had been sick, but God had miraculously healed her. I took those words at face value, and so I was unprepared when I heard she had died. Again, I am sure that God healed her of something, but it wasn't cancer.
As a family we were unprepared to accept the fact that such a tragedy could happen to our family. We were the family that saved others; we were the ones who the bullets always missed. We were the ones who were exempt from death, we always came through; it was our thing. While the rest of the world got killed slipping on banana peels, we were defeating the dark forces of nature it self. This could not happen to us.
It was decided that Nancy's death was only a test, that God was testing us. My sister Margaret and her husband and a few of my other sisters and some new church people they had met all went to the hospital morgue to get Nancy and raise her from the dead. I can only imagine the kind of scene it must have been down there. Thankfully, I was not allowed to go with them. The hospital staff must have been very troubled, but were gracious to the grieving family and took it all in stride. I actually expected them to arrive home with Nancy, all happy and alive.
Tom who had not missed a minute by her bedside was now conspicuously absent. This was perhaps for the best; I don't know how he could have handled the madness. Tom had no one to turn to; his sister and mom were in the states, so I don't know where he went off to. Tom's mom had never met Nancy, and now she never would, this compounded Tom's pain.
A few weeks after she sang so beautifully at dad’s funeral, she was back at the same funeral home again, this time in the casket. Yet still we were not ready to let her rest; in the funeral home the effort to try to raise her from the dead continued. Hours and hours of calling on God to restore her to life, but she was dead, and it seemed she was going to stay that way. I’m sure God raised some part of her to life, but it was not anything that was still in that casket.
There was no one to sing and play guitar for her, all the talent in the family died with her. People came from miles around, lots and lots of people. She was well loved far and wide. I had no idea that she was so popular, although it was not surprising; she was beautiful in so many ways. The death of my father was easier, he was old, his best years were far behind him, but Nancy had so much ahead of her. Over the rest of my life I would often catch myself missing her at family get- together's.
I wonder even now how she would be like, where she would have fit in to our family if she were to have lived. What kind of things would be said of her, where she would be living, or how many children she would have, who would they be most like? But these things could never be, her children's voices have never screeched above the din of our holiday crowds. I would never hear her laugh at any of my jokes.
I had driven Dads Cadillac at his funeral leading the procession, and I was doing it again, this time following behind my sister’s casket. I didn't even have my driver’s license yet. It was a cold gray day; the wind was whipping the snow in snake like wisps over the surface of the road. Things like this were not supposed to happen to us, it all seemed so unreal. I think I truly believed that we would raise her from the dead, if I hadn't, I don't think I could have functioned as well.
We all arrived at the grave site, it was cold and windy, and patches of snow were still on the ground. There were some words spoken. I don’t know what, and she was lowered into the ground. There was a plan to come back later in the day to try to raise her from the dead right through the dirt. And they did just that, but at some point in the cold dark, they decided that it was not going to happen and gave up.
Tom never came to his wife's funeral; he later told me that he couldn't face it. I was always afraid that he never has faced it. He never remarried or even dated again, I am sure Nancy approved. It was probably for the best that Tom never witnessed the madness around Nancy's death. But I am sure he is sad that he was not there when we laid her to rest. Losing Nancy left a hole in Tom that he never even wanted to fill.
How life twists and turns, Tom was just a young teenage kid, he bought himself a sixty seven GTO and souped it all up, and so he was now the cool dude in his town. Life was looking good. He loved his country, and when his draft notice came he was anxious for adventure and gladly came to serve. As with all young solders, the romance of battle becomes lost in the heavy smell of blood. Tom was no different, all he wanted was to do was finish his tour and go home. His commanding officers were beginning to pressure him into signing up for another tour. He had seen it all before, a soldier comes short, and they want him to sign up again, so they blackmail and murder him by sending him into the thick of the worst battle if he refused.
The decision Tom made that day changed the course of his life forever. He lost his life that day. He was as much a casualty of that war as any other dead soldier. A large part of him died that day, and he never recovered. Nancy was the only bright spot in an otherwise painful existence. Now with her gone, he rallied, he tried to make the best of it, but he seems destined to eat his meals in sorrow, till he sinks back into the dust from whence he came. All he ever wanted was the chance to grow up while cruising around in his goat.
Living alone and in his fifties, the promise of the pilot light of youth long since discouraged, he suffered a stroke. Paralyzed he lay rapt in his own feculence for days before any one found him. At least that’s what I heard, but in my heart he is still off sailing the world somewhere in his triple mast schooner. Perhaps if I believe that hard enough and long enough it will be true.
I although I never stopped thinking about Nancy, I suddenly realized that I could not recall the last time I had seen her, what I had said, or what she had said to me. I was around when she died; I think she was staying at the cottage with us. But I can not recall what she was doing on her last healthy day of life. I tried to strain my brain to think of it; however my memories would not reveal it to me.
All I can recall is visiting her in the hospital. When we found her room I thought it odd that it seemed to be rather out of the way compared to other rooms. It was not on the main ward; instead it seemed to be down an unfinished hall way, we had to walk around an open steel studded partition through some large unfinished vacant dark and dusty room, and then on the other side of all this; far away from the regular hospital activities was Nancy’s room.
Once inside the room it seemed like a normal hospital room; one could easily assume that there were other occupied rooms on either side of it. But in actuality it was all alone, surrounded by empty utility rooms and closets. The separation seemed deliberate, and knowing Nancy, I think that she would have abhorred it. However she was in a coma, I do not know if even knew we were there. We did not stay long; I don’t know where else we had to go.
So that was the last time I saw her. Still after all these years I could not stop the weeping. Tears flowed down my cheeks and my nose began to stuff up. It was a familiar experience. When someone close to you dies; at first you are in shock, fear and sorrow, but you have no comprehension of what you really have lost. If you did it would be much too overwhelming. Only time reveals how much has been lost, and only a fraction of it at that. Hopefully someday we will all meet again, and hopefully when we do everything we meant to each other while here on earth will count for something.

I was rattled back to reality by the sound of the guard bring me some food. Well what passes for food around here; I not really sure if it is even edible. The bucket of slop contained a rotted fish head and fish spine attached, some kind of greasy mash cooked together with what looked like soggy paper and field grass. The meals were getting smaller and smaller and worse and worse with each passing month. It had been some time since I heard them beating or torturing any of the other prisoners. Perhaps they had gotten lazy and only wanted to torture us with the food.
I tried to eat the gruel that had been prepared for me; I was so hungry that I knew I would finish it. I just had to be careful to chew the sharp fish bones to as small of pieces as possible with my last two opposing teeth. They could easily get stuck in my throat and choke me to death if I was not careful. Although the fish head was obviously beyond its expiry date, it had been well cooked, boiled in bleach of some kind by the taste of it. I think they did this to keep the rotten meat from killing us. Hopefully the bleach had killed any bacteria that were growing in the rotten fish.
As the years passed I hated that damn guard more and more. What kind of man works in a place like this? Sure he was a soldier or something like that just taking orders, but still, how can he treat us so thoughtlessly? This slop that he feeds us, does he think it is fun to watch us suffer? He starves us to the point where we will eat anything. If I could I think I would kill him. I can picture myself reaching through the slot in the door and grabbing him by the neck and choking him to death.
But I was no longer able to muster that kind of strength; I was old, weak and feeble. He had stopped picking up my honey bucket long ago and now my cell was a disgusting filth pit, my sense of smell no longer capable of detecting the foul odor of putrefaction. I think this made the food go down better though. How can they treat us like this? I seethed in anger and hatred of them, it was hard not to.
At first I had tried to be forgiving, I tried to love them like God had commanded us to. “To love our enemies” is part of what was to separate the heathen from the good. For even the heathen love those who are good to them, so to do this is no gain in Gods eyes, but to love ones enemies, that is divine. But the years had worn me out; this test was more than I could bear. But my situation was no test; it was just the way it was.
I don’t know when it happened; I had tried to love my captors, I had tried to be obedient and love my enemies. On the outside I would always say that I loved them, no not to them, but they never talked to me anyhow. When I got fed the slop the fed me, I would try to be thankful, even cheery; on the outside. On the inside, little by little I could not help but feel a little angry or offended at my treatment. But I would cover it up by saying that “oh it’s not so bad.” The truth was that it was so bad, denying the truth does not amount to love or forgiveness.
So slowly but surely the root of bitterness had taken hold. Now it had grown into a strong tree. Even though I recognized it I was powerless to overcome it. It had been too long, it had been too bad; even when I tried to let it go I could not, I did not really want to. Satisfaction was not something that was familiar to me anymore; I had envied this guards freedom. He was not locked up in here; he could go home anytime he wanted. Perhaps it was this envy that had given bitterness such a strong root.
I don’t know and I don’t care, I had heard of the Stockholm syndrome and at first, I think it might have applied to me, but they had no contact with me so it either never developed or had long since died. Perhaps that is it, maybe it was the fact that they had no contact with me; to them I had nothing they wanted to know about, I was not even worth them accusing me of anything. Some how that peeved me more than anything else; “Who the hell do they think they are?”
Did they not know that everyday that I was in here was a tremendous waste? If they knew me, really knew who I was I could do so much for them, but no, they just assume I have nothing to offer them. How can they do that? If I could get my hands on them I could show them a thing or two….whatever that means… I used to imagine testifying against them in a court of law when I got out of here, but now I just imagine killing them; preferably with my bare hands.

How far I have fallen, perhaps God has tested me beyond my breaking point, perhaps it is his fault.

These prison walls could hold my body, but it was my own stubbornness that imprisoned my mind and my heart. My new reality was whatever I wanted it to be, eventually all that time I spent looking at the walls and being annoyed by the flickering light seemed like a lot of wasted time. I could live again, with in my own mind. On the outside this could lead to insanity perhaps, but in here it might be the only thing that will keep me sane.
After several weeks of searching through the cobwebs of my mind looking for long lost memories I found that it no longer seemed to be entertaining me like at first. I was finding that the reality of my circumstance would seem to be contrasted against the daydreams and memories making my predicament seem even worse. It was like it all was backfiring on me. I feared that like a house of cards I might collapse into a state of irretrievable depression.
I needed an activity, something that I could do that was ongoing, challenging and constructive, but I could not think of what it could be. I did not have much to work with, a nail, and that was about it; I had no other possessions within my cell. You can't build much with just one nail. It was the quill I used to mark time on the wall, it was my fork at mealtime, it was my toothpick, and it was my q-tip when my ear was itchy. I don't know how I would have got along with out it; it had greatly improved my standard of living in this cold damp hole.
The paint and mortar on the wall made an excellent pallet to write on, it was smooth and soft, if I was careful, and didn’t scratch too deep, it didn't chip, and so I could write words legibly. It was over twenty years ago now that I had made that first mark on my cell wall; scratching each word carefully into the mortar. It is what has kept me sane and alive all this time. It took me nearly a year to carefully carve the words of even one chapter into the walls of my cell. I carefully visualized and crafted each word, and each sentence, to minimize errors, since I had no way of erasing anything. The mental discipline that this required was like medicine to my soul, without it the sensory deprivation would have been deafening.
The nail, my favorite tool and friend, is now worn down to the nub, and my fingers no longer can grip its polished head. I am now too old and too weak to attempt pulling another nail from my bed frame. The rest are all driven in flush and tight; there is no way that I will ever get another one loose. So this is the end of the line. I can hardly scratch each one of these words out with what is left of my nail; I am dropping it at each letter, and then spending hours searching for it through the slime and excrement built up on the floor. For the last three years it has been like this, and I think I have been writing on these walls for over thirty years since then.
But I don’t know for sure, time is just a rubber band in here, I have no way of measuring it accurately. Perhaps it had only been half that time, at any rate it felt like at least thirty years. The food seemed to be getting better; well actually, my standards and expectations had probably just gotten lower. Writing on my cell walls had at least been a distraction from my hatred towards the guard, now I was merely indifferent towards him.


It has been seven years since I last wrote on this wall. I have read and reread my story hundreds of times; it has sustained me all this time. But now I am too weak to stand anymore. I know that my life is draining out of me each day, and what is worse, the guard has not brought me food for over a week. I can here the cries for food from the other cells as well. It is the first sounds I have heard from them since the torturing had stopped. I don’t know why we were never able to communicate with each other, I had yelled out many times but never got any answers back; well nothing I could understand anyway.
So, feeling the end is near I decided to make one last entry on my wall. For these seven years I have cherished what is left of my nail and like it; I to am worn to the nub. But now hopefully it will serve me this one last time. First let me say that I have learned to manage my feculence build up in this place. At first it seemed unmanageable, but after a while I was able to use the decayed and dried feces to make a levy to contain the fresh stuff. And after a while it just turns to dirt. This in turn can be used to absorb more of the fresh stuff. I don’t know why I felt the need to tell anyone that, except that I didn’t want you to think that I was some slob who just wallowed around in his own filth.

Now I lay on my wire frame mesh and dream of having a mattress and a blanket, that would be pure heaven. My love of irony is fulfilled in these writings, for these very walls that entombed me provided the pallet that set me free. But now I am no longer able to read them, my eyes worn out by that damn light bulb that seems to flicker forever, I never thought that the light was going to out last me, but it still flickers and buzzes after all these years. If I am the only person who ever has read these words then that is enough. For in writing these words and in the reading of them I have been set free.
Old age is consuming me, my mind is no longer able to recall my life except for what I have written; time age and malnutrition has taken its toll. For the last few years it has been as if I was reading about someone else’s life, as my memories have faded so much that I had forgotten almost all. But now my eyes have failed me, I can neither read nor add to this script anymore. It is with great difficulty that I scratch these letters into the mortar of my cell. I don’t know how I will cope living much longer. It was the writing and the reading of this book, which sustained me, but now, that has been taken away.
I have even forgotten what all I have written on these walls, I know what I had written, a documentation of all my memories, but I can’t even recall that much. Now I spend my time day dreaming about my only memory that remains vivid in the cobwebs of my mind.
I am a little boy just five or six, I am sitting on the concrete steps of our house on Kennedy road. The sun is high and hot, and I am playing with a small dinky toy car on the sun baked concrete. I know that I would have rather been anyplace else at the time, but I don’t now know where that would have been. To me, looking at it now, that hot sun beaming down on my back would feel pretty good. That is now my only memory that I have, and so I will relive that moment over and over as long as I have it.

Chapter 14

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Ever since that experience I found that I could never fall asleep if I had the slightest inkling that I should not for any reason. I have since called it my three circles in tall grass syndrome. I came up with that name after I had watched this springier spaniel make three complete circles before it would lie down anywhere to go to sleep. I guess I could have called it my springier spaniel syndrome.
I was very weary, and I could not imagine enduring much more of anything. The rest I longed for would surely bring death. Yet still, it would be so easy to just lie down and die. I knew I had to keep trying until not a muscle remained that could support my frame. I was determined to fight for every moment until I lost consciousness and it was all taken out of my hands. God himself would have to take my life; I would not lie down. I was in such misery that secretly I hoped I would soon fall down and be unable to get up; perhaps then I would just peacefully drift off to sleep and unbeknownst to me never wake up. Until then I would push on.
It was difficult not to trip over the jagged and uneven surface of the frozen pack ice. I found myself face down on the jagged ice. I closed my eyes and tried to retreat into the depths of my beleaguered mind, hoping that some where in those dark recesses that I could escape the discomfort of my reality. But this only made things worse; I found that deep in the recesses and back rooms of my mind a song was playing. It was one of those things that just will just keep singing in your mind and you can’t get it out. I recognized the song; it was a Bony M song called Brown girl in the ring.
Brown girl in the ring tra la la la la!
There’s a Brown girl in the ring tra la la la!
And she looks like something something something!
Every note, every instrument rang perfectly within my ears, but the words were unclear, yet this repetitious tune was relentless and continued to plague me; I had awakened a monster.
I forced myself to my feet, and struggled to move forward. But all that would happen is that I would lose my balance and fall on my face. Each time I fell; I tried to see if I could get up, and each time that I had made it to my feet, I was disappointed. I just wanted a way out, an exit that was not my choosing. By this time, the relentless tune in my head was driving me mad. Sometimes, I would sing along with it, hoping that once I had done that, and completed the song that perhaps a new song would replace it. However, it was remorseless; “Brown girl in the ring!” had burned a path through my mind.
I had fallen again and this time skinned my shin against a hard piece of rough cut ice, it felt sickeningly like I had broken my leg, and I think I hoped I had actually broken my leg. I again struggled to see if I could get to my feet, I was not trying as hard this time, I was hoping to convince myself that I could not get up. However, this time as I lifted my head to catch the horizon to find my balance, something caught my eye. Is that a light? I could hardly allow myself to believe it, but I thought I saw something.
I stared intensely, I could see what appeared to be a light, but was it? Was the light just something in my head? Was it something in my eye? Damaged retina or just strained eyes, I squinted and tried to focus on the light source. I was afraid that there was nothing there, that all I was seeing were flashes in my brain, not anything that was real at all. But no, there actually was something there; it was a strobe light, like one might see on a radio tower or something.
The more I looked the more I saw, there was a small dark mass rising out of the ice, and it had a strobe light on it! What is it? …a weather station? Or is it just a navigation buoy? Whatever it is it would be better than nothing. This renewed my strength and so I made for the light. Focusing all my energy towards this one goal finally gave me the distraction I needed from the discomfort of my circumstance; no longer could I feel the cold or how weak and tired I was. Yet still, that unyielding song continued to assault the recesses of my mind; Brown girl in the ring tra la la la la! It taunted me as if to see I still had no chance.
I was tired and weak, and so I kept tripping and falling, losing my balance for no reason sometimes and just falling over sideways. These times however, I feared that I would not be able to get up each time. I at least now had the hope that I would, but with the hope came the fear that I could not. That which we fear most seems to overcome us, and this was no different. Like some predictable nightmare, I found myself falling to the ground. The faint dark blue horizon suddenly seemed to roll vertical, and I found myself slammed into the ice hard onto my side, my temple scrubbing hard against a jagged chunk of ice.
Wincing with pain I tried to get up, but I could not. In my panic, I seemed unable to form the motor commands to perform the slightest movements of my muscles. I was as if paralyzed. Why can’t I get up? What is going on? I could not seem to form the proper thoughts to make my limbs move. What once was automatic or subconscious was no longer occurring. I wanted to put my hands down on the ice and push myself up, but I could not even make my arms twitch. It was as if I was frozen in the night terrors of my youth, desperately trying to scream but unable to even produce a pathetic squeak.
What’s wrong? I wondered; I can’t remember how to move! I can’t recall how to think the thoughts that make things move! I laid there terrified more and more by the minute, all the time that song mercilessly playing in my head. I was consciously trying to do things that were normally automatic; I had to somehow just let them happen, but I was unable to. My sudden fear of the worst had caused panic, and my panic was blocking my mind from doing simple automatic commands.
I have to relax, calm down, breath, that’s it, I can breathe okay; now look around, yeah that’s it; see how easy it is to move my eyes? Now the same way, try to move your arm, its okay don’t think about it, think about something else, anything think of anything, anything at all. I consciously tried to reconnect the broken motor circuits in my brain. But I couldn't even think of anything else but moving my arms and legs so I remained paralyzed. Then I began hear that song become louder and louder, it seemed to be rising against me. Just like that long legged man in the nightmares of my youth it seemed to stride towards me, getting louder and louder with every step. I felt all those old fears return once again seeking to overcome me. I saw myself as that little boy standing firm against that long legged monster; terrified but courageous.
It was as if he was still standing guard after all these years. He turned and gave me a look, there was a fire in his eyes that caused all those fears turn to anger and then all of a sudden I found myself struggling to my feet. It was surreal; it was as if I was back in the Milliken house that morning after I had first stood down that monster of my nightmares. I couldn’t help but wonder; was it ironic that those nightmares of my youth that I thought were pure horror actually were the instrument of my salvation this day? Was it all planned? Did it all have this purpose? It was too much to comprehend; it’s one of those things that you only think about this once.
I made way for the structure, concentrating on my balance, focusing on my target. Each step I took moved me closer; I watched my feet move as fast as they could. After several minutes I gauged my progress. It seemed that I should have been a lot closer than I was. Pushing on further, and still I was not as close as it seemed I should be. How far away is that thing? I realized that it must be a lot farther away than I had anticipated, and a lot larger. After another half-hour of forced hiking it still seemed to be very far off, but it was noticeably larger now, the outline of a ship could clearly be seen against the midnight sky.
This excited me even more, a weather station or buoy would have been most likely unmanned, but a ship would have a full crew. I feared that it was moving away and I would not catch it, but for now it seemed to be stopped. My legs were killing me; lactic acid was building up in my abused muscles. I had to push on, but again I was feeling defeated, I was too tired, and the ship was even farther than I had calculated it could have possibly been.
It took over an hour of dogged determination to get close enough to the ship that I could allow myself to believe I might find rescue. The ship now loomed large before me, it was huge, and it blacked out the whole horizon from my view, yet I was not yet within shouting distance. I pushed on and when I got closer I could see that it was an ice breaker, it was stopped for some reason, but I had no way of knowing why. I began to shout as loud as I could, but I could scarcely make enough sound to reach the high decks.
I approached the side of the ship; the ice was packed tight against her huge hull, as she sat tight in the swath she had cut. I began to walk the length of her, calling out as loud as I could as I went. Wherever I could reach I pounded my fist against the ships thick hull, but I knew that I could not penetrate it with any sound, it was hopeless. I was sure I would die right there out side the ship and that she would steam off and never know I ever came calling.
About halfway along the side of the vessel I found a deck; it was no more than four feet off the ice. It was recessed back like the porch on a duplex house. There were footsteps in the snow on the ice. People! There have been people walking on the ice outside the ship! I was so excited; this meant that there was some easy way into the ship from the ice surface. I reached up and grabbed the handrail and pulled myself onto the lower deck.
There was a bulkhead door at the back of the recessed deck way. I tried the handle; the steel was cold and grabbing it turned my already numb hands into clubs of frozen flesh. I struggled to work the handle, and once I figured out which way to swing it, it began to turn without too much difficulty. I swung the hatch inward and felt the blast of hot air flow over my body. I quickly stepped in and closed the hatch tight behind me. I leaned my back against the nearest wall and slid down it exhausted and spent.
My feet were frozen; I unwrapped them and let the warm air sooth them. I was so thirsty, so hungry, so tired. I had to find someone, I was afraid that if I fell asleep I still might die, I needed medical attention. I got to my feet and staggered down the long hall. It seemed to stretch the width of the ship, halfway or so were a couple of passageways. I took a look down them and found that they led to a noisy engine room, but I could see no one there.
I went to the far end and found some stairs leading up. I climbed them on my hands and knees till I got to the top where there was another hatch type door. I tried to open it but I could not, it was locked or something. Maybe it wasn't locked, but by that time I was so worn out I may have not been able to figure out which way to turn the wheel. I would have to wait for someone to find me. It was extra warm in the engine room, so I decided I would find some place to get comfortable there and warm up while I waited.
I found a little spot off the walkway where I could curl up without too much discomfort. I grabbed all my stuff and used the blankets and foot wrap for a pillow and the roar of the giant engines overcame the song playing in my head. I let the clatter of huge engines sing me to sleep. It felt like Christmas Eve, I couldn’t wait for what morning would bring. I recalled my brother Dan and me listening to the little transistor radio on Christmas Eve many years ago.
We were still living at the Milliken house; we listened intently to the scratchy little radio as giant snowflakes floated slowly past our bedroom window. Everything was covered in a fresh blanket of snow, and from our upstairs window we had a pristine view. The Disc jockeys were reporting on UFO sightings, describing them as a tiny sled and eight tiny reindeer. They were reporting on its progress and at some point they reported that it was in our area. We pressed our faces against the cold glass of the window looking to see if we could spot it. Christmas carols played in-between news reports about the sleigh. The anticipation that built up that night was never again matched, until now. I then drifted off into a beautiful deep sleep.
I woke up once or twice, just to see if it was all-real, I never thought I would see artificial light again, or feel the blast of real heat, it all seemed too good to be true. I was alive, I was warm, and I had a few aches and pains, but nothing that I could care less about now. The steel grate I was curled up on felt as comforting as a mother’s breast. It was joyful, and I knew there would be joy in the morning. I went back to sleep:
I must have dreamed a thousand dreams, my mind racing yet relaxed, and I felt so good I could have oozed right through that steel grating. The contrast from wanting to just die a few short hours earlier till now was absolutely mind boggling. And I was warm, all over, inside and out, I wasn't taking one molecule of warm air for granted, I loved them all. Soon I would be home again, I had lost the boat, spent most of my savings on it, and there was no insurance. But that's okay; I would simply cash in my Enron stock when I got back and live off that for the rest of my life. Everything was going to be all right.
I was dreaming wonderful dreams; it was as if something in my subconscious was rewarding me for finding a warm place to sleep. I was flooded in well being, my dreams were only interrupted by my decision to say, "Not now, let me sleep" and then I would drift off into the black veil of sleep. It was while resting so comfortably that I suddenly felt an incredible pain in my side, and then I felt it again worse. Then again, this time in my stomach, I doubled up tight in pain. Then I felt my head getting pounded.
I awoke and looked up to see an angry sailor kicking me with his big boots as hard as he could. The anger and hate in his eyes was piercing. He kept kicking me, I tried to protect myself, but he kicked me in the face so hard I blacked out. I came to while he was dragging me down the hall in a choke hold and he was yelling in some foreign language that I did not know. He opened the hatch to the lower outside deck. I felt the cold air blowing through it as it rushed in.
He was trying to throw me outside; he had to momentarily loosen his grip to work the door and so before he could get a better hold of me I broke free. He lunged at me to grab me, I took a swing at him, but in my poor state I doubt he even noticed. I managed to get a hold of his jacket and I held onto it at tight as I could; concentrating all my effort onto that grip. I noticed a couple of more people running down the hall towards us; I hoped that they would be on my side, but I knew this was doubtful.
Outside on the deck he was trying to throw me over the handrail and off the ship, he had me bent backwards over the railing with tremendous force. But I would not let my grip loosen, I had both hands clenched tightly to his coat, it was as if in a death grip. My feet came off the deck and I felt myself going over the rail. I hung on tight. We both crashed into the surface of the ice below and for a moment we lay stunned in a pile on top of each other.
I still held onto him as tight as I could. Enraged the man tried to get up to beat me some more, but he slipped and fell against the hull of the ship and slipped into the icy water through an opening in the ice. He fell with me holding onto him, and this rolled me over into the water on top of him. The shock of the cold water took my breath away and caused me to loose my grip on him. I scrambled to get my arms back onto the top of the ice.
While I was pulling myself out of the water the man who had so brutally attacked me was struggling desperately to escape the water himself and I could see he was panicking, trying to grab for any handhold he could. He narrowly missed the edge of the ice with his hand and disappeared under the ice. I had mixed emotions about this, my short relationship with this fellow was not going well, and he had less than endeared himself to me. Perhaps I am guilty of that, for I hesitated, it took me a moment to realize that I should try to rescue him, and he didn't have a moment to spare.
Even at that, I can't say that I was rescuing him for his sake, I had realized at that same moment that it was probably in my best interest to try to save him. I rolled myself back into the water, this time it was just as painfully cold; though the shock of it had passed. I could not feel him under the water anywhere, so I had to swim down to search for him. It was pitch black so I had to feel for him. I kept my eyes tightly shut; I feared that opening them in this cold salty water might instantly freeze them. I reached my arms about and got a hold of him by his belt loop on his pants.
I made for the surface, but he was too heavy, his steel-toed boots and heavy jacket were weighing him down. I felt him struggling but he was not focusing his efforts toward the surface, he was just panicking. I feared he would get a hold of me and in a panic death grip drown me. Luckily I had him by his back belt loop and his arms could not reach me. I tried as hard as I could, time was running out, I tried one last push, getting behind and just shoving him at the surface.
This caused me to submerge even deeper and I felt myself sliding against the hull of the ship and slipping under it. I thought that maybe if the guy broke the surface of the water his mates would be there by now to grab him. I made a mad dash for the surface, it was farther than I thought, for a moment I nearly gave up, but I gave one last kick for the surface. I broke through the water surface and into the minus thirty eight-degree weather. By the time I got a hold of the ice and dragged my self on top of it my clothes were already freezing solid. The bitter cold bit right through me, it actually felt colder than being in the water, and I felt hopelessness overcoming me.
Exhausted, I rolled away from the water. I was unsure if they had caught the guy out of the water or not. But I was so numb from the cold now I could not even feel them kicking me. The two remaining guys were now kicking and beating me perhaps venting the stress of the loss of their mate. At some point I passed out, so this is how it ends, was my last conscious thought. After that I don’t know for sure what happened, all I recall are some disconnected images.
I recall waking up at one point in some jail cell, and finding my face stuck to the floor in a pool of dried blood. Someone was yelling something at me, I tried to understand what they were saying, but I could not. I recall that the walls were all bright white, and that the lights were very bright, I'm pretty sure that it was the brig of the icebreaker I was in. The man shouting at me came into the cell and seemed very angry. I can’t face this… was my last thought, after that I don't recall anything for what seemed to be a very long time.
I awoke from my coma several weeks later. I was in some gray stone walled building, it was cold damp and drafty. There was a young nurse at my bedside, and when I awoke she greeted me with a smile. In her eyes I saw genuine concern, something deep inside me connected with that look. I found I could not unlock my gaze from her eyes; it was as if I was able to draw emotional strength from the center of her soul. I was like a dry sponge, a desiccant, and I was absorbing as much moisture as I could from her well of pity.
She spent many hours at my side over the next few weeks, and my strength returned slowly. My leg had been broken and my arm as well; and they had not been set properly and they were healing rather crooked. I also could tell that all my ribs probably had been broken in the assault. I was healing, but I was unaware of what my fate would be. My nurse spoke no English, and I didn't even know for sure what language she was speaking, let alone understand it. However, I assumed it was Russian.
One morning I woke up, it had been a good week; I had stood on my own feet, and been able to limp to the bathroom, a smelly room with a honey bucket across the hall. It was then I realized that I was in some kind of prison hospital, guards were set at the ends of the halls, and they were armed with what I think would have been AK-47 assault riffles. They watched me suspiciously as I entered the door-less bathroom.
But this would be my last day there, the pretty young nurse came in, her countenance different, she did not engage me with her deep hazel eyes, instead she seemed to be avoiding any eye contact. Had I done something inappropriate? I wondered. I tried to catch her eyes, she had been my only strength, but she briskly went about a few trivial chores, with out as much as a glance in my direction. "Water…" I rasped, pointing at my mouth, my throat dry and scratchy, but I was thirstier for her attention than for the water.
She very mechanically grabbed the carafe and poured me a cup, and placed it on the bedside table, she didn't say a word, not that I would have understood her anyway. But I didn't bother to drink it. I watched her move about the room, I longed for that warmth, that concern, her caring. I needed to know that there was at least one person in the world who knew about what I was going through, and cared. Her empathy somehow made it easier for me.
The big olive green door swung open and three armed men entered, I didn't know if they were army, police, or guards, but they had come for me. They shouted orders at me; at least that is what I assumed they were shouting. Whatever it was I had not reacted quickly enough or something, and they yanked me hard out of the bed like I was some kind of rag doll. I was surprised at how strong they were, or perhaps I was a lot lighter than I thought I was.
They threw me to the ground, jammed me against the wall, and chained my hands and feet together with ice cold hard steel bindings. They must store them outside for some reason, was my thought. They then jerked me to my feet, yelling at me the whole time. They shoved me towards the door, I turned to look at my nurse, and I saw the strain in her eyes, as if she was fighting back tears. My captors must have taken my look towards her as disobedience or aggression, and they hit me hard with the butt of their rifles.
They dragged out of the building and into the back of a waiting paddy wagon type truck. We drove along some beaten up snow covered road for several miles. From what I could see there were few trees if any, and I was sure that I was somewhere in northern Russia. We entered through some gates into some kind of heavily walled compound; I could see rows of coiled barbed wire and razor wire on the top of the high dark stone walls. They walked me into the main building; it had fortress like doors, and bars blocking every hallway. I noted that little formality was taken as they dragged me through several locked doors and barred gates till we descended deep into the lower levels of this prison.
The whole time they were dragging me through the halls of this place I protested; "I'm Canadian! I am Canadian! …Where are you taking me? What are you doing with me? I want a lawyer! Call the Canadian consulate! You can't do this to me! Don't I get a phone call?" but my cries fell on deaf ears. We made it to what must have been one of the lowest levels of the prison. We walked down a long dimly lit hallway; the light bulb that lit the way flickered, buzzed and dimmed in an annoying rhythm.
We turned a corner and came to an empty cell; they opened the big steel door, pushed me in and slammed the door hard. The deafening clang of the door slamming shut mocked me. I was locked in, my life was no longer my own. My only illumination was a small sliver of flickering light from the fizzling hall lamp that found its way through a space at the top of the heavy steel door. I checked out the cell, there was a steel wire bed frame sans mattress. Lovely. I thought, still able to respond to myself sarcastically.
As I had approached the bed I noticed that there was a puddle of water at least a half inch deep on the cell floor. I stumbled onto the bed and tried the hard steel mesh that was supposed to be my mattress. The cold damp air had access to both sides of my body; there was no real way of curling up to keep warm; a blanket would have been nice. I thought. It would be better to just lie on the floor, if it was not soaked with a smelly, scummy sludge.
I was unsure what their plans were for me, I was sure that I would be finding out soon, but till then I was stuck in this six by eight-foot cell. I guess this is better than being stuck in the toilet of my boat. I laid down on the bunk; pondering my predicament. I recalled how warm and fuzzy I felt that night I found the icebreaker and crawled on and went to sleep. My expectations were so high; I thought all my troubles were over, I was so happy. But how disappointing was the coming of morning. "AUGGGHHF!" I cried in anguish as I tallied my plight.
It seemed like days before anyone came to check on me, I wondered if the right people knew I was even in here. I had been unceremoniously ushered in, no documentation, not even a word as far as I could tell. Maybe the warden or guards or whatever didn't even know I was here? It was a great relief to hear someone coming down the hall. I called out; "Hey!" and at that moment a small opening in the door opened up and they slid in a steel plate with some kind of gruel piled on it.
I don't know what it was, but it smelled bad, tasted worse, had weird crunching shells or something in it, I rejected the meal after one bite and refused to eat it. But the jailer would come each day and check to see if I had eaten it, and when I hadn't, he just left it there. After several days I was too hungry to resist the five-day-old slop. It was obvious that either you ate it or you starved to death, any protests of the food and service would most likely be ignored.
I was glad it was too dark to see what it was. Not long after that I had the runs. This became a recurring pattern, eat, and then get the back door trots so bad that it seemed all the use of eating was lost. A leaky steel pail served as my toilet. About once or twice a month, they would come around with a barrel on a cart, and they would open the small pass way where the meals were handed through. I had to place the bucket on there, the guy would grab it and dump it out and toss it back in. it would usually do a bounce and spin and anything left in it would spatter about the cell.
Sometimes, if I was sleeping when the guy came by, he would just pass me by and I would have to wait till the next time he came to get my bucket emptied. This was the worst; it was an irregular pickup anyway, often one time in a month, so if I missed it, it could be two months.
It was hard to sleep, never knowing what time it was, no light from sun or moon made it this far down here, and that damn flickering hall light never ceased. With nothing else to occupy my days except for the fear of falling asleep and missing the bucket guy and stretching it out for another month made it all the more unbearable. I couldn’t tell if that was a valid fear or not, because my perspective was from such an unfamiliar vantage point.
I had no way of knowing how much time had passed. I heard stories of people being locked up in horrible jails and prisons, stories of them exercising every day, and making the most of there jail cell space. I would try it, but I found that I could not maintain a disciplined regiment, and my motivation was not real, I didn't want to do anything, I just wanted to wait till it was all over. Distraught, I would lie there on that steel wire bed frame and watch the flickering of the light. Eventually I found myself trying to determine if there was a pattern to it. I tried to anticipate and predict when each flicker would exactly occur. This was my only game.
Nobody came for me, I never saw a judge, or even had anyone tell me why I was here; I had not even been accused of anything. I could only assume that the guy who threw me off the ship had died, and that was why I was here. But I had no official confirmation of that; no one had said anything to me at all. I tried to reason why it all went so badly. Why did that sailor want to throw me off the ship? Perhaps he thought I was a stowaway or something, perhaps it was his job to make sure there never were stowaways on the ship; it had to be something like that.
But it seemed it was even more than that, I saw total hate and contempt in his eyes when he was beating me. Maybe he was just some mean bugger who liked beating on people when ever he got the chance that could be why his mates didn't rescue him out of the water, they didn't like him. But they were not any better; they joined in on the beating of me as well. I guess if your best motivation is hate, then you might let your mate's die as easy as you might like to kill.
Whatever it was I couldn't know, I suppose I had to just be thankful that they had saved meat all. All though being locked up in this dungeon like cell was not something I wanted to feel thankful for. My wits were at their end. I found that I feared things that I had previously not feared. For some reason death seemed to scare me now, as worthless as my life quality had become, I now feared death more than ever. It had to be some form of madness that was overcoming me.
I had lost the ability to determine what was important, what were my priorities? It seemed I could not determine them while I was ruled by fear. My biggest fear besides death was that I would miss the honey bucket guy. After that was my food, afraid that my food would not come that they would forget about me and stop feeding me. I was also afraid that the food was bad and it would kill me or make me real sick. Then I was afraid the fear would poison me, "You have nothing to fear, but fear it self" I think Teddy Roosevelt said that, but to me, in here, it was just one more thing to fear.
I knew that I had to pull it together, but my will to do it just wasn't there. It was easy to fear; to let my mind slip to where my madness became my only friend. I had to resign myself to the fact that I had killed the guy. He had drowned and that it was my fault, it was as if by my hand, if I had not resisted him, if I had just let go of his jacket, he would not have died. I have had nightmares about this day, when I was just a boy I would wake up in the terror that I had just killed someone. I would pray that I would never have to kill someone, it terrified me so.
But now it was so, and I had to live with it. To cope, I would daydream about how it all could have been different, a pleasant fantasy. I would imagine that I slept soundly on that icebreaker, and a young sailor that alerted the captain and the ship’s doctor found me. They tended to my wounds and fed me food and drink. The captain arranged for my safe return home, and from that day forward I would be sending the whole crew of that ship my thanks with Christmas cards every year.
Then, once home, maybe I would write a book about my ordeal. I would live my life different, every day borrowed time, and I would forever be in the day’s debt. Maybe my sea bug would be gone, maybe I would become a landlubber, but I doubt that. A farm might be nice; I think I might like that; some chickens, cows, maybe a horse or two…and rabbits! It would have to have a river or a large creek running through it. But now, I am just stuck here in this cell, rotting away.

The flickering of the damn light is driving me deeper into utter madness. I have long since tired of the game of trying to predict its patterns. My fears have now even left me, and so I am even more alone than ever. From time to time I could hear them taking other prisoners out of their cells. I could hear there screams echo down the stone hallways as they were tortured. I was so lonely I was jealous of them. I was so desperate for human contact that I hoped they would come for me. But they never came; I was insignificant.
There is no worse torture to your ego than to be slighted as insignificant. There was no conspiracy against me; my presence was no threat to anyone. There was nothing I might know that they cared to ask me about, let alone torture me for it. I guess my body was thankful, but my ego was destroyed, I meant nothing to anyone here. I wondered why they even bothered to feed me, but I was terrified that they would not. Months dragged into years and not a word was asked of me.
When the guards would come with food or to take my honey bucket of crap I tried to get them to talk to me, to say anything, but they rarely acknowledged me. Month dragged on into years, my hair was so long and filthy it was matted into a clumped mat and became my pillow. Sometimes it would get caught in the wire frames of my bed and yank me back as I tried to get up. I found I had to stand as much as possible, if I laid down more than I had to, the wire frames of the bed would wear through my skin and festered badly.
I had no way of knowing how much time was passing, I suspected that I was on a four day week, that is to say that my meals came about one and three-quarter days apart. The food was an acquired taste to say the least. It was less like gruel and more like pig slop. It would contain rotten apple cores on a good day. But usually it was a soggy soft old potato, some fish heads, and what I think was cabbage. Some kind of meat or dog food mixed in with some other fishy tasting stuff, but I don’t know what kind of fish or what part of a fish it might be. Sometimes I would get a banana peel or orange peels. But one time I got some crab meet or lobster, it was cold, perhaps even uncooked, but it was the highlight of my life in here. I chewed on the shells for hours after all the tasty meat was devoured. I ground the shells down to mush with what was left of my rotting teeth.
To escape the flickering of that bulb I would lay face down on the cold damp floor. This was the only way to escape it, if I laid face down on my bed I could see right through the wire frame and the light would reflect off the floor under my bed. I would lie there for hours, maybe days, how could I know? My head cradled in my arms as they blocked all light from all sides. I would stare at the floor with my eyes open this seemed to help. For some reason I needed to be able to keep my eyes open and not see that aggravating flicker.
One time, while laying on the floor I spotted the head of a nail sticking out that was holding my bed frame to the cell wall. I wiggled and pulled on it. It had been driven into the concrete mortar pretty deep, but I was able to get my fingers on it. I had nothing else to do, so I made a project of it. Over the next long while I worked at trying to get that nail loose. I found this to be very therapeutic, time seemed to fly by, and my meals seemed to come closer together. I would fall asleep planning how I was going to try to get that nail out when I woke up.
Then one day, shortly after I had woken up, I was able to pull that nail out. Perhaps this means I am to become the king! I thought, referencing King Arthur or Sir Lancelot or something like that, one of those old stories. The thought made me laugh, I laughed out loud. This surprised me; I thought I had forgotten how. I didn't know how funny it really was, I mean I didn't have an audience. I kind of thought it was funny, but with out a live audience, I might just be like one of those radio DJ's that think they’re really funny but are not.
I held onto that nail, rubbed it, and polished it with the grime on my hands. I was not sure what to do with it, but it was mine, and I was going to take good care of it. At some point I made a scratch in the mortar that covered the wall of my cell. I knew that I would never be able to dig my way out of here with the nail, but I could start a calendar. I had no way of knowing when the days came or went, but I could count my meals, and I could record how many meals between bucket changes. Perhaps, I could find a consistent pattern and be able to predict their arrival. This would relieve me of the anxiety of missing the honey bucket dump.
This new activity did much for my moral. Every time I got a meal I would make a mark on the wall to log it. I also found the nail useful as an eating utensil, it was my fork, but it wasn't actually forked. I found that I would get sixteen meals between the honey bucket guys arrival. But I had no idea how far apart the meals were coming. I had to know how far apart the meals were coming if I wanted to know how long I was in here.
I decided to count steam boats between meals, I would count one steamboat, two steamboats, and so on, in a steady rhythm. This would be like the second hand on a clock. I would divide the total by sixty, to convert it into minutes, then into sixty again, to divide it into hours, then by twenty-four to get the number of days. I suspected strongly that the meals were nearly two days apart. I needed to find out for sure.
I tried several times to count steady through between meals, but I would lose my place, or fall asleep. Nevertheless, I kept trying; it was once again great to have something to do. I barely noticed the flickering light any more. I always wondered: What kind of bulb is that? I would have thought it would have burned out long ago! I could count to five hundred okay, but found that I kept losing track after that, so took my nail and made a mark on the wall each time I reached five hundred and I would start from one again. Then when I was done, I would count the number of marks on the wall and multiply them by five hundred to get the total.
It took more discipline that I had readily available to keep up a steady regiment of counting, but after many days and attempts I found I had gotten to a hundred marks on the wall without messing up. That was one hundred five hundreds; I was in too deep now to throw that away. I fought sleep all the while, I couldn’t let myself fall asleep and lose all that work to nothing. I think I drifted off for a minute once, but I was unsure, I had to push on anyway, I had to hope that my count would be close enough.
I then heard the sound of the guard at my cell door; it was mealtime. I was at two hundred and twenty eight of a five hundred count. I quickly counted up all the marks of the wall. There were one hundred and eighty seven five hundreds marked. As I ate my food I tried to calculate how much that was. I scratched out the math formula on the wall. They added up to ninety-three thousand and five hundred, plus the two hundred and twenty eight made ninety three thousand seven hundred and twenty eight steamboats.
It would take me longer to divide them into minutes and then hours and then days. I decided I would not use the nail to scratch out the formula on the wall. I wanted to do it in my head, because I needed something to do.
Over the next few days I carefully calculated all the numbers in my head. Double-checking each step many times, but never writing one thing down. This exercise seemed to make me feel very satisfied, which was odd, since I usually did not care for doing math. It worked out to about twenty-six hours. I guess time is passing a lot slower in here than I though it was. I couldn't decide if this was good or bad. It meant that I was in here half as long as I thought I was, but it also meant I had twice as long more to stay in here. I couldn’t tell if that made sense or not.
I decided that they were coming once a day, and that the extra couple of hours were just inaccurate counting or they just didn't show up at the exact time each day, I would have an accurate enough calendar. But I had no way of knowing what month, season, or year it actually was. The exercise of working all that out was great entertainment and stimulation for my brain. For the first time in a long time I felt good; actually looking forward to each waking moment.
I realized that I had to keep my mind active; I had to expand my mind. I recalled when I was young my dad needed help to get the last few issues of typesetting copy out, and he was too sick to do it. He asked for my help, I sat at the keyboard of the giant linotype machine and tried to memorize the keyboard. I copied the key layout onto a piece of paper and studied it. I brought to bed with me that night and visualized myself typesetting copy. From time to time I would refer to my key board drawing to help find the right key placements
The keyboard on a linotype is nothing like a typewriter; it has several times many more keys. There are no shift keys; the caps are on one part, the small letters on another part, the numbers, symbols and punctuation on another part. By morning I went and sat down at the linotype and began typing out the copy. My dad came to see how I was doing and was amazed at the speed I was typing. He picked up a hot lead slug and read the impressions on it, there was no mistakes.
He said he had never seen anyone learn the machine so fast, I was typing like I had been doing it for years, well, for weeks or months anyway, and this was my first day. I worked long hours for several days and I got the entire issue done. We loaded it into the trunk of the Cadillac and I, at fourteen years of age, drove to downtown Toronto and delivered the type to the printer. That was the last issue we ever did, my dad died a few months later.
Ever since then I found that visualizing something was as good as or even better than actually practicing or doing something. I decided that I could live within my imagination; my reality need not be the confines of these cold dark walls. I could let my mind explore the world, and experience anything I wanted. I had feared that this might lead to a total loss of any sense of reality, but, now I recognized that the answer to that was; "Who cares!" and so, I embraced it.
I had not even been allowing myself to remember my previous life, as is what I know called the days when I could see the sky. Now I wondered what was new, what things were going on, who was still alive, and who had died. I knew nothing of the outside world anymore. I had not even allowed myself to consider those things since I had been in here, till now. I decided that I could allow myself to reminisce, to try to recall the life I once had, to relive it like I had while I was trapped in the head of my sinking boat.
I miss that boat; it would have been a great life if I had of made it to Vancouver Island. But I was not going to stay there, I was going to sail south, then through the Panama Canal and up to Louisiana, up the Mississippi to Lake Pontchartrain and across it to Madisonville, that’s where I would go. I would dock it on the canal that cuts through Madisonville and live right there. Living on the hook is what they call that, dropping anchor, no rent no property taxes, nothin, just pure freedom. I would finally be back on the right side of the dock.
I had stood on the wrong side of the dock for too long but there seemed little I could do about it; I had to face it, I was land locked. I would walk the boardwalk in Madisonville, looking at the people enjoying the day on their boats. Sunset comes and the cabin lights come on, dragonflies buzz the decks in the half-light of the late dinner hour. There was definite class distinction, divided by what side of the dock you were on, if you were standing on land, or floating on the water defined it.
I use to be on their side of the dock. I had wanted back in the worst way. That was why I bought back The Lady Susan, it was the fulfillment of my dream to back get across that dock. I imagined myself sitting on a lawn chair stretched out under the awning of the rear deck, basking in the hot endless Louisiana summer. Across the lake lies New Orleans, The big easy, if you can't make it there, you can't make it anywhere. I would spend my time working on my southern drawl, and perhaps a few margaritas.
I might still miss Lake Simcoe though; I would always have a place in my heart for that Lake. Perhaps it was because it was the first lake I ever knew, or perhaps it was the best lake I ever knew; I was too biased to know. I remember taking the Lady Susan out on that lake with my Brother in law Tom Pitcin, it was the summer after the spring that my dad and my sister Nancy, Tom's wife had died. A big summer storm was blowing in, so I asked Tom if he wanted to head out on the lake with the Lady Susan.
Tom didn't know any better so he said "Sure" and so we headed off to the lake. The sky grew dark and the wind began to blow. By the time we got to the end of the canal towards the lake the storm was at full force. The man at the swing bridge refused to open the bridge for us; he did not want us heading out into such a storm. We crept up to the bridge and found we were about eight inches too high. I lifted the hatch and reached down along side the engine, I grabbed the handle to the hose bib valve that was meant to drain the lake water from the engine block for winter storage.
I opened the valve, and with the engine running the water pump for cooling the engine would draw water from under the boat and pump it right out the spigot. I revved the engine up and watched the water spray into the bilge. Before long water could be seen coming up through the floorboards of the galley. I checked our water line; we had sunk at least a foot, so we slowly motored under the bridge. The fellow that manned the swing bridge came out of his shack to shake his head at what we had done.
We had to sit behind the breakwater while we pumped the water out of the bilge. After about a half an hour we were ready to hit the waves. The storm was blowing so hard by this time that some of the waves were breaking right over the breakwater. As we left the harbor the wind was so strong that I had to gun the engines to full power to keep us from being blown into the rip rap of the breakwater. I steered her into the direction of the storm, taking the storm head on.
The waves were huge, the largest I had ever seen. Each wave towered over the cabin of the cruiser, and we road up to the top of waves that seemed to be at least three stories high. I set a course and told Tom to hold her steady. Reluctantly, he took the wheel. I climbed up on to the front deck, straddled the bow with both my legs, and hung on as tight as I could.
The boat raised high on top of a wave, and then just as quickly fell off that wave; I would loose my stomach as we fell all the way into the trough of the wave. Then, the following wave would crash over us, and if I had not had such a good grip on my hold, I would have been washed over board. Many tons of water flooded over me, knocking back and straining me against my handholds. I had to hold my breath for several moments before the water finally began receding and the bow of the boat bounced up out of the water and rode the next wave high in to the sky again.
Hanging onto that deck for dear life was like being on top of the world, better than any carnival ride I had ever been on or even seen. Again the boat would free fall off the crest of the wave into the trough far below. The thirty plus foot cabin cruiser was tossed about like a rubber ducky in a toddlers bathtub. One time she laid over onto her side and slid down the wave and wallowed at the bottom till the crest of the next wave broke on top of us, nearly rolling us over. It was hard to hold on, the force of the water was tremendous, and I was being submerged for so long I could hardly hold my breath long enough.
I looked back to see how Tom was doing; he was standing statue like at the wheel, frozen in terror, white as a bed sheet. I realized that I better get inside and help. Either Tom was over reacting and things were not that bad, or I just wasn't taking it all seriously enough. On a good bounce up out of the water, I sprang to my feet, ran up and over the falling decks and cabin roof, and dived into the well at the stern of the boat. Holding on tight I watched the whole forward section of the boat be consumed by a foaming froth of white water and disappear under the wave until the boats own buoyancy bobbed her up onto the next rising wave.
I entered the cabin and everything was soaked, Tom was as wet as I was. We dove into another trough; water consumed the forward deck, the weight of it rolling the boat onto her side, tossing me about the cabin. Water was spraying in from every loose seam in the window pains and spraying like a fire hose through an open porthole over the lower deck bunks. I made my way towards the wheel, holding onto what I could to steady myself as the boat tossed about.
I throttled back the engine to smooth the ride out, now we were rising and falling in synch with the waves, no more uncontrolled plunges into the belly of the beast. I steered us for the lea of Thora Island. In the shelter of the island I made a turn and set a course back for the Trent Canal. We ran in the lea of the island until our course took us back into the path of the full force of the storm. I had to be Johnny on the spot with the throttle to keep the waves from breaking over our vulnerable stern and swamping us.
We reached the canal breakwater and I had to use full power to keep us off the riprap once again. This is the most dangerous part in my mind, if that engine should quit we would be smashed to pieces against the breakwater, how embarrassing. I imagined the rest of my life having to explain to everyone "The engine quit! It's not my fault!" This time the bridge master wasted no time opening the bridge for us, but he still had to come out and greet us with another head wagging.
I don't know how Tom took it, but I enjoyed the experience immensely. That summer Tom spent a lot of time up at the cottage. We would boat all over the lake; the Lady Susan was used more that year than it had been in all the previous years that we had it. Tom loved that boat as much as my dad ever had. I always thought it a shame that my mom sold it, or at least tried to sell it, she never ever got paid for it. It would have been so great to just give it to Tom, change the name to the Nancy MM. The name of my sister; Toms wife who had died, it was also the name of one of my dads first boats.
One day I was being a little extra mischievous. Usually I obeyed most of all the boating laws, where it counted. I mean I was never reckless around other boats, unless I knew them. I was always mindful of my wake, careful to slow down past marinas and moored boats or small water craft. But one day, it all started normal enough, I turned onto the canal at high speed, no one was around, I did that all the time. But about a quarter mile down the canal I saw an OPP cutter rise up out of the water as her engines were throttled up.
I turned tail to run, by the time I got slowed down enough and made the turn about in the canal they were pretty close. I knew that if I turned for home I was as good as caught, all they had to do was wait for me, and I had to come out some time. I turned to starboard onto the Talbot River, away from the direction home. I kept her pinned down hard, letting the engine over rev all it wanted. I had set up the propeller and drive leg angle perfectly, after years of it being totally wrong; it now was free and fast.
I carved the tight turns of the river hard; the G-forces making steering difficult as I had to hang onto the steering wheel so tight just to keep from being tossed out over the side. The nine-inch skid fin I had put on the bottom of this thing hooked it up like a roller coaster. I rounded the last turn and there was the Trent Talbot Marina. Normally I would slow down and putt by, but this time I was wide open.
I made it past the marina to the train trestle that crosses the river. The posts were no more than six or seven feet apart but I squeezed through them easy enough. I looked back to see the OPP cutter making a panic stop to keep from getting wedged between the pillars. I continued at full speed past all the cottages and under the low fixed road bridge, ducking low and looking back at my engine hoping it would fit under as well. Then I headed out onto the open lake.
A while later I was cruising around out on the lake feeling pretty smug about my earlier escape. Then in my peripheral vision; I caught a glimpse of a boat sneaking up on me on a collision course. I perceived it was that OPP cutter cutting off the angle to intercept me. I turned away and made for open water. They matched me move for move, continually cutting off my angle as I tried to make for the canal or the mouth of the river. They were forcing me farther and farther out on the lake. They were probably planning to run me out of fuel.
I made to the south and to the west, if worst came to worst I would hide in around Georgina Island. Then I saw that I had successfully put a long sand bar between them and my route back to the river. I turned for the river, giving her back full throttle, as fast as she would run I let her go. They adjusted their course to cut off my angle, and they would have caught me too, had it not been for that hidden sand bar.
They must have had a depth finder or knew about the sand bar, because they turned just in time to avoid it. Now, running parallel to me about five hundred yards off my stern, it was a drag race. I still had to arc towards the river entrance; but they had a straight line to run. It was going to be close. They turned on their light and siren. But there was no good place to pull over. When we got to the mouth of the river we were side by side.
To intimidate me they crowded right up beside me as if they were going to ram me or jump in or grapple me or something. But I jerked the wheel away and that skid fin dug in and I was thirty feet from them in less than a blink of an eye. We were closing in on the low road bridge at the entrance to the Talbot. I turned my attention from my pursuers and focused on my exit. Side by side we ran but out of the corner of my eye I saw there hull drop and there bow sink into the surface of the water. They had to stop; they couldn't fit under the bridge. However, I could, and zoom! I was out o' there!
I laid low for a few hours, before I took the boat out for another ride. I never saw the OPP cutter; they must have packed up and gone home. I was putting past the marina, and the marina owner was waving me over. Well I got to get gas some time! I reasoned. I may as well take my lumps now! I was sure I was going to hear what for about buzzing his marina a couple times that day. I approached the dock where the fuel pumps are. The marina owner had some Abercrombie like city slicker with him.
"This man ran his boat up on the rocks…" the marina owner began. I was sure that the next words out of his mouth were going to be about how I had some how ran him up on the rocks. I had been speeding around all day, being chased by the cops; it was possible I never even saw him. This guy looked pretty high strung; he could have seen me go by a hundred yards away and just freaked out
"…Yeah it nearly killed my whole family…" interrupted the city slicker. It was getting worse by the minute, I was sure they were going to pin this on me. I racked my memory trying to think if I had a close call with anybody but I couldn't think of anything, still, perhaps I never even saw him.
"I was no where near there today…" I responded spontaneously, realizing after I had said it that they had never actually said where this had occurred. "I mean I never saw anything, whereabouts’ did this all happen?" I asked. Good recovery. I thought.
"Over by the rocks!" the city slicker exclaimed.
"How did it happen? Did someone cut you off into the rocks?" I asked, probing.
"No no nothing like that…. Boats are dangerous…. We had an accident!" I was greatly relieved.
"He needs to get it off the rocks before it becomes a navigational hazard." The marina owner interjected.
"Yeah, if you can get my boat off the rocks you can have it!" Sounded too good to be true. But we already had enough old boats and junk, I really didn't want another.
"How bad is it?" I asked.
"It’s all smashed to bits! The motor leg is all smashed it’s all ruined!" It didn't sound too good, I was not sure what kind of mess I would have to clean up, but I told him I would go take a look at her and see if I wanted it or not. I sped off in the direction he told me to go I found it at the side of the canal, it had a new forty horse Johnson motor on it and there was barely a nick on the leg or prop. The boat was a sixteen-foot Peterborough cedar strip boat, there was about a ten-inch square hole punched through the hull below the water line.
I quickly sped back to the marina; I circled the boat to turn it around in front of the dock. "I'll take it!" I shouted. The man gave an overhead wave as he turned and walked away from the dock toward his car. I sped back to the boat. I slung the motor off to one side to tilt the hole out of the water, tied a rope to her bow and tugged her off the rocks and towed her home.
When I arrived back at the cottage, Tom and my brother Dan were standing on the river back watching me approach. "Look what I got!" I shouted excitedly.
"Where did you get this from?" Dan asked. So I told him the story, but not the whole story, I left out the part about the OPP chasing me and stuff. Tom wanted it right away, and offered me two hundred and eighty dollars for it. I had not even considered selling it yet, but I could see Tom really wanted it. I knew he needed things to fill his life with, since losing Nancy he was so alone. So I agreed and sold it to him on the spot.
Later that summer Tom and I would take that cedar strip boat out into another one of those summer storms that Lake Simcoe is so famous for. The patch we had put over the hole broke loose, and we had a hundred square inch hole open to the lake below the water line. We were way out by Thora Island, and the waves were nearly ten feet high. Lightening was striking the water all around us. That was what scared me the most, the hole I could do something about, but the lightening was beyond my control.
Water was gushing in through the hole. I tapped Tom on the Shoulder to point out the problem. He looked up at me with a worried look. "It's ok! Grab a lifejacket!" I shouted over the wind and engine. I grabbed the life jacket off him before he could get it on. "No!" I shouted again, and put the lifejacket over the hole to slow the water flow. "Stand on the other side of the boat to tip the hole out of the water, and put one foot on the jacket to hold it there! I'll go to the far back corner to tip us up some more and man the bailing bucket! You steer us for home!"
At that Tom did what I said and saw that we were probably going to make it. We got home and did an even better patch over the hole. Tom and that boat were inseparable; often on a clear night he would arrive at the cottage and head out on the lake all by himself just to watch the stars. It was the first summer we had without Nancy, and it was the last summer I had with Tom, I never saw him again.

Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen

We loosened the radiator cap and hoisted up the jerry can to pour the water into the radiator. It was still our plan to slowly fill the radiator so that it would freeze as we poured it in, this way it would not leak out. I didn't think it would crack the block by freezing if I let it freeze as I filled it. If I just poured it in quickly I knew the freezing of the water would crack the block, but as long as I did it slow, giving the ice room to expand into, I hoped it wouldn't crack.
I tilted the jerry can to pour the water into the rad, but nothing came out, it was frozen. So I grabbed the screwdriver I had in the cab of the truck; the one I was using to work the makeshift stove. Expecting just a small amount of ice to have formed clogging the small opening, I began to attempt to clear it with the blade of the screwdriver. However it seemed to be thicker than I expected, but I soon poked through to the ice encased water.
We tilted it up to pour the water into the rad again, but no more than a couple of quarts of water came out. I placed the jerry can back down on the road I chiseled away at the ice through the small spout opening. But I could find no more water, only solid ice, I chiseled in every direction I could reach as deep as that screwdriver was long, but nothing, it was frozen solid. It had taken Danny so long to get back to the truck and it was so cold out, that it had frozen solid.
Danny was upset, he thought we were doomed, I could tell he was frustrated to no end, he had put so much effort into getting the water, and now it had frozen. It was like the elements had taken a swing at us for daring to try to survive while we were exposed to them. It was beyond comical, and Danny's mind reeled at how complete the victory the weather and the elements were enjoying against us. So much effort, so much perseverance, and so simply defeated, it was hard for one's mind to find any equity in it all, some balance, but there was none. This caused Danny to come to the threshold of having a nervous breakdown. He had put such a superhuman effort out and it seemed like he had overcome so much for what in the end amounted to nothing.
"Well forget it then,” I said, "we will just dolly off the trailer, get this thing running and go!"
"But we have no water!" Cried Danny; suffering from anguish of great frustration.
"It will go without any water, it just might overheat and burn up or seize, but if we can get it started, it will go, at least for a while." I told him.
"Then why didn't we do that in the first place?" Danny demanded to know. “You mean I went all through that water getting stuff when I didn’t have to?”
"Well before, I didn't want to risk wrecking my engine, but now, it is a mater of life and death, so I don't give a damn about that engine, well go till she blows if we have to."
After unhooking the trailer and blocking it up, we pushed the truck out from under the fifth wheel pin. The battery was dead, so we would have to push it to get it started. We both pushed as hard as we could to get it moving. Danny was at the back shoving on the tailgate and I was pushing on the "A" pillar through the open driver’s door. As soon as we reached our top pushing speed I jumped in and put it in second gear and engaged the clutch to spin the motor over.
This truck always started on the first flip of the engine, no mater how cold it was out, she was a great starting engine. This time was no different, she caught right away and I quickly disengaged the clutch and I gave her a little gas to be sure she wouldn't stall. Danny ran up to the passenger door and with a sweeping arm motion knocked the remains of my makeshift stove onto the truck floor as he climbed in. I expected him to ask what all that stuff on the seat was but he didn’t.
I put it in gear and off we went. Without any water in the engine the heater would not work, as it uses the water as the medium with which to transfer heat from the engine to the heater. This meant that the thick layer of frost on the windshield had to be scraped away so that I could see through the glass. I scraped away at it with my fingernails as I picked up speed and up shifted through the gears.
I could not see much through the fingernail scrapings but it was better than nothing. I made a fist and rubbed side of my hand and baby finger into the frozen ice on the window, hoping that the body heat in my hand would melt out a larger opening. Trouble was; as fast as I could clear a small area, our breath would cloud it up and the frost would return to it. It was hopeless, and the more we gained speed, the more I needed to see the winding arctic highway.
I had to keep my window open to vent our breath from the cab in an attempt to keep the window clear, but even with that it was hard to see through the small scrapes we had opened up to peek through. I had to hang my head out the side window to see, instantly freezing my nose ears and exposed skin of my neck and face. Even my forehead froze tight. I would bring my head in for shelter but could not see well enough through the glass. So just as quickly as I had come in, I had to poke my head back into the freezing stream of air again.
Danny would scrape away at the glass with his hands and fingernails to clear me a slit to see through. He would call me back inside each time that he had got it clear enough for me to see through. Then it would cloud up again and I would pop my head back out the window. We repeated this process several times. In spite of all the afflictive conditions we were experiencing we both felt overjoyed at our motion, our speed, the contrast from being stopped with no hope to this was gargantuan.
It was down hill all the way to Enterprise, and I was confident we were going to make the small settlement before the engine gave out completely. But I was beginning to hear the rattle of an overheating engine again, even so, there was no stopping this time, "go till she glows" was my motto this time, it was life or death, flesh and blood over aluminum and steel. It was very cold so I thought that if I traveled fast enough the rushing cold air flowing through the engine compartment might help the engine cool better than a slower softer breeze.
I held the accelerator to the floor, that little six cylinder engine was giving all she had, and with the down hill slope in our favor we were hitting close to ninety mile an hour. With the poor visibility and the speed we were traveling at, some of the winding corners came up on us rather quickly. But I didn't care; I was not lifting that foot for anything. With nary a faint glimpse of the road ahead I slid that half-ton through the apex of the turns. All the while bobbing my head in and out of the window to see where I was going. I helped Danny to scrape the opening in the frost as I searched for where the next unexpected turn was. But no sooner would we have rubbed the frost clear it would fog up again, but I refused to slow down.
With the engine growing hotter and more sluggish by the minute we rounded a turn coming down the hill and finally saw the lights of enterprise. Well actually, the light of enterprise, there was only one light; it was on the entrance door to the now closed restaurant. Pulling into the restaurant and stopping I shut the key off, but the hot engine would not shut down and rattled and knocked away until I put it in high gear and engaged the clutch and brake at the same time to stall it like I had before.
Cold and tired we exited the pick up and banged on the restaurant door until we woke up the proprietors and they came down from the upstairs loft and let us in. This was the same restaurant we had spent some time at earlier in the day and so they recognized us. I don't recall for sure but I think they may have told us that we could wake them up in the middle of the night if we did have trouble that we might have to turn back for.
They put on a pot of coffee and I drank the whole pot trying to get a kick-start from the caffeine. They put on a second pot and I drank all of that as well. They knew someone who might have a radiator and we called him up and woke him out of his sleep. For some reason the restaurateurs were sure he wouldn’t mind us calling him at that hour, and after we called him it seemed that they were right; he did not seem to mind. To me it all seemed rather surreal. He had an old Ford pickup in the back yard of his place and for four hundred dollars we could pull the radiator out and put it in my truck. It was a pretty steep price for an old used radiator, but we did wake him up at some ungodly early morning hour.
We pulled the radiator out of the donor truck by flashlight in the cold darkness of this never ending night, we used a bucket to collect all the antifreeze that ran out of it; we would need it for my truck. We also took the radiator hoses and hose clamps. Beside the restaurant was a cold but sheltered carport. They let us use it to install the radiator into my pickup. It was not a perfect fit by any means, the truck we pulled it out of was a v-eight, and my truck was a straight six.
In spite of our weary condition, I was determined on doing a good job of installing the radiator. It would require some modifications and some custom work to install it properly. I was in no state to recover from another break down out in the middle of nowhere again, at least not on this night. Danny resisted my efforts somewhat, wanting to jam it in as fast as possible, hanging it there with wire and duct tape. But I insisted we do it right.
My efforts paid off and we did a first class custom installation. In fact, I don’t think ideal workshop conditions or even a well-rested fresh installation crew would do any better. We topped the antifreeze with the recovered coolant and some water, and then we filled our thermoses up and headed out on the highway again. With heat blasting out of the defrost vents, and the cab all toasty warm, it seemed worlds apart from only a few hours earlier, when it was no more than a cold would be tomb.
Our headlights picked up the dark silhouette of our highboy trailer on the side of the highway. We stopped and I backed under the trailer and we hooked it back up again. It was facing the wrong way and so I had to turn it around and head back south towards High Level. It was a strange kind of eerie yet conquering mix of feelings we experienced, being back at the same spot that only a few hours earlier we tried so desperately to escape from.
After finding a spot to turn around we doubled back up the highway and drove past the spot again. In the glow of our headlamps we could see the blackened stain in the snow where I burned the plastic pail of gasoline. The rhythm of the snow bank was broken up and trampled where we had been stalled for all those hours, bits of debris left behind from our struggle was the only monument to testify to our near death ordeal.
Sometime Sunday afternoon we arrived in High Level, bleary eyed and strung out on countless cups of coffee I hoped that stopping for breakfast would help me catch my second wind again. We found some greasy spoon of a joint and ordered their three-dollar breakfast special. I loaded the runny eggs with pepper and catsup, but I could taste nothing, my tongue was not working right, everything had no flavor. I drank four more cups of coffee. I was still tired after this, it did nothing to help me get that fabled second wind, but at least I was not hungry anymore.
We found the auction yard and got hold of a tow truck to load the bombardier onto the high boy via a loading ramp that was onsite. We also loaded a couple highway tractor transmissions, a couple of highway tractor driveline assemblies, and a pile of drive shafts for the same. These were items that Dan's brother Bob had asked us to pick up for him. I tried to just sit in the truck and rest while Danny and the tow truck driver loaded us up, but I had to help them, it was harder to watch than to help.
By the time we were done loading and securing the load down it was suppertime, and so we returned to the same greasy spoon for a last meal before hitting the highway. Over dinner I complained to Danny about how sore my leg was from the constant draft blowing onto it through the opening around the steering column shaft in the firewall. He seemed uninterested; he did not understand how bad it was for me.
I was tired and my leg was aching hour after hour; I was in considerable discomfort. I had tried to seal the hole that was around the steering column before we had left enterprise. I thought I had done a good job; I used duct tape and everything. But no sooner had we started on our way that the relentless draft returned to torture my legs. My legs never completely recovered from that experience, for years and years later my legs still ached that same blunt pain. Danny’s indifference to my plight was indicative of the fact that his side was all warm and toasty.
If it was from the hours, or rather days without a minutes sleep, or from all the gallons of coffee I had consumed, or both, I don't know, but it caused my head to pound with each heart beat, like a trip hammer was jammed in between my ears. I feared my head would explode. On our way out of town we stopped for some aspirin or Goodys headache powders or something like that from a small convenience store on the outskirts of town. But they didn't have any, so we just fueled up and hit the road. The few Tylenol left in an old bottle in the glove box would have to do. They were old, but I hoped they would still work.
Before winding her up into second gear, I popped a couple of them and washed them down with a swig of coffee. I hoped for immediate relief, but of course that didn't occur. It literally felt like my head was going to explode, like the force of my heart beating would pop my skull open. I needed more pills; I motioned to Danny to pass me back the bottle that he had not yet returned to the glove box. I popped two more and washed them down with more coffee. Hopefully that would help.
It began to snow, big heavy wet flakes, it was considerably warmer down here than it was north of the border, and the slightly below freezing temperatures gave way to large lazy wet snowflakes. The snow began to collect on the road and the farther we went the deeper it got. The heavy wet snow made for very slippery driving conditions, and at some points it was coming down so heavy and visibility was so poor that all I could see was halfway down the length of my hood.
With the trailer now loaded, and loaded rather poorly, because the tow truck was unable to back the bombardier all the way onto the trailer, and so it was hanging off the back of the trailer a bit, so the driving was doubly difficult. It took all my concentration to try to keep us on the road, and stopping was nearly impossible. With the road getting more and more slippery, I was not even sure how much driving I was even doing; it felt like I had no real control. I wondered if it was just that we hadn't hit the ditch "yet” was the only reason we were still on the road.
I couldn’t get over eighteen miles an hour with out things starting to swing. But I forced it up to twenty-five miles an hour; which was all first gear was good for. I tried to get it into second gear, but the engine bogged down under the burden of its load, and so I had to go back down to first gear. Besides, it was difficult to keep it on the road going faster than twenty-five miles an hour. This would be a long trip.
My mirrors were too narrow to see past the trailer behind me, and since we were going so slowly, I was sure that traffic would be building up behind me. To try to get a peek at what was going on behind me I swung the trailer a bit so as to see past it when it was swung away. The first time I did this, it just took a slight little tweak on the wheel and I induced a small motion of swing and quickly saw that indeed traffic was building up behind me.
I pulled over as far as I could to let them all pass. Then about five minutes later I thought I saw the flicker of a headlamp in my rear view mirror. I tweaked the wheel once more as before, but saw nothing; I put a little more "English" on to it a second time, still nothing, no glint of headlamps could be detected in my mirrors. I then tried to straighten her out to continue on my way, but the pendulum effect had taken over.
The only way to stop the trailer from swinging into a jackknife is to chase the back end of the trailer with the front end of the trailer. That is to say, if the back end swings to the right, drive the front end to the right, the idea is to break the pendulum action and thereby prevent the back end of the trailer from trying to reach the speed of sound.
That’s no joke, in effect when a trailer is swinging behind a car; it is trying to snap like a whip, hypothetically, if the towing vehicle was heavy enough and powerful enough and could hold the road, the back of the trailer would snap like a whip. Of course it would probably fray the back of the trailer like the end of some delinquent change room towel. But long before this occurs with a real trailer and tow vehicle the energy would be dissipated by the mere action of skidding tires breaking the pendulum action as the whole rig piled up in the ditch.
As I chased the trailer to the left and right, trying to get ahead of it to break that pendulum swing, Danny got excited, and was shouting "Woe! Woe! Stop it!" At about that same moment I was able to get it all settled down and straightened out. "What was all that? I thought you were a better driver than that! You were all over the road!" Danny exclaimed mocking me.
What would he know? He can't even drive. “Oh I was jus' trying to get a look behind me to see if traffic was all hanging up on us…"
Danny interrupted me; "What? You did that on purpose? That’s even stupider than I thought!"
I perceived that he had no clue about what had just occurred, what he thought was bad driving was actually great driving! There are barely a handful of people in the whole world that could have kept us out of the ditch in that same situation. Perhaps getting it started by whipping it on purpose was not the best idea, perhaps not real good from a driving perspective, but the saving of it took a cool hand and steady nerve mixed with intuitive talent. If there was one thing I could do it was drive.
We traveled for several more hours through the ice and snow, I tried to push it as fast as I could all the way, but that was still no more than thirty miles an hour. After winding it out down a long stretch between flat to very slight down grade, I was able to collect some speed out of second gear, we got up to about forty miles an hour. But I had to be up on the wheel, it took all my concentration to keep it from swinging back and forth and jackknifing. Steering to the left, then to the right, to quench any undesirable motion of the trailer behind us was taxing my already weary state.
We then rounded a long turn, and this revealed a long down grade, not very steep, but at least three or four miles long. At the bottom was what appeared to be a rather sharp left handed corner. Immediately I knew we might be in trouble, if I was to round that turn successfully I would have to begin slowing down now. I was traveling faster than I had the whole trip, and now I had to get it slowed down on this slippery slope.
I played gingerly with the brake pedal; if I tried to slow it down too quickly the heavily loaded trailer would over run us. It would be close; it felt like I would not be able to get it slowed down as much as I wanted to by the time we got down to the bottom of the hill. I would have to take the turn at a much faster rate than I thought we could hold it at. I usually was not wrong about these things, if I thought it wouldn't make the turn, I was probably right. But there is always hope, hope that I was wrong.
Half way down the hill was a level railway crossing, when we hit it we were going much too fast and the trailer began to whip and swing behind us. At that same moment a Greyhound bus rounded the corner at the bottom of the hill, I knew I had to get us under control before we met it. I watched the mirrors intently and tried to stay ahead of the swinging trailer. I was using the whole highway to try to get it under control, all the way from the right bank to the left, and back again.
We were traveling in a sine wave so I tried to calculate where we would be on that wave when we met the Greyhound bus. It seemed that we might be coming across to the left as it met us, we would be on a collision course. I tried to break the rhythm of that sine so that we would be traveling away and in the right lane, but I didn't know if that was possible. In my mind were images of a horrible bus crash, and if I lived through it, a life behind bars for me.
I could not let that happen, I would try to pile it into the ditch before the bus got too close, that was the best solution I could think of. I wheeled the wheel hard, not yet ready to bail it into the ditch, my heart was in my throat, this was bad, bad as it gets. Danny was shouting at me; "Cut it out!! Cut it out!!…Quit foolin' around!! Cut it out!! Stop it!!" I was too busy to answer; couldn’t he see that I had my hands full?
All of a sudden I saw a bright flash, and stars, I felt a hard smack on the side of my face. What was that? I feared I had hit the bus already. Then there was another flash, and this time it hit me right in my ear, that one really rung my bell. What is happening to me? I was becoming so disorientated. It took a few seconds but my eyesight returned, only to be blanked out by another traumatic slam in the side of my head. This one was such a hard smack that I expected to feel my brains run out of my crushed head, weird, this is what it feels like to die? I caught myself thinking.
From a small dot in the center of a bright but dark flash, consciousness returned with a mighty rush. I found that I was still yawing down the highway, and the bus was very close now but we hadn't hit it yet. I was confused, but still I tried desperately to straighten us out, my head was throbbing like a thumb smacked by an ill-placed hammer blow, this was on top of my already pounding headache. I still didn’t know what was hitting me, my mind imagined something had come off the trailer and was hitting me somehow, but I didn't hear the rear window smash, so I didn't know what it could be. In between the blows I could still hear Danny screaming at me to "Cut it out!"
My eyes were tunnel visioned onto the road ahead, but I stole a moment and tore them away and turned to address Danny; "I'm tryi'…" I was interrupted by a flurry of punches to my face. One of them breaks my nose. Danny in his panic had begun punching me, thinking that I was just clowning around, not knowing that I was trying to do all I could to save our lives. The ironing is delicious. I thought. I could see that his very panic caused reactions that were probably going to be what would contribute the most to our deaths. I know the word is irony, but I was having my head bashed in at the time.
When your nose is broken, if you haven't experienced it before, is a blinding pain. Add to that three days without sleep and a pounding headache from overdosing on coffee, and a leg aching to the bone; the sum of it all was a pretty intense moment. For several moments I was stunned, perhaps even unconscious, or at least very near to passing out. In a rush my hearing and sight returned. Blood was pouring from my nose, and blood had sprayed all over the windshield from the force of his blows.
I immediately returned to concentrating on driving, still cognizant of the approaching Greyhound bus. It was right upon us now, and through bloody tears I watched us sliding towards it. I cringed for the impact while at the same time making last minute driving inputs with my blood soaked hands, in hope of giving us the best chance of avoiding collision. I couldn't just veer away, if I did that the trailer would swing into the bus. I had to line the trailer up straight behind us, to make us as skinny a target as possible.
My vision blurred by pain and swelling I was driving by feel more than sight. I saw the blur of the bus pass by and tip my mirror oh so slightly, knocking it out of adjustment, but that was all. I waited a split second to feel the trailer hit the bus, but it didn't, we got by clean enough. It was such a relief; I relaxed, and caught my breath. But my job was not done, and that respite was all it took for things to get ahead of me.
Out the passenger window I could see the full length of the trailer, we were jackknifed and sliding out of control, I could see the tires of the trailer plowing into the snow bank on the side of the road. Danny was poised to hit me again. Danny was sure that I was just fooling around; he had been with me at other times when I was driving fast and skidding through the turns. He thought this was no different. "Woeb! Waib dom’b!" I yelled throwing my arm up to block his incoming blow.
"Well cut it out! Quit screwin around! I bloody well mean it! Right this minute Stop! Just stop the damn truck!" Danny ordered me.
"Quik fweaken thittin mbe!!! I can'th!! I'b twyin thoo!! You thupid pidiot!! Yourt gondna weffin killb us doth!! Thstop thittin mbe you cwazy fweak sthow!!…Done ob a thitch!" My broken nose filled with blood clogging my words. I was trying desperately to regain control but it was so slippery there was little I could do. The back of the trailer was now wrapped right around and the deck of the highboy was crunching the cab of the truck. The trailer was now dragging the truck down the highway; we were along for the ride. The truck was jackknifed all the way around and we were facing backwards.
The force of the trailer against the cab crunched up and popped Danny's doorframe open at the top. The road noise came roaring in with the cold wind through the opening. We were still sliding; it seemed we were picking up speed. My blood soaked hands were tacky on the steering wheel as I hung on to it, no longer really finding it of any use.
The trailer rotated us into the ditch, the front of the truck cab caught the snow bank, the snow bank tried to jam the cab of the truck back, and rotate us around the fifth wheel pin and through the trailer deck like a guillotine blade. If successful it would decapitate us along with the truck cab roof. The cab twisted, cracking the windshield and shattering the back window of the truck. The front top corner of my door popped open about two inches from the distortion of the truck cab.
Then suddenly the truck straitened out, the trailer tucked in properly behind us, and we were traveling about four or five miles an hour on the shoulder of the road. I brought is to a stop. I don’t know what happened to cause it to stop from decapitating us, but it was over, we had survived. "You mean that wasn't on purpose?" Danny said apologetically.
"No you thsupid done of a vitch!! How weffin sthupid arbe you?? Done of a fithitch!! I tfhink youb broke my fthuckin bnose!! Thamn it!! Youb thstupid thun ob a thiitch!! Bhat tha thelb vere youb twing do bo? Weffin Killb us? Thamn it!! Howd thuckin Thupid par bou?…I thould kick youb pout thright heremb!! Bull ta pin on pthis bload an jusht geth tha thell oubt vof there amb leave youb forb thead!! …Dthamn bit myb noseb fthurts!!" I unloaded with both barrels all over Danny. I was pretty peeved.
"I'm sorry!! I’m sorry! I didn't know! I'm sorry! Sorry! Sorry…I didn't mean it! I'm sorry!" was all that Danny could say. I knew he was sorry, I knew that he had panicked, Danny was like a wild animal, and very strong and independent when on his own, but fearful and clumsy in most social situations. When scared he reacted like a cornered mountain lion, it was all he knew, he was Danny, he couldn’t be anything else.
"Thormry?? vhat the thell goob isth vat?? Vhat amb I gonbna do vith vat?? Vill tvat fixmb myb fthreaken nosb? No thdamn thay it fill!...Allb youk cam thay bis thorry? Gweat! Thad fixthes evevythingk! Thoesn’t fixth myb nosb doeb it? Thoesn’t sthop tfis bounding imb by thead boes ith!! …oth Ton of a pitch I hurts" I moaned. "Your bo theffin Thupid!! Ughh!!" I tried to enunciate as well as I could, but my swollen lips and bloody nose tangled up my words. My anger and frustration only slightly satiated, I ran out of nasty things to say.
Danny fell silent, there was nothing he could say, and I sensed I had hurt him more emotionally than he hurt me physically. Danny was very sensitive about having his intelligence questioned; I could see he was experiencing a trauma of his worst fears being exposed. Danny believed he was stupid, his life was no more than a desperate effort for some kind of positive recognition to nurse his broken ego. By calling him stupid I was pushing right on his sorest spot, I was inflicting pain where anesthetic was needed.
"Iths bokay Dhanny, I knowb youths thidn't meamb bit, youb thought I bas cwowning awound, I'mb thorry I callbed you sthupid, I knowb youw wot" I said trying to repair some of the damage and protect my conscience. Danny remained silent, I could see he was in a powerful emotional state; it took all his effort to keep from breaking down in tears, so he bit his tongue and said nothing. I reached past him and retrieved the bottle of Tylenol from the glove box, my blood soaked fingerprints leaving evidence of every motion needed to complete the task.
But Danny was hurt; he thought I was someone he could trust not to treat him like everyone else did, and now he found I was not. The situation was intense, but that was no excuse, my character failed me, I should been more of a man, I should have just shut up and asked for a towel to mop up the blood. My broken nose healed crooked, and remained that way till this very day. But the emotional scars that I inflicted on Danny that day are as visible in his persona as the broken nose on my face. I downed four more Tylenol in one quick action; I grabbed one of the thermoses, leaving my bloody paw prints all over it.
I poured myself out half a cup of coffee while the four Tylenol dissolved on my tongue. I went to wash them down with the coffee, but my lips and inside of my mouth was so tender that the temperature of the coffee caused excruciating pain. I thought my head was already in as much pain as there was available from the pain store. I thought there was no more to feel, unfortunately, it seems there is an unlimited amount of pain available to torment us. The shock of the hot coffee passing over my lips caused me to squeal a girlish yelp.
Before Danny could respond I handed the Tylenol bottle to him; "Thon of a ditch youth gob a thell of a weft hook!" I said trying to break the tension between us as I punched him lightly in the arm. "Ctheck ind the glub box bould ya' dor some Keenex or domething to cwean up all this blud." Danny popped open the glove box, mixing his fingerprints with mine in the blood. He tossed the Tylenol bottle back into the glove box, but there was no Kleenex or anything to be found. All there was was a rag he found under the seat, it had a frozen chunk of dirty ice matted into half of it, but it was better than nothing. We had used up all the good rags that we had brought with us.
The sticky tackiness of blood, along with its color, I am sure is by design, to incense rage, I could never stand it, it always made me angry when there was blood on my hands, especially my own. I wiped the blood off the steering wheel as best I could, wiped off my hands and face with it, and then held the rag to my nose to try to stop the bleeding.
"Tilt your head back, it'll stop it from bleeding" suggested Danny, regaining his composure. He continued to apologize, "I'm sorry, I thought you were just foolin' around, like when you were running down all the prairie chickens!" I could see his point, but still even if I was fooling around, knocking out the driver did not seem like the smartest idea. But I didn't want to mention that, I had said more than enough already.
After a little while my nose stopped bleeding, however, it continued to smart. My head hurt so bad I that any guillotine no matter how cruelly constructed would be looking mighty friendly about now; immediate relief, like a cold drink of water to parched lips. I could see a blurry series of white flashes in the peripheral of my right eye, each heart beat causing a surge of pain and more flickers in my eyes. My neck became sore, like my neck muscles had failed; it was agonizing just trying to hold my head up. I sunk low in the seat and rested my head by hanging it over the back of the seat, my own head had become too great a burden to bear, there maybe a lesson it that, but I doubt it. I needed to rest, catch my breath, at least for a little while.
Danny fell silent; I could tell he was uncomfortable as he empathized with what I had been going through. He had at least been able to sleep, he had not needed to concentrate every minute of the way, the air leak through the firewall was not blowing up his leg, and he had not had his nose broken. His parka was not stained with a layer of crusting blood.
I looked quite the site, blood spattered all over my parka and streaked down my neck and arms. My right eye swelling shut and "ouch" I discovered a tooth had cut through my lip. "gweabt" I mumbled in a rather negative facetious groan.
I rolled my pounding head back and forth on the top of the seat back as I rubbed the back of my neck with my hand tying to nurse some relief into it. "Ohb! By neck is kiwing me!" I complained, my speech regaining some of its composure.
"You want me to massage it for you for a while?" offered Danny as he began to make a move towards me.
"What? Woe! Woeb! No! Thath’s vokay! No needth for that!" I exclaimed as I snapped to attention in my seat as a mocking jest. "I'm justh in pain here, I'm not gayb or banything!…bawck woff!"
"What? No it’s nothing like that! I'm not gay! I just thought you might need some help, I mean I know how much pain you’re in! That’s all!" I knew that, but I was uncomfortable with anybody touching me at anytime, especially a guy, and I just was making a joke of it all to ease the tension. I was pretty sure Danny got that, but he wasn't taking any chances so he explained himself.
"Look Danny, you’rbe a thandsome man, and you fill out those bwue jeans wather nicely, but I jush don’t thwing that way!" I said trying to hold back my laughter, it wasn't that funny, but we were starved for entertainment.
"Now I'M not so sure about you!" Danny mocked. I began to laugh at it all, but I hadn't slept for days, and I was in one of those sleep-deprived moods when anything seems funny.
"O' o' ouch! Don’t make me laugh it hurts like myb nead's gonna expwode!…and my wibs are kilwing me! What hapbened to them?" I felt under my right arm and felt a few tender spots and bruises. "Did you punch me in the thides? I didn't theven feel dat beforeb! Oh, morb pain."
"Yeah I think a couple of time I might have!"
"Gweat, thanks, that’s just what I neebed…the wholte packwage deal"
It was time to go, but the rear window was shattered. But like any car window, it was still hanging in its fractured matrix of tiny irregular glass blocks, but any sudden movement might just cause it to fall into a pile of tiny irregularly shaped glass chunks on the ground. We had some duct tape so we used it to tape over the window in a net pattern inside and out to hold the glass from disintegrating. "Thab should do it." I remarked as we climbed back into the truck and headed off down the highway again.
Now with the cab twisted the doorframes were not sealing, well hardly they could; there were gaps nearly two inches wide in some spots, like at the top of the front of my door, the wind whipped in through it and blew over the steering wheel, freezing my hands. It just keeps getting better, I thought to myself sarcastically. "Got anymore of those Tylenol?" I asked.
"I think you have already had about eight in the last hour, I think that’s way beyond the recommended dosa…"
"Scwew the wecommebded dothage!!" I said in my most evilly possessed sounding voice. Danny sheepishly handed me the bottle of Tylenol. I thought that it felt like there was only about three pills left in the bottle, so I popped the lid, it took a few tries, Stupid childproof lids! I tilted the bottle into my mouth emptying its contents. There were more like six or seven pills left in it and they all tumbled into my mouth. With Danny watching me so expectantly it would be too un-cool to spit any of them out.
I reached for one of the thermoses and began to pour myself a coffee to wash them down with. As the pills dissolved on my tongue I could taste the bitterness increasing. I quickly tipped the coffee cup to my lips and poured it back. "Augh! Its sthill thoo dambn hot!" I yelped. "Gweat! That’s jus' gweat! Now my tongue an' thwoat's buwning!"
Danny had some pop that he hadn't finished that he had been drinking while eating a bag of corn chips. It was littered with several floats of gelatinous back wash debris, but I had too cool my throat so I took it from him and drank it anyway. I threw the bottle of Dr. Pepper back at him and while suppressing a cough, I muttered; "That’s a little better" Danny made no comment; he just shook his head slightly, hoping I wouldn't notice. I could tell he wanted to say something, but he kept it to himself.
I was in bad shape; I hadn't wanted to stop because I promised Ralph that I would be back on Monday. But now I couldn't stop even if I wanted to, we were already beyond the point of no return. There was no place to rest, if I fell asleep now, even if we stopped I would die, it was too cold, I was too tired, the nearest help was too far. I began to keep repeating over and over in my mind: If I sleep; I die! This worked surprisingly well to keep me up.
Hours dragged on, I could not hold my head up, I literally could not do it; my neck had lost all its strength. My head fell over sideways onto my shoulder, rolling my chin into my chest with the rocking and rolling of the truck’s motion; my eyes looking up past my eyebrows to see the road. I was still trying to get as much speed as I could out of our rig. I was still taking chances of losing control from going too fast. I felt I had no choice, die in a wreck or freeze to death by stopping to sleep, there was no lesser evil.
I suffered Danny reaching over and grabbing me by the back of my neck and holding my head up. He squeezed my neck with his big mitt of a hand, it felt good, but it would not revive my comatose neck muscles. From time to time he would have to change hands, as he would cramp up in the tight compartment of the cab. The wind whipping in through the bent window frame froze my hands but felt good as some of it blew against my forehead.
Eventually I wrapped my parka around my neck and head to cradle it so Danny would not need to hold my head up any more. I rested my head in the fluffy down lined coat, my neck pain was still unbearable, but at least my head was upright. After a while I began to not feel so good, my stomach began to ache badly, it felt like it was going to explode. I broke out into a cold sweat; I felt my strength plummet through out my body, as every cell seemed to drain some it's life out.
I stopped the truck as fast as I could. I flung the door open and fell to my hands and knees in the middle of the road. I was dry heaving and convulsing badly. My arms could no longer support me and I collapsed onto the wet slushy surface of the road. My face was rubbing into the gritty road surface with each convulsion. I wanted to throw up, but all that was happening was dry heaves. My bruised and battered ribs were shooting pain through my abdomen with each heave.
"What’s going on?" shouted Danny panicking. "Are you okay?" Why does everyone ask that? A piano could fall on a guy from twenty floors up, land square on him, drive him right through the side walk, and we would ask; "Are you okay?"
"Noo!" I moaned. Danny ran around the truck and tried to help me to my feet, but I was too weak to get up. Even though I was soaked to the skin in icy road slush I was sweating profusely. After a few moments I rallied all my strength and crawled to the front tire of my truck. Danny helped me sit up and lean my back against it. Danny had grabbed my parka and was trying to cover me with it, but I waved him off. "No, gasp, I’m okay." I pulled my knees up to get the length of the back of my legs out of the slush. I folded my arms over my knees and laid my head down on my arms.
My breathing was rapid and shallow, I couldn’t get enough air, I had to pull myself together I was going into shock. I took long deep deliberate breaths, forcing myself to exhale as much as I was inhaling. After a while I began to feel better, I felt some strength return and some of the weakness that had overcome me just moments before flee. I looked up at Danny as he stood uneasy; nervously switching his stance from one foot to the other and back; he was muttering in a whimper "Don’t die…don’t die…" in a muffled low voice. That’s encouraging. I thought.
I reached my arm up to him and he pulled me to my feet, I leaned over the hood of the truck, I could feel the sweat evaporating away in the cold breeze. After resting for some time I was able to stand on my own, I wasn't feeling great, but whatever that was, was over. "I think you had too many Tylenol." Danny diagnosed. I gave no reply, just a look that said it all; he dared not say another word.
I climbed back into the truck, I was soaked and filthy, I didn’t have a change of clothes with me, but soaked like I was there was no way I could tolerate the draft coming in through the distorted door frame. I got Danny to go around the out side and with the duct tape cover over the opening and tape the door seam up solid. I wanted to just sit there and sleep, I even tried to let myself sleep for a minute before we were going to head off again, but my mind kept saying; Sleep and you'll die, and this kept waking me up as I dozed.
I considered getting Danny to drive, he had never driven before, and he couldn't even ride a bike. I didn't think he could do it; it took a level of concentration to keep this precarious rig on the road that I was sure Danny had no idea how to maintain. This was no job for a first time driver, I was sure of that. Or was I? Perhaps it was my ego that was so convinced I was the only man for the job? A shaky ego terrified of being insignificant. I had no way of knowing, because that’s how ego's work. Whatever it was, I was on the road again, driving into the night, in a conflagration of folly or a blaze of glory? Who could know?
Several hours passed, or they seemed to, it was impossible for me to tell, on the one hand it seemed like this would never end, while on the other, my mind was only cognizant of what was going on a small percentage of the time. I recall crossing the Border into the Northwest Territories, how the highway changed from straight smooth pavement to a winding heaving gravel road. I recall less than four or five on coming vehicles passing us. One was another Greyhound bus, but it passed without incident.
The slushy snow covered highway gave way to being frozen and wind swept as the temperature dropped dramatically the further north we got. I drove all night, the winding curves of the McKenzie Highway seemed easier to drive on than the straight Alberta highways, the curves seemed to keep the trailer from getting bored and swinging on us. I also found it easier to stay awake; setting each oncoming turn, as a series of obtainable goals seemed to keep me occupied just enough, without overstressing me. We passed the spot we had broken down on the way south, seeing it gave us hope that we would make Enterprise soon. We both turned our heads and silently reflected upon the spot. We passed it by like it was a defeated enemy, I knew we both were feeling a certain amount of vindication, and it felt good.
We had made pretty good time; it was only about two o'clock in the morning when we rolled into the restaurant parking lot at enterprise. Once again we woke up the proprietors of the restaurant; they said that they had waited up for us expecting us to arrive at anytime through the night. I didn’t even know these people, yet they had genuine consideration for us. It was not something that I expected from people, and so I never knew how to react grateful enough.
When they greeted us at the door I was quite a sight I’m sure, one eye swollen shut, nose pushed over crooked and all swelled up. Dried blood streaked down my chin and neck, my clothes spattered and smeared with blood. Clothes still soaked and filthy, one look was all it took, there was no need to ask; how was the trip; it was written all over me. "What happened to you?" The restaurateur’s wife Caroline asked sympathetically.
"Danny got a little excited." I said while pointing discreetly at Danny. "I'll leb Danmby telb ya the storbmy." They compelled Danny to tell them what had happened. I meanwhile got permission to look through the junk they had stored in the carport to see if I could find some kind of hook, like a flower pot hanger or something that I could screw into the roof of the truck. Sheepishly, Danny related the story of how I got all beat and battered. Stopping plenty of times to reiterate how sorry he was.
I found the perfect hook, it could easily be screwed to the roof of the truck. I had a plan, it was to make some kind of halo and strap it tightly to my head and hang it from the hook. I wrapped a handkerchief around my head and then wrapped several windings of mechanic wire around my head. Wrapping it over my forehead, past my temple, and tight to the base of my skull at the top of the back of my neck. Using a three and a half-inch spike and sticking it through the wire strands I twisted the nail, tightening the halo of wire tightly to my head.
It felt incredibly good tightening the halo, my pounding temples now contained in a cage of steel. My head had felt like it was going to explode, but now the wire would hold it together. I added a couple of more wires to hang on the hook I would put into the roof of the truck. I would hook the halo to the roof, and let it hold my head up the rest of the way. My neck muscles were in such pain I had to do something, or I knew I could not face what was left of our journey.
Caroline and her husband tried to talk us into staying the night, but I would hear none of it, "I promised Ralph that I would be back Monday no mater what!” I told them
“Yeah but there’s no way anyone expects you to stick to your word in such extreme circumstances like these!” Caroline tried to reason with me.
“But that’s what no mater what means; no mater what, when I say no matter what; then that is what I mean. It's not as if I am the bible or something! My words actually have to say what they mean!” The short time that I had known my dad he had managed to teach me that one thing, if you give your word, you keep it, end of sentence; no excuses. I am sure he tried to teach me other things, but it was this one rule I clung to out of it all; and unlike Samson and his hair, I was not going to cut it.
Danny continued to apologize for beating the crap out of me, he was sincerely sorry, I told him it was okay, and not to worry about it. I began to refill our thermoses, they were looking worse for their wear, coffee stains building up over them in several sticky layers, and now covered in a crust of my dried blood. Danny stopped me from just refilling them; he insisted he do it for me, and that he would wash them as well; a kind of penance for pummeling me. I resisted him at first, I mean it was no big deal, I just wanted coffee, and at this point I couldn't care less about how clean the thermoses were. But due to Danny’s insistence I let him go ahead and clean them up and fill them with coffee while I went outside to the truck to get ready to leave.
I put the finishing touches on my halo and then punched a hole through the roof of the truck with the three and a half-inch spike I had used as a twister. A couple of washers and nuts and the hook was solid and secure. Danny came running out of the restaurant with the thermoses and we waved goodbye as we climbed into the truck to leave.
I hooked my halo into the hook and lowered my self into the seat, it held firm as I sunk even lower into my seat, until I was hanging from my contraption. It felt so good; it was like some kind of magical therapy. It was the first bit of real comfort I had felt in what seemed like an eternity. Danny thoughtfully got out of his seat and went around and resealed the doorframe with the duct tape. I put the transmission in gear, and released the clutch pedal to slowly engage the clutch, and gave her some gas and off we went.
It wasn't too long before we reached the river crossing. We had to wait there for about an hour before the ferry returned from the other side and we could board it. As we sat waiting for the ferry, I took this time for an opportunity to get some sleep. I told Danny to wake me when the boat showed up. I relaxed as best I could, but my nerves were vibrating from all the coffee and all the stress that I was enduring. Somehow, I was able to wind down enough to fall asleep, safe in the knowledge that our truck and trailer were blocking access to the ferry, so that if I slept too long, I was assured that someone would wake us.
It was a short-lived sleep; Danny was shaking me vigorously to roust me from my doze. I had fallen into a deep sleep in that short time, and when I forced myself to wake, it felt as if several heavy veils of thick sleep were over my eyes, and my mind. I was in less of a condition to drive now than I was before we stopped. "Coffee" I moaned, while still in a deep stupor. I hoped that a good cup of coffee would hit the spot and give me the necessary alertness to drive onto the boat.
Fumbling with the thermos lid I tried to pour myself a cup of coffee, but found that I was incapable of doing so. I couldn't stay alert long enough to complete the task. Danny had to take over, he poured me a cup of steaming hot coffee, it was too hot, and so he set it on the dash to cool. "Wake me back up in a few minutes when it has cooled." I instructed him, and then I fell dead away back into a deep sleep.
Again Danny woke me, this time I was able to reach out to the dash and grab my cup of coffee. Cradling it in both hands I brought it to my lips, it was still very warm, so I slurped in the first sip to sample it; it didn’t seem too hot, but it didn't taste right, but it was just a small slurp, so I was not sure. I took a larger sip, and this time I recognized the taste. I had tasted it once before, it was a bitter foul corrosive taste.
The first time I tasted it was when I was working in the high Arctic, I had gone south for the Christmas holidays, and the first morning after I returned I returned north I had made myself a coffee. At some point, while my back was turned, Doug laced my coffee with dish soap. I took a gulp, and of course spit it up in horror. "Welcome Back" Doug chimed glibly. Danny had forgotten to rinse the dish soap out of the thermoses, I checked them all, he hadn't missed one; they all were laced with dish soap.
I had no choice, I had to drink it; it was our only chance to make it through that night. In vein I sifted the coffee tightly through my teeth, as if that would have some how helped. It burned my throat with each swallow; I can't even describe how bad it tastes. One sip of dish soap laced coffee is bad enough, but before anyone could relate to what I am talking about; try drinking three thermoses full. It like the Richter scale, each cup is a magnitude worse than the previous cup. There are three thermoses at about four cups each, so it was pretty bad.
We rode the ferry across the river and I drove off the boat and began the long hard pull to climb up out of the depression of the river valley. I had to use first gear all the way; it was slow going. We finally made the level plane and I tried to go as fast as we could. Hours dragged on, and I had to force myself to drink the poisoned coffee to stay alert. My head wired to the roof was the only thing holding me upright, I was sagging in the seat, relying entirely on my halo to support me, if it were not for that we never would have made it. I kept repeating over and over in my mind the warning can’t sleep; clowns will eat me! Some how this worked; and I was able to force myself deeper into the night.
Eventually, there came the point when I hit the wall, I could not stay awake. I just couldn’t drive another mile; I was finished. About that time we had just passed Rae-Edzo, two small Dog Rib Indian villages side by side. This put us about a hundred miles outside Yellowknife. There was a roadside turnout, I made for it, and I had to stop.
I told Danny to wake me in about an hour or so, he said he would. I tried to sleep. But I could not, it was such agonizing irony, moments earlier I was fighting to stay awake, but now I suddenly could not sleep. Why? I pondered. I realized that I felt unsettled, and that was keeping me awake. I had programmed myself to believe that if I sleep I die. I had to satisfy myself, my true unconscious self that it was now safe to sleep. But it is safe to sleep isn’t it? We are stopped, so what's the problem?
I had to honestly evaluate myself, why do I feel so uneasy that I can't sleep now? I found after some reflection that I did not believe that Danny was awake enough to stay up long enough to wake me in a couple of hours. How much sleep has he had? I had no way of knowing. If we both fell asleep we would never wake up, we were so tired that the truck would run out of gas idling before we ever would wake up. Then we would freeze to death.
I found a long cassette tape that had only one song on it; I rewound to a point that it was farthest from where the song was, cranked the volume to the max and hit play. The white hiss in the speakers quickly eased me into a peaceful sleep, comforted in the belief that I had a reliable wake up call coming. However it came too soon, when I was awakened by the blast of music through the speakers, I felt ripped off, and I needed more sleep. I rewound the tape and reset it, and then while hanging from the hook in the roof like some veranda flowerpot, I quickly fell back to sleep.
The next time the tape played and woke me I found I was even groggier than before I stopped. But I had to carry on, if I did not leave now, I knew I would never wake up, it would be suicide. I poured myself some more of that dreadful coffee, and forced myself to drink it all down. But I was still very sleepy; I wasn't really awake at all, but in some kind of stupor. I needed to some how wake up. I unhooked my head from the roof hook and forced my door open; peeling off the duct tape we had used to seal it from the wind.
I ran around the truck a few times to try to get my energy up. I even washed my face with snow! But I was so overtired that the minus-thirty weather and the snow had little or no effect; when I climbed back into the truck I was still one blink from falling dead away into a deep sleep. I hooked myself back to the roof, and just as quickly found myself fighting to stay awake. What am I doing here? Why am I not sleeping? There must be some reason, what is it? Oh yeah, I have to let the clutch out slowly and be careful not to stall it out, I am pulling a heavy load and so I have to be careful; ran the narration in my head.
Now that’s it, good, were moving keep it going good, that’s it. Wait; there must be more, but what? What was it now that was so important that it needed my personal attention? Oh yeah, I’m pulling a trailer, I have to be careful not to round the corner so close that the trailer axles slip into the ditch. Okay, I’m good for that, easy, just ease it onto the road, no problem. No sooner were we straight on the road and I fell immediately into a deep sleep.
"Dave! Dave!" Wake up! Wake up!" Danny shouted while giving me a nudge and momentarily wakening me.
Now why can’t I sleep? I got it on the road all right, so what else am I needed for? Anyone could take it from here it doesn’t need me? Wait second gear? It takes a while to get enough speed to get it into second gear, and then once in second gear sometimes it won’t hold, it starts to slow down and we have to go back to first gear. Ok, I'll wait for that, okay faster …faster, okay good, and now try second gear. I put it into second gear, everything was all right, second gear was holding good at nearly thirty miles an hour, so I went fast asleep.
"Dave! Dave! Wake up!"
What? Again? He must mean someone else; can't he see I'm trying to sleep?
"Dave! Dave!" Wake up! Wake up!" Screamed Danny, he was now shaking me vigorously.
How rude! Can’t he see I’m trying to sleep? What is his problem? I did what I set out to do, were in second gear and moving along nicely.
"Dave! Dave!" Wake up! Wake up!! Dave! Dave! Wake up Dave!" Danny desperately tried to wake me. Hollering as loud as he could and still shaking me but now even more violently than before. He was feeling panicked, even if he was the best driver in the world, there was little he could have done, and I was plugging up the driver’s seat. But in my mind, everything was just fine; I couldn't understand why Danny was getting so upset.
Why won't he leave me alone? Oh this is really pissing me off! Why won't he just look at the damn shifter? He will see that I already got it in to second gear, and then will feel stupid and leave me alone.
"Dave! Dave!" Wake up! Wake up! Dave! Dave! Dave! Wake up!" Dave! Wake up Dave!" now he was hitting me, it seemed like I was never going to wake up, he was sure we were dead, as a last ditch effort he began punching me even harder.
Ouch, that really hurts, why is he doing this to me? Ouch, there he goes again, son of a bitch! Can't he see I got it in second gear? Why won't he leave me alone? Ouch! Again that hurts! All right that burns it! I'm gonna give him a piece of my mind! "What the hell you want? I already got it in second gear!" I roared indignantly.
"The road! Watch the road!"
"Huh?" I said as I looked up to see us heading off the road into the ditch. I quickly got us back on to the road. I don’t know how but somehow we made the rest of the way to Yellowknife, without dying or killing anyone else. Once back in Yellowknife, I slept for three days, so I wasn't much good to Ralph anyhow. When I woke up three days later I kind of felt like how Christ must have felt on Easter Sunday; but not in a sacrilegious way.