Challenging Canada

It’s March.  It’s cold.  And for some odd reason, I’m walking across the Cambie Bridge in Vancouver, BC.  The air is crisp and nearly biting, bringing a surge of spearmint-like burn into my lungs with every breath.  Cutting through water the same electric blue as the sky, the row teams in the river below tell me that this is one beautiful day, perfect for recreating.  And what am I doing?  I’m crossing a foreign town in a foreign nation, on foot.  Why?

My dirty white Subaru bearing Washington plates is behind the bars of an impound lot somewhere across town, and, frankly, the idea of hoofing it all the way back Seattle without it is not appealing.  But I’m sure that the devious Lady Canada would love to see it.  You see, Canada is out to get me and my car.  It sounds crazy, I know; but this is the country’s second attempt at putting my poor little automobile out of commission and stranding me.
Since I’ve got nothing better to do while I walk, let me explain…

• *    *

About six months ago, back in September, my middle-aged roommate Richard unveiled his latest birthday scheme.  Most people I’ve known trust their friends and family to arrange an enjoyable party, meal, event, or whathaveyou in remembrance of their days of birth.  Not Rich.  No, he plans his own event for every September the eleventh—often as early as September the twelfth of the previous year.  This year, the plan had come to him only a month prior when he learned of the arrival of the gold-laden sarcophagus and immeasurable riches of good old King Tutankhamen at the Royal BC Museum in Victoria, BC.  Dead set on bearing witness to the famous pharaoh’s goods but ever the lover of social interaction, Rich proposed a weekend dude’s excursion across the American/Canadian border.  Three of us took the bait.

I was the first to agree.  What can I say, living in one town for the first twenty-one years of my short life, I’m a sucker for a chance to let loose and hit the highway—even if the trip is short.  I seem to be a particularly easy sell on Canada.  They have ketchup flavored potato chips and milk that comes in a plastic baggie, and who in their right mind can pass those up?  And, of course, time on the highway to enjoy—and most likely annoy—friends isn’t something to be missed either.

The next to join the crew was a thin, fuzzy fellow by the name of Roddy—his license claims his name is Matthew William Roddy, but anyone who calls him that doesn’t really know him.  We’d gotten to spend a good deal of time with him over the last few months, and I suppose this Canada thing was a good excuse for him to get to hang with the guys some more.

Just days before the border-crossing, our buddy Chad opted to tag along as well.  He and Rich have historically had their differences on and off, but the friendship was deep enough that a weekend demonstration of comradery wasn’t too much of a stretch and would probably be beneficial.  That he lived in the same house as Richard and me didn’t hurt either.

The last of our characters on this trek—really, the central character—was Mandy, my white ’94 Subaru Impreza, a fluke of a car.  Somehow, much to the surprise of every mechanic who met her, the plant at which she was born failed to form her with the standard four-wheel drive that the rest of her breed came equipped with.  This was only the beginning of her freakish nature.  Within a month of purchasing her from a shady lot on Aurora Ave., I had been forced to pour over $2000 into repairing her deeply neglected engine and axles.  Feeling for her pitiful state and unable to return her to the lot, I opted to keep the derelict little car and stand faithfully beside the pathetic, lonely machine.

Friday night rolled up and there we were, lugging sleeping bags and backpacks across our front lawn, heaving them into the hatch of the station wagon.  We followed suit, jumping into the car ourselves; buckled in; said a prayer; and pulled away from the curb.  Maybe we should have said a few more prayers.

Rich at the wheel, trees and headlights whizzed past on either side as we shot up I-5.  The clouds above were thickening as Walmarts, casinos, and tractor lots blazed by in the darkness, little firework eruptions of neon timed to the unending chain of puns bursting forth from the two in the back seat.  Chad volleyed a corny line; Roddy returned the serve with a line of his own, and on their game of cheese-tennis went, snickers and giggles from all sides of the car as my eyes rolled in their sockets.  “That’s bad, guys… just bad.”  Along the line, the rain picked up from a drizzle to a downpour, diminished to nothing, started up again, and steadied out at a moderate shower as we slithered north through the Washington woodlands.  Finally, we saw the border station on highway 99 drawing toward us through the glistening darkness.  Our little white wagon was the only thing on the wet road as we pulled up to the guard station; we had reached Canada—and Canada saw us coming.

Jovial from the self-contained entertainment of the last two hours, we rolled down the window to cheerily pass our aged birth certificates and passports to the thickly bundled security officer trapped inside a breadbox of a checkpoint.  He sneered as he shuffled through the American paperwork in his hands.  A tired pair of pupils rose toward us, barely appearing from under his densely furrowed brow, “Go up ahead and pull over to the left, we’ve got to check your papers.”

Almost in unison, the corners of four sets lips went downturned, and our eyes shifted left and right as though something in the corners of one of our minds would provide an answer to the sudden joint question, oh crap, what did we do?  The four of us pondered it as we continued fifty yards into the country and pulled off the road, parking in an empty lot consisting of no more than eight diagonal car stalls beside a sleepy, fluorescent-lit building reminding me of an institutionalized Sonic’s drive-in left long without guests.  We apprehensively left Mandy to enter the facility.  It felt as though we were on our way to the principal’s office.

Once inside, we were addressed—not greeted, addressed, as though we were potential threats to national security—by a broad man standing behind the front desk who a thick white moustache similar to that of the has-been actor I only remember from commercials for Quaker Oats and hemorrhoid creams.

There was a candy machine in the far corner—perhaps to lure unsuspecting visitors into a false sense of security.  It stood right beside the door that we were individually directed through to face interrogation.  It was as though we were MI-6 agents behind enemy lines.

(The James Bond theme starts up in the background.)

“Richard Schwartz.”  And he walked in.

“Chad Crosson.”  He calmly sauntered into the room.

“Joshua Wall.”  And I strode through the doors.

“Matthew Roddy.”  And he went in.

Truthfully, I don’t even remember what happened in behind those doors; repressed memories perhaps, something to be dug up in a therapy session.  When I came out, though, Richard and Chad, standing beneath that buzzing fluorescent tube, asked what I’d told them.  Upon reviewing the questioning for my comrades, Chad gave me that you said what?!? expression that has historically seemed to be a cornerstone of our relationship.

After Roddy came out of his session and our paperwork was returned to us—I guess we convinced them that we weren’t threats to the commonwealth of Canada after all—, we coolly walked back to the stranded car (as fast as we possibly could), and got on our way, hoping to escape before the hemorrhoid mustache man changed his mind.  Hundreds of droplets of rain continued to pop on the windshield as we nervously laughed about the quick brush with the Canadian “heat” to calm our nerves.  Canada had taken her first shot at stranding us within her borders—albeit mere yards within her borders—, but we had somehow escaped her wrath.

We drove on into the night, a night so dark and so wet, we were virtually submarining through an aquarium of used motor oil, unable to see through the viscous air to what was ahead until it was upon us.  This made following the vague directions trapped inside Roddy’s head rather difficult.  We had decided to crash at his brother’s house in Langley instead of a hotel; a free floor for the taking was most inviting to our bereft pockets.  We just had to get there.

Now at the helm of the vehicle for his greater knowledge of Canadian highways, Mr. Roddy lurched over the steering wheel, hands at 11:30 and 12:30 instead of 10 and 2, eyes wide to pierce the liquid dark in search of the fabled maple leaf sign for Highway 1.

We passed it once, not realizing it until we had gone some extra ten miles north.  We turned around, this time, finding it and proceeding to make the turn onto the golden road to shelter.  Unfortunately, we had somehow managed to get onto Highway 1 west instead of the intended Highway 1 east.  At the time, I just assumed we’d driven ourselves into this dandy little road-pretzel by sheer human error.  I know better now.  There is no doubt in my mind that by some weather-altering hex, Lady Canada was at play again, pulling the strings behind our directional discombobulation.  In spite of this, however, we did manage to straighten ourselves out and were once again headed on the right path to a night of sleeping-bagged rest.

Though now on the right road, heading in the right direction, we once again managed to miss our intended turn-off, shooting five-to-ten miles further into the nation’s interior than we would have liked, rainfall still pelting our white Subaru—who, I’d like to add, was holding up far better than I had feared she might.  The few mile overshoot was no big deal, though; we only had to turn around, something we’d gotten a good deal of practice at in the last hour.  But Canada wasn’t through with us yet, and now she knew right where to get us.  The four human travelers may have been too resilient for her subtle attacks, but she knew our weak link: Subaru Mandy.

Roddy directed our automotive pack-mule up an off-ramp across the highway from a brightly lit car lot, traversed the overpass, and hung a left down the opposite on-ramp.  We were—yet again—on our way.  We got up to speed coming down the ramp, slicing through the sheets of water like a coastguard cutter.

Vvvvvvvv-mmmmmm, Mandy’s four cylinders whirred, shifting gears.
Then, without warning, at the base of the ramp, lady Canada let us have it: SPPPPSSSSSSSHHHHHHH!!!

In a heartbeat, the paved road had actually liquefied, rising on impact to tidal wave height like a mammoth cobra preparing a strike, and crashed down with all the force of a falling orca across the hood, windshield, and roof of my poor, pitiful car.

Mmmmmmpthpth…th…th…bpth, Mandy’s four cylinders trailed off as she passed out.

Mentally regaining awareness, Richard, Chad, and I looked around in utter confusion as Roddy tried to revive our two-wheel-drive companion.

Ghng-ug-ug-ug-ug… ghng-ug-ug-ug…

The turning key that usually spawned mechanical life affected nothing.  She was out for the count.  Quite literally, the lights were on, but Mandy was not home.  Obviously, to allow amassing on-ramp traffic to pass, we had to push her off to the shoulder of the road.  Getting out into adverse weather conditions, Chad, Richard, and I muscled up and got her moving while Roddy guided her lifeless body out of the line of fire so that other cars could pass.

Apparently, there was a puddle the size and depth of a child’s wading pool at the end of this particular Highway 1 on-ramp that, in the dense rain, had blended perfectly into the rest of the water-glossed, black pavement.  This became clear when the next car to come charging down the ramp—some kind of old, green hatchback—met the same fate we had, disappearing for an instant behind a wall of fluid pavement that shot six feet in the air and slammed back down onto the hood.  This car, too, died.

As most people engaged in similar struggles tend to find compassion for one another, Roddy and Chad hopped to action, running back to help this hapless victim of the trap Canada had set for us.  As the dented green hatchback slugged off to the side of the road, powered by four human legs, this fortunate driver managed to get it to start again.  He thanked the two dripping good Samaritans for their help and puttered away into the Canadian night.

This happened at least three more times.  But in ever instance, the victim was quickly able to restart and continue on their way.

Not us.  The targeted nature of the Lady’s malice was evident.

What a sight we were.  For a good twenty minutes, four utterly saturated American men marooned on the side of the road took turns taking shelter from the rain under the uplifted hood of a white Subaru, pretending we had some idea what was wrong.  Roddy and Chad would look it over.  Chad would grow weary of his own inability, step aside, leaving a vacancy over the engine which Richard gladly filled with his growing frustration and fear that his weekend may not run quite as he had anticipated.  I’d step up behind them, peering over their shoulders just to see what was going on—not that I had any clue what that was.  Roddy would step aside to think, allowing Chad to step into his spot.  And the cycle would just keep going like that: one confused man filling the hole of another.

Watching, I was quickly becoming troubled by the potential damage to my car’s insides, a world as foreign to me as the road I was standing on.  The only theory that kept arising as we shuffled about was Rich’s: “It’s gotta be the spark plugs, we must’ve soaked ‘em.”

So we pulled them out, dried them with someone’s sweatshirt, and returned them to their functional homes.  But it didn’t work.  It didn’t work the first time, or the second, or the third; the car just would not start.  No matter how many times we dried the spark plugs and turned the key, nothing happened.

Nothing but the same old ghng-ug-ug-ug-ug that told us Mandy was not waking up. Somehow, though, that didn’t stop us from standing there and repeating the same thing yet again.

Intermittent cars were still coming down the on-ramp, navigating the pool of treachery, and continuing on past us.  Some slowed down to eye our sorry circumstance or roll down the window and shout out a word of encouragement as they passed, but after fighting with the drowning effects of Lady Canada’s fury upon our weary little wagon, no hopeful Canadian words out the window of a functional Honda sedan were going to perk up an increasingly defeated Richard.  While the doused figures of Chad and Roddy pressed on through the cold in their manly attempts to solve our automotive dilemma, Rich had retreated momentarily to the interior of the car, pouting at the foreboding potential loss of the perfect weekend he had set his heart on that depended entirely on the functionality of this vehicle.  We simply let him go.  Not only were we as unable to change his attitude as a parent is unable to change that of a whiney child who doesn’t get the ice cream he so desperately desires, but Chad was trying to cope with the rather emasculating fact that he couldn’t solve the problem, and I was busy worrying about everything from how to keep everyone happy to how on earth I was going to afford whatever was wrong with the car this time.  We were sunk; we could feel it in ever drop of water that weighed us down.

It was right then, at this bleakest of moments, that our salvation arrived: a man who would later be deemed Volvo Steve.

As we continued repeating the same spark plug procedure, to the same ineffective end, an olive drab Volvo came skittering up Highway 1 on our side of the road.  I would never even have noticed it among the other cars that had passed us except that it slowed down as it approached us and pulled off the road just ahead of our KO’d Subie.  Being of little aid to the mechanical struggles the others were engaged in, I watched as a skinny, dark-haired dude in a gray, oversized rain jacket opened the driver-side door and stepped out of the Swedish vehicle.

Now, I don’t know what it is about scrawny, goofy nice guys, but I’ve taken note that they all have the same, awkwardly fluid, lanky stride: something of a cross between a scarecrow and an orangutan.  Whenever you see someone walking in such a manner, you’re almost certain to meet a man who has the kindest, most heartfelt intentions… but is going to leave you with a bigger mess than he found you with.  Enter Steve.

He strolled over, gave a warm greeting and a handshake to each of us, asked what our problem was, and joined Roddy and Richard (who had rejoined the struggle) in their current staring contest with the engine.  Clearly, he didn’t know anything more about my car than I did, but he did do a pretty good job of donning the furrowed just wait it’ll come to me expression that had permanently marred the rest of our faces over the last forty-five minute.  We all stared at the automotive puzzle before us, rubbing our chins, scratching our heads, contorting our faces in deep, unproductive thought.  Men at work: a beautiful, entirely useless sight.

Then genius struck—or at least something, compared to our previous efforts, close enough to pass for genius.

“Hey Steve,” Roddy broke in, turning his head in his direction.

Our Canadian friend looked up, his big heart sensing his moment to shine.
“You got jumpers?”

Steve suddenly knew what his purpose was as he replied, eyes lit up like Christmas trees, “Yeah, right in the car!”

He took off back up the slight hill toward his vehicle, got to the driver door, opened it, and paused.  He turned around, seeming confused.

“You’re gonna have to get right up beside the car,” Chad called, understanding the process going on inside Volvo Steve’s head.

He smiled, eyes lighting up again, and disappeared into the dark interior of his car.

The old Volvo started up.  But it didn’t go anywhere.  The four of us had moved away from Mandy’s left side so that he could back up alongside it for the jump, but he didn’t.  We all looked around at each other with curiosity as we stood in the rain, watching to see what Steve was waiting for.  As the red rear lights of another highway traveler passed him, he pulled out into the road, heading straight for the center divider.

“What the hell is he doing?”  I heard Richard’s nasal, Minnesotan beside me.
All eyes were locked on that crazed Volvo, our heads rotating in unison to follow its slow path across all westbound lanes of the Highway 1.

“Noooo, he isn’t,” slipped from my mouth.

“He’s—he’s turning around,” Roddy play-by-played, willing to vocalize what we were all witnessing.

And that he was.  With westbound headlights approaching down the wet road, this overzealous, somewhat poorly planned Canadian man drove out across four lanes of traffic to pull a U-turn.  It certainly wasn’t what any of us expected him to do, and probably not what the coming drivers expected to see on their way home from the movies, but there it was.  He finished his little highway half-donut and pulled the Volvo up to my Subaru, oncoming traffic passing just off his taillight as he reached the shoulder again.  The Volvo was now facing us.

Ok, I thought, eyes still wide as I tried to get over the foolishness of what we’d just witnessed.  Richard, as I looked over, held his face in his hands.  He couldn’t take it; everyone was an imbecile.

So, after Chad and Roddy had worked to hook up the batteries to each other and directed Volvo Steve in what to do on his end of the deal, we proceeded to try for a jumpstart.  Steve revved the Volvo for a minute and Roddy tried turning the key to start Mandy.  Nothing.  Steve revved up again; Roddy turned the ignition.  Nothing.  We did this recurrently, as though it were some religious practice.  Once again, we seemed to figure that repetition was the key to success—it’s a good thing no one proposed hitting the engine with our foreheads to be a viable solution.

Somewhere around jump attempt number six, someone motioned that, perhaps, if we held the Volvo’s rev for a longer period of time, we might have better results.  So we tried it; Steve held the accelerator for a couple minutes before Roddy gave the key its twist.  Didn’t work.  We tried again; Steve revved the engine and held it there.

“You smell somethin’?”  Richard, with a scrunched up nose, piped in from across the hood.  (And let me note that if someone “smells something,” it’s generally a good time to stop whatever it is that you’re doing.)

“Yeah, what is that?”  Chad responded inquisitively, sniffing the air.

“I don’t know,” I chimed in.  “Is that smoke coming out of the battery?”

Chad moved in for a closer look, “No, that’s just steam from the rain.”
“No, no, that smells like smoke,” Roddy confirmed, leaning in under the hood.  We all stared for a second as Steve kept revving, the smoke/steam still rising.

“We better disconnect this,” Chad voted with a hint of anxiety building under his words.  As he said it, his right hand slid in toward one of the jumper cable battery clamps and clasped down around it.

“OW, shit!!”

His hand burst back off the protective grip, molten rubber stuck to his palm.

“Oh SHIT, ow!!  Someone get me a towel!”  Someone did, and Chad, after he had wiped the scalding liquid rubber from his burnt hand, reassessed the situation.  Roddy agreed.

“Lets try it again.  Just don’t run it as hard.”

That was it, Rich was done.  True, everyone was trying to solve the problem as best they could, but that best wasn’t very impressive, and Rich’s weekend celebration was, in his mind, finished.  So he sought the only escape he could find from the troubling scene: the back seat of the Subaru.

Ka-chunk, the rear right door closed.

Realizing my current position as nothing more than a spectator in this tragic narrative—and a WET spectator at that—, I opted to follow suit, seeking refuge from the rain to commiserate with a downcast and fairly upset friend.

Ka-chunk, the rear left door closed behind me; I pulled back my hood and shook off a little, my glasses fogging.  I leaned back against the straight-backed bench seat and gazed out the misty windshield at the lower half of the troubling scene outside, which was visible through the gap below the lifted white hood.

“Ya Ok, man?”  I asked the miserable birthday boy, still looking out at the continuing attempts at a jumpstart.

Richard turned to look at me from behind his huge coke-bottle glasses.  His eyes were impatient and his voice curt as he vocalized his irritated fear that this little hitch in his plans could potentially cost him his weekend of historical wonder.  Though, personally, I couldn’t quite understand his hearty desire to see relics of old dead people, I found myself trying to empathize and raise his lowly spirits.  After all, Tutankhamen or not, pouting is no way to spend a weekend with friends.

I kept asking questions, he kept voicing his aggravation.  There were long segments of quiet in the cab amidst the discussion.  I would sit in such periods, staring out the windshield at nothing in particular, listening to the rain on the roof and the wet tires passing by us on the highway; they sounded like tape being quickly pulled from the roll.  Lost in the sounds, I faintly heard Roddy and Chad directing Volvo Steve outside.

“Ok,” Chad told him, “now rev it up some.  Not too much.  Yeah, a little more.  Yeah, right there.  Now hold it.”

Vvvvrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr… And then it stopped, rrrrrrnnnnnngggghghghhhh.

“What?” Roddy asked for clarification to a question I couldn’t hear.

“Neutral?  Oh, no, no.  Just leave it in park.  Still good, Chad?”

“Yeah, connections are all still good.  Give it another go.  And rev it a little higher this time; we’re not near smoking yet.  Just don’t overdo it.”

Vvvvvvrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr…

Mentally wandering from Richard for a second, I thought about that last bit of dialogue.  “Neutral?”  I focused my tired eyes on the scene outside again.

Chad kept his eye on the jumpers and Roddy stood by, directing Steve.  Then I saw something from under the raised hood, something strange.  The front end of Volvo Steve’s Volvo: it was sitting some six feet away up the inclined roadside and it—seemed—seemed to be—growing in size?  My eyes focused a little more as I leaned forward.  No, it wasn’t growing; that was my depth perception picking up movement.  Movement toward me.

Oh no, you’ve gotta be kidding me…

THUD!

The hilarious, ironic entirety of situation struck me as quickly as the car did.

Volvo Steve, despite his eagerness to help, had left his car in neutral and managed to roll the Volvo six feet downhill, right into the very Subaru he was trying to get running.

I looked over at Richard as the rocking motion stopped.  I started to chuckle.
You’re kidding me.  You’re FREAKING kidding me! I thought.  After all this, he HITS my car!

The laughter grew quickly.  I was now curled over with one arm holding my laughter-pained stomach and the other pounding the tan fabric headrest in front of me.  I looked over at Richard again out of the corner of my tearing eye, now unable to do anything but laugh.  His furrowed brow rose and his eyes lit up like the eyes of a lunatic hatching a new plan for world domination.  That was it.  All his frustration, all his hopelessness, all his anger, and all his sanity, washed away.  His mouth peeled back to an openness so open I could actually see his uvula dance back and forth as he erupted into a pitch of laughter bordering on dog-whistle.

His short, deafeningly squeaky laughs bursting out rhythmically—seemingly from the very pit of his stomach—only fueled the atom-splitting rage of my own laughter as our eyes caught again.  We couldn’t stop!  It was a symbiotic hilarity that kept itself going like some kind of perpetual motion machine; as each one of us recognized the other’s enjoyment, our own increased.  To the point that Richard’s capacity to inhale air ceased entirely; I, for prolonged lack of oxygen, could no longer make a sound; and we sat there in silence, rocking, crying, and wheezing as the others pulled the two cars apart.

Not long after that, Volvo Steve (who I’m quite certain was not a planned part of Canada’s mischief, only incidental icing on her cake) said goodbye and good luck and headed still rather cheerfully on up the road to wherever he was going—once he got himself facing the right way on the highway again, that is.  The Canadian version of an AAA guy came out to try his luck at our case.  No dice.  He left.  Finally, we just called Roddy’s brother, asked him to pick us up, vowed to come back and fix Mandy’s ills in the morning, and called it a night: a tiring, tragic, and ineffective night.  Lady Canada had won this round.

The next day, we took up the fight again, spending a whopping six hours on the side of Canada’s Highway 1.  We tried drying the spark plugs again, to no avail.  We tried jumping it again—now that it was “dry”—with no success.  For awhile, we just stood there in the sunlight and stared at the engine.  Alas, however, our telekinesis failed us yet again, as it had the night before, and our focused gawking accomplished nothing.  Chad and I got bored and started taking snapshots of the sun; the sky; him in the thick roadside vegetation; me standing in the pavement crater that, last night, had been the black pool of death.  This time, though, we had the use of the Roddy brother’s truck to help us gather useless information from car lot work stations, acquire sustenance from a Canadian donut shop, videotape ourselves pushing that abused white Subaru for multi-mile stretches of Canadian road, and follow the tow truck we eventually gave in and called.

In total, the failed birthday excursion cost Richard the expected joy of seeing a once-in-a-lifetime collection of antiquity’s rarest relics, it cost me nearly four-hundred dollars in tow truck and repair bills, and it cost us all countless hours of failed do-it-yourself roadside assistance.

And all that for what, you ask?  A flooded air-intake manifold.  Simply put, Lady Canada had shut down our weekend by waterlogging my car.

• *    *

So now, back on this bridge, working on saving my car from the wrath of the Northern Lady once again, you’re asking me another question: why the hell am I back in Canada?  To tell you the truth, the answer is twofold.  One, where else I am supposed to get ketchup-flavored potato chips while I snowboard?  And two, somewhere deep down, I actually appreciate this sick little game that Canada plays with me.  For all intents and purposes, it really looks like She triumphs over me and my little car every time, causing us great loss, mentally and financially.  Really though—and don’t tell her—, Lady Canada’s spite affords me the most exciting and noteworthy weekend ventures I could ask for; I couldn’t plan this kind of stuff if I wanted to.  So, I’ll get my car out of impound, go home, and—when all the credit card bills are paid off—come back to challenge the Lady’s wrath again.

You haven’t seen the last of me, Canada.