(Read Part 1 here)

On The Road Again

Day 2 on the road. Dylan and I officially consider ourselves hardened road veterans. With an early start thanks to the sketchy House of Nazareth, we catch our first ride before 8am: an old, bright orange VW van. I didn’t know hitchhiking could be so cliche. Dylan sat in the back seat, a slippery vinyl ledge with no seatbelt, and I sat up front. After our introductions, the twenty-something driver started talking about music. “Hey, do you guys know reggae punk? You gotta check this out.” The remainder of the two hour ride, he would alternate between telling us about a new genre of music he had discovered (psychedelic blues, Icelandic ska) and playing a few songs on his stereo for us. Dylan fell asleep in the back so I was left on conversation duty. Nearing the end of the ride, I ventured to asked him if he liked TOOL. “Naw, too loud. They’re just plain metal. But hey, you gotta check out this new underground African-jazz-metal trio I found from New York…”

Countless new genres of music later, we were on the side of the highway in Northern New Brunswick. We climbed up off the highway shoulder to the grassy bank, and had a lunch of dried fruits and barbecue peanuts. Dylan noticed an SUV stopped on the side of the highway just up from us. “Do you think they stopped for us?” We ran over and met a smiling, 6’5 tall black man moving boxes and hand drums from the backseat to the front. “So, were can I drive you two young travelers?” He asked in a thick African accent, his huge smile showing his bright white teeth. He said he was going to a music festival in Montreal to sell his instruments and that we were welcome to hitch a ride with him. We were stoked. Halifax to Montreal in less than two days on the road!

We crammed into the backseat with drums and boxes packed in around us and on our laps.  Our driver introduced himself as Abdu, and this big Senegalese was maybe the friendliest guy I had ever met. A gentle giant. He entertained us along the way with his life story: how he loved music and wanted to make a better life for himself and his family, so logically, he said, why not put the two together? He smiled his huge smile the whole way to Montreal, and refused to consider dropping us off anywhere more than a block away from where we were headed.

Montreal, City Of Rock

When we finally arrived in Montreal, it was late at night and our friend Haley – a high school friend who we planned to stay with — wasn’t expecting us so early and wasn’t home. We got dropped off in her neighborhood, and constructed a plan. “We should try to find somewhere to get a drink while we wait” I said to Dylan. We walked into a corner store and Dylan asked the cashier, a burly, rough-looking fellow if there was a good bar around. “You know a place where we can get a beer or a coffee and watch some live music?” The cashier looked Dylan and I up and down. “I know the place for you two” he said.

We followed the cashier’s directions and ended up two blocks down in a trendy basement bar. Exhausted, we slumped onto a couch in the corner. Three drinks later, a factor of the long hours on the road and lack of food, we were buzzed. “Hey Dylan, you know what we need? We need to meet some French girls. Quebecois, man.” I paused and looked around the bar. “Actually, I just realized, there’s hardly any girls in this bar.” Dylan looked around. “Naw, I’m sure I’ve seen a few.” He looked around. “I mean, there must be girls here…” We counted. Twelve tables and the bar occupied. All men. All mysteriously flamboyant. Our waiter came over and asked if we wanted another drink. Realizing we had been duped by the convenience store cashier, we asked for the check and left, after a good laugh. Luckily Haley was home and agreed to show us around the hetero bar scene.

We spent a couple of nights crashing on Haley’s floor, staying up late drinking cheap wine and sleeping in until the afternoon. Our other friends from Halifax — who had bought tickets and had originally planned to go with Christian in the van – had somehow convinced one of their parents to drive them up in a car (there wouldn’t have been any room for us anyway) and met us the day before the concert.

The night of the TOOL concert we all met up at Haley’s, and took taxis as a group. I don’t remember arriving or going through security or even who was the opening band. What I do remember are the looks on my friends faces as and the feeling of camaraderie as the band came on stage; the roar of the crowd as Maynard let out his first scream. I remember feeling every beat of the bass drum in my chest like it was a trying to replace my heartbeat. I remember the security guard walking over and telling us that we couldn’t smoke cigarettes — or anything else in the amphitheater, with a wink. Everything after that is lost in the annals of memory as a blur of adrenaline and serotonin.

(I suppose the old adage “it’s the journey, not the destination” is true, as it’s really the events surrounding the concert that are the most vivid memories for me. Especially the hitchhiking.)

After the celebratory drinking and the morning hangovers, it was time to go home. My friends from Halifax would be going back in the car, but there wasn’t any extra room. Since Dylan’s parents lived in Ontario, they offered to pay for his bus ticket from Montreal so he could visit. That meant I was left to hitchhike back on my own. What would have scared me shitless a week before, I now found exciting.

In A Flatbed Ford
After a late start and a long day with only a few short rides – mostly me bumbling through basic conversational French — I was picked up by two beautiful single women in their late twenties, one blonde and one brunette, driving an old Ford pickup. “We’ll only pick you up if you can drive for us tonight when we’re tired.” I asked where they were going. Halifax. “Deal.” I said, careful not to sound too eager, but grateful for my fantastic luck. “But I need some sleep before I start driving.” Since the back seat was tiny with barely enough room to sit, let alone sleep, they decided to stop clear out some room for me in the back of the covered cab. The cab was almost completely full with suitcases and loose junk (one of them was moving to Nova Scotia), so we cleared up a small aisle in the center and pushed everything to the sides, right to the top of the cab. I grabbed a pillow and stretched out as the old pickup screeched through gears and onto the highway. Within minutes I was asleep.

When I awoke from my sleep, I panicked. I couldn’t move my arms or legs, and everything was pitch black. I couldn’t remember where I was. A million thoughts rushed through my head. Maybe I got drugged and tied up. Where were they taking me? And who the hell were they? Then I remembered. I was in the back of the pickup with the two beautiful girls driving. The weight of all the luggage had shifted while I was sleeping, bringing all the heavy junk down on top of me. Must have been a deep sleep, I thought. I waited another hour, trying intermittently to pry my arms free, until the truck finally stopped (it was a good thing too, cause I really had to ***). I could hear the girls muffled voices as they opened the cab. “Oh my god, he’s buried in there! I hope he can breathe!” Then I could feel suitcases being pulled out near my feet, and after another few minutes, I was free again. The two girls and I laughed about the situation over a fast food snack, then the girls split a joint and handed me the keys. “She’s all yours!” said the blonde.

Soon we were back on the road and I was driving. I didn’t have a lot of experience with driving manual transmissions, and when I changed to second gear, I heard an incredible screech. “Pull over, pull over!” the girls yelled. My heart was racing. I pulled to the shoulder and screeched to a stop. “Oh my God! We forgot to tell you that second and third gear don’t work! Sorry!”

“What?!” We all started laughing. They weren’t lying. The transmission would only shift from first gear into fourth. “Oh, and sometimes when you’re driving on the highway in fifth, the engine stalls. Just pop the clutch and it’ll usually start up again.”

After an intense all-nighter of fending off a stall-prone engine — all the while trying to chat up the brunette (the blonde was sleeping) – I finally pulled up to my parents house as the sun came up. I parked the truck on the road at the bottom of the driveway and the girls got out to say goodbye. “Really guys, thanks for the ride. That was pretty awesome of you guys to pick me up.” The girls smiled and gave me a hug. “You’re cute.” Said the brunette. “If I see you on the highway again, I’ll pick you up.” She winked. I smiled and turned to the house as the pickup screeched from first gear to fourth and disappeared down the street.

While walking up the driveway with my backpack and guitar, I distinctly remember thinking to myself, I could really get used to this hitchhiking thing.