x-ert

[Axanderdeath]

Night ride
Hurl through surreal sadness

“What the fuck did ya do that for!” I scream at jack driving across the bridge out of Montreal in the snowy night. I am trying to do the speed limit but my foot is pushing out of anger. “Jack what the fuck is wrong with you?” Jack is groveling. He probably has some broken bones. We get to the other side and I stop at a stop at a strip mall with a liquor store. Jack is breathing all fucked up, he has been drinking for days and he is not going to be very good company if he’s going through with drawls in the back seat so I buy a couple 40s of whiskey and throw one in the back seat with him. He instantly crawls over to the bottle and opens it and sucks on it like a cub at its mom’s teat.

It is back in to the night going east, going home. Home is a funny thing to call it for either Jack or I. I left it when I was in my teens. Halifax. There is a strange sense of excitement that I get when I am going anywhere I have not been for a long time regardless of the circumstances. The wining in the back seat slowly stops and jack has roused himself with the booze and looking straight ahead at the road. “I want to be in the front seat.” He says.

We stop long enough for jack to get in the front seat and jack is not smiling he can sense the anger. “Is there any music here?” He asks I pass him the CD case and he flips through them. He puts on a doors album—I got my eyes on the road and my hands a pone the wheel—Jack lays his head back on the head rest and closes his eyes. “Why you look after me man?”

I do not know how to answer this question. The cold night rushes past. The streetlights glare and run lines in my eyes. I think I am crying for some reason I don’t know why, I do not care about most of those fuckers back there, Tina maybe, but I do not think that really. “Are you okay?”

“I think I may have broken a couple of ribs.”

“Probably”

“You think they’ll be after us?”

“I punched a cop but I don’t think they know the vehicle. I think we are okay. We are going to Halifax.”

“Sweet” jack says with sarcasm that I am not in the mood for.

“Where else jack?”

“I don’t know. “

“Fuck you Jack. Look man why you say all that shit?”

“I did not mean it I was drunk. And you know how fucking pretentious those fucks were.”

“Actions speak louder then words, I mean, fuck that does not work” I chuckled to myself, “my friend jack the racist. That shit you said was vile and unacceptable I should stop the car right here and drop your scumbag ass in the middle of the highway! What is wrong with you? I don’t want to know someone that says that kind of shit! Who the fuck are you?”

“I am sorry.” Jack says like a sucky baby sucking on a bottle, only it is a bottle of whiskey.

“In newbrunswick we can go to the emergency. You are going to have to deal with the pain cowboy style till then.” The road was ice and I had to be careful I glanced over at Jack a couple of time and sighted. “Jack you have to stop drinking.”

“I know” said jack and then took a drink of whiskey. “You got any blow.”

“The glove department.” I said.

He took it out and stuck his finger in and snorted a bit. “Give that here. “ I said one hand on the wheel.

We crossed the border to New Brunswick and when we got to Fredericton we went to a motel and got a room, I gave jack the keys and went to bed. Jack went to the hospital.
XXX
They didn’t tell me how much coke was in the car and I did not care. They gave me a sizable baggy of it and when I got up to Jack walking in a 4 am I took it out and we did a couple lines and we talked.

“What the fuck is this man.” Jack says nose red and with broken rib wheeze.

“What you mean? What is it all about… oldest question in the world.”

“No it is not. It is about happiness. Love.”

“That is funny coming from you considering what you said last night. I under stand that those smarmy know it alls got under your skin Jack but really? Mobster Italian that is a little too much. You could get killed first of all for saying that, second you did not strike me as a person that would be like that.”

“I am not like that and that is why I can say it.”

“Jack that makes no fucking sense at all.”

“Let change subjects.”

“Okay. What you want to do tomorrow?”

“I thought we were driving to Hali.”

“Yeah. Yeah who wants to stay in NewBrunswick? I guess we are driving to Hali. Jack you and I can drink a bit but I am telling you. I mean I can’t stop you from doing anything but everything in you fucking life is fucked up by drinking.”

“Same with you.” He was right.

“There are levels Jack.”

We broke out a bottle of whisky and started drinking and were tanked by the time the sun came up. Around Noon I decided it would be a good idea to go buy a camcorder from radio shack. We drove along the highway drunk until we found a park area we could go out on and fuck around. I took the camcorder and we recorded each other doing stupid shit.

Jack beating a beer can yelling “what you gonna do? Huh? What you gonna do?” Star fade to “jack beating a beer can saying “what you gonna do huh? What? Ya shit heel…” star fade to GRASS star fade to a tree. There really was not that much out there in that field in the way of props.

Jack got that great idea to make interviews. He had a whole premise for a show worked out. It would be called “the asshole show” it would be a variety show where he’d have on famous guessed and bring them out to a field in the middle of nowhere and ask them to beat a can and say “what you gonna do…” the day was fun because we were drunk.

Star fade.

It is around 4 PM and we both have hangovers and we are around the Halifax airport. We both are happy despite out sever hung overnes. To go back home after years of being away is to be reborn. It usually turns out that you grow up to the point that you are sick with where you are born in a matter of months though…

We drive over the bride and look down to the empty park that use to be Africville a thriving African American neighborhood that was beautiful despite the fact the city would not supply running water and was bulldozed down so that a park that no one goes to and all the black people were put into badly constructed projects. The north end. I grew up in the north end. There is something about going home. I don’t know what it is but it makes you FEEL—perhaps it is just nostalgia… maybe it is something that can not be put into words.