Guilty Back Sweat

The following is a true story as I remember it. If any facts are in dispute, it is only because others with dissenting views remember it wrongly. My view is accurate and, should they be called to testify, I fully expect the Canadian contingent of  relatives and non-relatives to offer corroboration to the facts related here. We are talking international cooperation here, folks. Let's call it detente in the Americas.  I left out names of specific individuals just in case any stray paperwork still exists requesting the appearance of myself or my kin before the provincial magistrate to answer for our transgressions.

Background - Seventeen Days Until the Party

My Aunt and Uncle celebrated a wedding anniversary in Saskatchewan in '74  and they decided to throw a party for a few friends and family.  I had twenty or thirty relatives, all on my Moms side, that were scattered between British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan and had all threatened to attend, so my Mom decided my family wasn't going to be the only no-show.  It was the only time I can remember that she made a decision on her own like that, without Dad signing on first.  She said we were going and that was the end of it.   Good for you Mom, good for you.

My Mom was patient, loving and in all ways a great Mom but I have to admit she was somewhat geographically challenged.   When I asked how long it would take to get there, she said "It's not that far, it will be fun, you just wait and see!"  It wasn't fun.  Three days in the car with my Dad was bad news.  I was looking at getting yelled at and hit in the ear by my Dad for three days straight and so that sucks, but like I said, my Mom did want to go, so we went.

I was fourteen at the time and I didn't yet have a vote on family matters.  I was told to get in the back seat and shut up, which was kind of a standard thing in my family.  Other families might start a trip with a happy "Lets go have fun" or "Lets start the trip with a song" or  "Don't forget to pee".  Not my family.  My Dad was a big believer in the "Get in the back seat and shut up".

  

At that point in my life, I was just beginning to experiment with self expression and different ways to piss off my Dad, so for three solid days, I did exactly that.  We had this father/son friction thing that followed us around like stink follows a skunk and as soon as we hit the road, I started to piss off my Dad.  If there was a sign on the road that said "roadside attraction", I asked if we could stop and see the two-headed cow.  If there was a sign that said "rest stop ahead", I said I had to pee.  I didn't have to pee, I was fourteen and could go all day and not pee but I wanted to see my Dad swing his right arm behind him over the seat back of the family car, completely miss my sister while trying to reach my ear with the back of his hand while he drove.  The car always swerved into the oncoming lane when he did that.  At seventy miles an hour my Dad could reach his right hand around and cuff me on the ear and at the same time ask me if I heard the instructions to not speak, all while driving in the oncoming lane.

 

In those days I was an active participate in the non-verbalist movement that was sweeping the junior high schools in the western half of the country.  I didn't say much but when I did, it was something guaranteed to piss off Dad.   

    "Did you hear me tell you to sit still and shut up?", he yelled from the front seat, quickly followed by an offer to stop the car and discuss things further if I got the answer wrong.  

    "Ya.  I got it.  And I still gotta pee."

The Trip – Fourteen Days Until the Party

My Dad hooked up a borrowed travel trailer behind the family truckster for us to sleep in for duration of the trip, so we drove ten hours a day, then camped on the side of the highway at night. I see pictures of families traveling now and there is this new invention called a hotel with a swimming pool.  Who knew?  They must have come out with it sometime after we drove to Saskatchewan because I never stayed in a hotel with a swimming pool until I threw my own kids in the backseat for a road trip and had to reach back and cuff one on the ear and tell them to shut up.

The travel trailer was maybe fifteen or eighteen feet long and was about ten thousand pounds heavier than the truckster could comfortably tow. We did eighty downhill and thirty uphill across three states and two provinces. The smell of hot brake pads, burnt engine oil and unending cigarette smoke filled my nostrils for three days. I feel nauseous now just thinking about that smell.  My dad was a Marlboro man.

Mom and Dad took the master suite in the trailer, which was ill named since it was barely big enough for one person and the natty mattress was sadly situated on one thin piece of plywood above the septic tank.  That tank had a slow leak and smelled like an outhouse on a hot day.  My sister slept on the kitchen table that folded down and doubled as a bed while I slept on the floor, which was OK.  I liked the floor.  I believed then, as I do now, that sleeping on the floor builds character. 

The Farm – Ten Days Until the Party

After three days of hard driving and enough stress to induce a heart attack, we pulled into the farmyard on my Uncles farm in Saskatchewan, at which point Dad kicked my sister and I out of the travel trailer.  My sister moved into the main house while I moved into the cabin with my cousins. At the time, I didn't know why my parents were so willing to let me move out of the travel trailer, but I do now. Parents will do anything to get the kids out of the domicile for some "adult time".  My Dad gathered up all of my clothes and my toothbrush and handed them to me before he shut the engine off.  For me, getting kicked out of the trailer was a stay of execution. I thought I was condemned riding in the backseat of the truckster with a bleeding ear, under the careful watch of my Dad the prison warden, but my Mom the governor interceded on my behalf and let me move into a run down cabin with my cousin John.  I didn't realize it then but my Mom saved me from Dad dozens of times.  I think the reason I can hear out of both ears now is because Mom sent me out on a chore right before Dad whacked me on the ear. 

My cousin John was a revelation to me.  My other cousins are great people too but John and I were almost the same age and I wanted to be just like him.  He smoked cigarettes. He played rock music too loud by some band I had never heard of called Led Zeppelin. He snagged the unused alcohol from his parents house and let me drink some. He had a stack of magazines with pictures of naked girls. He had a crappy cabin with orange shag carpet and a lava lamp. If you look up the word happy in any dictionary printed in '74 or '75, it shows a picture of me in that cabin with my cousin.

Prior to that trip, my musical background was mostly Burt Bacharach, Johnny Cash and maybe some Boots Randolph if I was lucky.  My parents had a couple Boots Randolph albums that they played at parties and I can still hear Boots playing "Yackety Sax".  It was actually pretty good, but somewhere in there, I missed a lot of good rock-n-roll.  When I showed up at my cousins cabin, I didn't know who Led Zeppelin was.  I had never listened to Chicago.  I wasn't allowed to listen to The Doobie Brothers, for obvious reasons. For my thirteenth birthday, my Mom bought me a Carpenters album. I have nothing against The Carpenters, I know Karen had a singularly exquisite voice, but it just wasn't me.  Something was missing, but I didn't know what it was until I found it in a dirty, poorly lit cabin in Saskatchewan with a leaky roof and orange shag carpet.

The cabin is where "no-good" happens. When somebody asked my Mom what I was up to, she always said I was “up to no-good”, which was kind of weird.  She had no idea what a fourteen year old boy might do for some no-good.  I'm not sure but I think my Mom meant that when I was up to no-good, I was staying up past ten.  I had a longer, much more varied list of things to do for some no-good.  I didn't have the heart to tell her the truth so, when she asked what I did in the cabin, I admitted with a guilty frown that we stayed up until eleven or eleven thirty watching television.  I admitted that I would rather go to bed at ten, my regular bedtime, but John seemed to be a night owl and I didn't want to be rude and go to bed early so I stayed up late too.  I think she bought it.  The cabin is the place I wanted to be and I was hoping for a lot of no-good to happen that had nothing to do with bedtime.

Girls just showed up at the cabin, and I don't mean my girl cousins showed up. I mean girls that I didn't share genetic history with just showed up at the cabin. I don't remember the girl's name with black hair that showed up one day but she was willing to sit with me and talk and she had breasts, which was a real bonus for me.  I thought she was an angel when she just showed up one day and walked in the cabin without knocking or anything.  She just walked in and smiled at me. She was fifteen and I was fourteen and I fell in love in a cabin, with Led Zeppelin playing. What was her name? Crap, I can't remember.  She taught me to smoke.  She taught me to drink beer. She taught me...some other stuff.  I'll call her Angel because I cant remember her name.  Angel was awesome.  She wiggled when she walked.

The Car – Seven Days Until the Party

My cousin John had a really nice piece of crap car that only ran when it was warm outside. I don't think John had a valid drivers license, but he had a car and we drove it around looking for some more no-good. John drove and my job was to look out for cops.  I never stopped to consider what to do if I spotted one, but I was an eagle eyed lookout in that car.  John wanted it to look like a dragster so we cut some notches in some 2x4's and jambed them in between the body of the car and rear axle. That lifted the rear end up about six inches. It looked really good but it rode a little rough. Trouble started when we hit a bump and broke one of the 2x4's and the car started to lean. I think the car rode better that way.

We drove that car to a park by a lake and drank beer and smoked and listened to Led Zeppelin and Angel was there.  She smelled like strawberries and she talked to me and she had really big eyes.  What the hell was her name?  I think about her less frequently now than I used to.  I used to think about her ten times a day, every day.  I could see her with dark hair and dark eyes and I could just smell her strawberry lipstick.  I wonder what she looks like now.  Probably still hot.  What was her name?  I just can't remember.  Shit.

The RCMP and Me – One Day Until the Party

One day before my Aunt and Uncle's anniversary party, I went to a small party at a house owned by a friend of Johns.  I think my cousin John told my Aunt and my Mom that we were going to a church party and we were going to drink milk and listen to some religious music and read the bible verses about Moses and maybe pray for a couple hours if we had extra time.  My Mom bought the story so I got to go.  John could really spin a story.

The party was in some guys house that I didn't know and they had shag carpet and lava lamps and rock music turned up way too loud and everybody was smoking hand rolled cigarettes. I don't think Angel was there but some other girl was there and she smiled a lot and she had breasts too, just like Angel, so everything sort of worked out.  She didn't wiggle like Angel but she talked to me and smiled and touched my shoulder.  That's kind of how stuff happens sometimes.  A bad thing happens, like Angel not going to the party but a good thing happens like this other shoulder touching girl is at the party and and it just all works out.  I don't remember her name either but she knew Angel and she was willing to talk to me and smile.  Like I said, things just work out sometimes.  

Everybody at the party was at least a year or two older than I was so I was feeling mucho mature and cool so I sort of wandered around the house and ended up in the basement.  There was some dude in the corner with a girl on the couch, arms and legs were flying everywhere and who knows what shenanigans were about to happen but I was feeling so cool I just kept wandering when I saw my first black light poster.  I couldn't stop looking at it.  There was a big snake wrapped around a nearly naked girl.  In black light.  I was amazed.  Oh ya, when I get home, I gotta get me one of them.

We ran out of beer at about ten or eleven, so a couple guys I didn't know said they were going to get some more and they threw me in the backseat of a dodge four-door.  They didn't need me but they just took me along.  They didn't exactly kidnap me, since I wanted to go, but they didn't ask if I wanted to go either.  They just grabbed me and threw me in the car.  It was like I was a mascot but I didn't care, I was up to no-good.

Other than getting a beer out of the fridge for my Dad, this trip was my first beer run. The big guy with a mustache like a Mexican bandit and long hair that fell past his shirt collar drove. I decided to grow my hair out just like him and get a mustache just like his as soon as I got home.  His car was just a rusted out brown car with a leaky exhaust and a good stereo and he said that I needed to keep at least one window open all the time or we would all be asphyxiated.  I think he was serious because I could smell the exhaust so I kept one window open.  I didn't care, I was fourteen years old and on my first beer run.  

The other guy talked non-stop about his girlfriend and how she dumped him for some loser that worked at a tattoo place and it wasn't right and on and on... who cares for fuck's sake? Shut up already and turn up the Led.  I started to think about the new girl I met at the party, who wasn't as pretty as Angel, but she had breasts just like Angel so I wanted to get back to the party to see what she was all about.  I sort of felt guilty because maybe Angel would be jealous but then I forgot about Angel and started to think about the new girl touching my shoulder again.  Maybe if new girl saw me walk in to the party with beer she know know how much of a bad-ass I was and would let me kiss her. Or whatever.

We ended up at the backdoor of a bar, the driver with the foo-man-chu jumps out and five minutes later, he walks back to the car with a case of beer, opens the back door and hands it to me. We start the drive back to the party while I balance a case of high-test Canadian beer on my lap and I am thinking how awesome this was.  No way would this happen at home.  In twenty minutes I was going to carry that case of beer in the party, everybody would praise my bravery and the new girl would slaughter me with kisses and maybe some no-good.  This was awesome.

To get from the bar to the farm where the party was takes about ten minutes driving on long, flat, straight gravel roads. If you haven't been to Saskatchewan, you wont understand. These roads are flat. These roads go straight. Forever.  You could grow old on those roads, driving in a straight line.  There is one barn and farmhouse on the left, and one barn and farmhouse on the right, spaced about a mile apart.  Between the farmhouses are cows and hay and wheat. That's it, there is nothing else there, nothing but cows and wheat and that one Royal Canadian Mounted Police guy with a bad attitude and a flashy red light on top.

We are doing fifty on a dirt road at midnight, the Mountie is a half mile ahead of us, sitting in his car in the middle of the road waiting to arrest a fourteen year old foreign national that doesn't shave. He sees us coming and turns on his flashy red light. My back starts to sweat.  This is a career moment for the officer.  His first international arrest.  He is going to be a hero back at HQ.  He had quite a few domestic arrests to his credit, but this was his first foray into the the career boosting field of cross-border incarceration.  

Likewise, this event was a big deal for me.  I had never been arrested in Canada before so this would be a first.  I think I was the only one in the car without an arrest record and while I did want to fit in with my new kidnapper friends, I didn't really consider the potential hazards of a beer run until I saw that red flashy light and the mountie with the gun. 

Arrested – Dday Minus One

My bandito driver with the hair and the foo-man-chu starts to slow the car down, but he doesn't stop. That's weird.  I think to myself "the Mountie wants you to stop, dude."  Then he tells me to throw the case of beer out the window into the ditch.  I thought about it and I just froze. I wanted to explain that we had a logistical problem but I didn't have time to explain.  The cop had his flashy red light on and everything was happening too fast. There is only one window rolled down and its the one on the drivers side.  I wanted to scream at him that when he told me to keep one window down so we could breath, he didn't say which one, so I rolled down the one on the drivers side and if I throw the beer out that window, its gonna land in the middle of the road, but I didn't have time to explain it.  I panicked and throw it as far as I can, but throwing a full case of beer out the rear window of a moving Dodge four door with exhaust leaks is harder than it sounds. The best I can do is push it over the edge of the window and hope it rolls in the ditch. I think a case of Canadian beer must be heavier than American beer because it didn't make it to the ditch, it landed almost in the center of the road. The car stopped, the case of broken beer bottles sat there in the middle of the road, mocking me, testifying to my guilt and lack of arm strength.  My shirt is soaked with sweat from my back.  Guilty back sweat. I was promptly arrested and interrogated.  I started to think about what happens to fourteen year old boys in Canadian prisons.  

In the glow of the red flashy light on top of the RCMP car, the seven foot tall mountie with a huge gun on his hip asked for my name and I answered.  The mountie asked for my place of birth, and I answered. The Mountie made me promise to appear in court within a week to answer charges, so I said OK and signed the paper he stuck in my face. He gave me a copy of the paper, which I was going to tear into shreds as soon as I could.  I mean seriously, what did he expect?  He didn't know what my Dad would do when he saw that paper.  My Dad would find out I lied about the party so he would beat me.  He would find out I promised to read bible verses about Moses and pray and drink milk and I lied about that too and he would drop a fist into both ears.  Then I know he would find out about me watching the guy and the girl on the couch and I would get beat for that.  And the black light poster?  No way would I get a black light poster when I got home after this screw up.

I was so scared, I didn't read the paper the Mountie offered me, I just signed it.   As far as I know, it was a contract to buy a condo in Florida.  The red flashy light from the police cruiser glared in my eyes, driving satanic inspired light into my skull.  I knew I was guilty and going to prison.  I knew I was going to hell and my Mom was going to be so ashamed and cry for days on end and Dad was going beat the shit out of me for days on end.  Dad is going change me from a baritone to a tenor.  I am in it right up to my eyeballs.  Guilty back sweat is running down into my shoes.  I looked around for someplace to run.

Then the weirdest thing happened.  He let us go.  I mean, after he arrested us and took our beer and made us sign our own death warrant, he let us go.  I thought of a movie where the cop let the guy go, only to shoot him in the back as he ran and I knew, I just knew I was going to get a bullet in the back from a Mountie.  The Mounties on TV are nice but this seven foot tall monster was a hell-spawned back shooter.  But he didn't shoot us in the back like I knew he would, he just let us go.  I was looking around for a helicopter with a sharp shooter in the door and some salivating german shepherd dogs that are trained to bite the wiener off of American underage felons as they are led off to prison.  But it didn't happen.  He just let us go.  We got back in the car and drove off.  How weird is that? We arrive back at the party, defeated and beerless. Everybody was gone.  Nobody cared.  I crossed my River Rubicon and survived and nobody cared.  And the new girl had gone home.  I felt cheated. Shit.

I wasn't there, but I know for a fact that several days later, in a dimly lit courtroom in Regina, the county seat where the crime was committed, a team of law enforcement professionals were denied in the issuance of justice.  In that courtroom sat a judge, a stenographer and a mountie with a gun and a pair of german shepherd dogs trained to bite the wiener off of foreigners.  In that courtroom, a name was called to answer for crimes committed, but no one answered.  An arrest warrant was then issued, but never served.  Someday, when I can no longer withstand the burden that guilt lays upon me, I plan to drive to Regina, go to the courthouse, find the courtroom and answer the call. Someday.  Maybe someday.

Life With Angel – Dday

The anniversary party came and I was there, freshly showered after my near miss with the Canadian penal system.  Some three or four hundred folks showed up and I know for a fact that not everybody in attendance was in possession of a valid invitation.  I believe the invite list started with a few friends and assorted family, then it multiplied like bunnies snorting a kilo of illicit viagra.  That event was the social highlight of the Canadian central plains that year and even today, it lives on in local lore.  There was food and decorations and a band and several hundred well-wishers eating the free food and enjoying the warm, summer evening.  And Angel was there, and we danced and she kissed me and I silently planned our lives together.  I wanted to live with her in the cabin with my cousins and smoke and drink and browse the magazines and listen to Led Zeppelin and do some no-good with Angel a couple times a day.  She would laugh at my jokes and bake chocolate chip cookies and tell me she loved me.  It didn't work out. She had loftier goals I guess and, and... crap, what the hell was her name?  I almost asked her to get married and I can't remember her name.  Shit.

Running the Border – The Last Day
I went home in the backseat of my Dad's truckster, silent and thinking of my experiences, smiling when I thought of the good stuff and feeling guilty back sweat run down into my underwear when I thought of my transgressions.  As we journeyed south towards the border I thought of the armed SWAT team waiting for me at the border, ready to arrest me with guns and handcuffs and trained german shepherd attack dogs that bite your wiener off.  The closer we got to  the U.S./Canadian border, the more I worried.  The more I worried, the more I sweat.  I silently rehearsed a speech that I planned to give to my Mother, apologizing for the life of crime I had been living.  She deserved better.  I knew it was wrong but I couldn't help myself.  Crime came easily to me and I was suited to no other occupation that I knew of so even though I wanted to be a veterinarian, treating sick and wounded animals with kindness, I was doomed to a life of robbing banks and other, mean spirited affairs.  I admitted I was a prison lifer, just waiting for a bunk to open up on Alcatraz.  I was so sorry.  

The worst part was I knew how disappointed she would be.  I cried silently at how she would surely turn her back on me when she learned I was such a low sort.  She would cry and shake her head and hug my sister close and whisper to her "Don't look at your brother.  Don't think about him ever again.  He just turned out bad.  So bad."  I cried at how my Dad would beat the living hell out of me as he dropped me off at prison, shouting to the guards "You take him, I don't want him."

We drove south, towards the border, towards my own personal doom, where the guards certainly knew of my crime and were just waiting to arrest me.  I started to hyperventilate.  Then as the border came into view, I started to make low moaning noises. I couldn't help it. I think John Dillinger made those same noises right before the FBI shot him dead.  I could feel the back sweat run down my back then between my butt cheeks.  As we got within a mile of the border, I started looking for the flashy red light on the take-your-ass-to-prison car and the tall RCMP officer, waiting to point one long finger directly at me and say "That's him there, the chubby kid with the dim look.  Set the wiener eating dogs loose."   I briefly considered running, moving only at night, sleeping in a ditch during the day, making my way back to the cabin.  I would be safe there, with Angel, but the opportunity didn't present itself.  I sat tight and waited for the hangman's noose.  As it turned out there was a communication gap between the RCMP and the guys with guns at the border because they didn't stop me.  One of the border guards did ask my Dad if I was ok when he noticed the puddle of guilty back sweat running out the door of the truckster.  My Dad reached around and cuffed me on the ear while saying "I told you to be quiet."  I guess I was making that Dillinger moaning noise again.  Watching me get hit on the temple seemed to please the border guard because he nodded approvingly at my Dad, then he waived us through.

After

For years, I thought my feelings for Angel were mutual and I expected her to show up at my door, asking for my hand in marriage.  That never happened and honestly, I was sort of surprised that it didn't.  I really thought she wanted to marry me as much I ... well, I guess it doesn't matter now.  

Every time I thought of her, my mind wandered a bit, recalling our time together, smelling her smoky breath, and I could see her dark hair, her big eyes and of course her breasts, but then that red flashy light intruded, then I saw the wiener eating dogs and my dream was ruined.  It all made my back sweat.  Guilty back sweat.