Tim and Julian Hitchhike to Halifax Final Chapter

September 4th 2002

3AM
I just get home from the bar and Dais sitting outside looking like a parent who just found out their child was a crack fiend prostitute. He had this I'm very disapointed in you look on his face, Julian just sepped over hime but Dan stopped me.

The conversation went something like this.

Dan: Dude we need to talk about Julian.
Me: Man can this wait I'm fucking tired and I have had a shitty day.
Dan: This will be quick you have to tell him he is gone.
Me: Why? what has he done?
Dan: He owes rent for this month and i think he's obnoxious
Me: First it's only the 4th of the month and he gets paid on friday. Second he's my best friend I have known him since I was 9 years old, you want him out you tell him but don't expect me to back you up.

With that I decided to leave and go to bed.

9:00 AM

I wake up to silence in the apartment oh god this is bliss, then I remember the day I had before and wonder when my boss is going to call and tell me not to bother coming in today or ever for that matter. I go out to the living room and Julian is there watching T.V.

Julian: I broke up with Melinda last night because she was just doing too much PCP.
Me: So do I bother getting ready for work or do I just start looking for a new job?
Julian: We should just get the fuck out of dodge for a bit
Me: Go where?
Julain: Grab a map.
Me: Why?
Julain: Just get one.

I run to my room and grab my atlas that I used in grade 10 geography.

Me: Here.

Julian flipped to a double page with a map of Canada.

Julain: Now close your eyes and point.

Nova Scotia is where I pointed so Halifax is where we went. We rook eveyting that either of us had of value to the pawn shop to sell to see how much money we could get. We ended up woth $169 total, we decided that it would be easier to take a bus to Montreal find day labour in Montreal save enough money to get to the next city so on and so forth. We bought our tickets and boarded the bus not letting anyone know, I was to pissed at my sister inlaw to bother calling my brother and besides Julian said it was alot easier to just disappear if no-one knew where you were going or had the ability to try and talk you out of it, I had to agree.

2 hours later we were in Downtown montreal with no clue where anything was, unfortunately becasue there was some huge concert at the Arena downtown that day nobody downtown Montreal, knew where they were either. We ended up walking arond aimlessly for what seemed like hours until we finally hit the strip. we decided that we were going to go see a movie,(the first in a string of bad descisions) for some reason the only one we had not seen at the there was Blue Crush and we decided what the hell lets go see it(the 2nd bad descision).We got out of the movie sometime close to midnight and becasue it was a Tuesday there was nothing going on. I had a freind in montreal but i could not get a hold of her anymore so we had no place to stay. nobody knew anything about the city and we were going nuts tryring to figure out what we were going to do so we made a descision(you can guess it was bad) we took a bus to the edge of the city and then decided to hitchhike the rest of the way to Halifax. The time was 1am. You can imagine the response we had.

After what seemed like forever but in reality was only probably 1 and a half to 2 hours we got out first ride, unfortunately for Julian they only spoke french and because am not in the least bilingual he was the one who had to stay up talkjing to them while I passed out in the back seat.

That driver drove us probably about 2 hours when we were let out we decided that it was too late for anything now we could not turn back so we pressed on. A guy stopped and told us that it was illeagal to hitchike in Quebec and that we should pray not to get caught which lead to us playing a game called is that a cop and diving into the ditch everytime we saw a car coming. you can imagine how well that worked for us trying to get rides. Eventually we were picked up by a trucker who drove us just outside of Quebec city. we grabbed breakfast at the local burger king and set out on our merry way once again. We got a few rides that took us 20 kms here 30kms there and were then picked up by a trucker not too far from the Quebec New Brunswick border. Now this trucker was cool as shit but at the same time he scared the crap out of us.

After 2 or 3 hours driving with this guy and shooting the shit about pretty much everything under the sun he asks us if we would like to see a picture of his wife. We are like sure(being friendly ehat harm can be done right?)Wrong he pulls out a stack of polaroids with pictures of his exeedingly obese wife naked in a cage wearing bondage gear with a ball gag in her mouth. Julian and I both almost open the door and jump out of the moving trcuk saying fuck it to all our gear and everything just to get away from this guy. His first question to us is: "Shes hot no?" we both in unison are like No!

The trucker then peoceeds to ask us if we need some sleep we are lik eyes we are bushed. He pulls the truck over and puts his table in the back down to make a bed, its small and i have to lay in the back while julian lays in the fron, it is a little tight so we have to lay looking at eachothers feet plus it just fetlt less gay that way. At least that was until he put up a leather mesh in front of us caging us in, he said it was for our safety in case he had to make a sudden stop, we thought he was going to hack us up in our sleep for saying his wife was not hot.

He lets us out at the nova Scotia New Brunswick border we are both happy to be so far and ecstatic to be away from him. Its approximately 1am on September 6th and we figure we are making great time. We grab a pack of cigarretes and some food with the last of our money, and then decide once again to be on our merry. We walk across the border and start at it we get about 5 kilometers and say fuck it not a single ride, so what do we do we vreak into the welcome center at the border and sleep there till morning hoping that that will bring us better fortune.

It's roughly 7:30 am when we wake up and head for the highway there is little traffic but it was more than the night before so we think we are good. So we walk, and we walk, and we walk some more, its is 1:30 in the afternoon before we get a ride we get a trucker who drives us to 6kms outside of the city limits. Now had we been familiar with the city then as we would become later we would have known that we could have gotten off at the same overpass he dropped us at and then caught a bus downtown therefore avoiding the 2 massive bridges going over Halifax harbour, from Dartmouth to Halifax. The reason we had to avoid the bridges was for one simple reason anytime Julian was near anything high he turned white and began to shake like a child, not because he was afraind of bridges but becasue everytime he crossed one he had an uncontrolable urge to see of he could fly(this stemmed from years of reading comic books and trying to be like Superman. Also I think it may have had alot to do with Julian reading the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy there is a line in one of the books that says "There is an art to flying or rather an knack, and the knack lies in flinging yourself violently at the ground and missing" there are many times when Julian and I were younger where he would suddenly out of nowhere fling himself at the ground just on the off chance that that day would be the day that he missed.)

As we were dropped in Dartmouth by our last ride and not knowing about the ferry acroos the harbour julian almost made the conious descision to go back to Ottawa, he was adamant that there was no way he was walking across that bridge. Eventually after alot of convincing we began our trek across the bridge I have never laughed so hard in my life as when a large semi went passed and shook the entire bridge I only laughed because it was the first time in 13 years of friendship that I had ever thought Julian was going to cry. Of course he didn't but just the thought that it might happen was good enough for me.

Finally we were in Halifax and thus our journey was over, we had reached our destination.