Smuggling Crack into Canada on Accident

May 24

Right now Johnny Bayless said proudly that, based on his religious convictions, he'd resisted the temptation of strip clubs for seven years, and about seven minutes later, Gip had talked him into going to one, and they just left. Gip had said something about the beauty of God's creation being apparent in the shapely form of woman, and he mentioned Eve, and said that in a completely innocent and sinless state, nudity was a return to Paradise. Something like that. I might have embellished it a little.

I was talking about when I got inspected crossing the border into Canada with crack and weed and knifes and syringes in the truck and they let me in anyway.

Thing says he feels like a geek. This, he says, is only the third time in four years he's smoked pot. And he's never been to Vegas. It's seems to be a failure he wants to rectify, him being a fantasy member of the Rat Pack. Shirelle says she wants to go if we go. I say, "No how. No way."

Thing says, "C'mon, Zurn, pop my Vegas cherry."

"Not if you're going to talk like that I won't."

Shirelle is at the kitchen sink now filling water balloons. What the hell is she planning? It's practically midnight.

I was freaked. I pulled into a gas station to try to sleep in broad daylight because I was still wasted from all I'd drunk in Pioneer Square in Seattle the night before. I had a bunch of half-smoked joints in the ash tray and somewhere along the way I smoked one of them, to try to take the ache out of my hangover, and I was having a little trouble trying to figure out which way to go. In Portland, the night before Seattle, I barhopped up and down Ash Street, listening to bands and trying microbrews. I was wasted and coming out of a titty bar and had the idea that some acid or mushrooms would be fun up there in the Pacific Northwest, and I started talking to some black dude outside the titty bar who said he could get them, but he was full of shit. All he had was crack. I was drunk. I said, "All right, just gimme the crack, then." and I gave him fifteen bucks and he gave me pebble-sized crystal. I had it wadded up in a piece of toilet paper mashed in with a bunch of snotty tissues pushed into the tube of a roll of toilet paper on the front seat of my truck. While I was driving among the tall cedars trying to figure out which way to go to get into Canada, I passed a Denny's or one of those and stopped to try to get my bearings and do something about my roiling stomach and drink a glass of ice water. I ordered bran flakes, thinking that might be healthy, but the milk was warm and it only made my nausea worse. I asked the waitress if knew how to cross the border. She said there were two places to cross and she told me to go down a road and turn here or there, and I walked out of the restaurant still clueless as to which way to go. I just headed what I figured to be north, but it was overcast, and near noon, and what little sun there was seemed to be right overhead, and I wasn't sure the sun went down due west that far north in the summer, but maybe it does. I just drove around until I stumbled onto the border crossing station. I'd crossed the border in and out of Mexico a couple of dozen times including with bags of weed on me and once with a keg flowing in the back seat without incident, and I guessed getting in and out of Canada had to be even easier. I pulled up to a kiost where a woman with a clipboard asked me some questions. "Do you have anything to declare?" she asked.

"No," I decided.

"Any weapons?"

"No."

"Drugs?"

"No."

"Drug paraphenalia?"

"No."

"Alcohol?"

"No."

She checked boxes on a form on her clipboard. She gave me slip of paper and directed me to park in a numbered stall off to the side and take my slip of paper in the building there. Maybe they were going to give me some brochures or something.

I did as I was told and was greeted by a young man who asked the purpose of my visit while I followed him out to the truck. I said I was "a teacher from LA looking to do a little fishing on summer vacation."

When we got to the truck, he told me to stand on an X painted on the asphalt just tot he rear of my vehicle, and then he snapped on a pair of rubber gloves.

Uh-oh.

I had weed and crack in there and a case of beer and sheathed knives and shit,he was looking in the tackle box. There were syringes it my tackle box--One day going out to my car parked on the street in front of out apartment building in Pasadena, next to an empty parking spot on the curb was a huge tackle box full of drawers and platforms and niches full of lures and hooks and lines and sinkers and reels, really it was a magnificent collection of fishing equipment, and I thought about the poor bastard who was probably getting pretty close to the water and would soon be wondering what the hell he had done with his tackle because he sure as hell remembered bringing it out to the car, but why the hell wasn't it in the trunk or the bed of his pick-up. If I'd been a decent human being I would have held onto it and put up signs around the neighborhood about the found fishing gear, but what I did was put it in under the shell of my truck. Among all the other goodies in the tackle box were a few syringes. I've heard some fishermen use them to inject air into their bait to keep it from sinking, especially live bait, when they are targeting fish on the surface. But what was the customs inspector going to thing. By now I was sweating my ass off, and pretty woman came out to assist the first guy and donned her rubber gloves and went up into the cab of the truck where all the roaches were and the crack. Why hadn't I put that crack in my crack? I couldn't see them now from where I had to stand. I wondered if I would go to Canadian jail or American jail. Then the inspector came around to me. "You," he said, "have a nice fishing trip," and he handed me my keys. The girl smiled prettily. "Good luck," she said.

I wiped the sweat from my brow and got dreamily into the truck and drove up the road.

I never did catch any fish on that trip.