October 2002

October 30/2002 (11:19 PM) ~ posted by Sean
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new column.

It seemed like a reasonable enough plan. Five of us journey from Montreal (Canada) to Cambridge (Massachusetts) on October 22nd, and are treated to an ear-pleasing, heart-aching display of two of the most talented, melancholy artists in the entire world. Damien Jurado and Songs:Ohia, together, at the Mideast Upstairs.

The first challenge was transport. None of us own cars. Our saviour, however, came in the form of Raf. An unlikely hero perhaps, a student of linguistics, but possesser of that rare and at-key-moments-wonderful item: the Suzuki Sidekick. He wasn't interested in coming with, however. To be fair, he wasn't invited. But he would lend us his treasured vehicle; so well-loved, in fact, that it had 300,000 km to its name.

For those of you who aren't aware of the 1994 Suzuki Sidekick, it is a cute little jeep thing, with two doors and two seats. I should make it clear that by 'cute', I mean fantastically miniscule, and at the first sight of this pint-sized thing, I burst literally into laughter. In the back, there is what might also be deemed 'seats' - a narrow bank with two seatbelts. Technically, it should therefore be possible to fit a driver and three passengers - that makes four, for the mathematically disinclined - into the vehicle. This becomes more possible if you cut off the leg of said passengers, below the knees. Unfortunately, due to the nature of our fairly mobile lives, none of the car's passengers volunteered to sacrifice their calves, ankles or feet. Ultimately, therefore, we resigned ourselves to simply squeezing five people into the car. While some of you might balk that this is the opposite of logical behaviour, we didn't care, and still don't. Five of us needed to go, and five of us were gonna.

The plan, then: Pick up the Sidekick. Pick up the passengers. Drive through the border to Vermont, then Mass., Tuesday afternoon. Five-and-a-half-hours later, watch the show (tickets sagely purchased beforehand, through Ticketmaster. A mere $8 USD!). Return that same night and attend to responsibilities in Montreal.

Tuesday morning, Kyla and Julian went off to get Raf's car. Ninety minutes later, they called to say it wouldn't start. Kyla consoled me: "I think the car's had electrical problems before." Okay then. It was of course possible that Raf had merely left the lights on overnight. Raf wasn't home, however, and no cars would stop for my two determined friends, but within another ninety minutes a cab had agreed to give the Sidekick a jump-start. It jump-started. We had liftoff. Kyla and Julian piled in, kept the car running, and gathered the three other passengers. We held our breaths. To be honest, we probably wouldn't have fit, otherwise.

So we drove. We talked and laughed and trekked into rural Quebec, cornfields on either side, blue sky above. All was well! All was sweet! So we got a flat tire.

Fifty minutes later, we had found a reasonably friendly garage, a reasonably friendly mechanic, and a reasonably friendly rate for which our tire was plugged. The spare, you see, was also flat.

But that's no matter! We were off again, with still four hours to go but with more than enough time to arrive at the scene of Damien Jurado and Songs:Ohia, the bestest sad troubadours in the universe.

We were anxious at the border. Four seatbelts, you see, and five passengers. Also of note was the fact that we could not lower the car's front window. When we finally pulled up alongside a customs officer, Anne had to pull on some strange lever system to open the door, and talk to him through that conspicuously unusual gap.

No worries, though! It was our lucky day! Waved through without a hitch, and soon we were deep within the rolling, spectacular hills of Vermont. The leaves had changed colour, autumn was upon us, and as we careened down the highway, it took our breath away.

Then the engine exploded.

Well, let's be honest. It didn't explode, it just made a deafening bang, ceased functioning, and began to vomit dense, white-grey smoke. Anne, through some marvel of driverly abilities, brought us to the shoulder of the road. We scrambled from the car, half-crazed with the shock of it, and stared at the car. The Suzuki Sidekick stood before us like a white, emasculated Tonka Truck, foaming from the mouth, positively rocked every time a car zipped by.

A kindly stranger pulled over. He loaded three of us into his aged BMW and sped off with them to the nearest town, Neil Young blasting from the speakers. Julian and I were left sitting, shuddering, by the side of the road. Needless to say, we weren't neglected. A Fire Captain pulled up because he had heard there was a fire. We saw a fire-engine across the highway, doubtless coming our way. A State Trooper skidded to a halt and asked much the same questions. The engine had stopped smoking by this time, however, so we sent them all on their way. "No, we're fine," we said. "Just Canadians."

In just over an hour, a tow-truck arrived. He asked me to put the Sidekick in neutral, which I couldn't, because the gear-box was a Turkish puzzle-box requiring a special knack I tragically lacked. Tow-Truck Man was not amused.


Still, he hauled it up, loaded Julian and I into the cab, and set off for the rural metropolis of Waterbury, VT. Some of you might assume that Waterbury is a hole in the ground, an inhospitable speck amidst the natural splendour of the state of Vermont. You wouldn't be entirely wrong. The village, however, uses its two traffic-lights for all they're worth, positively beams over the gastronomic talents of the cooks at Arvad's, the homing beacon for all in need of a beer and chicken-burger. Everybody was friendly, sympathetic, and amused by the plight of five visibly city-slick Canadian tourists. As for Arvad's: maybe it was our fatigue, maybe the general disaffection caused by visions of a concert going on in Cambridge simultaneously, but it didn't taste that great to us.

Oh, the Sidekick. The deal was this: the head-gasket was blown. In short, the engine was killed. Expensive to fix? Yes.

By phone, Raf instructed that the end was the end - we should simply dump it. No problem, right? I'm afraid not. In fact: Problem. Capital-P Problem.

You see, no one will take a car off their hands, free or not, unless you can give them the title. Otherwise, they would technically be stealing it. This may be no biggie to you Torontonians, but in Waterbury, they take this seriously. What's more, we can't just leave the cute lil' Sidekick at the side of the road... Why? Because if the cops pick it up and check the serial numbers, it will be traced to Raf's dad. Mister J. The owner of the title.

It was getting late, we had no title, so we hiked up Stowe Street (one of Waterbury's four roads) to the Best Western. En route, Evan turned on the stereo in his pants, and we listened to the Kinks at high volume in the darkness of Vermont. It was cool. Then we got attacked by dogs.

Well, sort of.

When we arrived at the hotel, they gave us a generous, kind rate, and we camped out with American chocolate bars and American TV. Later, the boys played ping-pong. Julian won every single game.

In the morning, we set about tracking down the car's title. Raf was not home. He was never home. There was a bus from Waterbury to Montreal (coincidence!) at 2:25pm - no earlier, no later - so the clock was ticking. We called Raf again: nothing. We asked the people at the garage whether they knew someone shady who might be able to take the vehicle of our hands. "Maybe Clem," said Big Shane. "Maybe." We waited for Clem. We waited for Raf. We went to the Waterbury library and read Cormac McCarthy and Zadie Smith novels.

At around noon, we realized that we could perhaps phone Mr J directly. As Raf was still (inevitably) in class, we called his roommate. "His parents' number? Uh... No, sorry."

Next we call the operator. He can't help us as it's a British Columbia number we're looking for. He gives us another number to call. It doesn't work.

Some people might be getting disheartened. Not us. We had all the energy and motivation in the world. Something to do with being trapped in a tiny Vermont village where everyone we spoke to said, and I quote, "There's nothing to do here."

We returned to the library and made use of this cool thing called the information superhighway. Canada411 turned up a number for Mr J at what Kyla recognized as Raf's "old address". We call, giddy with excitement. The automated voice responds, giddy with its own brand of excitement: "This number is no longer in service."

We curse, we howl, we call Raf again and he's still not home. 12:30pm.

Evan has a brainwave. He calls Mike. Mike lives in Vancouver and was good friends with Raf when Raf lived there. Surely he'll have the number for his parents' place.

Mike is home. Mike is sorry about our plight. Yes, Mike has Mr J's number. His old number. Mr J, you see, racked up so many long-distance charges calling Poland for a family emergency that Bell cut off the telephone. Mr and Mrs J do not have a phone. They are telephonic hermits. They are isolated. And we, well, we are screwed.

To make a long story short, we eventually paid off Big Shane with an amount of American money I don't care to repeat here. He's going to wait for Clem on our behalf. We're going to send them the title. Maybe they'll even fix the Sidekick and go on a road-trip to Canada. I wish them luck. Us? We caught the bus to Montreal. We saw a beautiful sunset. We arrived in the city without the subway-tickets to get home.

But it worked out in the end. Worked out so well, in fact, that when I saw that Smog was playing in Cambridge in November, I took note, smiled to myself, and began to plan how best to word the proposition. Either that, or I'll have to figure out how to get Damien Jurado and Songs:Ohia to come to us.