It was never far away, the work. I could only last so long without making some money, and the time has finally arrived. I have been on the road since the tail end of April and since then I have largely been bumming around, rattling through my savings.
I spent the first few days in Calgary partying. Friday night was odd, we got fall down drunk, starting the day on beer, moving quickly on to vodka. I sat out on the back deck smoking a cig when the neighbour downstairs, an old lush with a bad dye job started having a full on shouting match with her deadbeat boyfriend. The lush and her female friend were chucking him out, the lush screamed for him to “get the fuck off” her property. Not that she owns the place, in fact she is getting evicted soon I heard. I assume for situations similar to the one I found myself in the middle of. The deadbeat boyfriend stormed out the garden yelling that he hoped the two old boozers would enjoy their lesbian relationship. The old lush burst out crying, turned to me and started making sure I didn’t think they were lesbians. I said as little as possible, dumped what was left of my cig, walked back in the house and locked the door. No one needs that kind of vibe when trying to get drunk. We partied into the early hours, when I wanted a smoke I went out the front, just to be on the safe side.
On Saturday morning I awoke with a bastard of a hangover and the sinking feeling that at some point that day I would be put to work. First we needed to get to the worksite.
The final destination was a town called Outlook in Saskatchewan. Martin, myself and a guy called Nathan bundled into the truck and began the 7 hour journey to get there. Both times I had woken up in Calgary I started the day with a beer before anything else, there was nothing else to do. I was actually happy to be forced into the position where I couldn’t (or at least shouldn’t) do it that day. I was feeling sick with the booze.
Alberta and surrounding regions are really flat, this is good for petrol consumption, but not great for long journeys in the sense that you can see for miles and miles making the journey feel that bit longer. I dozed in and out of consciousness. I woke up at one point and we were stopped on the side of the road, piss break. In my haze I jumped out the truck and pissed at the back of the truck with a blatant disregard for the fact that I was in a country where the traffic is on the other side of the road, I only realised when a truck went by, the driver of said truck was treated (for lack of a better word) to the full show. I got back in and fell asleep.
At some point not long after I was awoken again, it appeared we were at the exact same point in the road. We weren’t, I was just realising that this road was like a Vegas casino, all aspects of it looked exactly the same for hundreds of miles. This time Martin and Nathan were discussing turning off into a town for petrol as it might be the last chance before we ran out and became stranded. We turned off on to a dirt road and floored it to a town called Delilah.
As we turned onto what I guess you would call the Main Street of this town I started to worry that it looked exactly like the kind of place that you would drive in and not be allowed to leave, like the movie U-Turn. We stopped outside the General Store to ask where the petrol station was.
I volunteered to go in. I walked in the front door and came face to face with about 12 locals sitting around chatting. They looked me up and down, skinny jeans, Hunter Thomson tee, hair that no one should leave the house with and eyes like piss holes in the snow. I tried my hardest to talk coherently through the hung over Scottish drawl. “Good day, I am looking for the gas station.”
I was informed by one dungaree wearing local that I needed a card from the café to access the pump, he went on to tell me where the pump was.
I walked out the shop told the boys the story and walked a few yards to the café. Again, the locals in there didn’t take there eyes off the outsider. It probably didn’t help matters that I nearly decked it on the step over the threshold of the café. I managed to stay standing, regained my composure and walked up to the counter. A small Vietnamese woman appeared from the kitchen. Which was the very last thing I expected in a town that I had already pinned as a one family town, to the point that I was calling them all Mr or Mrs Johnson in my head.
I asked the lady for the gas card, she gave me it and barked “you bring back!” I grabbed it and walked out.
We took the only other road in this place and within seconds were at the “gas station”, which was one pump that seemed to be plugged straight into the ground. We fiddled with the idiotic machine for a few minutes before the petrol started flowing. I wandered round the back of the pump and pissed what looked like pure lager. By the time I was finished the truck was filled, we may or may not have paid for it, the machine was too confusing. We stopped back at the café, I returned the card to the lady. I said “have a nice day” she just replied “yes” I got back in the truck and got the fuck out of there before we got chopped up, or made into suits, or whatever else I have learned from too many redneck horror films.
The three of us kept our eye on the mirrors in case we hadn’t paid for the gas and were being chased by some madman in a pick up. We were in the clear.
After some more dozing and a stop at McDonalds we were within striking distance of Outlook.
The sign for Outlook was the name of the town curved over a rainbow. It has the largest pedestrian bridge in Canada apparently. Whether it is or not, it is certainly one of the most terrifyingly badly made high structures I have ever been on, it is an old railway bridge with a wooden walkway built on top of it. When I went to check it out I didn’t dare go the whole way across.
We pulled up in front of The Outlook Motor Hotel. Standing in front of the hotel was the second time in one day that I feared I wouldn’t leave a place alive. There was a bar downstairs, we checked in with the little Chinese man called Sun. He has a Russian wife that he “met on the internet”. The room wasn’t too bad. We had some beer and wings in the bar. Work started on Sunday morning, so we just relaxed in our rooms on Saturday night.
I was lying in bed watching Die Hard With A Vengeance when I realised the music from the bar was coming through the floor, it sounded like a party, so I threw on my clothes and went down for a drink. The place was practically empty, save for Nathan sitting drinking beer and 5 locals dancing under a disco ball. Saturday night in Outlook. Jumping.
I had one beer and went back to bed.
I spent all day Sunday crawling about under an Elementary School. It was hell. I am not built for hard labour, literally, my boney wee hips are all bruised today. We sorted a bunch of problems that were left by the last workers, of which there were many. Eventually we had finished. It had been a long day, but we still had to drive home as there was another job to get to the next day. We grabbed some road beers as we were checking out and then we were gone. Leaving behind that odd little town.
The scenery on the drive home was breathtaking. The sky was beautiful. The radio station we were listening to was playing the exclusive first play of Justin Bieber’s new album. We tried to listen to it, but it was ruining the view. I was getting to look at the most beautiful sunset, it was throwing up amazing colours and all I could think was “I hope the sun fucking explodes and kills every single one of us", that's the only way to stop Bieber now. At that I decided to change the station, it didn’t matter to what.
We finally arrived back in Calgary. We got a few hours sleep before we needed to be back up. I ended up not going on the next job straight away, I need to wait and see if there is room for me on the job. I’ll probably be going up tomorrow or the next day.
Either way reality just got hold of me, pinned me to the ground and kicked my back doors in. I can’t complain though. I had a hell of a run doing fuck all.
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