The Long Straight Road To The Middle of Nowhere

I sat in the passenger seat of the Dodge and the boss lay out in the back finishing his beers and then slept for pretty much the entirety of the long journey. I stayed awake to keep Nathan company as it is the gentlemanly thing to do; we got to know each other, we shot the shit and traded war stories. I have no idea how long it took, but eventually we were driving on the depressingly straight roads of Saskatchewan. They say your dog could run away here and you would see it running away for 3 days. I don't doubt it because it is that flat. But it is impressive in it’s flatness, it’s true, you can see for-fucking-ever which is not conducive to a quick journey as you are just straight lining it with no change in scenery, no nothing, just fields and this fucking road. The kind of road that leaves you cursing The Romans.

Eventually we stopped for a piss break. We pulled up next to a road that shot off west for as far as the eye could see. We pissed, I forgot what country I was in and pissed at the wrong end of the truck allowing passing cars and trucks to get a glimpse of my urinating penis. Lucky them. We got back in the truck and continued along the most boring road on the face of the fucking planet, I dosed off. I felt bad when I felt myself going because it was right in the middle of Nathan talking to me; I saw him notice in my eyes that I was about to drop off. There was nothing either of us could do about it. When I woke up I had a mild panic for a few seconds when I noticed we were sitting parked beside what looked like the same road that shot off west as far as the eye could see that we pulled up to when we last stopped for a piss. I immediately thought it was some sort of Groundhog Day situation. Because that seemed like the logical thing to think. This road had looked the same for 500 miles already, it took me a few minutes to wake up properly and remember that. That part of the world is so flat and devoid of any kind of natural landmarks that it all looks the same, so even although it looked very much as if we were still stopped at the piss break, it turned out that we had driven some more and this identical turn off was the last mentioned available gas station on the sat nav. We decided not to question this machine lest we end up stranded in the middle of nowhere. I always hated that saying “the middle of nowhere” because I always found it quite disrespectful to the people who call it home. But it wasn’t until I was on this road that I fully appreciated the phrase. That really felt like the middle of nowhere. In certain parts the only real proof that humans had been there before was that there was a road, the road we were on. For miles and miles that was all there was. It was truly slap bang in the middle of nowhere.

So we decided to take this right and go looking for the town of Delilah, the sat nav claimed that this town had a gas station. We drove along the dirt road for a while.

Then we found it.

The town of Delilah was more of a street than a town. And that street was more of a sandpit than anything. It was odd. Although there were houses dotted around away from the “main street”, there were a lot of churches, much more than really needed given the population. Or what I presumed the population was. It looked like a slightly more modern western town. Wooden buildings, and one of them was actually a General Store. I volunteered to go in and ask about the gas station because I was curious and wanted a walk after so long in the truck. I wandered in and found what appeared to be a town meeting going on. I put on my best voice and asked about the gas station. A big man in dungarees looked me up and down paying close attention to my skinny black jeans, Hunter S Thompson tee, hair that no one should leave the house with and eyes like piss holes in the snow. He grunted something about how to get to the gas station and something about a card I had to get from the café beforehand in order to start the machine. I thanked them, wished them a good day and backed out, staring at them like I genuinely feared death by their hands. If their noses were tuned enough to get over the stench of old beer and cigarettes eminating from my unwashed self, they would have caught a whiff of fear.

I closed the door behind me, filled the guys in on the situation and I wandered over to the café. I opened the flimsy door of the cafe and walked in. I nearly ended up on the floor because I didn’t notice the slight step at the entrance; I regained my composure and made my way to the counter, passing odd looking locals eating eggs and bacon while giving me the stink eye. I got to the counter and there was no one manning it. I used the “I need service” cough. It worked. From the kitchen appeared a small Vietnamese woman, which was the very last thing I expected to see in a town I was already convinced to be a one family town. I had them all pegged as Johnsons. I told the little lady what I needed, but she had already made moves for the card, sensing, I guess, that I wouldn’t have been in for anything else, unless JimBob in the general store had radioed ahead. I thanked her and she just stared at me and loudly shouted “you bring back!” Again, I backed out, careful not to trip up on the step. I got back in the truck and pointed Nathan in the direction of the gas station.

As it happens Delilah didn’t have a gas station. What they had was one pump. To use this pump first one must figure out how the card machine works. Eventually we got the gas flowing and once we were topped up we still weren’t sure if we had paid for it. While Nathan tried to figure that out I took a piss behind the pump, what came out of my bladder looked and smelled a lot like pure lager. It had a head and everything. Although it had only been a matter of hours since my last drink I was glad to be taking a short break from it, it had it’s claws in me and this long drive was the only thing stopping me getting boozed up again. We decided to give up caring if we had paid for the gas or not, because it didn’t really matter. We would never be back to this place if, of course, we actually get to leave. By this point I was worrying that the locals knew we would be returning the card, so they knew where we would be. What if they kept us hostage? What if the rumours you hear on the road in Canada about small towns inviting outsiders in to impregnate their daughters in exchange for meats and other produce? Could I live as some sex slave in a place like this? Probably. Still, I worried about someone wearing my skin as a suit. I moved quickly and kept my head on a swivel. I stormed the café, gave the card back and loudly told the Vietnamese woman to “have a nice day”. She simply stared at me for a moment before saying “yes.” That was that. I bailed, we floored it and got out of that place as soon as we possibly could. I kept an eye on the rear view in case I saw an old pick up filled with angry, bored, bloodthirsty rednecks who were jealous of my hair and good looks. We got lucky this time. We built up enough distance between us and the town that I could stop worrying.

After a few more hours on this fucking road, I swear it never even curved. It felt like a straight line from Calgary to our destination town, Outlook. You wont have heard of Outlook unless you have had the misfortune of having to go there, or know someone who has been. It would have been the strangest place I’d been in a while had I not just visited Delilah. Nathan drove into the town of Outlook, the sign for which was the name of the town curved over a rainbow. Yet it didn’t seem like a very liberal town, I can imagine they are not aware what the rainbow represents to almost everyone else on the planet. We drove by various small hotels, some looked pretty nice. With each one we passed the Boss would make sure we knew the one we were staying in wasn’t even as nice as these decent but most basic looking places. It didn’t bode well.

We parked up outside the Outlook Motor Inn. I got a shiver when I stood in front of it. The general vibe, the Orwellian grey sheet metal facing, the creepy sign, the Shining-esque appearance of the Motel made me feel on edge. The inside was only a little less terrifying. We were greeted in the bar by a little Chinese man called Sun. He ran this place with his brother, who was a cunt. And his wife, a gorgeous Russian who he “met online”. We got into our rooms and chilled a while. We wouldn’t be starting work until the next day, so we relaxed on the Saturday evening. Me and the boss managed to get into the job site that evening, a primary school, and we got a look at the mess we had to fix because the big bosses trusted an Irishman to run a job site. If we know anything about the Irish it is that they make OK labourers, just don’t expect them to be able to actually run a site responsibly, and prepare to hear constantly how they built the world. We took note of what needed done the next day, the boss showed me the part of the school that he claimed was haunted and when he made a joke about it in front of the school caretaker, she simply smirked and said “I know nothing about that.” I was now really on edge.

We walked back to the Motel, went to the bar and sat down to wings and beers. The wings in Outlook were probably the best I had in Canada. They mix the buffalo sauce and the ranch dressing and cover the chicken with that mix. Spectacular.

After that there was little to do so we retired to our rooms and made a plan to maybe meet back in the bar later for more booze, nothing solid was decided since this was the first bed I had in a while, and the first tv in even longer so I wasn’t that bothered about socialising I just lay in bed watching TV for most of the evening. Eventually, in the middle of Die Hard with a Vengeance I heard the music from the bar creep through the floor and into my room. It sounded like a party so I threw on my clothes and went down to see what could pass as a Saturday night in a town called Outlook. I walked down the stairs and the music got louder, it sounded like a hell of a party, I opened the door of the bar and walked in. In total there were 5/6 people, including the Russian woman behind the bar and Nathan who was sitting on his own drinking a beer. I ordered a Kokanee and joined him. The group of 3 or 4 locals were drinking and playing pool and listening to really shitty music full blast, they seemed to enjoy it and when one song in particular came on they all lost it. They rushed over to the “dance floor”, fired up a disco ball and started dancing. I watched this tragedy for as long as I could handle before I drained what was left of my beer, said night to Nathan and went back to bed via outside for a smoke. Saturday night in Outlook was a let down, but I kind of expected it to be. Luckily the TV was good that night, and I had internet/porn access.

I awoke early on Sunday and got myself ready for work, I met the guys down stairs and we got in the truck and headed to the job. I spent the day crawling about under the school dealing with the various hilarious mistakes made by the Irish contractors. I am not cut out for such arduous work though, my bony hips were bruised for weeks following my crawling about. Once the work beneath the school was done I had some painting to do while Nathan and the boss took care of fitting drain pipes to the guttering. We worked for most of the day, breaking for lunch and the odd shot of basketball and hockey in the games hall. Once the work was done, and the night began to fall we cleaned up and escaped the school before the ghosts woke up and started fucking with us. The boss said the last time he was at the school, just as he locked up and was leaving with a worker they heard a sickening scream and bang on the window behind them. They ran back to the Motel. Luckily for us there was no scream or bang, but I can say that once or twice I got the feeling someone was behind me. That feeling that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand on end and made me run back towards the boss and Nathan. I was happy to see the back of the school. We decided to blow town and not spend another night in the Outlook Motor Inn. I had seen what I needed to of the place to be happy enough to leave. I had been on their landmark “longest bridge in Canada” a truly terrifying piece of shoddy workmanship. My arms looked like brail thanks to the mosquitoes which are among the biggest I have ever seen. Like flying cats. We hit the road and didn’t look back. It was a long drive, but we were lucky enough to see the most beautiful sunset on this long straight road back to civilisation in the shape of Calgary. The kind of sunset that even I, being colourblind, could appreciate. The world around me looked like a Monet. Truly beautiful. Sadly the sunset is forever tainted because the only radio station we could pick up was playing Justin Bieber’s new album in it’s entirety. With that heinous shit filling my ears while the sun set I found myself wishing the sun would just explode and take us all with it for allowing such a celebration of mediocrity to take place. Total devastation of the earth in a violent apocalypse is the only thing that can stop Bieber et al now. We deserve everything we get. But fear not the apocalypse, if and when it happens these cretins will be wiped out also, unless the conspiracies are true and they are all moving to The Ozarks or back to their home planet with the other reptilians. I doubt there is any truth in those, because although the world is interesting, it's not that interesting. Bieber, Cowell, Cameron, Romney, Obama, Thatcher, Bill O'Reilly, the guy at your work who picks on you, your exes and your enemies, they will all perish. So fear not the apocalypse. You won't miss a thing.

We shot through the flat, post apocalyptic-esque badlands of Saskatoon. I was happy when we got to Calgary and saw the green hills that looked lots like one of my favourite places to get high, the Carrick Hills in my home town of Ayr. It felt like home. In many ways Calgary started to feel more like home than home did. Most places on this trip felt like that. It is too easy to get comfortable in your home town, which breeds the type of complacency I am often guilty of. This trip was blowing the cobwebs out, spring cleaning for the soul. On the road home to Calgary I stopped for a piss and was rudely interrupted by a cop who tapped me on the shoulder. I turned round, still pissing and he said “just what the hell do you think you're doing son?” His laid back attitude said he frequently has to stop people pissing on this sign which read: “welcome to (whatever the town was called) The Home of Nickelback.”