West

A cliched plan sabotaged by a lack of competence and awareness.

Story written and narrated by: Glenn Vanderkloet

Tunes in this episode:

“Hazlehurst” - Pale Cricket

“Highway Anxiety” - William Tyler

“Pere Lachaise” - Cactus Lee

Photo Credit: Unclejay Dreamstime.com

WEST

I’m almost certain that the phrase, “Go West, young man” has negatively affected the course of many young men and women’s lives going back several generations. I’m sure the phrase is responsible for many positive outcomes as well but this writer isn’t interested in stories of success and opulence, having never had a sniff of either one. The origin of the phrase is often credited to American author and newspaper editor Horace Greeley in regard to America’s expansion westward shortly after the Civil War, although whether he coined the phrase or not is disputed. It was a call to colonize public lands in the not yet developed western portion of the U.S. In my often wrong opinion, the phrase has been used to propel many misadventures and ill thought out plans for instant prosperity, including the tale I’m about to recall.

Calgary, Alberta circa 2001 was the land of opportunity, thanks in large part to a booming energy and construction sector. It was an oil gushing metropolis with a glistening skyline, full of fancy cowboys and girls with purchasing power to rival Saudi kings. If you were someone who lacked career direction or if you were at all indecisive about your future, Calgary and the rest of Alberta could offer a leg up in terms of padding your bank account while you figured things out. There were well paying jobs galore for all skill levels; all you needed was the slightest hint of work ethic and ambition. At least that was the perception for a couple Eastern Canadian kids fresh out of high school and eager to prove to ourselves and our families that we could make it on our own. College be damned, all my friend Blake and I needed was a high school diploma and enough nerve to confidently stride into some oil baron’s office and ask for a job. Surely that would work, right? Whether it would or not, that was the impression we had thanks to the media, Alberta marketing campaigns trying to lure workers, and acquaintances of ours who had already made the leap out west and were now ostensibly basking in the glow of a flourishing economy.

I graduated high school in June of 2000 and the last thing on my mind was more school.  I had just spent 14 years sitting in a classroom and I was ready to let my hair down, even though I had a military cut. Since early adolescence, I had dreamt of getting in a car and leaving the town I grew up in. That’s not a slight against where I grew up, I’ve just always been restless, curious, and impulsive, a lethal trifecta for a life adrift. Because I’m also plagued with an unfounded foreboding, I’ve often felt like my time on this earth is rapidly running out, more quickly than others lets say, and investing my time and money in education, real estate, children, or anything else long term has always felt like a fool’s errand and frankly, a waste of valuable time. I’m burdened with a self-induced pressure to live now, before it’s too late. My credo has always been to see and do what I want to see and do, when I want to see and do it and not wait until some arbitrary age foisted upon us by our societal gatekeepers. Admittedly, there are also other reasons for this chosen way of life including my selfishness and my grim outlook on the world, which play nicely with my aforementioned fear of dying, just in case you thought it was based fully on logic. I mean, it’s true, we all die, some of us young, but my fixation with dying before my time has significantly contributed to my impatience, recklessness, and suspect decision making ability. Why can’t I just rein in my fearful imagination and follow the formula for a successful life? You know the one. Go to college, land a decent job, get married, save for a downpayment on a house, purchase said house, populate it with children, and funnel as much money as possible into a retirement fund. Seems straightforward enough but in addition to not having the patience or optimism to see this way of life through, it also seems too safe and secure to me, not to mention boring. Isn’t uncertainty exciting? Isn’t freedom enticing? I don’t know, I guess I’ve always felt like an outsider for desiring a life lived slightly on the edge. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a BASE jumper, I just don’t want a million dollar family with a white picket fence. One thing I do know is that that same stubborn inclination to do things differently has made my life unnecessarily difficult at times.

I first met my friend Blake when we were freshman in high school. We shared much in common at that age including an affinity for marijuana and alcohol, as well as a curiosity for what the world looked like beyond our small farming community. Oh, and we also enjoyed smoking cigarettes and playing the board game Risk. Even though we were the same age, Blake was kind of like an older brother to me. He was much more assertive than me and always seemed to know what he wanted. I admired his confidence, having very little myself. We would remain good friends throughout our high school years.

Immediately after high school, Blake packed his Honda Civic hatchback and drove straight to Calgary. We had both talked about going out there after finishing school but when it was time to make good on our plans, I chickened out and he stayed true to his word. In the months that followed, I would occasionally talk to Blake on the phone about his new life in Alberta. He was working odd jobs and seemingly making a go of it, though he never went into much detail. I was working as a gas station attendant in our hometown and hearing Blake talk about his newfound independence made me wildly jealous. I was kicking myself for not taking the plunge with him.

One evening, about six months after Blake had left, I was finishing up my shift at the gas station when the phone rang. Blake was on the other end and he told me that if our call dropped, it was because he was driving through the Rocky Mountains. The call was intermittently breaking up but the static on the line sounded manufactured. He was bragging about how much fun he was having out there when suddenly, his Honda Civic came barrelling into the gas station parking lot. The son of a bitch had been putting me on. He was back after only half a year and I was surprised, to say the least. He told me that Calgary was a great city but he was having trouble meeting people and was feeling isolated. His solution to his isolation, and Blake always had a solution, was to drive back to Ontario, pick me up, and travel back out West. The one gamble he was taking was that he didn’t run this by me first. Luckily, I didn’t have to think twice this time. I was ready and eager for an adventure and immediately agreed to accompany him.

We spent the next week hammering out the logistics. On second thought, that’s probably giving us too much credit. We didn’t actually put much of a detailed plan into place at all. To be fair, we were naive 19 year olds. The only significant plan that we made was to leave Blake’s beat up Honda Civic behind in favour of my slightly less beat up Mazda 626, pack it with our personal effects which were few, and then hit the road. We had $3000 between us and had yet to secure employment or housing in Calgary. We didn’t know if we’d be out there for six weeks or six years. It was the precise definition of winging it.   

Apart from the light packing and organizing of the car, we spent the week leading up to our departure hanging out with friends and family, excitedly discussing our upcoming journey. Everyone was surprisingly encouraging, including my parents. I’m still not sure if they were being genuinely supportive or if they were simply happy that I was leaving. My dad was almost giddy. I was the last of my siblings to be moving out so maybe that was why. Once the car was packed and we had said our goodbyes, we drove off, not knowing what the future had in store.

It’s a 35 hour drive from Eastern Ontario to Calgary along the Trans Canada Highway so Blake and I had plenty of time to discuss the steps we would take to secure housing and jobs once there. He mentioned that when he was out there the first time, he had worked as a telemarketer and that his boss was a nice young woman only a few years older than us. According to Blake, this woman and her boyfriend would be happy to put us up for a couple of weeks while we applied for work and a place to live. She may even offer us jobs at the telemarketing agency if we weren’t having any luck elsewhere. I was a bit skeptical of Blake’s certainty on this front but he had rarely steered me wrong in the past. Hope remained high.

As we put the miles on and got closer to our destination, my mood started to shift from excited and hopeful to nervous. Eventually, the freedom of the open road would end and reality would set in. The $3000 we had would not last forever and we would need to move quickly in regard to the job search. Doubt was creeping in but I was still optimistic that we could pull it off. The other thing bugging me was that Blake was suddenly becoming less enthused about things. I wasn’t sure why, but when I would get excited about one prospect or another, Blake seemed unengaged and distant. Was he having second thoughts? I certainly hoped not because one of us had to be the self assured one and I knew that wasn’t my strong suit. Blake was the de facto leader on this trip and if his confidence was dwindling, the ship was in danger of going down.

At the end of our third day on the road, we pulled into Regina, Saskatchewan for the night. After checking into our motel, we decided to find a spot to have a few drinks within walking distance. The only place we could find with a liquor license was a Chinese restaurant and once inside, we realized that we were the only patrons. As we nursed our Labatt 50s in the empty restaurant, Blake’s indifference to our situation was becoming undeniable and I finally asked him what was up. He said there was something he needed to tell me and that he was nervous about how I’d take it. I told him to spill it and he did. As it turned out, when Blake arrived home after that first trip west, he had a sit down chat with his parents about his responsibilities at home. They told him that he was needed around the house to help look after his younger siblings in addition to other duties and asked him with some forceful persuasion to put his wanderlust on hold for a while. Blake told them of our plans to go back out west and they made a compromise. He could take the trip back to Calgary with me and use some of his previous connections to help me get settled but would then immediately return to Ontario via Greyhound bus to fulfill his familial obligations. Not surprisingly, this was a pretty big blow to what I thought was a team effort. Blake said he wanted to tell me before we left but feared that I wouldn’t agree to it. He was right, I don’t think we would’ve left the driveway had I known that I would be on my own after getting set up out there. He then fed me some altruistic bullshit about wanting to set me up for success and knowing in his heart of hearts that this was the right move for me. I tried to sound grateful about his supposed good deed but I had a sinking feeling that this was the beginning of the end of our journey.

As we continued westward, my enthusiasm dipped considerably. There was no fucking way I wanted to start a new life alone, 3,500 km away from everyone I knew, but I kept it to myself. We had put in a fair bit of effort to get where we were and had travelled too far to prematurely end things now. Moreover, I was too chickenshit to admit to Blake that I was scared to do this on my own once he hopped the bus back to Ontario. Isn’t that something? Being too afraid to say you’re afraid. Ultimately, I would never have to openly admit my fears because a series of unfortunate events would make our decision for us.

The first sign from the heavens to turn the Mazda around and go home happened in the city of Lloydminster, Saskatchewan. For you geography wizards following along, I know that Lloydminster is not on the way to Calgary but Blake made a last minute, executive decision to visit his uncle in Alberta’s capital city of Edmonton before we drove south to our final destination. Anyway, back to Lloydminster. 

The city straddles the border between Alberta and Saskatchewan so we had almost made it to the province we and now only me were expecting to call home for an indefinite amount of time. We had just finished our breakfast at a Husky truck stop and were gearing up for the final leg of our trip. As we pulled onto the Trans Canada, Blake sparked a joint in the passenger seat. We had been smoking pot throughout the trip without incident so this wasn’t unusual. Within a few minutes of hitting the blacktop, we noticed a car pulled over by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police on the opposite side of the highway. This was a fairly normal occurrence but what wasn’t normal was the sniffer dogs being deployed. This of course was an unnerving sight for us, having about a half ounce of marijuana and hash in our possession but we drove on hoping it was an isolated incident. That turned out to be wishful thinking because minutes later, we observed red, flashing police lights in the rearview mirror. Blake’s first instinct was to stub out the joint he was smoking and then swallow it. It was a prudent move but unappetizing nonetheless. 

After pulling us over, an officer who looked fresh out of police college approached my window. I was shaking like a leaf. I was terrified that he would smell the pot and I’m sure he did although he never said as much. I also didn’t have a ton of experience with law enforcement interactions which added to my nervous state. He looked into the car with a facial expression that suggested he was going to have some fun with us. He started by saying that they were pulling over out of province license plates to do random checks and wondered if we would be open to him searching the car. I had it in the back of my mind that he didn’t have the legal authority to randomly search the vehicle without justification but because of my nervousness, I quickly said yes. Sensing that I likely wouldn’t object to anything, he then said he was calling in the K9 unit to give the dogs some drug detection practice. As we waited for the dogs, the officer turned his attention to Blake. I’m not sure why but the cop seemed to dislike Blake from the beginning while treating me with kid gloves. He asked Blake if we had any drugs in the car. To my surprise, instead of telling the truth about the half ounce, Blake quickly said no. The cop then told him that if he was lying, there’d be hell to pay.

When the dogs arrived along with a second officer, they were quickly put to work. We were told to get out of the car and wait. It took the dogs all of a couple of minutes to detect what Blake said we didn’t have. In addition to confiscating the pot and hash, they also dumped out a fifth of whiskey we had in the trunk. We were of legal drinking age so they were just being assholes with that move. The officer who brought the dogs ushered me into the back of his cruiser while the young power tripper who had pulled us over went to deal with Blake who was still standing by the side of the highway. From the back of the cruiser, I saw him pick Blake up by his collar and begin to shake him while screaming, “Don’t you ever fucking lie to the police again you piece of shit”. When he finished shaking and lecturing Blake, I was summoned from the cruiser and we were both told to move on in not so polite terms. I was pretty surprised to be honest. I thought we would be charged with possession of an illegal substance or at least some misdemeanour but they let us go. As we drove away, despite being harassed by a mentally ill cop, we both felt like it could have been much worse. After making a brief pit stop in Edmonton to visit with Blake’s relatives, we carried on to Calgary.

As the Stampede City’s skyline came into focus and we found ourselves barely moving in snarled traffic, I started to feel a bit intimidated. Growing up in a small town in Ontario did not prepare me for the sights, sounds, and smells of Canada’s 4th largest city. Thankfully, Blake had at least some experience navigating Calgary because it could have been much uglier otherwise. 

The first thing we did upon arriving was contact Blake’s old boss at the telemarketing agency. She was surprisingly gracious and told us that we were more than welcome to stay with her and her boyfriend while we looked for a place and employment. We didn’t need any persuading. Within hours, we were sitting in their trash laden apartment under a cloud of pot smoke watching The Sopranos, which was a big show at the time. I had envisioned something slightly more glamorous but given the circumstances, I should’ve felt lucky. 

We spent the next several days combing through the classifieds looking for a place to live. We made an arrangement with our host to use her as a reference and we asked her to lie and say that we both worked for her in order to secure a spot. The deception worked. Within a week, we had signed off on what amounted to be a glorified hallway with a bathroom attached. It was a pretty dreadful bachelor style unit but it was ours, and after Blake left, it would be all mine, for better or worse.

We signed the lease on a Thursday and were hoping to move in immediately but the landlord said that he couldn’t get us the keys until the following Monday, upon which we would give him first and last month’s rent. To complicate things, it was Easter weekend and the folks we were staying with were leaving town to visit family so we had to make alternative living arrangements. Paying for a few nights in a motel room wasn’t really in our budget but if we were careful, we could make it work. We decided to use this time to  drive west into the Rockies and do some sightseeing.

We had a great time visiting the mountain towns of Banff, Golden, and Invermere and woke up on Sunday morning with a plan to drive back to the city to collect our apartment keys on Monday. Sadly, driving at high elevation after already delivering us across the country proved to be too much for my old car to handle as only about an hour from the city, the radiator blew. We had it towed to a Sears automotive center and were told that it would cost $500 to fix. Before the car troubles, we had just enough money for two weeks’ worth of groceries and first and last month’s rent on the apartment. This turned out to be the decisive blow on an adventure that was already teetering on the brink. If we were really serious about making a go of it out there, I’m sure that we would’ve found a way but I had lost my enthusiasm after Blake told me that he wasn’t planning on staying out there with me. The radiator blowing up was a convenient excuse to end the trip before we found ourselves homeless. As for the apartment, Our once future landlord was mostly understanding, asking us only for the $50 classified fee so he could repost the apartment ad. Embarrassingly enough, it had only been around three weeks since we had left Ontario and were now heading back to face the scrutiny of our family and friends.

In hindsight, the entire trip was an ill conceived excuse for adventure and self expression. Based on our maturity level, I’m not sure that we even would’ve had it in us to land jobs and become self-sufficient in a sustainable manner. Sure, we may have been able to live in that bachelor unit and survive off Kraft Dinner but that would’ve gotten old quickly.

Upon arriving home, I was hugged tightly by my mother who was thrilled that I was back. As for dad, I think he grumbled something like “nice try, dipshit. Now get a job.” With respect to Blake, that trip was the last meaningful hang we had. He went on to become an electrical engineer and started a family. I haven’t spoken with him in years. And myself, I’m still looking for a suitable landing spot in this volatile world, always on the lookout for the next failed adventure. Fortunately though, I eventually found a life partner willing to stick by my side and more importantly, someone who thus far, has resisted the urge to take the next Greyhound back to a more secure life.