Emerald Dragon Archives

With special thanks to Daniel Morton for typing this wonderful non-fiction story.

WARNING: This story contains foul language. I'm unsure Emerald Dragon disallows this, someone message me on that, and I'll 'bleep' them out.

PS. This might have a few typographical errors. I know that's unprofessional, but hey, I'm not going to make a lot of money from this.

Yes, this is a true story.

The twenty first of August in Two Thousand and Hate found me traveling from St. Clair Shores to Ferndale, traveling on Nine Mile road. The same road that Donald Gray and Fredrick Henby travel on when Don wishes to come clean with his drug addiction in my novella called Thirteen Years Of Gray (see the advertising?). Also, the Nine Mile Road bridge crossing I-75 was destroyed Ten Months later by a tanker explosion. 

At this time, I found myself a week off from the plastics joint called Moller Tech. When I lack the work, I do odd jobs like moving, or any other general labor. I advertise my woes of a layoff and a desperate need to keep my cash flow going and a gentle voice named Natalie has answered. Natalie needed an extra hand to help her move to Toronto. Pay was One hundred fifty dollars. No driving, just put her personal items in a truck, ride to Canada, dump  them there, and head back. 

It would be the first time since 1991 for me to enter Canada. For those of you that don't know U.S. geography, or at least Detroit, the mean city of Detroit is next door to Windsor. This is in Ontario that is a gateway to entering Americans, or exiting Canadians to see Rush at the Joe Lewis Arena (trust me on that, I worship Rush). What separates De-Toilet from Windsor is the horrid Detroit river. You can access Windsor via the Ambassador Bridge on the Detroit-Windsor tunnel. For a visual, look at Micheal Moore's Sicko, where a dumb single mother jumps the border for lower prices on medications.

To fast forward a tad, I arrived at Ferndale, which is a slab of suburbia that can be viewed as liberal. Unlike most suburbs or Detroit, Ferndale has bike paths on the streets. Not only that, but for the locals, Ferndale is considered the "gay capital" of greater Detroit. 

I arrive to see the typical Ferndale house with a Ford F-250 (if I remember correctly) in the garage, attached to it is a trailer. There was a man about my age packing items inside the trailer, while I parked and shut off the engine. Before I could walk in the house, I meet a skinny Silvia who speaks with a southern accent. I was guessing that Natalie and Silvia were most likely in a relationship (due to one bed being in the house). I entered the house and met a man in his fifties, who also had a southern accent. He was heavier then Natalie (who had some pounds on her), but had some muscles and played a role in packing. His name was Russ. Before I got my hands dirty, Nichole and Silvia asked me if I had a passport. I said no, and it was one of the last days that Homeland Security allowed me cross the border with just my drivers license. The two ladies did not like my answer, but Nichole agreed to it. Yes, I was allowed to hop the border without a passport, a rule that Homeland Security enforced later after all of this. 

To fast forward again, we packed up most of the small items, one bed, (which proved to me that Natalie and Silvia are lesbians) and a large antique shelf that was both large and bulky. Rendering that move had caused the two girls to make emphasis on how important that particular antique was to them. 

After an hour and fifteen minutes of moving stuff, I was later told that out of the five of us who were packing, only four of us would go deliver. The guy that was around my age was on probation, and could not leave state, let alone leave this country. He was trapped in Michigan, I've been there myself. For my own perverted reasons, I wanted to ride in the nice car With the two girls, but sadly, they tossed some more items in it, including a flat screen t.v. and I was stuck riding with Russ. 

The plan was to travel to Port Huron, to cross the Blue Water Bridge, another south eastern gateway to Canada and a much wiser way to Toronto. So we left liberal Ferndale behind, and took the I-75 via the nine mile exit. (Some ten months ago, that bridge was destroyed by a tanker explosion, seriously) We made a right into I-696, and that is when Russ began to talk. Russ was Silvia's step dad, and used to work as a safety inspector for a construction company for many years. Now retired, he told me he served in the U.S. Army, and was in Vietnam. He also told me he had a bachelors degree in accounting, but rarely used it. 

Without asking the questions I wanted to ask, like are Natalie and Silvia dating? I just asked what their intentions were once they move to Canada. Russ told me that the two of them were law students who have the rights and papers to practice in Canada. My best guess is that you don't need the full seven years of college to be a lawyer in Canada, or maybe the couple wanted to live on the other side of the border so they paid their minds to Canadian law. 

Dear old Russ said in his number of years (the number eludes me) as a safety inspector, an accident never happened during his watch, emphasis on the word never as the hit song by the band Heart played in my head at that moment in time. In addition to that, the day after he retired, the company that he said good bye to had three people die due to an accident. The very idea that this guy could be an insensitive crackpot was also on my mind. But I had to keep my cash flow going and the journey went on. As it did, he had stories about his childhood, adulthood, even one with his ex-wife with two other men, along with how he beat the hell out of them. He blabbed on pretty much all the way to the Blue Water Bridge in Port Huron, which is also called to "Po-Ho". It was my first time in Po-Ho in Four years. 

Canadian border guards were friendly, and my drivers license was good enough to enter. They gave me a reminder that I would soon need a passport though. The guards inspected Russ's truck, and a portion of his trailer and also the ladies car. To make a long story short, They passed us by without having to stick a gloved finger up our asses. 

And the trip went on into Sarina. Things are different then here in the states. Like they use the metric system, barrels are different then ours, and all the roadsigns have a different font. After Sarina, it was pretty much nothing. We would pass by little towns, lots of trees farms, and green. My Virgin Mobile phone doesn't have any service in Canada....Shit!