A Critic at the Border

   

Lake Union, Seattle

09.15.08 From SEATTLE, WA TO VANCOUVER, B. C.

The Canadian Border between Washington and British Columbia was approaching and with it the guilt that descends on all innocent parties when facing the authorities.  I took my passport out of the briefcase and placed it in the cupholder.  

I didn’t know if I would have to fill out forms or how it worked.  It had been many years since I had driven across this border and then it was without incident.  Another time at another crossing, I had faced a skeptical, officious, yet courteous Canadian Customs Officer who didn’t like that I was alone with my nine-year old son looking to see the Canadian sister to Montana’s Glacier Park.  “Where’s Mom?” she demanded and I felt as if I was on trial.  I didn’t understand it immediately, but later, I figured out she was making sure that I wasn’t either a child molester or a custody-dispute kidnapper.

I had taken this trip as a dry run for my Argentina trip.  I wanted to see what gear worked and what didn’t, how I would handle the unstructured time, and reconnect with an old college friend.  The first few days of the trip had been fantastic.  The weather had been clear and sunny—not business in usual in Seattle—and my college friend, Henry, whom I hadn’t seen in 13 years, was still as funny, warm and, well, collegial, as he was when we had first met freshman week of 1976.  He has a young family and a wife who is a committed environmentalist and a worker with an international health organization.  She was a bit upset that I decided to rent a car rather than take the less polluting train, but I had planned to pick up a friend at SeaTac two days later to travel with me during the last few days.  That never materialized because my friend was from Texas, which had just been devastated by Hurricane Ike.  That would lead to angst and dread as the week went on, which I would later write about in AN UNEASY CROSSING. 

 

Sam and friend Henry doing the paddle in Seattle

 

We drank good coffee, went to the flagship REI, and the first Costco.  I went for a long hilly run with Henry’s wife Laura, a triathlete. Somehow, I didn’t keel over.  The air was clean and the neighborhood was sparkling and the children were giggling. We ate good vegetables and Henry and I laughed while we tried to see who could sing the most trivial TV jingle. Monday morning, I decamped and started walking towards the rental car office.  Even though I had packed everything in a rolling bag, I was sweating in the morning sun.  Henry had given me simple directions and I had stopped for a cup of cappuccino.  I was a bit jittery, worrying that maybe I had lost my way, and was checking the directions.  I saw a large canopy in front of me and I was sure that I must have taken a wrong turn.  I trudged back up the hill, cursing and shaking and at the top of the hill passed a gay health agency and a sex toy shop.  I checked my GPS and found that I had been right before. I went back down the hill and turned toward the freeway.  I sighed when I realized that I should have turned the corner by the Tango Restaurant. A few minutes later I was at Hertz, got my keys, went to the seventh floor, and another car was in the space where mine should have been.  I used the remote key, heard the horn beep, followed the beep, crossed barricades and hopped over railings. Still, there was no car.  Finally, an attendant found me struggling between two levels and wedged between two cars. She told me that the car hadn’t been in the right spot and still needed to be cleaned. I was already supposed to be in Vancouver, and I hadn’t made it out of Seattle.

* * * * *

I came to the station and was greeted by a young woman with dark eyebrows that had an interesting bare place like a pencil line through the middle of one brow. 

“Where are you traveling from?” asked the agent.

“Roanoke, Virginia.”

“What is the purpose of your visit?”           

“Tourism.”

“Why did you travel all the way up here?” she asked.

“I was visiting some friends in Seattle.”  She obviously hadn’t been briefed by the British Columbia Tourist Commission.

“Seattle, uh huh.”  Her eyes narrowed:  “What is your occupation?”

Many times I would have answered “Investor” but this often sounds too vague for belief.  I decided to be more confident and replied “writer.” 

“What do you write?”

“Fiction and public relations?”

“Been published?”

“The public relations work.” 

“The fiction some day, eh? Anyone paying you for work up here?”  I shook my head and said “the only writing will be in my journal.”  I didn’t mention a blog because she might have some opinions about the Internet, too.  “Have any guns?”  I replied no again.  She studied my passport a bit longer, and sniffed “If I could get someone to pay me to write, I wouldn’t do this for a living.”

“Have you had any criminal violations, including DUIs?”  I replied no again. She reluctantly let me pass, skeptical about my stated occupation and feeling that there was something a little fishy about me.  As I drove away, I kind of agreed with her.

* * * * * 

 

Vancouver

The gentleman on my first flight was from Montreal.  He recommended Stanley Park in Vancouver.  Even though I had toured Vancouver 12 years ago in a hired prom-sized limousine with a salt-and-pepper mustached driver who spoke in the honeyed tones of Alex Trebek, I didn’t remember the park.

I checked into the Hyatt with a bargain rate thanks to Priceline.com.  I felt clever for pulling off a coup and then would curse the same company two days later for installing me in a dump.

Sunshine streamed in my window, beautiful women in heels marched to spacious offices on the courteous streets below, I yawned and felt beauty and cleanliness all around me.

 

Fowlest site in Vancouver

I asked the concierge for directions to Stanley Park and took a delightful run to the Harbour. Seaplanes hummed above and kayaks plied the waters in front of me. 

I shivered after the run and walked through busy beaches and through a district that I felt was heading the right way.  While I was prepared to experience discomfort, that wouldn’t happen just yet.

The next afternoon, I made good on my promise to take some pictures.  I didn’t run this time, but I waited patiently by Lions Gate Bridge for a well-composed picture of a seaplane flying above.

 

Lions Gate Bridge

Runners and cyclists swarmed around me and I captured them in silhouette rounding the corner of the seawall path.  I completed the six-mile route and walked back through the neighborhoods, confident of my route and feeling a bit unauthentic because everything was working so well.

That evening I decided to visit a different part of town to have dinner.  The guidebook mentioned several possibilities.  I decided to walk toward Gastown and see what I could find. 

Georgia Street became shadowy and construction-ridden as I walked down the avenue.  I felt nervous because my blood sugar was dropping.  There were fewer and fewer people.  I knew my natural radar detectors would alert me to danger, but I was still anxious.

I didn’t know what to eat and I was less and less confident.  I walked past a marijuana museum and a “sensual massage” place that I had seen advertised as “discreet.”  The opaque-painted glass doors advertised the place as full of disease and criminality.  I hunched my shoulder and wanted a safer neighborhood, or neighbourhood, as the Canadians would spell it.

I was growing increasingly impatient as my blood sugar swooned.  I encountered more construction, dark streets with neon, and dangerous-looking gentlemen.  I was set to go back to the hotel and have another overpriced room-service dinner listening to CNN.  I passed a Chinese restaurant.  Canada has great Asian food and Vancouver has a large population of expatriate Hong Kong Chinese.  I went up the stairs of the restaurant.

Sitting down, I realized that I had come to a restaurant that I visited with my family 12 years before.  I ordered a Sapporo and had a large, difficult to eat, and expensive lobster with black bean sauce, sorry that I didn’t have four or five more people so that I could try some more dishes.

The next day I drove back across the border.  The American Customs Agent also asked me, “What brought you all the way up here?”  He hid his resentment and failed aspirations and didn’t interrogate me about my nascent writing career.

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