Heart Of Gold

On The Verge

"Christ, are we there yet?" 

Will groaned from the passenger seat. He'd been asleep for two hours, granting Jake a brief period free of complaints about the endless prairie fields around them. In all fairness to Will, Jake was pretty sick of the fields himself. 

But driving kept his mind somewhat less bored -- so long as he could avoid nearly driving them off the road again, and had his music to play.

Neil Young's guitar picking hummed through the speakers, strumming out the chords as he crooned about a girl with a heart of gold. Will mimicked the singing, his voice rising up into a whine. 

"Well, pick the next song, then," Jake said, tossing his phone into Will's lap. "We're almost there. Eat some Timbits and stop whining."

There was Calgary, where Will's older brother Kyle lived.

"Man, he better cook us something good for dinner," Will moaned, rubbing his stomach. "We've been driving for four days- the least he can do is make us spaghetti and meatballs or something. This is cow country after all."

"You do know spaghetti is Italian, right?"

"Whatever. The meatballs come from cows, so same difference."

"I'm sure he'll have something for us. Or we'll go out to a pub or something for food," Jake said. "Heck, maybe he'll bring us to a country bar and you can show off your line-dance moves!"

"Maybe you'll find yourself a down-home country girl to spend the night with. Careful though," Will grinned. "I hear cattle ranchers don't take too kindly to us Torontonians coming for their daughters."

"Yeah really eh. Can they bring shotguns in the bars out here?"

"Not likely. But I doubt that stops them from doing it," Will guffawed.

"Fair enough," Jake admitted. "Come on, put some music on."

"No complaining."

"Hey, you're the picky one, not me," Jake laughed. Will scrolled through Jake's playlist. "The Eagles, Neil Young, The Allman Brothers Band, The Guess Who, Bob Seger ... what are you, sixty?"

"Put Bob Seger on."

"Come on, be Canadian! We've got to go for The Guess Who."

Will stuck the track in and 'American Woman' rolled out of the speakers. Jake drummed along on the steering wheel while Will rocked out on air guitar, folding their crumpled map lengthwise and holding it in his hand like the neck of a guitar. 

He held on to the Pacific Ocean and strummed along on Newfoundland and Labrador.

Slowly, empty farm fields turned into smaller and smaller front yards as the old red Mustang drove into downtown Calgary. Will's brother lived in an old high rise in the Beltline near a good variety of bars and pubs. They parked in the underground lot and made their way up to Kyle's apartment. 

The place was cozy, with a big futon in the living room and thick wool blankets strewn haphazardly across chairs and stools. Through the big, west-facing balcony doors Jake could just see the sun beginning to set behind the other apartment buildings. It glistened off the snow still packed on trees and sidewalks. 

March in Alberta, like the rest of Canada, definitely wasn't spring. Jake didn't mind the cold but winter was different in Calgary than it was in Toronto. Back home, winters were mostly wet and slushy. Here, the cold was so dry and harsh that he could virtually feel the air sapping the moisture from his skin.