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Part 5

32.
I sometimes feel like a bit of a hopeless romantic. The whole Hollywood road-trip thing has ruined me.
I couldn't help feeling that our conversation should have been easier, that there should of been an immediate connection. I wanted to fall in love with her.
But as it was we just went through the usual introductory small talk. Where you're from, what you're doing, what you'd like to be doing. It all seemed forced and awkward. She had been studying environmental engineering at a two-bit university in her hometown on the east coast. Up until the end of last April when she had flunked out after just her first year. No motivation to do well, she said. She just didn't care enough about what she was studying to do well in it.
So it was inevitable that she fail. She was just glad that it had happened before she had invested too much of her time and money into it.
Now she had found her own. She was hitching across the country like so many had before her and so many would after her. She was in search of her nation.
Had she found it?
"It's a constant search." She said with a grin.

33.
"So, you ski alot?"
"As much as I can. As much as my bank account will allow."
"Yeah? Where do you ski? I mean, there aren't many hill in these parts."
"Oh I come from a bit farther East. There's some decent places around there. If you know where to look. Nothing spectacular of course, but enough to keep me going."
Pause.
"You ever been out West?"
"Yeah, once. Went skiing with my Dad. It was pretty cool. I mean, that one weekend wasn't much but it was enough for me to see the potential - to see what I'm missing out east."
Pause.
"And you? Ever been out to the Rockies?"
"Nah. Until now I'd never ventured further West than Fredricton."
"Really? So this is quite the trip for you."
"Yeah."
And so it went. The conversation about as stimulating as the endless wheat-fields that passed alongside the car windows.

34.
As was inevitable, the song came on the radio.
I was genuinely stunned by her reaction to it.
"Oh, man. Not again. I'm so sick of this song." were her exact words.
I honestly didn't think that it was possible for this to happen to anyone.
"You don't like this song?" I tried not to sound shocked.
"Well, maybe the first few times I heard it I didn't hate it but now,....it's just so overplayed. How can anyone not get sick of it?"
"I still like it."
"But it's so sick. I mean, this guy that nobody has heard of blows his brains out, the media gets ahold of some little demo tape of his or whatever, and then proceeds to saturate the airwaves with this so-called masterpiece that's really not much more than a decent pop song. They're not selling music, they're selling a story. It has made in Hollywood written all over it." She said all this calmly while staring out her window, not trying to start a debate or anything, just stating what she perceived to be a fact.
I didn't know what to say. I wanted to accuse her of making judgments about people she didn't know anything about. I wanted to tell her about Robbie's life (what I knew of it). I wanted to make her see the Robbie I saw in his music room that day so long ago. I wanted to defend him.
But all I said was: "It's a little more than a 'decent pop song'".
"Yeah, well, I guess that's just a matter of opinion. But the fact is you - or anyone else - would never have even heard it if he hadn't offed himself. It's simply suicide as a career move. Nothing new there."
I stared at the road ahead not wanting to interrupt any more of the song.
When it was over I pulled the car over to the side of the road and stopped.
In my mind I said: You never even met Robbie Morgan. I did. He was a true musician. He created music. He didn't just rehash the same old shit that's been floating around the airwaves for the past decade. He didn't style his hair to the latest fashion, pierce his eyebrow, grow a goatee or pander to anyone's idea of a target audience. He most definitely was not in it for any kind of money, he played acoustic gigs for change and coffee, he got stiffed by club owners who didn't care to understand his music, he never played to more than half-filled venues, but none of that mattered to him. The only thing that mattered to him was the process of creating music. I saw and heard him create an off-the-cuff piece of jazz-blues that any 'rock star' would be forever in awe of. I was with him when he first picked up a guitar. I was there at his first gig. You hear his one and only song that the general public ever acknowledged and then think you have the authority to pass all sorts of judgments on the man? You didn't know him. I grew up with him and I don't even know who he was. You dismiss his death as a career move without even the slightest notion of his life. You didn't know about his mothers real death. You didn't know about his fathers virtual death. You're treating everyone like an image on a TV screen, you fail to realize that you're talking about a real person. A real, dead person who left behind a father who will drink himself to death to cover his guilt and a childhood best friend who will forever be asking himself the same questions.
But out loud I only said, "Robbie Morgan was my best friend."
So there I was flaunting my newly found claim to fame.
Was she apologetic? Was she surprised? I honestly couldn't tell.
"Oh, yeah?" was all she said.
"Yeah."
"Am I supposed to apologize for the things I said about his song?" She obviously didn't intend to. She was gauding me. I don't think she believed me.
"No." I spoke slowly. "Not for what you said about his song. That's personal opinion. And not for what you said about the airwaves being awash with it, about the media hyping it up. That's probably true - however I believe it's well deserved." I paused just for a second. "I would like you to apologize for what you said about Robbie though. You can't trivialize his death, his...suicide, as a career move just because his song has reached the masses. It's not fair to him."
"Sorry, but I call them like I see them." was all she said to this.
"But you didn't see him. That's the point. You didn't know him. You haven't got a fucking clue what you're talking about. You're talking about a dead man without knowing about his life."
"And I suppose you knew him? I suppose you're going to tell me a story about a troubled childhood, a bruised child seeking solace in his music. The story of a struggling musician working shit jobs to finace his creativity, a musician overlooked by the public because he's working on such a higher level, a musician who sold out with his last song and killed himself when he realized it?"
I stared out the windshield. Into the darkness ahead of me. No stars were out and the highway was lightless. I didn't know what to say. She had summed up his life so neatly, so convienently and she'd even offered a frighteningly plausible explanation for his death. Was I making too much of the guy? Was I idolizing the dead simply for being dead?
I shifted out of neutral and pulled back onto the road.
"That's not fair." I said. And I felt a choke.
"I didn't mean to be so blunt." She was looking at me. I was staring at the road, at the point where the headlights faded.
"He wasn't a cliche." I wiped my eye.
"I'm sorry if I made him out to be one. I..." Here she actually faltered. "I didn't really believe that you knew him. I just thought you were, I don't know..."
We drove in silence for awhile. The radio shut off, the scenery covered by night, nothing to do but stare at nothing and try to grab hold of the thoughts flying through our minds.
It hurt to think of Robbie as a stereotype. But now that that thought was in my head I couldn't shake it. Was his last song a sell out? No. It couldn't be. I loved that song and I don't usually go for the mass-appealing radio pop. It had to be special. Didn't it?
But why then? Why did he pull the trigger?

35.
Different night. Stars were out in full force. Alone on the side of a prairie road with no man made lights in side, the ceiling was infinite.
"I've always wanted to do this." I said climbing onto the hood and leaning back against the windshield. "Sitting on the hood of a car, drinking a few beers, staring at the stars..."
"You really are a hopeless romantic." She laughed as she climbed up to join me.
We clinked our bottles and sat back, the twelve pack between us.
"So how does this work?" She asked with an evident smirk. "Do we silent contemplate life or are we supposed to have a deep philosophical conversation?"
"Shit. A deep philosophical conversation? Let me get through a few more beers and we'll see where we go." She laughed.
"Oh, come on, I know you can handle your own. Let's see, I'll start things off: do you believe in God?" "Jeez, that's a hell of a way to start off! I'll definetly need some more beer before I get into that." I took an exaggerated swig of my current bottle.
"Well, isn't that the way these evenings are supposed to go?" She was giggling.
"Hell, I don't know. It's my first time." A grin.
"Really? What else haven't you done before?" Another evil smirk.
"Umm, let's go back to that God question."
Laughter. It sounded good. Things were going easier. Had been for the last few days.
"So, do you?"
"I don't know - is it just me or do alot of my answers start that way?"
"It's not just you."
"I'd like to believe in something, it'd be reassuring."
"Isn't that what all religion is basically about -reassurance?"
And so it went. Each of us only vaguely informed about anything - including our own opinions - and yet we managed to talk most of the night about pretty much everything. When the last bottle had been drunk we had covered such diverse topics as literature, movies, extra-terrestrial life, government conspiracies, Quebec seperation, politics in general, ethics, hockey, Americans, Europeans, racism, skiing, freedom and whether or not beer was the gift of the Gods.
I told her of my sheltered childhood and my fear of being average.
She told me how she sometimes feels guilty for having never really suffered in her life.
I talked of my fear of dissappointing my parents, how I sometimes wish that I could just drop all my connections and be a ski-bum. No one to worry about but myself.
She talked of her fear of responsibility.
We found some common ground, we found some differences. We didn't talk music.
She wasn't beautiful and neither was I, but under a blanket of stars anything seems possible.




Photo by Avery Crounse
Appears in liner notes of the album "Trouble at the Henhouse" by the Tragically Hip

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