I Hear Shots

On the Victoria Day long weekends when I was near the completion of my Phd. studies in Beer a pile of us Slivervillians would head into the wilderness to see who would get injured and have to be laid in the back of a 4x4 and rushed to the nearest hillbilly hospital for emergency repairs.

The gateway to our favourite spot would be guarded by an RCMP roadblock by Friday so someone always volunteered to head into the bush a day early carrying cases of booze, ammunition and other as yet to be legalized poisons, potions, and blow up dolls.

We had been turned back once too often with our thoughtfully planned booze supplies by the motherfuckers in the yellow striped pants to leave even the legal party supplies to be poked through at the Friday night roadblock.

"You cannot possibly be going to drink that all yourself."

"Fuck yeah."

"We can't let you go by with all that. You can bring the blow up sheep but not THAT much booze."

The RCMP were still trying, as unsuccessfully as ever, to tame the wild west of Canada. (A further ongoing failure is underway right now in beer 'n' hockey crazy Edmonton.)

Before the sun went down behind the big mountains and bigger clouds of mosquitoes we would be getting wasted, walking on the massive campfire and shooting our guns in the air like we were the hashwarlords of honour at an Afghan wedding.

The Ramones, DOA, Wire and the Heartbreakers blared from cheap car speakers. The rednecks camped around us would have killed us if not for our superior firepower. We were motherfucking American when it came to camping.

In the wee hours the RCMP would creep into our campsite. We always hoped they would arrive on horseback one night. "We had a report of gunfire in the area. You hear anything?"

Our answer was always the same. "We heard what sounded like firecrackers or something. Sounded like it came from across the way." We would lean into one another for stability and point in various directions.

"Firecrackers, eh?"

"Yeah. They spooked our sheep. Baaaaad."

For the record, the RCMP do not always get their man. But they do confiscate enough booze to have some of the best parties in Canada. And that was just our booze.