Here Comes Trouble - Michael Moore [80]
And it was one of those ideas that I proposed to them, on a Sunday afternoon in the early fall of 1971, for which Jacko was my perfect co-conspirator. We would call our idea “The Great Blue Water Bridge Escape.”
“I was thinking,” I said slurping down an A&W root beer that was perched on a tray hanging from the window of my dad’s ’69 Impala. “If I’m drafted, I’m not going.”
“Me neither,” said Joey. “No way.”
“Well,” added Ralph, “they’ll never find me. I’ll go underground and that’ll be that.”
“We’re not going underground,” Jacko shot back. “And we’re not going to jail. I’ve been there. Not for me.”
“We could sign up as conscientious objectors,” I suggested.
“What’s that?” asked Joey.
Ralph interjected. “It means you have to sign a piece a paper saying you’re a pussy—and none of us are doing that.”
“Yeah, I don’t really want to do that, either,” I quickly added, though not entirely ruling out the possibility inside my head. “Being a C.O. means giving Uncle Sam two years of your life doing something else for him that doesn’t require a gun.”
I paused. “How ’bout we escape to Canada?”
“Run?!” Ralph said with surprise.
“No, not ‘run,’ ” said Jacko. “More like Steve McQueen in The Great Escape. Outsmart the bastards. Jump the fence to Canada. Live like kings!”
“Canada doesn’t have a fence between us,” I said. “It’s all water.”
Just how much water I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t want to correct him about Steve McQueen (whose escape attempt on that bike ultimately wasn’t successful) because I knew the Canadian plan was the way to go.
Jacko piped in. “I say we check it out. Whadda we got to lose?”
We made a plan for the following Saturday to drive over to the border and assess what our chances would be of getting into Canada. I was in charge of logistics. Ralph would head up what could best be called security (“No Canadian wants to mess with a Mexican,” he reassured us). Jacko would get some money from his dad for whatever we needed. And Joey would bring the boat.
“The boat?!” Ralph said. “What’s the boat for?”
“Mike said it’s all water,” Joey responded. “So, my dad and me, we got a small fishing boat we tie onto the back of our car to go up north fishing. It’s just sitting beside the garage. I take it out when I want.”
Jacko was all smiles. “I likesy the boatsy! I can just see us now, bookin’ across Lake Huron like James Bond!”
Ralph was not a boat person, but he could see he was outvoted on this. I assumed his opposition was because he couldn’t swim and the thought of dealing with any water was not a pleasant one for him.
The next Saturday, Joey arrived at my house. I told my parents I was going to the movies—and fortunately, they never looked out the window, which might have led them to ask why we needed a boat to go to the movies. We headed east out of town on M-21, through Elba and Lapeer and Imlay City, past the church in Capac whose steeple had been built by my great-uncle. I would often pass on these historical tidbits to my Davison friends at high school who humorously tolerated my I’m-sorry-to-be-so-smart attitude. These guys from Flint I really didn’t know that well, which made this adventure feel all that more dangerous and alluring.
In a little over an hour we were in Port Huron, Michigan. Port Huron, I had learned in preparation for the escape, was one of only three border crossings from Michigan into Canada—the other two were Detroit (which had a tunnel and a bridge) and Sault Ste. Marie in the Upper Peninsula. There also appeared to be a boat crossing on the Detroit River south of the city with a customs station on the Canadian side.
Port Huron was a small city, not known for much in those days, but all Michigan schoolchildren