Here Comes Trouble - Michael Moore [82]
We headed back in to Port Huron and found a burger joint and took what passed for our picnic dinner to the town’s park on the river. There was a big boulder with a plaque honoring Thomas Edison on it. We sat there, with our burgers, staring at it and trying to come up a list of things he invented: Lightbulb. Record player. Movie projector. There was more, but that was enough to make him cool.
“Man,” I added, accidentally slipping into know-it-all mode, “a lot of inventors came from our state: Edison. Henry Ford. Kellogg. Dow. Not bad for just one state.”
“Well, fuck Dow,” Ralph interjected.
“Yeah, fuck Dow!” Jacko repeated.
“Yeah, fuck Dow—fuck Dow royal!” I added, in case it needed emphasis.
“Edison said that of all his inventions, he was proudest of the fact he never invented a weapon, never invented anything for war,” Jacko said. We were impressed that he knew something so serious, whether it was true or not.
I was looking up at the bridge above us. Early evening had arrived, and while this adventure was, in spite of its motor mishap, already more fun than anything I had done so far in my senior year, I was still obsessed with not leaving the border zone without a plan on how to escape to Canada. I had to keep this mission on track. Of course, the ability to get the other three to refocus on why we were there was a bit more difficult now, as they were already halfway through the king-size joint.
“C’mon, man, try it,” Jacko implored me. “Just once.”
I was still a virgin when it came to, well, when it came to everything—but in this instance I was the only seventeen-year-old I knew who hadn’t at least tried pot or other controlled substances. I was not against it on any legal or moral grounds, and I was not worried that my first joint would force me to pick up a heroin needle. In fact, I noticed that everyone became nicer and funnier once stoned, and there was certainly nothing wrong with that. My fear was this: To me, I already seemed way too high/stoned/crazy. Or at least I thought I was. I was convinced that my natural, everyday altered state did not need any enhancing. I truly believed that if I were to smoke a joint or drop some acid I might not ever come back. I was fine just where I was, thinking up things like sneaking into Canada on a boat without a motor.
“We could always just make a run for it over the bridge,” I suggested, knowing that with the joint now finished off, they’d be open to just about anything.
“Whatcha mean, ‘make a run’?” Ralph asked in a tone that indicated a rare moment of open-mindedness.
“You don’t mean run like run-run, do ya?” Joey wondered.
“No, I don’t mean literally run across the bridge,” I explained. “I mean, let’s just get in the car and make like we’re going to visit our Canadian cousins. I can speak some Canadian. All you have to do is talk slower and put an extra “u” in some words.”
“I thought they spoke French,” Ralph interjected.
“They do,” I said. “It’s like their secret language they go to when they don’t want America to know what they’re saying. I’ve already had two years of French, so I’ll be ready if they try to pull that trick.”
“Good thinkin’,” Joey said.
“But we don’t need to worry about no French at the American checkpoint,” I assured them. “I’ll just tell the American border guards we’re going over to do some fishing with our Canadian relatives. Then we’ll hit the gas and make a run for it to the Canadian side before they figure out none of us look very related.”
“Man, I don’t know,” Jacko said after not thinking long about it. “What if they pull out their guns and start shooting? What if they chase us in some goddamn Army truck or somethin’? Fuck, I dunno.”
“Plus,” added Joey, “don’t forget, we’re pulling my dad’s boat.”
“We