Après avoir découvert que la vie n'a aucun sens, il ne nous reste rien d'autre à faire que de lui donner un sens.
Lucian BLAGA


Day 58

am

pm (Hot rain)

Rides = Bus
Arrival = Dallas
KM travelled = nil on hitchhiking
$ spent = $134.00 (Bus fare, Hospital fee)
Time passed on the road = nil
km walked = 6


My father, Valbert, wired $175.00 in US funds to the Western Union. He saved my life. I took the money and went directly to the Northwest Texas Healthcare Hospital to have my toe checked out. They cleaned it, gave me a shot for tetanus and put a big bandaid on it. There was a lot of 'goop' coming out. It cost $34.00. Next I went to the Greyhound Bus Depot where I bought a one way ticket for New Orleans. I planned to stop in Dallas to cancel my passport at the Canadian Consulate. The bus was leaving at 6 in the evening. I stayed there until I met Don who came in from Alaska. He said that Texas was the state where the unemployment rate was the lowest in the whole country and that he was coming there from time to time to work on contracts. I don't recall what he said he was doing but I think it was related to the oil industry. He asked me what I was up to and I told him about the robbery. He was not surprised. He told me a horror story about one of his friends that was hitchhiking around Corpus Christi, a town in the southern part of the state.

Don: So my friend got into this car with what seemed to be an okay driver. Ten minutes later, out of the blue, the driver turned weird and started stabbing my friend. He was stabbed 14 times, 8 times in the chest. Then the driver stopped his car and dumped him in a ditch.

Me: Jesus Christ! Your friend died?

Don: No he didn't, but he was left for dead. Somebody picked him up and brought him to the hospital. He spent two months recovering but he survived.

Me: What happened to the driver?

Don: He was caught and arrested. They found out that he had killed 3 or 4 people. He's in jail now. He should have been put down, but the State ruled that capital punishment was cruel and it was abolished. Anyway, he is in for life.

Don was told me this story as he was repacking his belongings. We were in front of the lockers when suddenly he dropped a big gun on the floor. I jumped back thinking it was going to fire into the air. He picked the gun up and said, "Don't worry, everybody has guns here, that's the way it is."

He invited me to go to one of his friend's place to kill some time. We walked to it. It was in a trailer park on the outskirts of town. It looked pretty shabby, every trailers was dilapidated. Every chip bag was out of the trash can, cigarettes butts had replaced flowers on the lawns and it looked like every home had a barking dog running loose. We went in. We sat in the living room which was filled with cigarette smoke. Everything was yellow, the carpet, the furniture, the ashtrays and even the curtains which I thought must have been white at some point. The guy inside had a tank top covered with oil, he said he was working on something but did not mention what it was. Basically the three of us just sat there in this temple of nicotine and tar. We smoked like chimneys, drank a few beers and looked at the time dying. At 4 pm I said, "I think that I should get going, my bus is leaving soon."

The big bus was pulling in and as soon as it stopped the passengers poured out running for the washrooms, the restaurant or the fresh air. There, in the scramble I met Patrizia a beautiful Italian woman from Milan. She was stopping in Dallas as well. When the bus left I sat with her. We arrived at our destination around 1 in the morning and we went to sleep in the station.

- Daniel



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