<p>We were high when the battered red pickup truck pulled to a stop just ahead of us on the shoulder, signalling another opportunity to put more miles between us and Vancouver. The sun was a blazing furnace in the pale Rocky Mountain sky, and we were glad to escape its relentless fury. Ray-Jay got in first, and so got the honor of riding bitch between me and the rawest example of a mountain man I'd ever seen. He wore a sleeveless red-checked lumberjack flannel that was spread, open and unbuttoned, astride a swollen tattooed belly. A wild ginger flap of hair clung to his sunburnt and peeling scalp, and similar covered thick brown arms that held the steering wheel with cavalier looseness. I was only halfway into the truck when he peeled off down the highway, swinging the open door closed with a snap that nearly took my foot off at the ankle.</p>
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<p>"You boys want a joint?" He didn't even spare us a glance as he pulled a baggie down from behind his sun visor and tossed it in my lap. Ray-Jay gave me a look that told me it would be unwise to refuse our Good Samaritan's hospitality, so I chose the fattest of the offered fatties and sparked it up. The wildman behind the wheel meanwhile rummaged under his seat and produced a can of beer, which he cracked open one-handed, swallowed in a gulp, crumpled into one ham hock of a fist, and then pitched out his open window.</p>
<p>"The trick to driving these mountains," he said, never taking his eyes off the road, "is naked aggression." He swung the truck out into the oncoming lane to pass a logging truck, and for a few harrowing seconds I was absolutely certain we were going to die.</p>
</div>2020.09.08 – 2020.12.11