Right, right. “For sure, man. See you there. Peace, brother.”

Full

Backtal

Nudity.

Inside the one-story U.S. Customs and Border Protection building, two uniformed agents march me into a pea-soup-green room with the shades drawn, the sunlight sending bar-like shadows across an American flag and a framed picture of Nixon.

A few moments ago, Tinsley and I were pulled out of a car at the border. The couple who’d picked us up an hour ago were hungry for conversation after a week of hiking in Gatineau Park. Now they’re waiting outside while their car is searched. Meanwhile, Tinsley and I have been forcibly escorted into this building. (A female agent took Tinsley to another room.)

I am totally wigging. Nerves lit. Heart flat-out racing as if I’ve just sprinted two hundred yards. Bladder threatening to empty on the spot. How could I have forgotten about Barry’s two lids?

No amount of sirring and fakery is going to save my sorry ass this time. My legs feel like rubber bands. I’m trying, and failing, to breathe normally. When an involuntarily moan escapes my lips, both agents jerk their heads up.

“Something you want to tell us?” one asks.

“No, sir.” Christ! I might as well have just confessed.

One of the agents dumps the contents of my knapsack on a table. Three sets of eyes quickly inspect the results. Incredibly, there’s nothing that looks like two lids of grass among the underwear, spare shirts, toiletries, and the blue-and-yellow license plates I took off Odysseus this morning before abandoning it.

An unintended sigh of relief forces itself out of my lungs. The agents frown. One of them unbuckles the outside pockets of the knapsack. A few eight-track cassettes, a paperback of Kerouac’s Dharma Bums, a small robin’s-egg-blue Tiffany box containing a sterling-silver love pendant with Robin’s and my names inscribed.

Is it stress or relief that makes me go light-headed and bend at the waist to get the blood flowing before I keel over? When I straighten up, both agents are staring again. It’s hard to imagine acting any more guilty, short of signing a written confession.

“Sure there isn’t something you want to tell us?” asks one.

“No, sir.” Keep breathing, I tell myself.

The agents comb through every item on the table, squeezing toothpaste out of the tube, peering at the tape in the eight-tracks. Meanwhile, all I feel is relief and an intense desire to get out of here. Another narrow escape. Move over, Houdini. Make room for Lucasini.

“Why were you hitchhiking?” one of them asks.

I gesture to the plates and explain that my VW microbus caught fire last night.

“You left it?”