The Be Good Tanyas: Blue Horse

The trip to Canada was not my idea. My life had sunk low into a haze of depression and drinking and nothing would drag me out. Well, no amount of bitching and whining would get me out of this one. My brother had made this very clear. By the time I woke up in the back of my car we were stopped at the border station just north of New York. Hill Island. The air had changed so subtly I hardly noticed.

I was still drunk from the night before so I crawled back into the nest of coats and pillows and dipped in and out of sleep for another couple hours. The world started shaking and I snapped out of my dreams with a start. Jim was shaking me, telling me we had arrived. "Where the fuck did you take me?". "Smiths Falls, now get up. We're getting coffee" I grumbled my way out of the car and into the sunlight. Sobriety is a bitch and this cold wind and clear sun was not making it any easier.

The cafe was a good ten yards from where we parked, but the parking lot stretched into the horizon in my eyes. Damn this place, damn these smiling Canadians and damn you Jim. I slapped my hand against the door hoping I'd hit someone coming out. Damn again, no one caught the door in the face. Jim shoved me forward and into the nearest booth. "What can I get you boys?", a tall pleasant looking face said somewhere above the rim of my sunglasses. "Double Maker's Mark neat and an ashtray" I grumbled. "He'll have coffee" from the other side of the table. Damn you Jim.

The coffee arrived in a carafe, the scent burned it's way through my nose and straight into my brain. Canada has coffee game. Jim and I started the ritual of coffee, passing sugar and cream back and forth in a game as old as our brotherhood. Over my shoulder I heard the drone of tuning and the clicks and rustles of busy stage work. "What the fuck is this Jim? You drag me all the way to Canada to listen to a fucking band?". "Shut up Eriq, listen."

The Be Good Tanyas sung me into salvation that night. I was their willing captive for the entire performance. Delicate strums on acoustic guitars drove sweet spikes of remorse deep through my festering wounds. The aching arch of fiddle danced with all of my fears, putting them to bed with understanding and compassion and vocal harmonies that gave me hope for the first time in years. These girls had found the best of America and distilled it with pure Canadian glacier water. I cried the entire night, drops of my past falling into the coffee held in front of me.

As the band wished us well upon our way, I wiped my face dry with the remnants of the napkin and ran for the door. The night time air slapped me in the face hard enough to lose my balance. The stars and I stared at each other for hours. A cruching of snow wakes me from my communion. "Do you get it? Are you ready to go?" "Sure."

I saved this in my photo album with Langhorne Slim, Po' Girl and Uncle Earl

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