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Greg and I can't believe our eyes and I can't stop
laughing. Lyle starts screaming again as if someone has driven a stake into his
head. He could scarcely believe us saying these girls were "freaking
naked". He slows down and motions them to pull over. Instead they pull out
and pass us.
This time the topless passenger is now standing in
the seat hanging out the window waving wildly and smiling, as if accepting an award for gallantry. Her long brown hair is
whipping in the wind, among other things, and the cute driver is still just sitting there shorn of worldly inhabitions looking straight
ahead with the same rather pleasant look on her face.
Lyle's eyes grew wide, his screams grew louder and he could barely keep his eyes
on the road. I still can't stop laughing and Lyle is still screaming. So this
is what Canadians do on weekends.
"Pull over!" Greg keeps saying over
and over.
"We gotta get them to stop!" Lyle repeated the mantra as if together, they could will them to stop.
"It was a sacred moment, a pinnacle in a young man's life, something you tell stories
about the rest of your days. High school kids sit around and dream of stuff like
this happening.
As they pull in front, naked chick number two is still
hanging out the window waving us on. Why do I feel like I am always in some sort
of movie? This stuff never happens in real life, yet here it was larger than
life. Lyle pulls out to pass again. He gets in front and motions to follow us.
He speeds up and pulls off the road at the first side road. Greg is sure they'll
drive right by and Lyle sounds as though he is begging God, or possibly confessing his sins.
They are arguing as to who gets who. Lyle wants the driver-
the escaped leader of the nudist colony. Greg settles for the wet and wild
passenger. To all of our surprise, they pull right up just a natural as can be.
By now they have clothes on much to Lyle's dismay.
I am not sure who is supposed to be more scared. Plot number
one: Three hormonal guys get two naked chicks to pull over. Plot number two: Two
naked chicks get three hormonal guys to pull over- having planned and engineered
the whole thing. Which movie am I in again?
Deseret and Monique. I think I really did see this in a
movie. Lyle invites them to the town pool. It's where we are headed next. The
driver has beautiful tan skin and is very cute. The passenger is holding a
Budweiser between her legs, and they don't get out of their car. Lyle and Greg
lean into the windows working their best of charms. I hold back, this isn't
exactly my idea of how boy meets girl. I can just see it many years later at the
backyard barbecue.
"So hold did you two meet?" asks next door neighbor
Joe.
"Well, she passed me on the highway hanging out the car
window naked as the day she was born and it's been pure bliss since
then," I'd reply.
They say they'll go much to Lyle's surprise. This time
Lyle makes Greg drive. He doesn't want to miss anything as Greg pulls out and
heads toward town. They start pulling out to follow turning in our direction but
go the other way at the last second. Lyle starts screaming again. I start
laughing again. Lyle begs and pleads with Greg to turn around to follow the
lovely Deseret and Monique but it is Greg who puts a stop to this madness. Lyle
pouts all the way back to town.
I am impressed with the pool. Chetwynd is only a town of 3000
people yet the pool is indoors, brand new, has a sauna, jacuzzi, and every
thirty minutes the pool becomes a wave pool like in the amusement parks. It
seems like the town hangout to me. Lyle likes to sit in the sauna for almost an
hour, I last 10 minutes. We talk about guy stuff, women mostly, wedding rings,
mating rituals. Lyle has scoped out every single woman at the pool. He knows
most of them too. He points through the steamed up window and gives a short
blurb on almost all of them there.
After going out for dinner, the three of us go back to the
same video store and rent the same exact Emilio Estivez movie from the night
before. The girl behind the counter knows Lyle and gives the movie to him for
free laughing at him as she does. I bet everybody knows everybody.
The movie was dumb but it made me think of an interesting
thing. I am beginning to realize that fear of people you don't know is really
just a fabrication. Here Lyle and Greg, who don't know a thing about me,
invite me into their lives and their home. I'm not sure who is suppose to be
more scared of who, me of them, or them of me. Greg even insists on paying for
my meals. I think though the whole naked chick thing was a fluke though. As if
that happens every weekend.
Canada seems much like the US. And in the last two weeks, I've
met all sorts of people on this trip. I am starting to realize that people are
the same. The movies, newspapers, the daily news- all broadcast this message of
fear but it's actually only a tiny segment of our population that gets to make
the news. Normal old every day good people is not news.
After the movie, Lyle shows us some home video of a trip to
Switzerland he did a year or so ago. He went there to ask a girl he met, at the
pool, to marry him. He had planned to stay an entire month with Bridgette (he
pronounces it, 'bree-gheet') but when he got there, she was already with
another guy. He had planned to stay a month but only stayed 10 days. He speaks
of the trip with a bit of bitterness in his voice.
Lyle leaves for the swing shift at the lumber pulp mill and a
little after 11, the phone rings. It's Lyle. All he says is the name "Deseret"
very slowly and starts laughing hysterically. I can hear other guys laughing in
the background. I put the phone down and go back to sleep.
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