It tastes like there’s a turd in my mouth and I’ve a headful of mashed onions. Another cloudy Saturday morn-afternoon and I’m outside “The Whip” – my primary residence (because there’s a salt-flat draught of pretty waitresses in my secondary home, the one I pay rent on). Fourth coffee, sixth cigarette – I’ve been awake for several dozens of minutes. Inside, Miles smoothes down Freddy the Freeloader – of whom I’ve serious suspicions about. I ordered my eggs three white darts ago and have seen nary a toast crust cross my table. And everyone knows how much Freeloaders love eggs. Through his mute, Miles agrees: The Swine.

Last night’s Friday ended circa 3:30AM drinking rice vodka cross-legged at a mat-floored, 12” high gyoza carcass and wing bone littered table. Being Vancouver, the joint closed at 2, of course, but after pulling the smiley and hinge-waisted owner aside and explaining that the loud, rancorous Italian drinking partner and I were discussing Million Dollar Business:

Smiley: Is close tine!
C+: NO! NONONONONONONONO-NO. See you can’t close. We’re onto something. Something BIG. Something that’s gonna change television as we know it! It’s fucking HUGE, MAN!
Smiley: No matta’ we need go home too!
C+: (shakes the little man’s hand)
Smiley: Was thees? Ooooohh. Shur, shur, you sit. We not kick out till we go. Nee more woka?
C+: I don’t know ‘woka’ but what we DO need is vodka and anonymity. We’re discussing Million Dollar Business. Can you manage to leave us alone and fill our drinks without actually being tableside or even visible?
Smiley: …
C+: Never mind. Bring us the bottle and let us be. That is all.

I’m always amazed at the turnkey powers of a palmed, folded pair of sawbucks.

I wasn’t lying. We were discussing big stuff. Stuff so big we’d get laughed at if we told anyone. I’m squirmier than a skilletful of snakes, it’s that good. Shit so big, I can’t talk about it for its sheer obviousness, and that’s probably a good thing: because this is a Travelblog, right?

Fuck blogs. I’ve read blogs a long, long time and 98% of them are whiney, boring-assed digital journals. “Oh, my BF left me and I have a hole in my soul that will never mend,” and such-shit. Either that or politics and I hate politics.

Not me. I’ve been balls-deep in a novel, five to ten thousand words a week for the past six months. For those of you who’ve never written or perhaps poor with the math, that’s an elephant’s arseload of words. But it’s done, and three quarters of the way through a longhand written second draft and I’m feeling edgy, like there’s something stirring somewhere under my clothes. Someone’s telling me something and it sounds like, “Mooob.”

At first I thought it was my bowel singing the Mornin’ After the Night Before Beer Blues – but it wasn’t. The consideration that I’ve not made with the Two Backed Beast in since the end of the Korean War crossed my mind, but through the wet-morning brain-wool I realize it’s not my junk because: I’m 33, and it’s only been several months. Only. Only I’m so Orangy, I could nail the knots out of an oak tree if it looked good. No. It’s not the nads either.

“Muh. Phhhukuh. Dn hr,” it’s my feet. I recognize the voice. They’re talkin’ to me. Again. I listen carefully through the tops of my boots.

Feet: Chris! Hey! Snapperhead, down here!
C+: What!? I can’t talk. I’m in a restaurant.
Feet: No matter, Bro. Time to go. Time to move.
C+: Move? Why? I’m bein’ good. I’ve not even ordered a pint yet. Just coffee.
Feet: No. Not the restaurant, you encephalitic mouth-breather. Move. From Vancouver. The place is too fucking small.
C+: (attempting to talk to ones appendages in a crowded public place isn’t easy – so I’m now whisper talkin’ out the side of a cocked cheek) Fuck you, move. We just got here. I like it here!
Feet: Keep it down! The swine are staring. (And they are)
C+: Yer right. How’d you know that? Yer covered in boot.
Feet: I’M FEET! What’d you expect? I know shit. Listen to me. Obey the feet.
C+: (shaking my head, crossing my legs, arms, fingers and eyes in defiance) Sure. Yeah. Still ain’t movin’. Nope. No fucking way. I hate moving and I ain’t doin’ it again for a while.
Feet: Well ya gotta do something; I’m growing moss down here.
C+: Smoke?
Feet: Indeed. Good enough place to start as any.

Outside, the pre-dusk clouds billow like cigar-smoke. On yonder west horizon, the sky farts gold. I fire up a Player’s and think.

C+: A vacation.
Feet: Hmmm…a vacation, eh? That just might do, y’know? ‘A nod’s as good as a wink to a blind bat’ and all that. I think we may be onto something here, Fuckface!
C+: You’re rude and make no sense, but you are feet so I tacitly forgive you. ‘Course I’m onto something! We’ve not been anywhere in a tortoise age.
Feet: We gotta do this right…
C+: What’d ya have in mind?
Feet: Europe. (My feet are quick on their…well…feet.)
C+: Goulet. Paris?
Feet: ‘Course Paris, Numbnuts! We loves Paris, but we gotta go bigger. Further.
C+: Amsterdam.
Feet: Keep talkin’…
C+: Germany. I know some people in Germany.
Feet: Yeah…that’s right! Berlin and Calgon…
C+: Cologne.
Feet: Whatever. We fly into Amsterdam for a long weekend, then head over to the Rhineland fer a longer weekend, and then finish it all in Paris.
C+: That’s the story. How long we goin’ for?
Feet: How much vacation you have left?
C+: Ten days.
Feet: Ten da…TEN FUCKING DAYS!? WHAT THE FUCK! WHERE DO YOU FUCKING WORK? A NIKE SWEATSHOP? Tenfuckingdays…that just will NOT DO!
C+: Well it’s all I’ve left, what’m I gonna do?
Feet: Walk out. Quit. Tell them you’re joining the French Foreign Legion, call in sick with a 24-hour Hanta virus. I. DON’T. CARE!
C+: Use yer head. Look. Easter’s coming up.
Feet: Riiight…
C+: We take off after work on the 24th. That way we arrive in Amsterdam by early evening on the 25th.
Feet: How’d you know that?
C+: Simple math. 25th to the 27th, without using a vacation day. 28th is another free day, so I can tour Germany fer four days at the price of three. Should be plenty.
Feet: I’m not followin’ you.
C+: That’s because you’re feet. Trust me. April 1st till what…the 11th is the balance of my paid days off. And the 11th is…(looking at the calendar on the inside sleeve of my smokes)…a Monday. That’s 8 or 9 days in Paris, depending on if we want a recuperative day or not.
Feet: Oh…we will…
C+: Goulet. I concur, Smelly.
Feet: Your eggs aren’t coming, you know.
C+: I know.
Feet: Think you could introduce us to that pair of red sling-backs with the ice picked heels?
C+: As sexy as they are, they’re attached to 65 year old legs.
Feet: Come ON! WINGMAN! Be a sport…I’d do it for you…
C+: You’re feet. You’d do fuck all for me. Now stomp me over to the bar and leave me be or I’ll kick us in the ankle. I’ve a powerful thirst and a trip to plan.

There’s an old bit of Samurai wisdom that says something along the lines that it’s not wise to consider a thing too long. That a decision should be made in the span of seven breaths – or in my case, a Player’s Light. By nights end I’ve loosely plotted my 18 day whirlwind tour of Europe – I’m sure it’ll grow and get more complicated as time moves on, but I’m nothing if I’m not adaptable. In my mind: already a quarter the way there.

I don’t sit well. Whether at a bar, or at a dinner or a single city; too long, I get edgy – very quickly. A vacation is exactly what I need, but not just for the getaway. For the better part of a year I’ve been transcribing the words of an Arch Angel, an Eternal, a Demon and a cast of other oddballs that reside in my head. They speak my language, but none of it is truly my voice. It’s not me speaking.

This trip, I’ll try and finish (or at least start) my the third draft of The Turning Game, but I’m not getting my hopes up. I’ve already invented a half dozen ID cards: Elle Magazine, Rolling Stone, Canadian GQ, Reader’s Digest, Juggs. Who’s gonna check? I’ve played this card before and it’s 98% effective, when you believe it yourself. I mean, why would a club manager doubt you? What’s not to believe?

And since I’m faking it, why not flesh the illusion with some actual travel writing? After all, a trip this’ll require my voice, my words, my point of view. Twenty-three days and counting…what would Tim Capello do?