After the wedding Harry brooded for weeks. He didn't work on the script, he barely ate, he wasn't there. Instead he played Bob Dylan and hit the road. Leaving the unwelcoming Quebec behind. Escaping into freedom. Living the moment. Taking it all in.
He packed his tattered copies of On the Road, Tropic of Cancer, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, a bag of weed, a portable typewriter and a harmonica he couldn't play. A bohemian in his own mind, ersatz but fortunately self delusional, a suitcase of belt samples instead of a guitar, cheesy restaurants instead of beat coffee houses, Hockey Night in Canada instead of Ginsberg reading Howl. Blood on the Tracks in the cassette deck.
Becoming one with rural Canada, the rolling hills and valleys, the farms, the trees, the lakes and rivers, the seemingly idyllic small towns. Cornwall, Brockville, Perth. Embracing real Canada, the country he loved. People without guile or pretense. Driving the Trans Canada Highway into the sunset. Wanderlust coursing through his veins, traveling from town to town, vowing to never settle down, never to go back home, to never look back.
And almost a poet.
Tangled Up in Two
Early one mornin' the snow was blowin'
I was layin' in bed
Wondrin' if it really happened
Whether it was all in my head
The ruse was stupid I knew it was
It didn't make no sense
A tale of lies, a plan of fools
Too late to repent
And I'm still sellin' strips of leather
Snow fallin' on my boots
Heading out to east Ontario
Dreamin' of the girl I never knew
Tangled up in two.
She was a waitress when we first met
I played a poor Don Juan
Lightening strikes but once my friend
And burns what it hits upon
Drove that day as far as I could
Till I ran out of gas
Called her up from a Husky station
Sadly all things come to pass
Before she banged down the phone
Thought I heard her say to me,
"we'll meet again someday when
you are true,"
Tangled up in two.
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