friday the thirteenth

cape vincent, friday the thirteenth.

we pulled in to town later than expected, darius and i, in his van, finding the streets blocked off in the little town for the french festival the next day. we arrived to meet up with our friend jacob, who had been living out there over the summer, doing colonial house restoration and building rifles from the revolutionary war era. his friend tony owns some businesses in town, and we're to meet jacob at a bar, where darius has promised me that we'll be well taken care of. pulling in around 11 or so, darius is trying to regain his bearings in the little town, with the streets blocked off. but it's a little town, without a lot of ways to go around, so we find our way into a parking lot behind a bar, i'm not sure where we're supposed to go, i'm just following, don't know if we gotta walk all the way down these streets or anything. but no, we're right next to the place, and step inside, looking around for our friend. he's sitting by the door, we miss him and walk right by. here he is grinning at us, and i'm the first to notice him. he stands up and embraces me, pats me on the back and shakes my hand, and darius too.

the three of us have been on the road together before, running around new york, to baltimore, and generally just all over the area, a few years ago, the first time i came in to NYC. and we're going to do it again, go down to the city in a couple days. just a short trip, not too long, darius wants to get back up to potsdam, and i'm sort of just along for the ride.

jacob is introducing us to the bartender women, and all the pretty girls - he seems to know all the pretty girls darius is saying to me, and we go outside, and he introduces us to the menfolk as well, and they all seem to be in with him too. he is well liked. he introduces us to tony who owns the bar, and tony makes us feel at home, gets us big cups of beer, and people are standing around outside of the bar, smoking cigarettes drinking their beers, and it's like new orleans or something, you can walk around with your beer, must be the only town in new york state. don't know if it's just for this festival this weekend or what.

jacob explains to me that the festival, called "french festival" or something, happens every year, and is actually in reference to the feact that napoleon bonaparte was once going to move out to this town, cape vincent, and that his brother was already out there, that's why napoleon was going to come. so every year they have a parade and marching bands, and all these people come across the ferry over the st lawrence from kingston and elsewhere from canada and come down to cape vincent and hang out for the weekend. and get wasted too, i guess.

we spend the night drinking, and BSing, and having a generally merry time, until it's late, and we go back to jacob's parents house, with a few extra beers, and i spend the night on a fold out bed, after eating some bread and meat, and cheese.

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saturday, july 14th

we wake up late, like 2 in the afternoon, i was having weird dreams about zombies and airplanes, and darius was feeling under the weather. we'd missed the morning parade, missed the opportunity to take pictures of the parade, thats what darius does, taking pictures with his big telephoto lens all the time, but we went out back to the bar/restaurant anyway, to soak up the scene and witness the strangeness. lots of people milling about, marching bands and bagpipes guys everywhere, vendors on the sides of streets. i was concerned with trying to write journals about the days before in potsdam, so i spent some time doing that in the day, and hiding outside of a cafe that jacob had worked on restoring, he'd hand painted the welcome sign in a calligraphy style with no guides, all free hand, and everyone was amazed they said, well the cafe was selling stuff thru the front door but they had it blocked off with a table so you couldn't go in, so i hid in the bar, and sat on a stool, banging the keys trying to get caught up with our trip. darius was feeling ill and laid down in some grass. jacob and i talked to tony about it, said perhaps we should get some food in us, and tony put in some orders for us at his restaurant, very kind. we ate a free lunch, and afterwards dar started to feel better and he went around taking some pictures. jacob went to find an ATM and one of the only ones in town was totally out of cash. the other one had mysteriously stopped working. so tony did a cash back charge for him on the card machine in the bar.

i walked around and took some pictures of funny signs, and looked at strange north country people. a drum line group of sailors in training for her royal majesty's service paraded, beating their instruments. then bag pipers, and steel drummers, and more, and finally all the bag pipers collided together, marching around, and everyone close in around them to listen to amazing grace and so forth. the announcer, over the loudspeaker feedbacking bagpipe noise, closed the ceremonies and many of those marching band peoples went home for the night.

the rest of us went to the bar, and i helped tony and some other guys do things like, relocate a portipotty, and wall off the smoking/21+ section for the outside of the bar, with orange plastic roll up fencing. there was supposed to be a band playing on a trailer set up outside, but the rain had started to pick up and scared everyone in. the band van showed up and started hauling their equipment in. a pressurized keg beer stand truck was opened up, and manned by tony's cousins. i stood around with dar and jacob and we watched the people filter in and out, small town, having a good time.

i made the most half hearted attempts to talk to women. they were all married or whatever. i talked to a couple, a woman in a pirate shirt (with a gold tooth painted on the front) and her husband, an army guy who flew helicopters, and used to manage a space camp for kids, they were nice. she worked for tony at one of his businesses and was talking about how she didn't understand where he had the energy, watching him fly around dealing with situations as they developed, setting up his outside bar. i told them about how i was a traveling poet. they called me on it, and asked me to prove it. so i read them something, a piece i wrote a while ago on an airplane, from san francisco to minneapolis. they were impressed, and she bought a book of poems off of me to demonstrate it. told me about how they were from the south, how i should go be a starving artist down there, the rent is cheaper. told me about a native girl in tennessee that they knew who was really beautiful, trying to hook me up. go find her, you'll love her they said. we were all hiding under the awning, from the rain, and i was kicking myself that i'd forgotten my umbrella, lost somewhere back in jill's house in potsdam.

i thought about jill too, back in potsdam, and how she was setting up her art table next to the cross walk sign, across the street from the theater, during the potsdam city's little summer festival. and how me and darius, bouncing from small upstate new york town to another, taking in these tiny festivals. i should do this all the time, i though. there's a captive market of people walking around.

some dorky kids, in cool clothes, future hipsters, all ready too cool for their small town, were wandering around asking drunks to sign this inflatable animal that they had, pool toy, duck of some sort if i remember. "sign my duck!" the one in the guns and roses jacket was saying. they were cute kids, young teens, and i told them that they were the future and that they were awesome. some drunks, were bothered by them, offended by their obnoxiousness. misunderstood youth of nowhereville, rising up to cause trouble, wholesome really. giving me hope.

it was getting dark and the bar party, despite being rained on, was in full swing. rumor mongers came around, telling everyone the fireworks were canceled from rain. terrible loss, tragedy. but then the rain broke for a while. and booming starts happening. everyone runs around the corner to check it out. i'm thinking, "yeah they might as well detonate all those gunpowder monstrosities that they have because they spent probably a lot of money on them" and some guy is echoing my thoughts, talking about how that money could have been better spent on building wind farms, wind power is a big debate around here right now. we're watching the fireworks, and i'm chanting "USA!" again, like was at the fireworks we just saw in potsdam.

darius and i are getting hungry again and tony smuggles us some old pizza from one of his shops. dar and i eat graciously, and hide in the shadow,s watching the street action. a giant 300 pound man, pushes over a portapotty in the park across the street. and later some police come by and wake up a drunk guy passed out on some business's front steps. dar and i talk to nice girls, who invite us to come with them tomorrow on a big boat, and he's really into the idea even though i'm pretty sure we won't have time for it since we're leaving for new york. but the attention from nice women is gratifying, until some crazy guy walks up and starts scaring them away. he engages us all in friendly banter, asks about our deals and stuff. i tell him i'm a traveling poet, he asks me if i like kerouac. i say, you know, of course i do, and he says to me that he is "BETTER THAN KEROUAC" because he's a musician and he just got back from florida, syphoning gas out of people's tanks the whole way. we talk for awhile and i look for some polite way to extract myself from the conversation, after the women take off.

i have lots of conversations with different people, over plastic cups of beer, and walk back and forth to cars to partake of private smoking sessions. meet traveling landscaping hippies, and small town musicians who promise to rain hellfire down on your city, and fratty guys who are pretty chill and just like to have a good time. darius, sober from feeling sick all day and not drinking, is capable of driving us out of the town for the evening, after the bar is closing, and the girls working are kicking everyone out, and i'm staring at the girl in the bright red coat, and all of the most beautiful women are married to the friends of our friends of friends, and we're feeling like its time to leave.

i'm trying to goad the guys into hitting the road for the big city tonight, even though it's almost 3, but dar is smart and he's saying, no way, we'll sleep get some rest, eat some food, talk with jacob's father for a while, he's really interesting, you'll like him... i can't argue with these guys. so we're back at jacobs house again, with a few beers, in the basement, have a cig or two, soak up some stories from jacob about his doings. hit the bed again, out like a light but the sun is coming up.

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sunday the 15th

the guys get up earlier than me, i get a shower in, and repack my stuff. they go out to pick up dar's car, which we left out in town, and came home in jacob's little two door sports thing. we're going to drive to new york in this tiny car, and dar will save money on gas, and leave his van up at jacob's parents house.

i'm stealing wireless from the neighbors, and looking at some videos that just got posted onto youtube, from this festival i went to in may, that i hosted a stage at for a few hours, and also did poetry. i'm never on the official booking of the show but they let me come and perform, and i end up in the promotional videos. it's called telemagica, out in the desert outside of san diego. i'm sorting thru the different videos looking for myself, narcissist. looking at the videos, and condensing down the two bags i brought to just one backpack, don't need that much stuff, for a short stay in NYC.

darius and i talk for a while with jacob's father, who is sitting on his porch, telling us stories about the revolutionary war and the architecture of the buildings we're spying on, thru a telescope, across the river. he's got these rifles that take months to make, hand carving them, staining them with home made linseed oil. real interesting guy. loves history. revolutionary war, probably his favorite war. he talks about indians, and canada, and lots of great things, that i wish i would have wrote about 9 days ago when this all actually happened. but now my memory is hazy, so i'm giving you the abbreviated version.

so hey, we have great talks with the dad, and we get all packed up, and i'm crushed in this back seat of this tiny car, with my backpack between my legs, trunk is smashed, a big imac box with computer inside of it right next to my left. and we're flying, hitting the road again. i haven't had phone service all weekend, roaming. jacob says he pays for his phone bill and can't even use it in this town. rents a place in manhattan but lives up here, got a bank account up here because there's better perks, changed his car insurance to out here to get out of city taxes. the living is slower up here, but cheaper, and the terrain is gorgeous. and i'm saying, "lets come back to french fest every year!" we can do it right after potsdam days or whatever it's called.

once we're out of town i get service again, we're listening to old country songs on the radio. i send in a new txt message to my webpage, updating my location as "headed to NYC from cape vincent, ny...."