29 April 2012 | mark

Hello, Jazz fans. Jackson here, with a quick update.

I just want everyone to know that I tried to stop them, but they just wouldn’t listen. Sure, I’m a moose, but I’m not exactly full sized, you know? Anyway, I was snoozing in the center seat, just minding my own business, when the guys hopped into the truck and started ‘er up.

“Hey, did you get your paperwork?” I asked.

“Um, not yet,” said Mark, not meeting my gaze.

“So, where are we going?” I asked Mike.

“Jackson, at this point, the less you know, the better.” Mike replied.

I felt something cold and hard settle in my stomach. This did not look good. The truck turned South, and for a few minutes, I thought we were just going to raid a few Tim Horton’s and buy up all of their crullers. Mark kinda has a sweet tooth. But after we zipped by three of them in a row, I knew something was up. “Okay, boys, what’s the plan here, exactly?”

Mike continued to drive and sing James McMurtry songs to himself, pretending he didn’t hear me. I turned to Mark. “What? Tell me or I start singing showtunes.”

“No! Not that!”

“OOOOOOOH-KLAAAAAAA-HOMA Where The WIND Goes Whistl–!”

“STOP!” Mark clapped a hand over my mouth. “I’ll tell you. Just…don’t do that.”

I folded my arms and waited for him to continue.

“We’re hopping the border.”

“What!” I yelped. “But you can’t! You won’t get away with it.”

Mike snickered. “Clearly you haven’t watched enough television.”

“Yeah,” Mark added, “if you had, you’d know that it’s ridiculously easy to cross into America. Everyone’s doing it.”

“Everyone?” I said. “Like who, for instance.”

“Well,” Mark said, suddenly looking uncomfortable, “you know. People. Undesirables. Sketchy types.”

“Again, you haven’t watched enough cable news,” Mike said.

I shook my head in disbelief. “And so based on the nebulous reportage of corporate-controlled news, you’re going to drive a rented U Haul through a border crossing?”

The guys laughed. “Don’t be silly,” Mark said. “We’re not going to do that.”

“Whew!” I said, relieved. “Okay, let’s head back to that last Tim Horton’s and get a double double…”t

“We’re just going to pull up to the fence and throw the crates over, and then we’ll climb over ourselves,” finished Mike.

It took a few minutes for it all to sink in. “That is the single dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my whole life.”

Mark turned on me. “Do you want to ride in the luggage?”

It was a tense five hour drive to the border of Wisconsin. By then we’d long since left the main road and ended up in a grass field. Shining before us in the headlights was a chain link fence, eight feet high.

“I don’t believe it,” I said.

“Oh, ye of little faith,” said Mark. “I’m from Texas. I know a little something about walking into America.”

“Let’s go,” said Mike, as he hopped out of the cab.

Mark followed him into the deep Canadian gloom. I got out of the truck and kept low to the ground. No sense in all of us getting shot. Mike already had the back of the truck open and they were pulling the ramp out. The clattering sound it made as it hit the ground was like a sonic boom. Mike hopped up into the back and he and Mark started passing crates to one another. One, two, three boxes flew up and over the fence.

“Guys, you can’t do this!” I protested.

“Well, of course not,” said Mike. “We’re going to gently lower the albums and the 78’s over.”

“Yeah, Jackson,” added Mark, “we’re not stupid, you know.”

“Uh huh.”

Now, I don’t have a watch, and they haven’t bought me one of those smart phones yet, so I’m going to have to make a guess as to when the mounted police showed up: approximately four minutes later. Mark and Mike were valiantly trying to push the Victrola over the fence, and it had caught on the top, when we all heard, “Nobody move, eh!”

They let go of the Victrola and left it hanging on the fence. I threw my hands up and said, in Canadian, “Don’t shoot! We’ve got donuts!”

The Mountie got down off of his moose and said, “Oh yeah? From Tim Horton’s?”

“No, sir,” said Mark. “They’re from Dunkin’.”

The rifle bolt when click clack. “Not from Tim Horton’s? You’re clearly not from around here. I’m callin’ in back up, eh.”

“But we love Tim Horton’s–” Mark started to say.

“Button that trash talk, Foreigner, or I’ll feed you to my moose!”

The rest of the Mounties must have been hiding in the woods, because they appeared almost instantly. Four of them, all astride their state mandated moose, and looking at Mark and Mike with murder in their eyes. “What, did you think you could just cross the border?”

“Um, well…” said Mike.

“Does this look like Mexico to you?” The Mountie pointed at the fence. “Does that look like Texas? Or Arizona?”

“Sir, we’re from Texas,” Mark started to say.

“Oh ho, a smart guy,” one of the other Mounties said. They closed ranks aboud the boys.

I saw my chance and took off for the truck. I jumped into the cab and floored it. The moose gave chase, but I managed to lose them in the dark of the night.

Once I got back to Toronto, I called the US Ambassador. He was sympathetic, but unmoved. “Maybe if they’d had Tim Horton’s, I could’ve done something for them. What were they thinking?”

“They weren’t, sir.”

So, that’s the update. The boys are on their way to a Gulag in Newfoundland…unless you click on that donate button and help raise some bail money for the boys. Oh, and some Tim Horton’s, for when they cross the border legally. We’ll need coffee and donuts for three. Extra crullers, of course.