Underground

I was in Connor’s little white Jetta as we careened around the corner. He parked it behind my parent’s toaster of an Astro van, but not after stalling twice in the attempt. My brother Max stood in the street laughing. He looked like a real hippy, long hair, bearded, colourful and ignorant of hygiene. The streetlight glared down at him. We were on this street of model homes. There were advertising signs all around and little flags waving from wrought iron gates just screaming ‘live in me, live in me.’ It would have been kind of eerie if it hadn’t been for the goofy laughter coming from Connor.

“The crazy Indians from my work live here,” I said, nobody really was listening. Ethan was talking to Connor and Zoey was asking if anyone had a sweater she could wear. I looked around for my managers beige mini van in one of the driveways. Maybe we could play Nicky nine doors, juvenile, I know. But seriously, you can only allow someone to treat you like crap for so long.

Max was already 100 yards away hopping over these large stones surrounding the giant runoff pond, while Zoey, his girlfriend, fished a flashlight out of the back of the van and ran after him. My mom had basically put a whole five-day survival kit in there, complete with dehydrated food. Because you never know how long you could be stranded on the side of the highway for right? Especially when she made sure we all had CAA cards, the gold ones, which meant you can get towed for like, 1000 kilometers or something awesome. Gold always means awesome. It’s a fact.

I walked slowly, beside Ethan, complaining. For a few minutes I was annoyed as to why we were here when our plan five minutes ago was to see a movie until Max had this brilliant idea to climb down into the underground cement runoff pipes. There were five of us, and Zoey and I stood there holding the flashlight, well, she held the flashlight I just stood there, as the boys lifted the lid off the gaping black hole. I was shivering a little because I was only wearing one of Max’s old plaid shirts, and cut-off shorts. And it was May, so it wasn’t even hot out yet.

Connor went first with the flashlight, and when we were all down there, in the bowels, in this crazy underground maze, we started sprinting. Well Connor did. And we had to follow because he had the light. The cement tunnels were barely tall enough to stand up in and a slick silt ran down the middle, so running involved a crab-like waddle, straddling the deadly slippery mud, unless you wanted to land on your ass or on your face in it. I was last, I followed the silhouette of Ethan’s broad shoulders and could hear Connor’s hoots of laughter and yelling far in front. When I looked behind me, the inky blackness chased and grabbed at me. I imagined a wall of water thundering in the distance, gradually gaining, and enveloping us all. It was terrific, and terrifying. When a tunnel ended it opened up into a larger room with more a joining tunnels, a labyrinth. Some of them were smaller, so we were bent double, and my legs ached. Only Ethan had a phone and there was no signal unless we found a grate that lead outside again and he held his phone above his head through the bars. At one point we saw a homeless persons bed floating in the water. I made Ethan run behind me after that. After about half and hour of screaming and running and slipping we stopped, panting, in one of those larger rooms, there was a grate above our heads and a reservoir of water where the floor dropped off. Ethan and Connor peed into it. Max climbed up the ladder and lifted the grate off while pieces of dirt and rubble fell on our heads. I felt like I was being born, sliding out of the sweaty blackness and into the cool night. We looked around and blinked, like we’d emerged onto another planet and were expecting foreign life forms or something. I felt like we were on the moon. There were mounds of dirt all around us and the earth was all cracked and crusty. Giant machines yawned at us like modern dinosaurs. I climbed up into the massive back of a dump truck. Reminded me of that moment in Garden State when Zac Braff screams into the ravine. I felt like screaming. Except when I turned around and looked across the road I could see the Canadian Tire plaza, Tim Hortens, Curves, Subway, the crappy place where I worked, that fancy sushi place and the street illuminated by lights. I was reminded of my proximity to other humanity and decided not to. I felt like there should be some kind of soundtrack. Like it would be perfect if one of my favorite songs could come from the heavens right now. How about it God? Do you like Death Cab? I stood there for a few minutes and everything was perfect. I felt attached, rooted to the ground, a tree spreading it’s branches. It was good, to not feel like I was about to float away.

We climbed around bit like kids on a playground, and discovered we could sit in the cab of the backhoe, which was fun for about ten seconds. Zoey had to pee really bad so we took off up this hill. Everything felt weird and foreign in the moonlight and because we had emerged from the earth. I had no sense of direction and I got all these uncomfortable tiny burrs in my chucks from running through the long grass. We squatted quickly, laughing, because we heard the boys shouting for us on the other side of the hill. We were done just as they crested the hill and were silhouetted against the night sky. Down below there was this massive warehouse with it’s door open. I couldn’t figure out what it was or where it came from. The light spilled out in a perfect square and I could see men with driving forklifts driving back and forth stacked with crates. We walked back down the hill towards the car and the ground and landscape morphed from a moon landing to the familiar run-off pond and then the street with the flapping flags. Max and I drove home in the toaster van listening to Oberhofer, sometimes, we liked the same music.

When I crawled into bed I thought about not showing up to my shitty Subway job with the stupid visors and how I didn’t have a boyfriend about how I was going away to university in the fall and would probably miss 100 more nights like that. That night was golden, crazy golden. That summer was full of golden, of campfires, skinny-dipping and salty beaches. I didn’t get a boyfriend, but I did go away. I will always come back. Because this is home more than any other place could be.