We picked up our first hitch-hikers outside of Sudbury Ontario. Barlow spotted them instantly but had to swing the bus sharply towards the shoulder to get to them. Sudbury factory workers shook their fists and leaned on their horns. Their angry spittle was lost to the highway rush and the steady drizzle of acid rain. Three young hippy types clambered onto the bus and thanked us profusely. The two girls fell instantly asleep and "Mr. Blond Dreadlocks" watched over them.
Entering Toronto on the number 400 highway we had our most frightening experience. During rush hour and along the busiest most hectic stretch of road we had yet encountered the propane tank emptied with a maddening clank. It couldn't have been a worse time. The bus sputtered and quickly lost momentum in the thick speeding traffic of semi-trucks and sports cars.
A mental image of fifty vehicle pile-up flashed through our minds with pictures at eleven. Barlow caught my glance and reflexively switched the dual system to the gas reserve. We didn't know if we had gas in the tank or not. Time froze while we waited for the tank to engage, maybe six heartbeats went by in slow goose-stepping increments...cars whizzed past...as the bus growled... burped...and...slowly...lurched forward and then finally rejoined the unrelenting flow of metropolis traffic.
The next excruciating part was not knowing if we had enough fuel to get us off the highway and to the next gas station but we were all too painfully aware that we had no money left in our pockets for fuel anyway. Our hitch-hikers overheard us whispering and volunteered to pay for the gas. The last thing they wanted on the final night of their journey was to be stranded in the middle of the highway on a dormant bus. Bad memories engulfed them from having abandoned their own broken down VW van in B.C. a week before and they wanted to make it to Hamilton that night. Barlow would have driven them to their diestination out of sheere gratitude but there were yet more unresolved secrets lurking from my past to venture further into town without getting into trouble. As a compromise we drove them to a go-train station in Misissauga fully aware we wouldn't have made it safely off the 400 without them.
