PART II

One thing that made me doubt my ability to do this road trip was a psychological problem I'd been having: panic attacks.

I've been hesitant to talk about them, for they are far closer to the realm of legitimately crazy than I care to admit.  They tend to come in situations where I've lost some form of control.  The worst is riding in the passenger seat of a car.  When combined with my motion sickness, I have a terrible need to get out of the car.  NOW.

Getting locked in a holding cell in a foreign country while police searched my car and computer for anything to incriminate me did not still my mind.  I felt cold, my mouth went dry, and my hands sweaty.  The only way I can somewhat deal with this is to pace and repeat over and over in my mind you'll be okay.  You were okay last time this happened, you'll be okay next time this happens.

Now, on the road I did panic occasionally.  Usually I could stop it by getting out of sight to calm down.  In cities, bathrooms work well for hiding, on the open road, getting out of the car is necessary.

I'd be driving though farmland when a panic attack would strike.  I'd blast up the heat to ward off the cold sweat and look for a place to pull of the road.

There I'd be, standing on the side of the road, shaking and cold in the sun next to some farm in the middle of nowhere.  A cow would come over to investigate me -- from her perspective a small, skinny and high-strung creature -- and I'd feel deep love for the cow, with her big warm-wet nose, large eyes and mosquito-sized brain.  Eventually I'd calm down. 

But in the holding cell, with the video camera watching me, I didn't have the ability to get away.  There was a door labeled bathroom, but the sign said it was locked and to ask an officer's permission to open it.

But I couldn't do it.  No doubt the officers were watching me on the cameras growing suspicious as I constantly touched my face and plucked at my clothes.

No, I mustn't ask them.  Besides, they'd probably assume I was trying to remove the half a kilogram of cocaine shoved up my rectum and interrogate me in a more panic-inducing manner.

This brought my mind back to the possibility of incarceration.  I've always been terrified by the thought of being incarcerated in a forgiven land.  Even if it was as benign as Canada supposedly is.

What if my parents actually kept a stash of drugs in the car?  I couldn't imagine them doing so, but that `what if' loomed large in my mind.  More concerning was the computer.  Surely, somewhere in there was something suspicious.  An email where I said the death of George Bush wouldn't make me sad, perhaps?  Writing somewhere that the war on terror is the road to totalitarianism.  The Canadians would hand that to the Americans and earn me a one-way ticket to a secret prison where some sadistic fuckwit would attach electrodes to uncomfortable places.

More worryingly, there might be things on my computer that I didn't know about.  My work colleagues occasionally borrowed my laptop while at school and I certainly didn't trust any one of them with my life.  Not to mention the possibility of malware.

While I pondered these legal issues, the police added a family of four into the holding cell with me.

``What are you in for?''  asked the mother.

I wasn't sure if I could trust these people.  Perhaps they were confederates -- actually working with the police and trying to get me to confess something.  Or perhaps they had a baby with a diaper full of cocaine.

``I'm a dual citizen.''  I said, being cautious.  ``What are you in for?''

``The baby,'' the woman said, nodding to the dirty creature now crawling on the floor.  ``We won't declare him a Canadian citizen.''

This confused me.  ``Are you Americans?''

``Not yet,'' said the woman with a suspicious smile.  At this point, I noticed that this family didn't look anything alike.  The mother had a Scandinavian complexion, with blond hair and blue eyes, but the husband looked Middle-Eastern or African with a much darker complexion.  The teenage son looked nothing like either of them and neither did the baby.  ``But if all goes well,'' she continued ``we will be soon.''  The `husband' and `son' both shot the woman a keep-quiet look and she didn't say anything else.

Despite their obvious suspiciousness (and disgustingly dirty car) they were in and out of police custody in twenty minutes.

I remained for another forty-five minutes before I saw the police start to put Pria back together. 

The woman who took my computer from me now returned to my glass interrogation cell.  She asked me a few more questions about where I was traveling and what I was doing in Canada.  It was a strange moment because, depending on how much of my personal writing she read and how many of my files she looked through, this woman could theoretically know more about me than any other human alive.  I felt more than a little naked standing before her and was relieved when she let me go.

I got back into the car, with trembling hands on the wheel.  There was nothing incriminating in the car, but the feeling of threat was still overpowering.  It was only afterward, sitting in my hotel room, that I realized how futile the whole process had been.  They checked my computer for terrorist propaganda, but if I wanted to smuggle photos of training camps and infidel beheadings I could have put them in the SD card in my camera (capable of holding 700 photos), the spindle of CDs on the back seat (80,000 photos) or my iPod (40,000,000 photos).  None of these they checked.  The border cops performed a search would only catch amateurs and morons -- not the pros.

But, pulling away from the police station, I didn't think of any of this, couldn't think it, because my brian just crashed after trying to suppress a panic attack for so long.  As soon as I was out of sight of the station, I pulled off the side of the road, got out of the car, sat against a fence and had a little post-inspection panic attack break down.  After a while, something warm and wet nuzzled against my neck.  A cow had come along to see how this small, skinny, high-strung creature was doing.






Three days later I left Canada and crossed back into the United States through the West Border station run by the Americans. 

The border cop asked me a few questions, then on hearing my voice said: ``You don't sound American.  Where do you live?'' 

And so it began again.

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