Friday we left Toronto in the pouring rain and set off down the 401 towards Montreal. It was miserable, traffic was heavy, drivers were impatient and aggressive even though the road conditions left a lot to be desired. As always, we were naughty, and lollygagged along the way – endless music shops and other shops of interest. For the first time, we drove into downtown Kingston, and discovered a main street which was actually quite cute and interesting. We will be back when it is not pouring rain.
Traffic was heavy, lots of huge trucks flying down the highway – I was under the impression that by law they were to have speed limiters, but the speeds at which many were travelling, clearly well over 120k/h, puts question as to whether or not the law was being enforced at all.
Numerous slowdowns where we found ourselves parked on the 401, or at least moving at a crawl. The one thing which was not crawling was the rain, and it did not let up, accidents everywhere, some fairly spectacular ones, with cars and trucks facing in the wrong direction, pieces all over the road, in the ditch, a sea of ambulances, police cars and fire trucks. Nonetheless, this seemed to do nothing to slow down a good number of the drivers who were speeding, tailgating, weaving in and out between cars and huge trucks…….one fellow in a tiny old Datsun or something was driving like he was on a racetrack on a bright summer day……..he was terrifying to watch……it was like a suicide mission………and the pelting rain continued, the roads were greasy…behaviour like that is appallingly disrespectful to other drivers, as he was putting the lives of all the others on the road at risk who were close to him.
Somewhere around Cornwall the car started to act hokey – the interior lights flashed a couple of times and dimmed. More torrential rain – more race car drivers passing us.
Across the border into Quebec, more heavy traffic, more funky lights – then more flickering, then……………..silence, when the radio and heating unit simultaneously died. Ooooooo
A bizarre notification on the radio console stating ‘low battery’ ….really? On the radio console? ……..not on the dashboard? But then, off went the dashboard lights, plunging the interior of the car into total darkness. Black. Pouring rain. Heavy traffic. …. Then gridlock. Creeping slowly, more accidents, absolutely no cars heading west. ….no cars?? Not a good sign.
Rain is pelting down … Traffic is backed up for miles and miles behind us and in front of us, and is barely crawling.
Then, one more flicker of the lights and everything dies. It is pitch black. It is pouring rain. We are in the left lane of the 401. Fabulous. I dig around blindly in my handbag and pull out a tiny flashlight, go out into the road, and spend the next hour pointing it from left to right at eye level to keep cars from hitting us. Calls to CAA, calls to emergency 4141, more calls to CAA. I am behind the car in the pouring rain, my hair is now plastered to my head, I have water streaming down my face, my shoes are totally drenched and squish when I walk, my clothes are drenched, and I am shaking with cold.
One nice young man pulls over and inquires whether we have jumper cables, yes indeed, they try endlessly, but no luck. A taxi driver pulls over and offers to help, but nothing. Trucks and cars are pulling around us – some offer to drive me somewhere, others scream obscenities at me in French to push the car off the road and off the highway – it is a van, it is full, I am a woman, are they serious? ….not only is there no shoulder, but it is a muddy grassy ditch, and if I wasn’t behind the car with my flashlight, we would be hit and probably killed, as there are no functioning hazard or any other type of lights. Total genius. Such gallantry. Such exquisite manners.
Then, when you don’t expect it, a man with a thick Indian or Pakistani accent stops me and insists I give him directions to downtown Montreal. Are you for real? I’m standing in the pouring rain, with a flashlight and a broken down car, and you want traffic instructions. Fine. Instructions given. No thank you.
After an hour the tow truck arrives. The driver is big, with a shaved head, tattoos, multiple earrings. He is unilingual French. He succeeds in loading the van on his flat bed, and we get into the cab. I am shaking with cold and sitting in the middle, on an angle, trying to stay away from the stick shift and his arm.
A conversation ensues. The highway is littered with accidents. It is now one am. We are now in Vaudreuil. We left Toronto just after noon. If we are prepared to wait until 3 am he will drive us to our destination. The van is full, expensive guitars, keyboards, business files, computers, so we can’t leave it overnight in a parking lot. We must either spend the night in it, or find a van taxi into which we can unload everything.
We get into a conversation about language, then about cultural differences in Toronto, then about the Japanese spoken language, We pass a spectacular accident, a car is totalled, plastered sideways on a cement wall. There is no roof, no doors, the detritus is all over the road. The car it hit is totalled …….police, ambulances, firetrucks………lights……….
We ask him about accidents on Friday and he tells us that Friday and Saturday nights are always like that. Young people have a few beers and go out racing on the highway as if it was a sunny day in spring. But a slick road in the pouring rain with a black sky and other drivers doesn’t compare to a race track, so there are endless accidents and senseless deaths.
He pulls over onto a side road and avoids a mile or two of the gridlock, tells us about the severity of some of the accidents he sees in an evening. Makes a joke about not eating spaghetti dinners before going out on the road.
His mobile phone is ringing endlessly. Someone locked themselves out of their car at a bar, more accidents. I find myself being given pen and paper to take notes while he maneuvers the back black roads late at night in the pouring rain.
He goes looking for a convenience store. They are closed. He is approached in the parking lot of one by a potential customer who is having difficulties with his car. He explains he is busy, but the man insists. He points to the van, tells him he is busy. More arguments. After 3 closed convenience stores he is aggravated, but totally engaged in conversation with us. We are probably the first people to be sitting in his cab who are polite, respectful, and engaging him in an interesting conversation.
Another call. One of his drivers has just made it back into Quebec after dropping a car off in Toronto, he gives the man directions as to which roads to avoid due to the gridlock on the highway. He gives the other driver 3 of his out-calls, then turns to me and exclaims, now I will drive you home. To the door. No spending 2 or 3 hours sitting waiting for him. It is over an hour each way in the rain. We reach the front door at 2:30 am. I am sitting in the front seat, he had put the heater on for me, so my hair is now a totally frizzy mess. I joke with him about not making any comments about my bad hair do……..he makes me promise not to do the same with him…….(his head is shaved!!!)
I run into the house, bring him back 2 bottles of water while they are taking the van off the flatbed. We give him a $50 tip, he is beyond shocked. Doesn’t know what to say. No one ever thanks him, no one ever tips him. He can’t say thank you enough. He is totally touched. We thank him again and tell him he was awesome. He drives off into the rain and the dark with a wave and a smile.
Thank you our night-time hero.