War and resistance

The St. Croix river separates Saint Stephen New Brunswick from Calais Maine. One Sunday in '91 my buddy Fudge from the shipyard had a bit of a thirst on, and since the beer stores in NB didn't have Sunday hours at the time, he decides to make a run to the border to quench his craving.

The St. Croix isn't much of a river. You can walk across it in hip waders and keep your socks dry. In fact, on any given day you'll see a couple dozen guys fishing in the river, God knows what's in their hip waders. Could be stuffed full of dope for all I know. I've heard you can cram ten pounds of bud into a pair of chest-highs with no problem.

So Fudgie drives down to Saint Stephen, parks his car, walks across the bridge to the duty-free on the US side, picks up a suitcase of Coors, and heads back. Gets to the Canada Customs shack, they ask it he's got anything to declare. Well I got this two-four here but I been over for a couple days so that should be ok.

You watch these guys fishing in the St. Croix. Fishing is one boring pastime. You can only watch them so long. Sooner or later you lose interest. The fishermen can stand in that damn river all day. Eventually they get out.

The customs guy says to Fudge, couple of days my ass, I saw you walk over ten minutes ago. No way pal. Off you go. So Fudgie traipses back to the US side.

A guy stands in the river for six or eight hours. Does he get out the same side he went in? Well, you'd have to be watching for six or eight hours to know for sure, and even then, how sure would you be? A fat middle-age white guy in a lumberjack shirt and hip-waders standing in the middle of a river could be from anywhere. Even the Homeland Security types lose interest after awhile.

Fudge gets back to the US side. You can't bring the beer in. Why not? You owe us the tax. Well, Fudge knew the price of a suitcase but he didn't bring tax money. Fudge is fucked.

Border crossings. Back in the day we had a flood of guys head up here because they didn't want to go and kill the yellow people. Good for them. Unfortunately, almost all of them ended up in the bowels of the Canadian university system, where they totally constipated the tenure tract for the next several generations of aspiring academics. Hell of a price to pay, but I suppose it saved some lives on both sides.

Fudge decides he's done screwing around with the bureaucrats. He takes his suitcase to the middle of the bridge, right where the flags are, and pops open a Coors. He's gonna show 'em they don't mess with the Fudge.

Fudge was an old-timer at the shipyard. He once told me a story about when things were slow in the Saint John drydock, how the US Navy came up and recruited the laid-off lads to go and work in the yards down in Bath. Ya, I was drunk when they hired me, I was drunk for the two months I was there. I was drunk when I quit. Never did a lick of work. All I remember is riding around the yards on a bicycle.

After about six beers Fudge has to take a leak. So he does. From the middle of the bridge. Two guys come running out from the Canadian side. Fudgie steps a couple of feet to the south. You can't touch me. You don't have any authority here. You're infringing on American sovereignty.

Fudge knew his rights. The Canadians are on their radios trying to get the US guys to come and sort this out. Fudge sits down on his suitcase, two feet over the line, and cracks another beer.

In every war you hear the stories about the regular guys who would rather sing Christmas carols or play soccer or drink beer or smoke a joint with the guys on the other side. It happened in the Great War. It happened in the next war. It happened in Viet Nam. There are soldiers in the IDF today smoking hash that came from their enemies in Lebanon.

The Americans never did come to the aid of their Canadian colleagues. Even in those distant pre 9/11 days they had bigger fish to fry. While old Fudgie was spending the day watching the fishermen and taking an occasional whiz off the bridge, they busted a young black guy driving a brand new Jaguar across the border with three white women in it. That pretty much kept them tied up for the rest of the day.

Fudge tired of the game about four in the afternoon. Still had a couple of cans left in the case. The border guys turned him over to the RCMP, who kept him in the Saint Stephen lock-up overnight. By then the New Brunswick beer stores were open.

All's well that ends well.