American Smoke: Journeys To The End Of The Light - Plot & Excerpts
It had been a famous ride from Vancouver, despite the loud and unbroken yatter of a group of matrons heading for a shopping spree in Portland. I kept the pocket camera rolling on smudgy-windowed shots of ripped hillsides, sawdust alps, lumber yards; narrow creeks with fishing boats crossing the frame at the optimum moment. Anna’s hero of the day was our train captain, the feisty Crystal, who licked us into shape for the customs routine at Bellingham. Which passed smoothly after the initial 5 a.m. shakedown, before we boarded the Amtrak Cascades in Vancouver. Empty all satchels and cases on to the inspection table and pay a premium for infringing on sacred American soil. Out in the main concourse, so wired you could smell it at twenty paces, a grunge hippie couple are sending paranoid telegrams through their nervous systems; checking and rechecking every soiled item of fancy dress in their bulging plastic sacks, every odd sock, psychedelic tin can and pouch in their fat rucksacks. Bill Gibson told us, with relish, that the border country of tumbledown shacks, scrawny rivulets, stands of scrubby trees, was acknowledged as prime serial-killer terrain; proud redneck folk, self-sufficient, keeping relationships strictly in-house, as incest or worse.
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