The midnight ride

The air gathering off of the lake has a soothing yet soaked ambiance to it. The window is lowered in my truck as I sit in a short line of quieted car engines waiting on the Adolphustown shore. I’m on the return from a Kingston jaunt and its a little past midnight. I spot the lights of the ferry on the far Glenora shore move towards us, out from under the vaulted wall of Lake of the Mountain.

The night is shiftless, the purple skin of the Chevy truck up ahead takes on a melancholic earth tone as it is doused by the amber lights of the ferry dock. The silenced engines and the sound of a distant car radio speak of a procession or just before leaving the Mustang Drivein as the credits roll.

The steady thrust of the ferry bow points the boat on an even passage through the moonless night and slows to engage with the nearby dock; the orchestrated movement of crew, the fluorescent lines of their vests sparkling like silver cutlery in a dance hall after-hours as men and women move about their tasks.

The platform is lowered, a pause then the gates swings open and a small caravan of trucks and cars big and small march to the orders of a band leader in an orange vest, each vehicle signing off with a steel on steel clangclang and a blop as it bridges the link from ship to pavement; a short stream of vehicles heads east past my window. Then engines are fired in the line I am a part of; our turn to load on.

My entrenched habit is to exit my truck and lean on the rail of the ferry as it makes its short span. It’s a liberating and welcome moment not easily duplicated on a daily basis. For me, the anticipation of crossing the open water of Adolphus Reach is the movie that runs to an uplifting beat that seems to trump most moods. Something I count on.

Offloaded at Glenora and travelling Picton way, a light spring rain begins to fall. Windshield wipers keep time, yet the shower is light enough for me to keep the window down, a must to breathe in the secrets of nighttime’s spring earth; of dew worms and fish; budding of the evergreens; campfire smoke mined from the lake breeze.

The world takes on an abstraction at night, I find. Now the pavement ahead caught in my headlights takes on a shine, the moisture in surrounding forest shimmers. By now the marmalade aura of light from the cement plant allows me my bearings, then shortly I’m down the road to harbour level and then the quick climb up again onto Picton hill. At the circle the unremitting amber beacon flashes both warning and welcome to a now quieted Picton Main Street. Three cabs await outside a bar; six revellers make their way under the neon of the Regent Theatre; the cleaner works her shift inside the bank; spotted in the windows of the cafés of afternoons, an army of chairs now sit upturned on tables to rest for a time; the light on in back kitchens as food is readied for a new day as the last of cars and trucks ushers through fast food takeout windows.

This abstractness of the hour is also a reminder of those that cover the night; those on duty so that we may sleep: the emergency workers we depend on; care workers in senior homes; medical practitioners and hospital staff, while overhead military planes arrive from distant places.

By now I see the red lights marking the towers that carry our non-stop interplay, towers that signal to me that I am almost home; I stand in my driveway as a crescent moon breaks through cloud cover as if offering a curtsey, a salute to the night. And I listen to its song.