Bad Bob Dixon

             I never met a man who hated being a policeman more than Robert Dixon.

            When I was a rookie in 52 Division I was often partnered up with him and while we walked the beat or shared a squad car together he never stopped talking about how much he detested what he was doing and how he longed to be back home in England.

            He was a strange guy, a man in his mid thirties, a little taller than me but not overly large for a policeman.  He was slim but solid looking, scruffy, with black hair, swarthy hawk- like facial features topped with a badly executed brush cut. His uniform was littered with cigarette ashes, looking like the dog had slept on it. He had a general unwashed look about him and didn’t seem to care. Even after several cautions from the Duty Sergeant he would turn up day after day flaunting a batted old issue hat that he continued to wear even though he knew was against regulations.

            While we were out on our first patrol together he told me about the job he had left in the old country and how much he regretted his decision to immigrate. He said he had worked in the props department at Pinewood Movie Studios and went on to describe some of the films he had helped create sets for. He talked proudly of how he had learned how to make sheets of plywood and a few wooden dowels appear to be the riveted iron plates on the bridge of a battle ship for a film about the naval battles in WW2 and other theatrical tricks he had learned. I recognized a couple of the films he referred to and if he was putting me on he was doing a good job of it. Most of my conversations with him centered on that part of his life and I found it hard to believe the rumors I had heard about him.

            Word was that he was very tough little scrapper who had grown up in the slums of London- quick with his fists and not afraid of anyone. Most of the guys on the job depended on their brawn for self-defense but Bob was one of the few who had taken up martial arts. He was always at me to join him at his Judo classes but I never did. I adhered to my father’s theory that it was a poor set of legs that let your nose get in trouble. 

            I got my first glimpse of the dark side of his personality one night when we were called to break up a bar fight at a local tavern. On our way into the place a big aggressive looking fellow waving a knife confronted us. While I was deciding whether to grab my nightstick or my gun Bob casually reached into his pocket and pulled out a switchblade then flicked the blade open inches from the man’s nose. There was an evil glint in my partner’s eyes as he stood staring the man down and the effect was immediate. The man dropped his knife and stood transfixed while, after a nod from Bob, I cuffed him.

            Bob’s desire to be doing something other than police work had turned him into a rogue of sorts.  He didn’t care about the job anymore and was always up to the kind of stuff that could get most guys fired. I was spending a lot of time with him and although I liked the man I was always worried that some of the things he dragged me into would result in both of us getting the boot. Small stuff like hiding from the patrol sergeant when he came to check on us, and then pelting him with snowballs. He smoked in the scout cars, cadged free coffee from the restaurants, slept on the night shift, took the odd nip and never paid retail to any of the local merchants. These infractions were not that uncommon but there were some other pretty serious breaches of conduct.

            Thinking back, I suppose he was always purposely trying to get the ax and for some reason wasn’t very successful at it. His close relationship with some of the local hookers and bootleggers raised eyebrows but even these transgressions didn’t lead to his demise.

             When I asked Maloney, another cop I was often partnered up with, why the department put up with Bob’s shenanigans he shook his head and said, “The man was born with a horseshoe up his arse.  He keeps pushing his luck with his dirty tricks but before they catch up with him he usually comes up with a brilliant piece of police work that wipes his slate clean.” In the few weeks I had been working with Bob in 1964 he had pissed off so many of his superior officers and broken so many rules that I figured, despite what Maloney had said, it would be impossible for him ever to redeem himself. I was wrong.

            There had been a spate of bank robberies in the city. Montreal thugs were dropping in droves to loot Toronto the Good. The hold-up squad decided to call on the other ranks so they would have sufficient numbers to put plain-clothes officers posing as bank clerks in all the juicy targets like the banks on Yonge St. and Bob and I drew the short straw. It was bound to be a boring job. The only saving grace was that we didn’t each need to spend a full shift at our assigned bank the CIBC at 199 Yonge St.  I would do the first half of the day and if Bob chose to show up on time, as he seldom did, he would handle the second.

            We spent days at it walking around behind the counters sweating in the tweed jackets we needed to wear to conceal our shoulder holsters. Bob was not one to hide his displeasure at being stuck in the bank and when he wasn’t complaining to the duty sergeant he was moaning to the bank manager. I figured it was just a question of time ‘til his bad attitude got him off the detail and hopefully me too.

            It didn’t happen immediately but one day near the end of a long boring stretch Bob came in to relieve me looking happy as hell giving me the news that this was to be our last day in the banking business. He was in such a good mood that he had uncharacteristically arrived an hour and a half before he needed to and didn’t insist that I go and bring him back some coffee and doughnuts- a ritual on every other day.  I thanked him and told him that I was going to go directly to the station and arrange to use some of the time I had accumulated to have an afternoon off.

            I was half way home in my Volkswagen Beetle when I heard the news. There had been an attempted robbery at our bank and an officer was wounded.  The rest of the story I got from the newspapers and directly from Bob once he was out of the hospital. It seems that shortly after I left him Bob had retired to a secluded corner of the bank and lit up a smoke. He was wondering what the Department might have in store for him now that he’d nagged his way out of this assignment when he noticed something strange happening at one of the wickets.

            Now this is when this story takes a turn that most people will be hesitant to believe and if I hadn’t recently found the pictures from the bank’s security cameras to substantiate it, I would be hesitant to trust my own recollections: a burly looking goon in a trench coat and a fedora was confronting the lady teller behind the counter and she wasn’t looking at all happy.  Bob reached inside his jacket and felt for his clumsy old issue Webbley and then flew into action. The man didn’t see him approaching and Bob didn’t see a weapon so he decided to avail himself of some the techniques he had leaned in his Judo classes and tried to wrestle the man down. It turned out that the bullnecked goon was more monster than man and he flung his two hundred and fifty pounds around, tossing Bob off like a fly. He landed in a heap and that’s when he saw the guy’s gun.  He reached for his own revolver but it was too late- the man fired and the shot hit Bob in the lower abdomen driving him to floor and sending his own gun skittering across the marble floor.

             Seeing Bob writhing on the floor the thug gathered up the cash he had stolen and, sneering in my fallen partner’s direction, headed for the door, gun in hand. Seeing the bandit escaping, Bob rolled over and reached down to his ankle where, against all regulations, he had hidden a Beretta automatic pistol. He drew it and emptied its magazine into the guy’s back. He died from his wounds but, believe it or not, Bob was spared because the bullet he took hit him in his belt buckle.

            If things had gone on schedule I would have been the guy in the bank when it was being robbed and the headlines might have read quite differently. “ COP COWERS IN WASHROOM WHILE BANK IS ROBBED” or God forbid “ ROOKIE POLICEMAN SHOT & KILLED”

            Bob became an instant hero, receiving commendations and being lauded in the press; you would assume that he would finally be content with his lot in life. Not so. After he got out of the hospital he was given a promotion of sorts and was working with the detectives but I heard through the grapevine that he was up to his old tricks again and had just about used up all the brownie points acquired for his exploits at the bank.

            He was at another low ebb when history repeated itself. Bob and another detective answered a call to a robbery in progress at a liquor store on Davenport Rd. As usual Bob was the first man through the door and was confronted with a man with a gun. His own revolver was still holstered so as he went for it he tried to bluff it out telling the man to drop his weapon or he would shoot him.  “With what?” the man sneered, taking the opportunity to shoot Bob, driving him back against the door. The robber then tried to dash past him but Bob, in spite of his wound, got his gun out and another crook bit the dust.  And so began another cycle. I don’t know what became of him after he recovered from his second gunshot wound; I left the job shortly after and lost track. Years later when I went to see the movie “Dirty Harry” the people around me were seeing Clint Eastwood but I was seeing my old friend Bob.

             

I have recently learned that he was belatedly awarded the Order of The British Empire BEM in 1968    If he is still alive he would be in his eighties by now but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that he was still around, he was a hard bugger to kill.

SEE PHOTOS BELOW!

A Messy Business

         Okay I’ll admit it when I was a policeman on the Toronto Mounted Unit in the 1960’s I really enjoyed the attention I got when I rode through the busy streets of the city. It was as though my horse and I were a glimpse of the past, something almost ethereal amidst the chaos. I was always pumped up with pride as we pranced along turning heads and putting smiles on children’s faces. But as wonderful as it was I had to make the most of those moments because I knew, inevitably, at some point my horse would stop, lift his tail and deposit a steaming offering on the pavement and the vision would fade. Children would gag and grownups would hustle by trying not to notice. It always seemed to happen at the most inopportune moments and often-in regrettable locations and when it did all I could do was sit and appear quietly detached and try to maintain a modicum of dignity.          

            In those days city people still kept gardens and needed fertilizer so these random offerings left curbside were not much of a problem. There were, however, unusual situations in this regard that sorely tested the otherwise good relationship the Mounted Unit enjoyed with the public.          

            One day, while I was in the saddle writing a parking ticket on a quiet residential street, my mount took the opportunity to register his contempt for flashy vehicles by voiding into the driver’s seat of a convertible sports car.

            My first instinct was to flee the scene and hope that the blame would fall on some other horse but since the only horses left in the city belonged to police force I realized that that idea wouldn’t fly.

            For a moment I thought maybe if I left immediately it would be hard to trace the infraction to any specific police mount but as I looked down on the prodigious volume of the glistening heap I knew that only one horse in the stable was capable of producing a plop of that magnitude and I was sitting on him.    

            Old Major was a favorite of the Inspector and because he was coddled so much the horse was grossly overweight.  He regularly consumed as much hay and as many oats as two or three of the other horses combined.

            No they wouldn’t have to call in the detectives to determine who the guilty party was in this case.

             I wrote an apologetic note on the back of a cancelled parking ticket and slipped it under the car’s windshield wiper then headed back to the stable to fess up.

            The duty sergeant wasn’t too happy when I gave him my report and by the way he reprimanded me you would have thought it was I and not Major who had pooped in the MG.

            I left the old horse in his stall for the rest of that afternoon and, armed with every cleaning device the station had to offer, I returned to the scene of the crime and cleaned up his mess.

            The car’s owner was very understanding and, coincidently, after that day he never seemed to get anymore parking tickets.

             While the uninhibited Police Horses were free to urinate, defecate and break wind with impunity anywhere they wanted it was a different matter for those who rode them.       

            In the old days when lots of city dwellers were familiar with horses it was a simple matter of recruiting a willing citizen to hold your horse while you went into a washroom to relieve yourself but by the sixties these handy volunteers were few and far between.

            It was the practice of most mounted men to visit the toilet at the stables just before they went out on patrol but being caught short was still always a possibility, particularly for some of the semi incontinent older members of the unit.

            If we were patrolling a park and there weren’t too many people around we could always dismount behind a bush for a quick whiz but if we had more serious business to attend to things could be difficult. The horses weren’t equipped with sirens for emergency runs back to the station.

            A friend of mine and fellow constable was patrolling a park one summer day when a series a fierce stomach cramps demanded immediate attention, There was an outhouse close to a kids playground- the area was crowded but he didn’t see anyone who looked like they could hold his horse so, ever resourceful, my buddy came up with a plan whereby he could use the facility and hold his horse at the same time, it would be termed multi tasking today.

            Trying not to draw too much attention to himself he dismounted and quietly led his horse over to the latrine then checking that nobody was looking turned around and sheepishly, backed through the door. He kept the reins in his hands and being careful not to scare the horse, partially closed the door then set about his business. 

            I don’t know how long he was in there, the Parks Dept probably didn’t supply magazines, but at some point someone or some something spooked his horse.

            The wild-eyed animal reared and lurched backwards and my friend obeying the cardinal rule of never letting go of your horse held on for dear life. He was catapulted through the outhouse door with his britches and boxer shorts draped around his ankles then dragged a considerable distance over the turf before he got his horse stopped.

            While startled mothers shrieked and shielded their children’s sensitive eyes a red faced cop slipped behind his horse, pulled up his drawers and regained his composure then mounted up and saluting the assembled crowd, rode off as if nothing had happened.

             The mounted unit is still going strong in Toronto and I am sure they have benefited greatly by the advances in technology the last forty or so years have provided but horses still do what horses have always done and riders still have basic needs to look after so in that respect I’ll bet nothing much has changed.

             

           

           

             

               

Central Don Stables

Just when you think that things can’t get any worse, they usually do.

That’s what I was thinking when I was summoned into Inspector Johnson’s

office on a Friday afternoon. “I’ve had a call from Headquarters concerning

you, he said. “Great”, I thought, “Just what I need. They’ve found out

about the farm and I’m in deep shit!” But, apparently, that was not what this

was all about because the Inspector just passed a file folder across his desk

to me saying, “What’s this all about?”

The brown manila file folder was stamped with the familiar logo of

the Toronto Parks Department. I had no idea what it might contain.

When I opened it I felt like I had bumped into an old friend.

Inside was a proposal that I had drafted and submitted to the Parks

Department when I was seventeen years old. I had forgotten all about it and

now as I flicked through the typed pages and illustrations I had done, I

wondered why it had surfaced after all these years. The reply I had received

at the time was curt and condescending and I was surprised that they kept

the idea on their records.

When I was a teenager attending high school, I had a small stable

on Bayview Ave. on a ridge above the Don River Valley. I made a little

extra money giving riding lessons and taking people on trail rides, south

along the river through the old Sunnybrook Farm. At the time the Parks

Department did not have responsibility for the area but it was rumoured that

they might in the future. I was fascinated with the beautiful structures that

stood unused. It was like a ghost village hidden in the heart of the city. The

barns in particular took my eye and I reasoned that if, in fact, the area were

to become a public park it would be a wonderful opportunity to establish a

riding school and designate bridle paths.

As I read more carefully through the pages of recommendations that

I had made almost seven years earlier I wondered at how naive and full of

lofty ideals I must have been to even think that a kid from Cabbage Town

would be listened to.

Under the photocopies of my old submission I found a copy of a

tender application for obtaining a concession to operate a riding school at the

old Sunny Brook farm. It was to be the focal point of the newly established

Central Don Park System. The descriptions of how it was to operate and

what needed to be done to the existing buildings had been taken verbatim

from my original submission.

The previous day Inspector Johnson had been called to a meeting with

Tommy Thompson who was the current flamboyant Parks Commissioner, to

discuss the possibility of the Mounted Unit moving their Headquarters to the

newly established park, an idea Big Ed was instantly in favour of, when the

issue of a public riding school sharing the accommodation came up. He was

asked his opinion and then passed the file and while reading through it, he

happened to see my submission. He immediately recognized my name and

explained to the Commissioner that I was currently serving in his Unit. This

came as surprise to the clerk in charge of the tender process. Apparently they

had been trying to locate me to invite me to tender but so much time had

passed and I had changed address so often that they were unable to locate

me.

I think the Inspector and the people from the Parks Department

realized that with one of their own, as it were, in charge of the public riding

school the relationship between it and the Police Department was bound to

be better than if some unknown, unpredictable stranger were to move in next

door.

Apparently it was Inspector Johnson’s assignment to talk me into

submitting a tender and quite frankly, he was doing a hell of a job. He

assured me that I had nothing to lose and everything to gain: if things didn’t

work out I could always have my job on the Mounted Unit back.

I mulled it over, but not for long. I submitted my tender like everyone

else, offering twelve hundred dollars a month for the facilities, a huge sum

for me in those days. In retrospect, I could have offered a lot less because

other considerations were in play and the process was less a competition and

more in the order of an appointment. In any event, my tender was accepted

and a new chapter in my life began.

I had just been given a wonderful opportunity to do something that

had been on my mind for years. I wanted to establish a riding school that

would be affordable and available to anybody who wanted to use it. I had

grown up for the most part an inner city kid. I loved horses but had very

little opportunity to spend much time with them. I knew every delivery horse

in the city but my riding experience, when I was very young, was limited to

a few hours a month.

I would ride the old Young St. trolley to the city limits at Hog’s

Hollow and then hike the rest of the way to Vern Mason’s riding school--it

used to be situated further up in the Don Valley. There, if I spent the

morning mucking out stalls for him, I was allowed to go out on a one-hour

trail ride. Later as he realized that I had a certain natural ability, he would

occasionally use me to lead these rides.

There were kids like me all over the city and there still were now. I

had seen their interest as I rode the police horses around the city. I knew that

there were thousands of people young and old who would love the

opportunity to be near horses and learn about them.

In my early teens I had eventually made my way out of the city and

had the opportunity to improve my skills spending long hours in the saddle,

breaking and training young horses. Eventually I felt that there was very

little that I couldn’t do with a horse. However, I got my training at The

School of Hard Knocks, the only academy I could afford, and it irked me to

think that learning to ride was still only available to the privileged few who

could afford to pay for the fancy gear and the expensive lessons.

I had a wonderful new stable of my own design now and I also had a

mission.

My sisters, Noreen and Jan, have recently sent me copies of the

original brochures I had printed. I didn’t know any still existed, and they tell

the story of what I intended to do and for the most part what actually

happened.

The school was an instant success and within a few short weeks

hundreds of students were enrolled and I was kept busy finding suitable

horses and qualified riding instructors.

Windy Hill

Policemen were not allowed to live outside the limits of Metropolitan

Toronto. Before the amalgamation, they were restricted to the limits of the

old city of Toronto proper. I suppose in the old days this policy had some

merit since few people had cars and transportation in general was quite slow

so the city wanted their policemen close at hand and ready to respond in

emergencies. This arrangement also made it convenient for the Department

to control malingering because anytime a cop phoned in sick he would get a

mandatory visit from the patrol sergeant and the patient had better be in bed

with a temperature and no booze on his breath when he got there or he was

in deep shit. We were allowed sick days but other than when I was badly

injured or actually in the hospital. I don’t remember daring to call in sick.

I longed to live in the country. My parents had a farm near Meaford,

Ontario and I spent all my spare time up there. I had several horses and some

purebred Angus cattle that I kept there but it was too far away for a commute

and even if I could have, the Department would never have allowed it. I was

always on the lookout for a rental farm closer to the city and recent events

gave my search certain urgency. I knew it was probably wishful thinking but

it was fun cruising the countryside with the hope of finding that special

place.

Here’s what happened: for some reason that I never fully understood,

a representative from Ayrst Laboratories of Montreal contacted me and

asked if I would meet with him. Of course I was curious and agreed to see

him even though I didn’t have the slightest notion what he wanted. As it

turned out he wanted to offer me quite a good job; they were the people that

produced the newly arrived birth control pill and they wanted me to head up

a team of special inspectors.

In those days all of the estrogen used in the production of the pill

came naturally from the urine of pregnant mares; special stables were

springing up all over the country to meet the demand and the company was

under pressure from The Humane Society and other groups to ensure that

proper practices were observed. I was having too much fun doing what I was

doing, so I immediately declined his offer but said I would ask around and

see if anybody else I knew would be interested. As it turned out when I

mentioned it at the stables the following week it seemed like half the guys

on the Unit expressed interest. Sgt. Quinn, the riding instructor, was most

eager and in a matter of days was flown up to Montreal and given the job.

Later it looked like I had connived the whole thing because I ended up

getting his job teaching new recruits; however, it was pure coincidence. He

later recruited two more people from the Unit. The Inspector was sad to see

them go but in true form wished them all the best. I kept my head down for a

while.

I wasn’t interested in the job with Ayrst but after I researched the

methods used to collect the urine I was sure I could improve on the methods

and was anxious to give it a try with my own place and band of mares.

Besides, there was big money in the business. I knew I would be a shoe-in

because Sgt. Quinn was now in charge of issuing the contracts. If I was

careful, really careful, no one would find out and I would be able to keep my

job.

One day I strayed to the area around Chalk Lake north of Oshawa,

about an hour’s drive, and happened on a small neat farmstead perched on

the top of a hill that thrust itself out of a large cedar grove. I followed the

lane up through the trees to the buildings and from there I could see acres of

well groomed fields, fenced with split rails stretching off into the distance. A

herd of Shorthorn cattle currently occupied the pasture but I mentally

replaced them with horses and sure liked what I saw.

I don’t know what had given me the audacity to barge, uninvited, onto

this hilltop homestead. There were no For Sale or For Rent signs. I had

arrived where I stood purely on the wings of impulse. No one appeared to

be home but I thought I had better check for sure so I went to the house

ready to apologize for my intrusion. There was no answer to my knock so I

ventured a peek through the window. The house was empty and appeared to

have been that way for some time. There were no electric lines leading up to

the house and as I circled the place peering through the windows, I could tell

from the way the place was setup that there never had been any wiring in the

house. No one was around so I decided to check out the barn as well. It had

been left clean and tidy and the cement and steel stanchions suggested that it

had once housed a large herd of milk cows. It would take quite a bit of work

but they could be converted into horse stalls. I walked through the pasture all

the way to the next concession line to where I knew the property must end

and estimated it to be about one hundred acres-- perfect!

It was fun to pretend that places such as this were yours and I had

dreamed these dreams before but something about this spot compelled me to

find out more so I decided to drop in on the next-door neighbor and have a

chat. An aging widow and her two rather strange bachelor sons occupied the

next farm. Buster, the weirder of the two, was a wealth of information. He

told me that the old farm I had been investigating had been sold recently to a

young couple that lived in a village nearby. They had no immediate plans for

the place and might consider renting it out. He and his brother were already

renting a couple of the fields to grow grain.

On the way home I found the owners and started discussions that

eventually saw me signing a three-year lease.

Things were becoming very complicated for me. On the one hand I

needed the place to accommodate my project but on the other, I would be

jeopardizing a job that I had come to love. I needed a plan.

I couldn’t afford to keep my apartment in the city and pay rent on the

farm but I still needed an address that appeared to be legitimate within the

confines of the city. I had previously rented a small room on the second floor

of my friend Ron Bond’s house down by The Beaches area of the city and he

was more than willing to start collecting it again; it was a good deal since I

actually wouldn’t be there. Ron was a fellow policeman and I knew I could

trust him to keep our little secret.

I moved to the farm, brought my Angus cattle down from my parents

farm, purchased an Arabian stallion and started buying brood mares;

everything was going as planned and best of all it was all happening under

Big Ed’s nose.

I sure had the big guy fooled, at least that is what I thought until one

day he called me into his office and made a request. “I’ve got two lame

horses and Monty is acting up again. I think a few weeks on pasture would

do them all good,” he said looking me in the eye, then pausing waiting for

me to reply. “Yes, no doubt it would, Sir.” I was well aware of the horses’

conditions “You wouldn’t know a place in the country, not too far away

where I could pasture them, would you?” I could tell by the look on his face

that the jig was up; he was just toying with me. All the work I had put into

the farm’s house and barn and all the money I had spent buying horses was

about to go up in smoke.

He broke into a smile and said, “Relax I knew about your farm before

you moved in; I don’t blame you for wanting to live there; as far as I’m

concerned your address in the city covers you. I don’t know what

Headquarters will think about it but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to

it. In the meantime I’m serious about needing pasture for those horses so

what are you going to charge me?”

“Let’s consider it a professional courtesy,” I replied. Over the next

year or so the Police horse trailer spent as much time parked at ‘Windy Hill’,

the name I had given my place, as it did down in the city.

One day, when I went to check on some police horses in the Horse

Palace I found a strange horse standing in one of the stalls. It was a little bay

Quarter Horse about half the size of the other horses. The gelding stood with

its head down looking tired and dejected, switching his weight from one

lame front foot to the other.

I had noticed the Inspector’s car parked outside and now, as my eyes

adjusted to the dim light of the stable, I saw him down the aisle in

conversation with three large policemen in traditional turn of the century

uniforms, complete with bobby helmets. They seemed to be looking at

something around the corner and when I went over to join them I was

surprised to see the object of their attention, an authentic antique horsedrawn

Paddy Wagon, complete in every detail and fully restored.

The men could see that I was curious and weren’t long filling me in

with what was going on. The Hamilton Police Department, as part of a

Centennial project, had refurbished the old wagon and the men present were

part of a team that had been chosen to drive it all the way to Montreal for the

opening of Expo 67. As it turned out the idea was a sound one but the horse

was not. It was neither big enough nor strong enough to pull a wagon of that

size and they had been damned lucky to get the fifty miles from Hamilton to

Toronto, let alone the three hundred and fifty still to go before they reached

their destination.

When I interrupted them, they were busy trying to borrow one of the

Toronto police horses for the job and Ed was trying to explain to them that

our horses were not broken to harness and even if they were, Expo would

probably be over by the time he swam through the red tape it would take to

get permission.

I felt sorry for the guys from Hamilton and wanted to help. I could

see that they were really disappointed and embarrassed that their project was

about to come to such an abrupt end

As it happened I had purchased a couple of really big Percheron

mares for my P.M.U. project. One of them, a big docile bay, was quiet

enough that even these rank amateurs would be able to handle her so I

offered to let them use her. She was in foal but I was sure that a little road

trip wouldn’t hurt her. I heard from the men later that she performed

wonderfully and after the first few miles they just let her have her head and

she strode along the shoulder of the highway undeterred by the speeding

trucks and cars, getting them to Montreal in plenty of time.

After she was returned home in style in a fancy racehorse van, the

Inspector found a small old Toronto Police Wagon and Ron Bond and I

drove her in several parades during the Centennial celebrations.

1967 was a hell of a year for me as I divided my time between the

excitement of police work, parades and musical rides and the busy weekends

breeding mares, preparing for my new business and enjoying my new

country lifestyle. Then everything started to go wrong. A scientist

somewhere discovered how to synthesize estrogen and mare’s urine was no

longer required. I practically begged my former sergeant, Bob Quinn, to get

Ayrst to honour the contract we had signed but he drew my attention to the

fine print and I knew I was screwed. I couldn’t get mad at him because I

knew that his job was also in jeopardy. He said that the company had offered

him an office job but I knew that the old cowboy from Little Buckhorn

wouldn’t be long riding a desk.

So there I was stuck with thirty or so horses, most in foal, and no way

to make any economic sense out of them. A dark cloud was hanging over

Windy Hill.

Donny

I had a look at some old service records recently and was pleased to see

that Warren Pollard, a guy who I worked with at 33 Division in

Scarborough, had been promoted to the rank of Sgt. before he retired. I liked

Warren. He was a real straight shooter, and while some of us on the

Mounted Unit were naughty rascals at times, he was always above board and

shied away from our highjinks.

He was an athlete and represented our Department, competing against

other police forces across Canada and the U.S. He had the metabolism of a

runner, right off the mark when he needed to be but laid back and low key

the rest of the time. It was pretty hard to get him excited or nervous.

I mention all this to emphasize how unusual and unlike him it was the

one time, in the early winter of 1969, that I saw him really lose it, and to tell

the truth it was entirely my fault.

It all started one afternoon as I was riding up Birchmount Ave.

returning to the stable for lunch. As we approached the intersection at

Lawrence Ave. my horse stopped suddenly. I hadn’t noticed the traffic light

changing to red but he did. While we waited for the light to change to green

a strange looking young man stepped down off the curb and started patting

my horse’s neck and muzzle. What he was doing wasn’t unusual; it

happened all the time, but it was the weird appearance of the man himself

that caught my attention.

It was the end of a long hot summer and whereas everybody in the

crowd that he had stepped out of was sporting a dark tan his complexion had

a pasty pallor and that, together with his mop of messy white blonde hair,

gave him the appearance of an albino. His moist, very red bulbous lips

seemed to reinforce this impression and only his very dark brown eyes

discounted it. His mouth was perpetually wide open with the widely spaced

teeth of both the upper and lower jaw constantly exposed, a sort of

Quasimodo sans the hump.

“Nice horse” he said, looking up at me with eyes that seemed to

suggest that, ‘the lights were on but nobody was home,’ as the saying goes.

I nodded agreement and he continued, “I know all about horses, I

worked at a stable looking after them.”

“That’s nice,” I said as the light changed to green and my horse

fidgeted forward telling me it was time to move on.

That’s when he said something that sparked my attention, “I’ve been

working for Christilot Hanson, taking care of her horses.”

“Really,” I said, immediately reining my horse up and over the

sidewalk, stopping him on a grassy patch beside the bus shelter. The strange

guy shuffled along with me and resumed caressing the horse as soon as we

stopped.

I had to know more. Hanson was currently the Canadian Dressage

Champion and enjoyed quite a bit of international fame; more to the point,

she was a really attractive woman. I had watched her riding at the Royal

Winter Fair and I was impressed with more than just her riding skills.

“So what’s your name?” I asked the strange man who by now had my

horse’s mouth open and was checking his teeth. “My name is Donald

Jones,” he replied very formally but then shyly looking down at his feet, said

“But you can call me Donny.”

After introducing myself, I started to pump him for information.

Firstly, I wanted to be sure that he wasn’t putting me on so I hit him with,

“Tell me, Donny, where did you work when you were taking care of

Christilot’s horses?” He described the location and he was right on the

mark. I had previously driven by her stable and knew where it was.

“So what did you do there?” I continued and Donny described all the

jobs he had done, mucking out stalls, grooming horses, cleaning tack, etc.

“What was Christilot like to work for?” I asked. “Oh, okay, I guess.”

I hit him with a few more inquires then finished up by asking him why

he wasn’t working there anymore. At that he bristled, tensed up, and

sputtered out a very firm “ I don’t want to talk about that!”

I assumed from his reaction that he was probably the victim of some

snobbery; after all, he wasn’t the coolest looking item to have hanging

around a fancy stable, so I let the matter drop.

“Catch you later,” I said, and made an attempt to leave but Donny

stepped in front of my horse and looking up at me with sad imploring eyes,

said, “Wait! I could look after your horses, really I could.”

“Thanks Donny,” I replied, “but we look after our own horses.”

“Yeah, but I could help, I’d work hard, I really would.” The man was

pathetic and his pleas were beginning to draw the attention of the crowd

gathered around the bus shelter so I said the only thing I could think

of: “Look Donny, we don’t hire civilians but I’m sure it would be all right

for you to come and visit the stables sometime.” We often did tours for the

public so it wouldn’t be a big deal.

“Oh good, that’s good,” he said, “Can I come now?” When I told him

that I didn’t think that we could do it right away he became very upset and

agitated and as I scanned the crowd around us, I could tell by their

expressions that they thought I was being cruel, so I relented and, leaning

down and talking softly said, “Okay Donny the stable is just around the

corner. I’ll see you there in a few minutes.”

I barely had time to put my horse away when I heard him knocking; I

slung my saddle onto the cleaning rack and headed to the main stable

entrance. The top half of the door was all window and as I approached it, I

had a really good look at Donny for the first time; his head and upper torso

were framed in the safety glass and the imbedded wire was casting a strange

pattern on his pasty face. His sprint over from the bus stop had caused his

already disheveled hair to explode into a Medusa-like coif and he stood there

with his eyes darting right and left trying to get a glimpse inside. The trip

over to the station had done nothing to improve my first impression of him.

As I pulled the door open and greeted him I would not have been

surprised if he had said, “Trick or treat?”

I ushered him in and over to where the horses were tied in their

standing stalls and watched as he walked slowly up and down the aisle

looking at the horses; he was obviously enjoying the experience and I

thought I saw a hint of a smile as the horses swung their heads around to see

their strange admirer.

I let him linger awhile while I got out my shovel and broom and

opened the trap door to the manure pit that was located in the floor at the

rear of the stable. Quite a large offering of glistening horse droppings had

accumulated while I was out on patrol and I wanted to clean them up before

the horses and I had our supper.

I reached for the shovel that I had left leaning on the wall but Donny

beat me to it, clutching the handle with a weird possessive look on his face.

He startled me and I instinctively felt for my gun. For a moment I thought he

was about to hit me with it; instead. While I watched dumbfounded, he set

about scooping up the manure and shovelling it down the dung hole, then

grabbing the broom and sweeping the floor and tidying up, all this without

ever uttering a word. When he finished he followed me around the corner

and into the tack room and stood watching me while I filled a bucket with

warm water and got out my amber bar of saddle soap, wipe rags and can of

Brasso.

I only had time to run a wet rag up the length of one stirrup leather

before Donny crept up close behind me and stood looking over my shoulder.

I continued cleaning my saddle for a while but I wasn’t that comfortable

with his drooling and heavy breathing so I handed him the rag and stepped

back to watch. He seemed to know what he was up to and he was going at it

with more energy or enthusiasm than I ever could so I left him to it and

retired to the lunchroom. From where I sat looking through the door with my

feet up, nibbling away at my baloney sandwiches, I could see him working

away at my complete set of tack. There was no doubt about it, he was good.

The only time he stopped scrubbing and polishing was when one of the

horses would lift its tail and plop another offering onto the floor. Each time

he would immediately rush into the stable, scoop it up and shovel it down

the hole He actually looked disappointed once when he rushed into the

stable only to find out that one of the horses had farted a false alarm. I had

to admit that I was impressed and sat for some time pondering the

possibilities.

The sound of Warren Pollard horse’s hooves clattering on the cobbles

outside the stable interrupted my thoughts. This was going to take some

explaining.

Warren didn’t notice Donny as he hustled his horse into the stable and

removed the saddle and bridle. He wasn’t aware of his presence until he

almost bumped into him going into the tack room and was so startled by his

appearance that he dropped his saddle. Fortunately I was there to stay his

hand as he went for his gun.

“Who the hell is that?” he stammered as I took his arm and guided

him into the lunchroom, leaving Donny to pick up his saddle. It took quite a

while for me to get Warren caught up with what had been happening and by

the time I was done, Donny was nearly finished cleaning his kit as well.

We both agreed that there was no point in stopping him now; so we

put on the kettle and settled down to enjoy a leisurely lunch.

When he had finished in the tack room Donny found our currycombs

and brushes and set about grooming the horses. I decided that a nap was in

order and Warren, who was always up for a snooze, decided to join me.

When quitting time rolled around and it was time to go home the stable, tack

and horses were looking the best we had ever seen them.

We both escorted Donny to the stable door, thanking him profusely

for his good work, with Warren looking thankful that the day and Donny’s

presence in the stable was finally over. That’s why he was so upset when

Donny asked if he could come back the following day and I said, “Sure!”

Warren slammed the door shut almost hitting Donny in the rear end and

started shouting, “Are you out of your mind? We can’t have that crazy

bastard hanging around here; what if the Sgt. finds out?”

“Look Warren,” I replied in a comforting tone, “I don’t know about

you but I really like police work and patrolling on the horses but what I

don’t like is coming back to this stable and working like a galley slave and

why should we when this young fellow wants nothing more than spend his

time here doing the things that I, and I’m sure you, dislike so much? I think

we should give it a try. What have we got to lose?”

“What have we got to lose?” he sputtered, “Just our jobs, you nitwit.

What if Sgt. Lewis finds out?”

“Take it easy, take it easy!” I shot back at him, “I’ve thought this out

and I have a plan. Here’s what we do: you know when you suggest some

unreasonable chore for your wife to do and she gets miffed and sarcastically

says, “Okay, I’ll get the maid to do that. Well, from now on whenever Sgt.

Lewis comes along and orders us to do any maintenance, we just laugh and

say, ‘Okay, I’ll get Donny to do that right away’, as if he was an imaginary

maid; that way if we get caught in the future, we can implicate the Sgt. by

saying, ‘Gosh we’ve been telling you about Donny for ages now.’”

I don’t think Warren really bought into the plan but the thought of all

those extra hours of relaxation were too much for him to resist so he

reluctantly agreed and Donny began his regular visits. As time went on the

other mounted guys in the station joined in the arrangement and everybody

seemed happy, particularly Donny.

There were some narrow escapes when Sgt. Lewis made unscheduled

visits and we had to shove Donny down the manure hole to hide him; he

didn’t seem to mind though and when we retrieved him he was always

smelly but happy.

One afternoon we got a surprise visit from a teacher and her

elementary school class. It was on the calendar but we hadn’t noticed.

Donny had just recently been stuffed in the manure bin and we didn’t have

the heart to make him do it again so soon, so instead we dressed him up in a

spare uniform, complete with hat, badge and Sam Browne.

He was quite a sight as he stood rigidly at attention, beaming and

drooling with his long frizzy blonde hair sticking out from under his too

small hat. Of course we introduced him to the teacher as Constable Jones

and enjoyed her reaction so that we made him a regular feature on all the

school tours; nobody enjoyed it more than Donny.

By the time winter set in, our secret stable man had turned into a

fixture and was happily taking on more and more of the work around the

place; recently he had even been asking to stay in the stable while we went

out on patrol so that he could finish off whatever he was working on.

As these requests became more frequent and as ungrateful as it might

seem, our police instincts kicked in and we began to be suspicious about

what he might be up to when he was alone in the stable.

One afternoon when Warren and I were working together we decided

it was time to check up on Donny; the weather was bad so instead of taking

the horses out we decide to patrol in our van. We made a big show of saying

goodbye to Donny, explaining that we would be patrolling the far side of the

Division and telling him to make sure that he watered the horses one last

time before he left.

We drove off but only went a short distance, parked the van out of

sight and skulked back to the rear of the stable. A metal fire escape led up to

a fire door with a large window that opened into the stable area; we climbed

silently up to the door and peered through the window. The bright stable

lights reflected off the inside of the window glass making us invisible as we

stood outside watching. We waited, shivering in the cold for what seemed

like a long time, and then Donny finally appeared; he was dressed in what he

had now come to think of as his police uniform. As we watched he looked

around nervously a couple of times and then entered one of the stalls.

Warren and I were by now seasoned policemen and had seen a lot

over the years but what we witnessed happening in the stall that night nearly

floored us. What made it worse was that Donny’s unnatural attentions were

directed at Warren’s horse and he was a gelding, for Christ’s sake!

Warren was leaning back on the fire escape railing breathing like he

had just finished the hundred-yard dash and mumbling to himself, “The

dirty, dirty bastard!” Then he turned on me, “This was all your idea, you

smart ass, so what do we do now? We could lose our jobs, if we arrest him

he’ll blab the whole thing, Christ, how will it look in the papers!”

I thought a little humour would calm him down so I tried. “C’mon

Warren, he was doing a great job until this small infraction.” He wasn’t

amused and I thought he was going to kill me. “Okay, okay!” I said, “I’ll

take care of it.” “Ya, what are you going to do?” he snarled. “Don’ t worry,

I’m not going to arrest him.

How would that look ‘Sexual assault on a police horse’?” We made a

lot of noise outside the stable to announce our arrival and when we entered

Donny emerged from the stalls looking nervous and uncomfortable, but not

as nervous and uncomfortable as Warren--he had to book off for the rest of

the shift, sick to his stomach.

I took Donny into the lunchroom and sat him down on a chair at the

opposite side of the table and confronted him with what he had done. I had

talked with Donny a bit over the months and I knew he was under the care of

a psychiatrist. I didn’t know he was seeing him because of an unnatural

attraction to horses and other barnyard animals. Anyway, I got the doctor’s

name and number before I sent Donny on his way asking him never to

return. The next day I contacted his doctor and he assured me that he would

see Donny right away and deal with the matter and thanked me for my

understanding.

I thought the matter was over and after a couple of months Warren

even started talking to me again and we put the whole thing behind us.

About a year later Donny was taken into custody on an unrelated

matter and he blabbed the whole story; the investigating detectives thought

he was nuts--nothing that unbelievable could ever have happened.