Encounter at the King Eddy

              “I’ve got some good news and some bad news for you,” he barked. “The good news is that you dolts are graduating and getting out of here a day early; the bad news is that as soon as you can get your sorry butts in gear you’re all going down to the King Edward Hotel to help with some crowd control. It’s your first assignment so don’t screw up!” Parting words from a crusty old drill sergeant to the class of ‘64 at the Metropolitan Toronto Police Academy.
              My classmates and I endured a few more minutes of his begrudging well wishes and veiled threats and then we were hustled onto a waiting bus and whisked away to the centre of the city. This boring sort of assignment didn’t seem like a good way to begin our police careers. We didn’t want to be security guards; we all, in our eager naiveté, saw ourselves instead on the streets catching criminals and suppressing crime. 

              By the time our bus pulled up in front of the hotel we had all finished moaning and complaining about the assignment and, resigned to our fate, disembarked single file clutching the box lunches we had been given. The class clown, last in line, piped up with “Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it’s off to .work we go” but he clammed up immediately when he spotted the officer in charge of our detail waiting for us on the sidewalk. Sergeant Crawford, a burly middle aged cop from the rough and ready 52nd Division, was no man to mess with.

              He ordered us to follow him into the hotel lobby, then formed us into a line and gave us a briefing. We were all young men and women but none of us showed any sign of recognition when the sergeant named the group we were there to protect. He did a quick appraisal- there were about thirty of us- twenty-five male constables and five police women. Then he selected the largest most formidable looking guys and sent them out to the street to guard the main entrance. That left just me, smallest man in the class, and the police women. We were assigned to patrol the halls and be on the lookout for unregistered intruders. It was embarrassing for me to be singled out because of my size and even more galling when, periodically, I peered down from second story windows and saw gathering throngs of young women approaching the hotel entrance and chatting with my classmates. I swallowed my pride and continued patrolling the halls and keeping everybody off the private floor that had been designated for the group’s exclusive use.  

              In the early afternoon, I hadn’t looked out the window for a while so I decided to have another peek to see what I was missing. I couldn’t believe my eyes.  The streets were plugged full with people, mostly young women, traffic was at standstill and I could hear, almost feel, an electric pulsating moan of crowd noise vibrating against the window pane. The friendly joking demeanor of my classmates had changed to looks of concern and the pressure of the crowd had backed them into a tight circle around the hotel’s doorway. I spent several minutes peering out the window envious and moping until suddenly I was startled out of my gloom by a slap on my back 

              “Get down to the front door and help get those buggers inside!” the sergeant bellowed, “Finally!” I thought to myself as I made beeline for the stairs. By the time I got to the main door and made my way out to join my classmates, things had reached a fevered pitch.  

              Members of the Mounted unit, on excited prancing horses, were parting the crowd for the approach of a long procession of scout cars followed by a paddy wagon.  The big beige van backed into the secure area we had held in front of the hotel and its back door flew open. “Form a semicircle in front of the doors and lock arms!” the patrol sergeant yelled over the noise of the crowd.

I only got a quick look at several bodies as they leapt from the back of the wagon and dashed for the hotel lobby. I had other things on my mind. I had placed myself between two of the biggest cops and locked arms with them. When a surge of the crowd hit our line, all one hundred and forty pounds of me was snapped up into the air and left holding on for dear life. Seizing the moment, an enterprising young girl in a white angora sweater attempted to crawl under my dangling legs to get through but I locked them around her and held her in a scissor hold until everybody was safely inside.  

              At a signal from Sgt. Crawford I broke ranks with the big guys outside and followed a separate group of even bigger men -I’m talking huge, circus huge,-as they escorted their charges through the crowded lobby and over to a bank of elevators. It was pandemonium:  the doors to the lifts hadn’t opened as planned and hordes of frantic women were pushing by me and flinging themselves kamikaze style up and over the wall of the behemoths in blue.  I caught sight of Sgt. Crawford again: he was standing in front of a separate elevator away from the main bank holding the door open and beckoning to me.  I got there as quickly as I could and we pushed the Up button and headed for the Empire Suite on the private floor. The battle in front of the other elevators was still in full swing. 

              We arrived at our destination, had a quick look around then stood by and waited for the other elevators to arrive. Eventually the doors opened and a curtain of police uniforms parted to reveal four bony young men with long hair and tight pants. They emerged from the elevator, breathless, laughing, fiddling with their hair and straightening their clothes. They looked to be around the same age as I was and I couldn’t help wondering why everybody was making such a fuss over them. I guess I was jealous that they were having fun and I wasn’t. 

             As the group brushed passed me and hurried down the hall to their suite I checked my watch. My shift was just about over; just enough time to update my memo book, brush some of the white angora hair from the crotch of my blue serge pants and turn my post over to someone else before heading home. 

 That’s when things got complicated. Sgt. Crawford came marching back down the hall with his band of big cops in tow and I watched as he directed them over to the stairwell and sent them on their way. Then he turned his attention to me. Coming over and putting his arm around my shoulder he said in a low conspiratorial voice, “Listen, son, the band manager has complained about all the big guys guarding the boys. He says that they were feeling intimidated and starting to refer to our boys as the goon squad. Anyway”, he continued, “I’m putting them down in the lobby and you, my little friend, are going to spend the night with me and them.”  So there it was, just me, Sgt. Crawford and the group with their entourage. By and by everyone in the suite settled in and relaxed, the young men running in and out of their rooms in their underwear with drinks in their hands. I took up a position in an easy chair in a corner of the living room of the suite while Sgt. Crawford loosened his tie and acted as bartender. I was frequently on my feet answering the door and admitting strange people: show biz types, reporters, hookers, etc.  In addition to these invited guests we had visits from all kinds of kids who made incredibly creative attempts to get close to these guys who seemed to be their idols.  

            One of the better attempts was made by a young man who had looted the laundry chute for a bus boy uniform and picked up a discarded coffee pot and tray from outside of one of the rooms. He was brazenly making his way into the suite.  I accidentally touched the coffee pot-it was ice cold and when I took a closer look at him I could see his jeans and sandals underneath the white hotel uniform.  I let him have a good look at the guys and then escorted him out of the room. 

              There were many similar incidents and the people that I turned away, many of whom were staying at the hotel, spread the word that I was staying in the suite.  Whenever I went down to the lobby or the restaurant for a break I was mobbed by kids, mostly girls, who would heap me with gifts that they had made for the various members of the group. I took the presents to the suite and added them to the growing heap of unopened offerings already there.  When I went back down to the lobby I made up stories about how well the gifts had been received. 

              At one point I felt particularly imposed upon when the group’s manager recruited me to participate in a little production line he was setting up.  He had the boys sitting side by side on a sofa getting ready to add their signatures to small squares of paper and to pass them one to the other until they reached me. I was perched on the arm of the sofa; it would be my job to gather up the slips of paper and arrange them in piles of ten and put an elastic around each bundle.  When the first paper was started along and the last fellow in line was signing, I eyeballed the previous signatures over his shoulder. I registered John, Paul and George but when the little guy seated next to me scribbled Ringo, I thought he was kidding so I told him as much. “No, that’s me all right, mate”, he said and then reached over, snatched off my police hat and placed it on his head backwards. I gave a quick glance towards the sergeant behind the bar but he didn’t seem concerned. 

              The signing process went on for quite a while and when I became bored and started adding my own signature to the last few papers, we all had a laugh and called it quits.  The manager tossed me a large pile to keep for myself. I acted grateful but I wasn’t really impressed. “Who the hell did these punks think they were?” I gave most of the autographs away to fans in the lobby. I kept one or two for myself but have long since lost track of them. I don’t know why I had never heard any of their music; it was already out there and available. I guess I was somehow still lodged in the Folk Era.

              In the evening, one of the guys, a fellow named George, told the Sgt. that he had relatives in the city that he would like to visit. We devised a plan, kitted him out in a disguise, and created several ruses and diversions that got him out of the hotel and back in again safely.  The night following his return was one big party, people coming and going, flash bulbs going off, squeals of laughter, champagne corks popping, twenty-four hours of nonstop excitement.  I don’t know when anyone slept, I have to admit that I was starting to enjoy myself and I kind of missed the boys the next day when they went off to perform at Maple Leaf Gardens.   After all the time I had spent cooped up with them I was in sore need of a shave and a change of clothes. Although they offered, I didn’t think that any of their gear would fit me but I did accept a disposable razor and some toothpaste from the guitar player they called John.  

              By the time they were scheduled to leave the city, the crowds of admirers had grown to such huge proportions that the Chief of Police, James Mackey, decided to take personal charge of the special operation to remove them from the hotel. Since Sgt. Crawford and I were most familiar with the boys we were included as an integral part of his plan.

              When the time for the band’s departure arrived, the Chief called eight of the biggest men on the force into a huddle beside the elevators in the hall of the private floor. “Here’s how it’s going to work:  the wagon is standing by outside the front doors and I’ve got enough men on foot and on horses to keep the crowd back while we load these buggers back into the paddy wagon. Our job is to get them through lobby and over to the doors. The trouble is,” he continued, “I just came up from there and the place is crammed with crazy teenagers; so here’s what we’re going to do. You eight men will take the elevator on the left down to the lobby”, he said addressing the goon squad. “I‘ll wait with the band, Sgt. Crawford and the little guy for precisely two minutes and then we will take the elevator beside you down to join you. In the meantime, I want you boys to move over and form a V in front of our elevator so that when we get down there, we can get in behind while you push your way to the doors. Has everybody got that? Good. Now synchronize your watches.” 

              By the time he had finished his instructions the boys in the band had joined us and he set the plan in motion. Down went the heavies in elevator number one. Then we entered elevator number two and I held the doors from closing while watching my watch. When exactly two minutes had passed the Chief gave me the nod.  I released the doors and we were off. 

              In a matter of seconds we reached the lobby and the doors opened but instead of the protective wall of blue backs we expected we found ourselves all alone facing an enormous crowd of fans. The big cops had been delayed somehow. It was too late- we couldn’t turn back now.  At first I thought we would be mobbed but for some reason nobody was reacting to our presence. I think they may have been confused because of all the imitators that had been hanging around the hotel or maybe they simply couldn’t believe their eyes. 

              It looked like we might get away without too much fuss and the Chief said, “Let’s ease our way over to the door.”  Everything was going smoothly, too smoothly! I noticed an older woman halfway across the lobby staring wide eyed with her mouth open.  She was looking directly at the little drummer and I don’t think at that point that she was sure it was really him.  If he had left well enough alone we might have made it to the door unscathed. Instead, the little bugger started shaking his tie at her and making lewd gestures. That was it. She responded by launching herself across the lobby, leaping on his back and wrapping her legs around his waist and holding his tie like a set of reins. I tried, but couldn’t dislodge her so I pushed them both towards the door.  The Chief had already ushered the rest of the group to safety in a space between the hotels double doors where more policemen waited. The cops on the other side of the door grabbed Ringo and dragged him through it while I put a Half Nelson on the excited lady and gradually got her to dismount.  She was down but she wasn’t out because even though the door had closed between them, she still held Ringo’s tie in a death grip; it was stuck between the doors and Ringo’s face was flattened against the glass and turning colour. Before I could react, a quick thinking policeman on the other side of the glass produced a jackknife and cut the tie off. The lady fell backwards into the crowd with her memento and I never saw her again. 

              The paddy wagon departed but the crowd stayed on. Something very special and exciting had been happening and they didn’t want it to end. I felt the same way. 

I noticed a girl sitting on the curb with her portable radio. I recognized the white Angora sweater she wore from a previous encounter. She was red eyed and sobbing so I thought I better ask her what was wrong. As I approached her the music she was listening to gradually became discernable above the crowd noise. “She loves you, ya ya ya.  She loves you, ya ya ya”.  I stayed close to her while the song finished and two others were played. “Well whata’ ya know?” I thought to myself. “Those buggers don’t sound half bad.”  On the way home I stopped and bought my first Beatles album. 

Here’s Looking At You, Sergeant Saul

My first three weeks as a police cadet were spent for the most part, not wiping out crime as I had expected, but cleaning out police cars washing them and  gassing them up.  I swabbed out the drunk tank each morning and generally ran errands for the real policemen. Although my new tailor-made uniform had arrived and I was wearing it to and from work each day, mostly it hung in my locker while I sported a pair of blue coveralls more suited to my assignments. Finally I received orders to report to the Police College and I looked forward to the end of my drudgery and to some leisure time in the classroom.

In those days Metropolitan Toronto had its own training centre in a converted two story elementary school located in Willowdale, in the north end of the city. The schoolyard had been paved to use as a parade ground.  I hadn’t thought much about drilling and marching. I knew that there was probably going to be a certain amount of it but after all, this was not the army only the police force. My marching skills were sadly lacking. In the 1960’s all high schools still had mandatory cadet 

programs.  The only exemptions were for band members.  I had quickly signed up to play the trumpet and had spent my time sitting in the shade playing Colonel Bogie while my classmates, sweating in their woollen uniforms, marched up and down the schoolyard.  I wondered if I might do the same now. We all gathered in a large classroom that first morning and were told by a clean-cut young policeman to have a seat anywhere. 

“Ah, this the life,” I thought as I settled myself down in a seat at the back of the room and busied myself opening my notebook and selecting pens and pencils. I had just removed my tie and was leaning back in my chair when the room reverberated with a throaty bellow, “Attention!”  The word seemed to hang in the air. When I looked up, a tall, straight, stern looking policeman in an impeccable uniform was shouting at us. He was about fifty and his presence oozed authority. We all jumped to our feet and gave our individual interpretations of what “Attention” should look like. Addressing us as stupid bastards,  he described the proper way to stand to attention. Then he introduced himself as Sergeant Saul and informed us that he was to be our Drill Instructor and general disciplinarian. He went on further to say that he had observed us arriving that morning and without a doubt we were the sorriest bunch of dirty buggers he had ever laid eyes on. 

“All that is going to change”, he shouted. “Now get your lazy asses down to that parade ground!” And so  the marching began, day after day of “By the left, quick march, I said LEFT, you stupid bastards”, or, “Into line, left turn. Does that look like a line, you nitwits?” 

After what felt like an eternity of abuse all but one class seemed to be getting the hang of it. Poor Cadet Eagan was still stumbling, turning the wrong way and constantly  trying to get back in  step. No amount of swearing or cajoling from Sergeant made his performance improve. Eagan was a big healthy farm boy from northern Ontario. A t first glance, he looked like perfect policeman material, but there was definitely something missing in the brains’ department. As some of the less sensitive cadets put it, “He was a few bricks shy of a load, you know. A few pickles short of a jar.”  We knew it was all over for Eagan one morning at inspection . He had forgotten his memo book and Sergeant Saul was busy ‘cutting him a new arse hole’, as he liked to put it. When he finished his tirade, he lowered his voice and, almost pleadingly, said. “Listen, Eagan, if you’re going to make it, you  really have to pull up your socks.” To our amazement,  Eagan actually bent down and pulled up his  socks!  The next day he was transferred to the city’s Parking Meter Control Unit. I would often see him in later years.  He seemed very happy sporting his brown uniform and tooling around on his Pie Wagon, as  the three-wheeled motorcycles were called. 

The marching and drilling wasn’t easy for me but my real problem was passing muster when Sergeant Saul did his inspections each morning. Try as I might, I couldn’t seem to please him. I spent hours every night working on my kit, ironing, polishing and  brushing.  Still, he would always find something wrong and bring it to my attention in his not so subtle  manner. If he found a single hair on my blue serge uniform he would exclaim for all to hear, “Did you  have much trouble getting the dog off your uniform this morning, Leeson?” If my tie was not hanging  perfectly perpendicular, he would straighten it, saying, “Mummy dressed us a little funny this morning,  didn’t she?” If he couldn’t find anything else to complain about, he would say, “Get a haircut!” which I frequently did but it never seemed to be enough. I was starting to look like Yul Bryner.  The night before  our final day on the cadet course, I made up my mind that my turnout was going to be impeccable.  I vowed that I would be the cleanest, shiniest son of a bitch on that parade ground. I pulled out all the  stops. I spent hours using cotton swabs dipped in ice water, putting a high shine on my boots and Sam Browne belt. My uniform was cleaned and pressed to perfection. There wasn’t a crease, smudge or hair to be found anywhere. I also vacuumed my car seats so that my uniform wouldn’t pick up any debris as I drove to the college in the morning.  I went to bed with what hair I had left perfectly coifed and held in place by a nylon stocking. I was ready. There was nothing, nothing that Saul would be able to find fault with. 

I stayed up working so late that night that I overslept slightly  but if I knew that if I  hurried, I would still be in good time for the inspection parade. I dressed carefully, avoiding contact with anything that might tarnish my perfect appearance. I skipped breakfast. I didn’t want to sit too long anyway. It might spoil the crease in my pants.

I was cautiously making my way to my car when I heard a terrible scream.  It sounded almost like a human baby in extreme pain. I made my way to the opposite side of the car and there on the ground was a stray cat with a half-eaten baby rabbit in his mouth. The cat dropped the little creature and disappeared into the tall grass. The tiny rabbit lay whimpering , unable to  move. He was so badly mangled that I knew he was beyond help. The only humane thing to do was to put him out of his misery as soon as possible. Gritting my teeth and wincing, I stepped forward and  brought my heavy boot down as hard as could on the poor bunny’s head.  Death was instantaneous and its suffering was over. With a heavy heart but comforted by the notion that I had done the right thing, I  jumped into my car and headed for the Police College.  By the time I arrived, the rest of the cadets had already begun to assemble on the parade ground. I hurried over and joined them. We formed up in  three lines of open order and stood rigidly at attention as Sergeant Saul quick marched over to us with  his swagger stick tucked under his arm. 

He proceeded to weave his way up and down the ranks making  rude comments to certain of my classmates. I held my breath as he made his way along the front of the  row I was standing in. He paused for a moment in front of me and, looking me over carefully, gave me a  reluctant nod of approval.  I was feeling pretty smug and self-satisfied as he swung around to inspect our backs. All my hard work had paid off.  I was already beginning to work on my acceptance speech for the best turned out cadet when I heard the rhythmic click of the Sergeant’s heel clips stop directly behind me.  He was gasping and seemed short of breath but finally blurted out, “What the hell is that?” He prodded me in the ass with his swagger stick and I looked over my shoulder and down to the back of my  trouser leg. There, looking directly at Sergeant Saul was a tiny eyeball suspended on a long trailing ribbon of red tissue.

The Raccoon

The sun was already setting as I hurried my horse down the steep road

to the Central Don Park in North Toronto. In the short time it took to go

down the hill, I was transported from the busy city streets to a tranquil

country setting where there was no trace of the city.

Reaching the valley floor, the road led over a small bridge that

crossed the Don River and then on to the Metropolitan Toronto Police

Mounted Unit Headquarters. It consisted of barns and stables and two

houses that once made up the farm of a private estate. Two men stood at the

entrance of the police stable. One was my Sergeant and the other was the

Superintendent of the Park. They were having a heated conversation and

only looked up when my horse’s metal shoes left the soft turf and hit the

cobblestone in front of the building. The Sergeant pulled his pipe out and

grunted, “Good, you’re here. Put your horse away. We’ve got a job for you.”

By the time I had unsaddled my horse, fed and watered him and made my

way back to the waiting men, the sun had sunk further behind the rim of the

valley, leaving that glorious red that only city pollution can produce.

Visibility was minimal.

Between puffs on his pipe, the Sergeant laid out my assignment.

Apparently the Park’s Superintendent, who lived in a cottage just out of

sight of where we stood, had noticed a raccoon high in one of the stately

elms that shaded his house. It seemed that the raccoon was acting strangely

aggressive and vicious, unusual for these semi-tame park animals. There

had been a rabies scare recently and there was no sense taking any chances.

“Take your pistol over there and humanely destroy that animal,” came the

directive. “And here’s a feed bag to bring him back in. Be quick about it

because it’s getting dark.” The streetlights had just come on as the two men

turned their backs on me and continued their conversation.

I felt the weight of my holster to make sure that my trusty, if rusty, 32

calibre Colt was at my side, and then proceeded toward the crime scene. I

had had to check my gun because I hadn’t had much occasion to use it and

frankly, wasn’t very good with it. As my fingers ran through my

ammunition pouch, I was relieved to find several extra bullets in there.

Thank God I had replaced them after wasting so many shots while trying to

bag a pheasant during a particularly boring afternoon patrol in Mount

Pleasant Cemetery a month or so earlier. I don’t know what had possessed

me. I don’t like hunting or killing creatures and was relieved when I had

come to my senses before I did hit the pheasant. Now here I was again, this

time being sent as executioner of a poor distressed animal. I hoped that the

raccoon had moved on to another part of the park, but as I approached the

base of the tree, I could hear him hissing and snarling with that particular

rattle that is peculiar to raccoons. He was still there. There was enough

light from the nearby yard lamp to make out his furry shape and bright eyes.

His white gnashing teeth were also visible, but worst of all, I could detect a

cascade of white foam drooling down over his lower jaw, a sure sign of

distemper or rabies. “Well, there’s nothing for it, he’s just going to have to

go,” I said to myself. I drew my pistol and assumed the two handed stance I

had been taught at the Police College. One quick, accurate, humane shot

should do it. With my arms stretched full length, I sighted along the barrel

and decided to put a round between his eyes and end the thing quickly. Who

was I kidding? When we took firearms training, I was the worst in the class.

I am convinced that the only way that I passed target practice was because

some of the shots from the other cadets training with me strayed onto

respectable spots on my target. I had the bad habit of wincing and closing

my eyes in anticipation of the bang—sort of a ‘now you see it, now you

don’t’ technique that was hard to overcome. Hopefully this little bugger was

close enough that I might be able to do the deed swiftly and successfully.

I resumed my firing stance, cocked my revolver and let fly in his

general direction. My first shot was well planned because it trimmed off a

large leafy branch about three feet above his head. This, of course, allowed

more light onto the scene and made my target more visible. “Now you’re

for it,” I thought as I fired my second shot and was pleased to see that it

struck the huge tree about two feet to his right. It startled the now really

pissed off raccoon into turning and facing me full on, presenting a much

better target area. I emptied all six chambers of my gun in this fashion

without really approaching his immediate vicinity. I was also making quite a

lot of noise, but I reloaded sheepishly, thankful again for the extra bullets in

my pouch.

Again I assumed the position, ready to restart the barrage. As I

squeezed the trigger, the gun sounded a dull ‘pop’ and I could actually see

the bullet leave the end of the barrel and arch to the ground about six feet in

front of me. It was a dud, and as I looked up into the tree I could tell that the

raccoon was losing all respect for me. In fact, he was climbing down the

trunk with his whole body shaking in a maddened tremor. He was much

closer now, so I fired off three shots in rapid succession. He was suddenly

very still as he clung to the tree and I breathed a sigh of relief. I blew the

smoke off the end of my pistol and put it in my holster. I grabbed the bag in

anticipation of his fall from the tree, but as I was straightening up I heard his

mad snarling resume. I had totally missed yet again and he had only been

playing possum, or raccoon as the case may be, and now he was coming for

me. My second to last shot went wild, but as he was about to bite the barrel

of my gun, I got off the headshot that I had originally intended. He departed

the world in a quick, almost painless fashion, and as I stuffed him in the bag

and looked at my watch, I realized that I had been at least half an hour

bagging my little friend.

It was dark as I walked the short distance back to the stable where

my Sergeant and the Superintendent waited. The Sergeant looked from the

Super to me and, slowly removing his pipe from his mouth, asked, “Did that

raccoon have a gun too?”

Sunnybrook Park

Prisoner Sandwiches

They’re just fried egg sandwiches; buttered white bread, egg hard over, the yolk broken and lots of salt and pepper, simple fare but much appreciated in my house.  I first encountered this delicacy over fifty years ago when I was working as a police cadet serving at 57 Division in downtown Toronto.

That location had the distinction of being the city’s sole repository for female felons. The building had the standard floor plan for lockups of the period. A large dank high ceilinged gymnasium-like area with a sizeable central portion encased in bars surrounded by individual small cells. At all the other stations in the city the bigger area was referred to as the “bull pen”; we called it the “cow pen“ or when there was a particularly large consignment of younger hookers the “heifer pen”.

When I first arrived at the division and heard these references I felt that those who were serving there were being vulgar and insensitive, particularly since they were dealing with the weaker sex. I wasn’t long learning that working with male prisoners was a walk in the park compared to looking after their female counterparts.  Never then and never since have I encountered a baser debauched violent segment of society, particularly those women destined for the “drunk tank”.  

I got my first clue of what was in store for me while parading for duty on my first evening shift. There was a long narrow room adjacent to the garage where all of us, constables and cadets alike, were lined up for inspection before hitting the streets. The regulations required that we all stand at attention in a long row, forearms raised with gun in one hand and memo book in the other. We had to hold that stance until the attending Sergeant finished his inspection and dismissed us. It was while we were suspended in this position that a paddy wagon backed into the garage and offloaded a cargo of some mature ladies of the night. The sergeant, distracted, failed to “say as you were “and so we were left hanging, no pun intended, as the women filed in. Encouraged by a boisterous grey haired veteran floozy, they each, in turn, groped our crotches and offered disparaging criticisms as they passed by. While I was being subjected to this indignity I turned my attention to a large framed print hanging on the wall in front of the line of smirking cops. It was a colourful cartoon print titled the “Ascent of Venus.”   It depicted several Keystone type cops carrying an aging stereotypical old time prostitute up jailhouse stairs. It sort of set the tone of the place.  Apparently, to survive and maintain my sanity in this environment I was going to have to develop a perverse sense of humour.

That initiation was a harbinger of things to come. The first time I was detailed to remain inside and monitor the cells I entered the area hoping to initiate a firm but fair and friendly rapport; this approach was short lived. As I got to the first individual cell and looked in, a woman who had been lying on the hard metal shelf that served as a bed threw the army blanket that had been covering her off revealing that she was totally naked. She then rushed towards the bars that separated us, grabbed hold and proceeded to perform a lurid dance. Astonished and embarrassed I beat a retreat and, red faced, went to the desk sergeant to report the incident. “Sergeant there’s a naked lady in there,” I stammered. Peering over his glasses with feigned concern on his face he replied,”You don’t say. Well, we can’t have any behaviour of that sort in an establishment like this. You better take me in there at once.” I escorted him in and after staring at the woman for some time he simply said “Yup she’s naked alright and she also seems to be double jointed.” Then he went away. Several more constables ventured in to watch her perform and establish the fact that she was indeed naked then one of them took me aside and whispered in my ear, “Grow up, sonny!”

I guess, after a time, I did. I got used to the dishevelled bruised bodies lying sprawled on the floor of the drunk tank. I became adept at ducking the spit and sometimes feces that were flung at me through the bars. I listened to what seemed like a whole new vocabulary of profanity, familiar words that somehow seemed different and dirtier when hurled from a woman’s mouth. Mercifully female minors were not exposed to that environment. There were facilities for juveniles across town and a room upstairs in the station for the more sensitive customers.

One my jobs was to maintain a constant flow of the thick bitter tasting coffee that was offered to the prisoners in the hopes that they would be sober enough to face the magistrate the following day. Since it was a bed and breakfast of sorts we also offered a limited menu to see them on their way to court in the morning. One fried egg sandwich and nothing else.

There was a Greek restaurant across the road from the station that catered the daily event. In truth the cuisine at the establishment was not totally unpalatable. When the orders were placed in the morning sometimes the number of sandwiches accidentally exceed the number of prisoners present and the cops would have to take up the slack. And that was where I acquired a fondness for Prisoner Sandwiches, as they were called, particularly if I could select ones that were not liberally sprinkled with ash from the cigarette that was ever present and hanging from the old chef’s mouth.

My wife Andrea was an early convert to this comfort food and one by one my kids have followed suit. You can’t order prisoner sandwiches by name at any restaurant and if you could explain and get a specially prepared substitute it wouldn’t taste quite like the ones I make at home. The watery pale yolked commercial eggs of those establishments don’t hold a candle to the ones produced by our free range chickens and to be fully appreciated the sandwiches need to be consumed in a kitchen warmed by a cook stove with just a hint of wood smoke wafting around and the air buzzing with family chatter.

The Bravest Man I Ever Met

David

Memories sometimes pop up in the strangest places. I haven’t thought of David for years but inexplicably, while reading Ernst Junger’s memoir “Storm of Steel’, visions of the man and something he did came back to me.

The line that sparked it all followed the author’s brief description of two small unremarkable soldiers who served with him in his German regiment in WW1. He said of them, “Even so, brave puny men are always to be preferred to strong cowards.”

David’s act of heroism wasn’t performed on a battlefield or in a life and death situation and there were very few witnesses besides myself. It all happened over forty years ago, in peacetime, in a horse paddock in a park near the center of Toronto.

In those days I had a riding school in that park and a large clientele. My students were , for the most part, young women and girls and they often had boyfriends hanging around watching them taking their lessons and working around the stable. These couples were the typical mix of pretty, bright eyed babes and handsome high school jocks but there was one exception. One girl, let’s call her Mary, had a most unusual suitor.  She was in her late teens; a buxom redhead with green eyes and a crop of freckles; not the sort to make the high school cheerleading team but attractive all the same.  Like fifty or so other girls she spent all of her spare time around the horses; helping with the grooming and mucking out. We lovingly called them “stable bums”.

On the surface Mary and David appeared to be a very unlikely couple. She was robust and athletic but he was just the opposite. He was only a couple of years her senior but looked much older.  He was overweight, wore thick horn-rimmed glasses, was soft and jowly and waddled around with a peculiar toed-out gate. He seemed to be sweating all the time and his lower lip was continually moist and drooping. Because of a severe asthmatic condition he had to watch Mary from a distance. Close proximity to the horses or the hay or straw would have him gasping and reaching for his inhaler. He was always dressed in a business suit, white shirt, formal tie and black highly polished shoes. Mary explained that he had been sequestered into his father’s insurance business at an early age and was required to keep up his appearance at all times.  His office hours must have been quite flexible because he would appear at the stables at odd hours during the day and evening. He was obviously in love with her but I couldn’t imagine her feeling the same about him. I assumed Mary saw him merely as a friend. I couldn’t picture anything more intimate than a handshake between the pair.

Despite his appearance David was a very intelligent jovial guy .He had become a fixture around the place but in truth I didn’t know him all that well. We only had the odd brief conversation while he watched moony eyed as his lady love bounced around the paddock during her lessons.  The term had yet to be coined but in all respects he was a nerd. A hell of a nice guy but a nerd all the same.

I always turned the school mounts out for a roll and a romp in the big paddock beside my barn in the evenings; they deserved it after a hard day’s work lugging people around in the riding rings and on the trails. One day after finishing a late supper I wandered down to the enclosure to make sure the horses were all right. They were not alright. A gang of motorcycle thugs had swept into the park parked their bikes and was staging an impromptu rodeo. Some of the leather clad goons were mounted on my horses bareback while others had the terrified animals stampeding around bucking and kicking. The bikers must have been very drunk or stoned to be doing what they were right beside the mounted police stable that shared the facility with me. As usual none of the cops seemed to be around- you can’t find one when you need one.  I shouted and shook my fist at them for a time but my feeble gestures just seemed to egg them on.

When one of the older horses tripped and fell down a large hairy guy in a Nazi helmet started kicking it to get it up.

That’s when I lost it.  I clambered over the fence and pounced on him. We rolled around in the sand with fists flailing and, for a while, I was giving a decent account of myself but then the rest of the gang noticed what was happening and stopped torturing the horses to join in the fray. Two or three of them held me down while the others took turns punching and kicking me. I got a few more licks in but I was toast and I knew it. Shortly, I would either be dead or a candidate for traction. That’s when it happened.  Something very heavy landed in a splatting heap on our tangle of arms and legs knocking the bikers off me.  The impact was such that at first I thought that one of the horses had spooked and stumbled over us.

When I was finally able to break free, give my head a shake and look around me, I saw the bikers high tailing it for their machines.  Only one person remained protectively draped over me.  

David, huffing and puffing, lifted himself to knees. His hair was tousled; his glasses were askew with one lens shattered. His tie hung loosely over a ripped collar and his jacket and trousers were covered with sand and horse manure. He leaned over and helped me to a sitting position and while we sat staring at each other two mounted policemen appeared over the rise behind the stable and gave chase to the bikers. The cavalry arrived but they were too late to be of any help.

The real hero of the day was David. When I asked him what had possessed him to take on the Hells’ Angels he said he didn’t really think about it. It just seemed like the right thing to do.

There are many brave men and women in organizations like the military, police forces and fire departments, but that’s what we expect them to be- that’s what we pay them for.

The true heroes are ordinary people like David who selflessly confront the odds when they feel they’re needed. For a moment I thought that he had done what he had to impress his Mary but as I looked around she was nowhere to be seen. Hopefully she already knew what I had just discovered about her boyfriend. I’ve often wondered if they stayed together. I like to think that they did.

The Old Man and The Pony

In 1953, for all intents and purposes, the old city of Toronto only stretched from the shores of Lake Ontario to the southern slopes of the Don Valley at a place called Hog’s Hollow. That was the last stop for the Young Street trolley and from that point northwards patches of urban squalor were just beginning to encroach onto the surrounding farmland.

When I was ten years old, our family moved onto a recently constructed cluster of suburbia a few miles beyond the city limits just north of Steels Avenue. Our subdivision was the first of its kind north of the city. All the houses were brand new white clapboard bungalows, “they were all made out of ticky tacky and they all looked just the same.”

The small country schools in the area needed to be expanded to accommodate all the city kids moving in and although the student population was a strange mixture of city slickers and local yokels we all seemed to get along, although my circle of were almost exclusively comprised of the farm kids. I spent most of my free time playing and helping with chores on the many functioning farms still holding on in the area.

At the time, there was a small convenience/general store located on the southeast corner of Steels Avenue and Young Street, not far from where we lived. It had been serving the farm community for years and shortly after we moved into the area the owner died and it became available for rent. My parents decided to try their hand at shop keeping and because I also spent a lot of time around the store I became even more involved with the farming community.

I recently went to the site of the old store and as I stood in the shadow of the high-rise buildings that now dominate the intersection, it was hard to visualize what it had looked like back when I was a kid. In those days there were a few businesses and houses on the east side of Young Street south of our store, but on the west side Holstein cattle still grazed in a huge pasture. Everything north of Steels, with the exception of our subdivision, was still farm country.

We only lived in the area and operated the store for a short time but I still have many vivid memories of the things I saw as my pals and and I would sit on the steps of the store sucking our purple popsicles and watching the traffic buzz by on the main artery out of the city.

One day something happened that has haunted me for years and I only recently have begun to understand what it was all about.

It was around noon on a warm summer day when two trucks pulled up on the wide shoulder beside the store. My friends and I watched as two men from the first enclosed van got out and opened the trucks back door. They disappeared inside then backed out dragging a shiny red governess cart by its shafts. It was after they had eased it on to the ground and went to the second truck that they really got our attention.

They dropped the tailgate down and revealed the prettiest piebald Shetland pony we had ever seen. The little horse stood impatiently snorting and pawing the truck bed while one of the men slipped in beside him and then backed him down the ramp. While one man held his lead shank the other retrieved a harness from the front of the truck then the two of them busied themselves debating strap lengths and hanging a brass studded leather harness on the little gelding. Shortly, a yellow cab pulled up and the taxi driver helped an ancient looking man out of the back seat. I say ancient because in those days almost all adults looked old to us but this man was definitely in the category of grandfather, if not great-grandfather.

While we watched, the truck drivers put the pony into the shafts and attached the traces. One of them stood at the pony’s head while the other loaded a series of small boxes from the trunk of the taxi, then helped the stiff old man up and through the back door of the cart.

The old man shifted the boxes around a bit then took a seat at the side of the cart and took up the reins, “Thanks, you can let him go now.” we heard him say, and then the truck drivers stood back.  The old man clucked the pony up and they trotted through the intersection and headed west on Steels Avenue.

They hadn’t traveled the length of a football field when for some reason the pony bolted. As the animal took the bit in his mouth and sprung into top gear we could see the old man attempting to stand and rein him in but there was no stopping him and before they got much further we saw the pony leap into the ditch overturning the cart and launching the old man into the bushes beside the road.

The truck drivers leaped into their vehicles and headed up the road toward the scene and we hoofed it after them. When we got close we could see the old man lying on his back and he wasn’t moving.  One of the truck drivers was attending to him while the other was attempting to cut an upside down and wildly thrashing pony out of his harness and get him out of the ditch.

My memory is not clear on what happened immediately afterwards but I do remember police cars and ambulances arriving and seeing the old man taken away on a stretcher. It was what I learned about the old man afterwards that has stayed with me all these years and has become so meaningful as I approach the age he must have been at the time.

The old man and the pony both survived the accident and after a brief stay in the hospital he took up lodgings at a farm very close to where the accident occurred. The Sheppards, a family I knew well because their youngest son was a friend of mine, took pity on the old man and offered him room and board while he convalesced. It was an especially good arrangement because they also had room in their barn for his pony.

My friends and I took it upon ourselves to make sure that the old man’s pony was well looked after while he was confined to a bed in his upstairs bedroom. We fed, watered and exercised the little animal- with the emphasis on his exercise. We took turns cantering the little pinto around the field behind the barn till we had the little fellow run ragged. If it happened that he was put back into harness it would have been very unlikely that he could have mustered up enough energy to run away again. As it turned out that wasn’t to be an issue because one day we arrived at the barn to discover that our pretty pony was gone and a dull looking skinny old bay mare about the same size was in his place. Les Ehrlick, a Toronto horse dealer who had sold him the first pony, had taken pity on the old man and found him the quietest pony in the province as a replacement. The mare wasn’t as much fun as the sparky little gelding but we kids continued to feed and water her.

After a couple of weeks when the old man was able to get around a little better, he started spending his mornings in the stable sitting on a pile of straw bales watching his new pony. We would meet him when we came to do our chores and although we tried to be friendly with him, he didn’t respond to us the way we had hoped. He seemed lost in his thoughts most of the time and almost unaware of our presence.

Although he never spoke more than a few words to us I often heard him talking to Mr. Sheppard when they were together in the barn and that’s when I heard his story. I absorbed all I heard and stored it away in the recesses of my ten-year-old brain not really understanding the significance of what he was revealing.

Mr. Marsden was born on a farm in Yorkshire, England, but as a very young man he was forced to leave his home and take a job in a factory in one of Britain’s industrial centres. He did a stint in the army during WW1 and then immigrated to Canada where he once again took up the lunch box and started working on the production line of an appliance manufacturer in Toronto. He spent thirty years at the same job day after day living alone and, for the most part, keeping to himself. During all those years of loneliness and drudgery he harbored a secret ambition. When he was a boy in Yorkshire, peddlers in pony carts used to travel around from farm to farm selling small dry goods and he was always in awe of the wonderful free way of life they led. Although he realized how impractical the idea was in this new day and age, the boy in him refused to let it go.  

After he retired he spent most of his time in his room on the third floor of a boarding house or feeding pigeons in the park. Several years of this drab existence passed until one morning he woke, shaking off the mist of a rapidly developing dementia and determined to fulfill his dream. He purchased his pony and cart and acquired a selection of small goods and arranged to have them delivered to the city limits.

I heard his story but when I was a boy, it was just a story, with no moral and no lesson to be learned.

His story ended one morning when the two of us showed up to do chores and found him sitting in his usual spot.  It was a while before we realized he was dead. We ran for Mr. Sheppard and then hung around for the rest of the morning while the police and then the undertaker’s van came.

It was a day that an old man’s impossible dream was put to rest, and two boys had their first unforgettable experience with death.

   

The Augean and Other Disasters (Part 1)

Where there are horses there is bound to be horse manure, there’s no avoiding it. One of the first problems I encountered when I started my riding school was disposing of the stuff. My stable was located in a park in the heart of Toronto, and for a time, the mushroom growers on the outskirts of the city were willing to haul the dung away at no charge. That arrangement didn’t last very long, however. The Health Department intervened, demanding that all of the refuse from my barn, and others in the city, be contained in sanitary bins that would be required to be removed and replaced several times a week. It was an expensive proposition and I immediately began to try and figure out a way around it.

I was stumped for quite a while until one day when I was eating my lunch in the kitchen and listening to the TV blaring away in the living room. Johnny Mathis was singing the theme song to the cartoon series “Hercules.” I didn’t mind the song, or the show, but when that annoying little centaur named Newton started screeching “Herc! Herc!’ I couldn’t stand it any more and started down the hall to turn the set off. That’s when it hit me!

I remembered the stories of the trials of Hercules - and in particular the one about his task of cleaning out the massive Augean Stables. As I recalled, it was the fifth task that King Eurystheus had set for him; he was given only one day to muck out an enormous barn. At first the job had seemed impossible, but true to form, Hercules came up with a solution. He bashed holes through opposing walls of the stable, diverted a river to flow through the opening and, Voilà! the poop was gone.

The wheels began to turn immediately. My first thought (immediately dismissed) was that I might make use of the Don River; it flowed by only a few yards from my barn. But, no, I had to be practical, and it wasn’t until I was seated in a location where some of my most inspired thoughts come to me that I came up with the perfect solution. Actually it happened immediately after I flushed and was listening to all that water gurgling down the drain.

My barn had recently been hooked up to the city’s sewer system, so why not create a toilet for the horses too? Yes that was it. It wouldn’t really be a toilet as such, the intense training I would have to put the horses through would make that prohibitive. No, what I had in mind was an immense flushing system that would carry the manure away from behind the horses' stalls and flush it down the city’s drain.

The barn had originally been designed to house dairy cattle and as a consequence had gutters running along behind the stalls. When we converted the space for horses we simply planked them over. As my plan began to develop I realized that these cement flumes could be an important component of the flushing system I was proposing.

My final plan (and I use the term loosely because I never really plan anything I just start doing it and allow it to happen) was to cut access holes into the gutter behind the horses and install a series of high pressure water nozzles to drive the manure out of the barn and into the sewer. The actual feces would not pose a problem, but I knew that the straw I used to bed the horses would probably clog up the system so I didn’t even try to use it. The ideal bedding would have been fine sawdust, but none of that was available, so I decided to try wood chips. I located what I needed in Quebec and had a boxcar load shipped in.

It took me a couple of weeks of tinkering to get ready but finally I had the horses standing in the sweet smelling shavings and all systems were go. I opened the main water valve and the stable men started shovelling the manure into the gutter. Wood chips and dung began flowing toward the entrance to the sewer, where I had placed a battery of super high-pressured nozzles to whisk the slurry on its way. It was working like a charm and in half the time it normally took to muck out the stables we were finished and congratulating ourselves.

We settled in to using the system twice a day and I was so proud and pleased with myself that I went next door to the police stable to try to talk Inspector Johnson into using my invention.

About a week later I was sitting in my kitchen pondering the possibility of patenting my idea when a man in city uniform appeared at my door. He was very polite about it but he informed me that he and his crew were busy trying to unclog a section of sanitary sewer line approximately two miles in length. He said that the offending matter appeared to be horse manure and wood chips and wondered if I knew anything about it. While I remained silent trying to formulate a suitable lie he went on to say that if his crew had not found and relieved the blockage in time, it might have bunged up half the toilets in North York. The evidence was pretty compelling so I decided to ‘fess up and throw myself on his mercy. After a long conversation and a commitment to give free riding lessons to each of his four grandchildren, we were back to shovelling shit... but I heard no more about it.

Tuffy

What the hell was that? It feels like a wad of paper under my bare foot but as I tilt my rocker forward again and look down, the wad of paper has turned into a pile of fluffy green feathers. My God, it looks like Tuffy, our parakeet, only a lot flatter. I reach down and cup him in my hand and his little head droops to one side and one eye stares blankly back at me. Oh Tuffy, what have I done? I feel your little heart beating under my thumb and for a moment I think you might be all right but the faint throbbing has stopped now and I guess you are a goner. I know I should be feeling sad and guilty, old pal, but I’m not. I’m just mad as hell at you. It’s your own damned fault. If you hadn’t been such a sick little pervert, this never would have happened. Your disgusting foot fetish has finally caught up with you. How many years have I put up with you incessantly humping my big toe when you thought I wasn’t looking?  How many times have I been tickled to consciousness while trying to nap in front of the TV only to wake to find you puffing bravely away on one of my lower digits and leaving heaps of regurgitated bird seed as a form of payment? I know you were lonely and were desperately looking for something that approximated a mate, but for God’s sake, Tuffy, my big toe? C’mon! Anyway that’s all over now, pal, your time has come, you are no more, you have passed, you have kicked the bucket, you are deceased, you are no longer with us. All well and good for you, old buddy, you are at peace now but I’m the one who has to break the news to Andrea. She’s out in the kitchen visiting with her friend, Frances. I don’t dare tell her now. They’re both saps for animals and Frances is worse than she is. No, I’ll have to wait ‘till she’s alone. You never know how she is going to react. I don’t even like riding in the car with Andrea, she’s always making life threatening swerves to avoid hitting small animals and if I leave her on her own, every other trip will see her bringing home a stray of some kind.

All of our animals are foundlings or give-aways, even you are - I mean, were - Tuffy. I suppose your original owner will have to be informed, too.  I’ll leave that up to Andrea.  Maybe she’ll put it off for a while, like she did when that obese cat, Tommy, suddenly died of heart attack after just a week or two with us. We knew how much he meant to the sad girl who had to give him up and didn’t have the heart to tell her so, over the next several years, whenever she phoned to see how her pet was getting on; we simply pretended he was still alive. I was always on the lookout for a lookalike cat in case we got a surprise visit.  It was an act of kindness and we fooled the unsuspecting girl, Tuffy, but there’s no way I’m going to fool Andrea about you.  

She still bugs me about the time I let her African Grey Parrot escape. That was easier to handle than this will be because she was up in Montreal at the time and I was holding the fort down here in the Valley. I know I shouldn’t be comparing you to that parrot from hell--you were just a trifle weird and confused but he was a holy terror.  I don’t know how we put up with him. Everybody except Andrea had to wear hard hats around while he was granted freedom of the air on his daily exercise flights. It was that or risk being dive bombed, getting raked by his talons and the hell pecked out of our heads. It wasn’t even safe at the breakfast table.   Sometimes we would forget he was lurking out there somewhere until someone screamed, “in-coming!” and we would have to dive for cover.  Andrea cried like a baby when I called her and told her that Toby had absconded.  I swore that I’d tried everything I could to catch him but she insisted that I have another go at it even though we both knew he would only come to her. I went along with it when she insisted that I record her over the phone doing her famous birdcall. Then she ordered me to parade around the neighbourhood gawking up into trees, cage in hand with my ghetto blaster screeching, "Here, Toby, here, Toby! Come to Momma, Toby!”  It wouldn’t have been so bad if she hadn’t also insisted on me wearing one of her old blonde wigs during the search. Some of my neighbors are still looking funny at me. I finally captured that old parrot; actually he turned himself in when the weather got colder. I can still see the old bugger sitting on that icy window sill with a bent beak, his feathers ruffled and looking like an owl or some other large bird of prey had recently had his way with him. He was a beaten bird and when I went out to grab him, he surrendered without a fight.  As it turned out, maybe he should have extended his hiatus a little more because shortly afterwards he was fatally dispatched after rudely waking up our beagle, Dukie, with a peck on the dog’s nose.  “Let sleeping dogs lie.” 

No, Tuffy, old boy, you weren’t like him; there was nothing dangerous about you. Granted you were a bit of an embarrassment to the family and we always tried to make sure that nobody was going around barefooted when we had guests visiting. On the few occasions that you made advances on unsuspecting strangers, we always interceded, made excuses and covered up for you. “Don’t ask and don’t tell.” But now you’re dead, my sick little friend, and I have no beagle to blame. It’s all my fault.  I suppose I could stuff your little body in the toe of Andrea’s rubber boot and when she pulled it on she’d think she did the deed. No, it could be days before it rains again. Hey, you’re starting to stiffen up a bit. Maybe I could wire your little feet to the roost in your cage. It could be a day or two before anyone notices and I’ll be away in Halifax by the time the shit hits the fan. No, that wouldn’t work either;  you’re much too wide in profile and too narrow head-on to be convincing. 

Maybe I should nip off to town and give Andrea a call from there? No! That’s ridiculous. I’ve got to be a man and face the music. How bad can it be? Who am I kidding. I know how bad it can be. There’s going to be hell to pay, Tuffy. Anyway that’s the kitchen door closing. Frances must be leaving. Andrea will be alone now. I guess I better go in and ‘fess up.