Graham

One Saturday morning as I sat in my kitchen after morning stable chores, a strange car with a horse trailer in tow pulled into my driveway. As I watched out my window a rather dignified looking man, perhaps fifty years old at the time, emerged from his car and after asking directions from one of the kids that hung around the stable, started to make his way up the steep stairs that led to my door. He was dressed in white riding breeches, a scarlet jacket with white shirt, stock and tie and wore shiny black riding boots complete with brown hunting tops and spurs. He was stooped over with his hard hat tilted back exposing a rather ruddy completion. He looked like a character from an old British ‘Fallow Field Hunt’ engraving and as it turned out, he was just returning from a ride with the North Toronto Hunt Club. When I opened the door to greet him his demeanour suggested that he may have indulged in a few stirrup cups at the conclusion of the hunt and although he looked very tired, he was feeling no pain.

He introduced himself as Graham Gower and then walked boldly over to the table and plopped down in a chair and removing his hat, said, “Say, you wouldn’t have a sandwich or something to munch on, would you?”
At first I was a little astonished at his effrontery but I complied and as I busied myself buttering bread, digging out cold cuts and making a pot of tea, he chatted away and I found myself delighting in his totally confident and unaffected manner. Previously I had only seen his kind of behaviour in the movies but now I had someone in my kitchen that actually prefaced requests with “I say old boy?” He had the kind of confidence that old money engenders. He was by no means a snob, a little eccentric perhaps, but definitely not a snob.
What impressed me most about him was that he had no hang-ups or baggage of the sort that I carried around with me. I would never dream of barging into a stranger’s house and demanding to be fed. Most of the people in the circles I travelled in when I was growing up, had little enough for themselves and yet, for some reason, I found Graham’s assuming manner not to be offensive in anyway. He was straightforward, honest and direct with me and from the moment we met, I felt that I could treat him the same way. That Saturday morning saw the beginning of an unlikely but lasting friendship.
Graham had two horses he wanted to board with me; I didn’t really have room in my already crowded stable but I decided that if his horses would be content with being housed in narrow standing stalls instead of their customary luxurious box stalls, I would squeeze him in. I don’t know how the subject came up, but one day he revealed to me that he was a doctor, more specifically a psychiatrist and that he had a very busy practice out of a nearby hospital. His horses were his way of relaxing and getting away from other peoples problems. He used to ride everyday, sometimes in the early mornings and sometimes late into the evenings and he always dropped into my cottage afterwards. I didn’t have to make him sandwiches anymore-- he knew where the fridge and the liquor cabinet were located and would help himself.

I had other doctors and nurses using the stable and through them I learned that Graham was well known and well respected in his chosen field; I was quite impressed but I didn’t let him know that.
I have heard since that many doctors enter the field of psychiatry because they themselves have experienced many of the problems that they now set out to cure. I think Graham was a prime example of this syndrome.
I don’t know why, but after we got to know each other better he began to lean on me for advice on a wide range of subjects, not always to do with horses. I suppose it was a way to counter the endless hours he spent listening to other people’s problems and advising them; everybody needs someone to talk to. The humorous irony didn’t go unnoticed by either of us; sometimes when he would phone me in the middle of the night, wanting to discuss some problem that was keeping him from sleeping, I would listen half awake until he got everything off his chest and if I didn’t have any other pearls of wisdom, I would simply say, “Okay, Graham, take two aspirin and call me in the morning!” I would always hear him tittering away on the other end of the phone as I hung up.
If he could have left his work at his office and not dragged it around with him all the time he would have been a much happier man. He didn’t seem to be able to switch the psychiatrist button to the off position even when he was in the stable dealing with his horses.
One day, as we stood looking into the stall that held his mare, Jala, he confided in me, in all seriousness, that he felt that she had a very strong ‘Love/Hate’ thing going for him and that he didn’t know what to do about it. He showed me several large blue bruises on his arms where she had been biting him while he attempted to saddle her. He said, as he displayed his latest wound still red and throbbing, that he been consulting the writings of B.F. Skinner but Positive Reinforcement didn’t seem to be working.
I rolled up my sleeves, took the saddle from him and stepped up beside the horse, saying “This looks like a job for Pavlov!” The mare was busy with her oats but as she saw me lift the saddle up and over her withers, she flattened her ears, barred her teeth and struck out at me with the

quickness of a snake. I was ready for her and thumped her soundly on the nose before she could reach me. She shook her head and sized me up once or twice more and then went back to her food. With a little coaxing I talked Graham into using the same technique and before the day was out the cure was complete and the problem never reoccurred.
I cautioned Graham that, despite the instant success we observed with the horse, it was probably a little premature to think about changing any of the techniques he was currently using at his clinic! He just laughed but he had a strange glint in his eye.
In fact, the day did come when the stables and his clinic merged. I had been running special riding classes for people with various handicaps and one day as Graham stood at the side of the ring watching me instruct a group of blind people, it occurred to him that this type of activity might be beneficial to some of the people he had in group therapy.
He could hardly wait for the class to end so that he could pitch his idea to me. I didn’t take much convincing. I was always up for something new; regular riding classes, in the numbers we were dealing with, could become boring and tedious. “Run it by them at your next session and if they’re game so am I” I said.
A week later when he came back with the news that his group was anxious to give it a go I scheduled a time and lined up a suitable number of volunteers to assist me with the group. I always paired an experienced rider with any of the people in special classes to act as a guide or to assist in any way they could. It wasn’t hard to find kids to help me. The ones that hung around the stables, mostly girls, were always anxious for some extra riding.
Graham phoned one day to say that it was very important that the members of the group handle all the arrangements themselves, that it would be part of their therapy and that he would merely act as liaison relaying the details of the planned outing back and forth between us.
I was very excited about the possibilities of this new form of therapy and so, in a burst of generosity, I told Dr. Gower, as I now felt it appropriate to call him, that the first lesson would be on me.
I hung up the phone elated and full of ideas and eager to get started. My euphoria diminished to a certain extent the next day when Graham phoned to tell me that his group was really pissed off with me. “Gee, I’m sorry. What have I done?” I asked. “They feel horribly insulted that you offered them the charity of a free lesson,” he said, “And you know what?” he continued with a bit of an accusatory edge to his voice, “I’m inclined to agree with them. How are they ever going to feel normal again if we don’t treat them normally?”

I wasn’t quite sure whose side he was on, but I acquiesced, saying, “I’m sorry, Graham, terrible faux pas on my part, please apologize to the group on my behalf and tell them, of course, they will be charged the regular rate, the same as everybody else.” Graham managed to salvage the project, even though some of the group was now murmuring that my prices were too high, and the date was set.
When my stable bums found out that I was recruiting them to help with a bunch of mental patients they weren’t as accommodating as they normally would have been and I was forced to pay them real money. Ah well! It was all in the cause of science.
When the day finally arrived my whole crew stood at the ready as Dr. Gower, as I had cautioned everyone to call him, arrived in his yellow school bus accompanied by about twenty of his patients.
Coincidentally I had just seen ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’ and I was prepared for the worst but as they filed out of the bus and headed for the stable, all seemed normal, not a Psycho Ceramic among them.
Things are not always as they seem. I kept up a bright and cheery banter while I paired my helpers up with the various patients but I could see from the looks on some of their faces that they weren’t particularly happy about the arrangement in general and some of the partners in particular.
I ignored this sign of potential trouble and got on with the first order of business, which was to get each of the patients onto their horse. We only had two mounting blocks available and since everybody in the new class was a novice, my assistants were having a lot of trouble getting their charges mounted. There were a few morbidly obese people who monopolized the mounting blocks, requiring the added assistance of the men who looked after the stable to lever them onto some pretty reluctant looking horses.
The rest of my crew were resorting to the traditional method of assisting a person into the saddle called ‘Giving a leg up.’ This requires the person wishing to mount to stand facing the side of the horse and, grasping the front and back of the saddle, bending a leg to allow an assistant to take hold of the inside of their knee, to be hoisted onto the horse.
At first, things seemed to be going fairly well as I stood looking down the long line of horses tethered to the top rail of the paddock but then I heard I heard screaming coming from the far end of the column and rushed down to see what was going on. One of the more dignified ladies in the group had just slapped one of my helpers when she touched her leg and was busy berating Graham who had arrived at the scene before I did. “I’ve told you a hundred times I’m not a lesbian!” she yelled. ‘If this is just an elaborate plot to test me, you might have picked a more attractive girl to trick me; even if I were what you think I am I wouldn’t be attracted to that snip of a thing!” At that my little helper threw the reins she had been holding into my hands and ran crying into the arms of her mother who stood watching from the stable door. I left Graham to deal with his crazy lady while I went to the barn and tried to appease two very upset regular customers.

When I returned, Graham had taken his upset patient to the mounting block and without touching her further, had her mounted on her horse; she now sat serenely smiling as if nothing had happened.
In the meantime, except for a few minor indecent assaults on both male and female assistants, the process was uneventful and all were on their horses and ready to go. I mounted my horse and in John Wayne, shouted “Yo!” and then led the long column up the hill toward the quiet bridle paths.
Graham rode beside me and when he twisted in his saddle to see how things were coming along behind he seemed pleased. He had decided that a trail ride was the best way to start the project because he felt that his patients would resent the structure that a formal lesson would entail.
After a few minutes he looked back to check the line of horses and this time when he looked over to me, he wasn’t smiling; obviously something was wrong.
I called the column to a halt and when I looked back I could see that several arguments were breaking out between the patients and their assistants. As Graham and I turned our horses and rode back down the line to see what was going on, we could see that although all the arguments were different and peculiar to each pair, they all had a common theme: just because they were mental patients didn’t mean that they had to take orders from kids half their age and they were all damned mad and they weren’t going to take it anymore! They became so outraged and abusive that one by one my assistants peeled off and headed for home. Finally even the most stalwart of my crew, two young ladies who had been planning a career in psychiatric nursing, abandoned ship and headed for the stable at a fast gallop.
That left just Graham and me to care for group. Thank God they were all mounted on quiet old horses that had been over the trail so many times that they just followed along nose to tail.
The patients began to surrender to the rocking rhythm of their horses’ gait as we passed through the winding wooded trails. The only other troubling incident, which involved one of the male patients exposing himself, went virtually unnoticed by the rest of the group. Fortunately he was riding at the end of the line and only drew the attention of the occasional bird watcher we passed along the way.

I couldn’t get this ordeal over quickly enough and I breathed a real sigh of relief as we rounded the final bend and the stables came into sight.
We weren’t long getting the group dismounted and into the safety of the bus. While Graham debriefed his group, I began a long series of apologies to my assistants and their parents with some of them looking as if they could use some trauma counselling themselves.
The crowning event of the day occurred when Graham returned from the bus to tell me that the group was refusing to pay because they had returned from their one-hour trail ride five minutes early...
I watched the big yellow bus belching blue smoke. As it headed out of the valley, I realized that I had lost all my enthusiasm for developing new techniques of psychotherapy and was coming to appreciate the more traditional methods like electric shock, hydrotherapy, lobotomy or out and out confinement in straight jackets! 

Lady Godiva

In the nineteen seventies horses were becoming an oddity in the streets of Toronto. Whenever a horse-drawn vehicle or a mounted policeman made an appearance, it/he would draw everyone’s attention. I recognized the potential that my horses and antique wagons had as an advertising tool and started contacting various agencies around town. Because my stables were located in the heart of the city, I was well positioned to respond quickly to the many requests that started coming in.

Once the word got out, I was kept busy promoting various products and events and each one was a new and interesting challenge. I, or one of my assistants, in addition to supplying the horses, was often required to appear in strange costumes and regalia, as a knight in full armour riding his charger up and down Bloor St., a centurion driving a chariot around the parking lot of a shopping mall, or a Governor General’s Horse Guard Trooper standing guard at the entrance to the ball room on the fifth floor of the Royal York Hotel. I never knew what I was going to be ask to do and if the price was right, I never said no.

One day the owners of a unisex hair salon that wanted to promote its grand opening, approached me. I met with the two flamboyant new owners and they laid out their plans for me.

“Picture this!” one of them said, touching his forehead with the back of hand and staring off into the distance, “A nude Lady Godiva mounted on a pure white horse and led by a handsome page in period costume walking up Yonge St. right to the door of our salon.” “I can make the page’s costume!” the other owner chimed in, “ I already have a set of tights.”

“Well, gentlemen,” I said, “I suppose it’s possible. I do have a white horse that would probably meet your requirements, but the matter of the page might prove difficult. I don’t think I will be able to talk my assistant into wearing those tights you’re talking about and I am damned sure I’m not going to do it!”

“Not a problem!” they sang out in unison, and then one of them continued, “We already have a page lined up: a friend of ours; he knows all about horses.” “Yes!” confided the second man, “and I hear he’s hung like one!” whereupon they both started tittering uncontrollably.

“A buck’s a buck,” I said to myself as I booked the date. The only thing I was concerned about was the page’s ability to manage the horse but my two clients reassured me that Clark, as they called him, had lots of experience and that I was not to worry. I don’t know why but I took them at their word and let the matter drop.

The only pure white horse I had was a spirited gelding. He was quite obedient and controllable if you knew what you were doing but if he thought he could get away with it, he would get a bit trying at times. I had rented him out on the 12th of July a couple of times and Constable Mo Clarke, dressed up as King Billy, seemed to get along with the horse fairly well as he led the Orange Lodge’s annual parade through the heart of the city.
When the day arrived for the salon promotion we trucked the horse to the store and were greeted by Lady Godiva and her loyal page. She was a buxom young lady cleverly clad in a skin colored body stocking that, on first glance, made her appear nude. Her long blonde hair covered just enough of her ample breasts to keep the morality squad at bay and the effect was quite good. I know it worked for me!
The page was a different matter. I had begun to sense a problem when I first saw him striding down the front steps of the beauty parlor clad in yellow leotards, green pantaloons, a white lacy top and a puffy purple hat with a large feather.
He seemed to float in my direction as I stood by the horse’s head. I began to be concerned when I introduced him to the horse. His eyes were wide with fright and it seemed to take all of his courage to force himself to come close enough to give the horse a limp wristed pat on the neck.
Glancing around to see that nobody was looking in our direction, he clutched my wrist and leaning forward, whispered in my ear, “You know don’t you?” I looked perplexed. I wasn’t sure what he meant. He winked at me and said, “About the horse, silly! This is the closest I’ve ever been to one.”
I should have known better. I was constantly running into the same problem: desperate young actors and performers willing to swear to anything to get a job.
“I don’t think you will be able to handle this beast.” I told him, “ Why in hell would you lie about something like this? You could get yourself killed.” “I know,” he replied, “but I needed the money. I’m a ballet dancer and I haven’t worked for a while.”
I may have looked a little pissed off because he turned to me with a hurt look on his face and suggested the unimaginable, “Say, you’re about my size. Why don’t you take my costume and lead the horse yourself?”
This put the situation into a whole new light--not that there was anything wrong with it, but there was no way they were getting me into those tights.
I was frantically trying to think of a way that I could make the original plan work when I remembered a small amber coloured bottle of liquid that might still be in my truck. I led the horse over and, leaning through the open window on the driver’s side, opened the glove compartment. Thank God, it was still there, complete with syringe and needle.

About two weeks earlier a mare of mine was acting up on a movie set. She had been filmed several times previously during the production and it was essential, for the sake of continuity, that she be in the scene that was causing her to panic. I contacted Paul Cairns, an ex-cop in his last year of Vet school, and he suggested I try a new horse tranquilizer called Atrivet.

It had worked wonders, transforming my crazy mare into a docile pussycat; I was sure that this stuff was the magic elixir that would keep me out of those tights.

I injected a hefty dose of the drug into the white gelding’s neck and he immediately started to relax. While we waited for the full effect, I gave the page a quick lesson on how to lead a horse without getting his toes broken. He seemed more at ease. Apparently he had fortified himself with some liquid courage while I was attending to the horse.

I hadn’t had time to read the lengthy instructions on the label of the drug bottle, concerning how long it would last or any side effects to expect so when the horse’s eyes started to get droopy, I decided we best be on our way.

We hoisted the semi-naked lady on to her sidesaddle and after she adjusted her hair we set off down the street. I walked beside the page for a few yards and then, as we started to get the attention of the people on the sidewalks, I decided that it would be better if I followed discreetly along the curb pretending I didn’t know them.

I guess the page hadn’t lied about his ballet experience: Rudolph Nureyev couldn’t have done a better job of strutting and playing to the crowd.

Anyway, I could see that the page was in control of the situation and the old horse was just following along behind him, yawning and trying to stay awake so I decided to stop and get a coffee in a café along the way. The entourage wasn’t moving that fast and I was sure I could catch up later.

By the time I finished my coffee, my charges were out of sight and I had to jog a bit to catch up. In the distance I could hear laughter, honking horns, whistles and the general hum of crowd noise.

I could see Lady Godiva’s head bobbing above the throngs of people who had now gathered around her so I knew she was still safely mounted and making her way down the street. When I dogged to the other side of the street to get a better look, I couldn’t help laughing myself.

I didn’t know at the time but the tranquilizer I had administered had a peculiar side effect on geldings.
Lady Godiva elated and haughty, was obviously being inspired by the crowd and the page was striding along even more heroically than when he had begun, playing to an appreciative audience.
What they both didn’t realize was that, due to the effects of the tranquilizer, the gelding’s penis was hanging flaccid and fully extended below him: a two-foot long truncation swaying rhythmically back and forth in time with the page’s paces.
I decided to leave well enough alone: the grand opening was well attended and I had conducted one of the most effective advertising campaigns ever! 

The Night Shift

As I was going up the stair

 I met a man who wasn’t there

He wasn’t there again today

I wish, I wish he’d stay away

(Unknown)

         There’s something terribly unnatural about being awake all night. Man is not a nocturnal animal. All this nonsense of night shifts only started because of the arrival of the industrial age and its demands for more and more production time. Greedy mill owners forcing an unwilling third of their work force to adapt their normal body rhythms so they could function during those ungodly hours. Since the invention of artificial light a race of pasty-faced mortals has evolved who willingly function and sometimes thrive during these dark hours. I am not one of these people.

          I wasn’t really serious about becoming a policeman and I sure as hell didn’t look forward to traipsing around the city all night, half asleep.

          My ancestors were people of the land as my Dad used to say” They worked from can’t see to can’t see”. Surely those are sufficient hours spent awake and busy.

         As strongly as I was opposed to working the night shift I knew that if I chose to continue pretending to be a policeman I would eventually be asked to drag my old metal lunch box into the station around midnight and stagger around the darkened city streets till eight the following morning.

         When I first signed on as a cadet and was working at a station in the suburbs I only worked in the daytime but that coddling ceased after I received some formal training at the Police College and was assigned to 52 Division in the heart of the city.

         I wasn’t thrust immediately out of the sunlight and into the depths of darkness; the change was gradual, first they assigned me work during the afternoon hoping I would be tricked into looking forward to the graveyard shift. They knew the most interesting and exciting times for a city policeman are the couple of hours immediately before and after midnight and that I would be finishing my evenings on a high and looking for more action.

         For some reason the population has reserved this pocket of time to concentrate their bad behavior. The bars are closing and the drunks are hitting the streets, couples have finally had enough of casual bickering and settled into some real knock down drag out domestic violence, robbers, muggers, break and enter men, and sexual offenders have slithered out of their daytime hideouts and the whole city is abuzz and frantic.

         The Department’s plan worked, all that excitement seduced me into thinking that I might actually enjoy the night shift. What I didn’t realize was that as quickly as the city ramps up its midnight fervor it also winds it down and with the exception of a few tense moments, just after that witching hour, most nights are spent in interminable groggy boredom. 

         For me the worst hours were the last hours from about five o’clock in the morning until eight. I fought sleep all night but even with the gallons of free coffee I consumed at the all night restaurants, during those final hours my body was ready to give up the fight.

         Near the end of my first midnight shift I was standing in front of a store on Young St. watching the city come to life. It was about seven in the morning and the streetcars and buses were spewing out hordes of fresh-faced people heading for their sensible day jobs. I stood semi comatose propped up against a plate glass window and not even the site of the mini skirted secretaries descending the trolley stairs was sufficient to arouse me from my stupor.

         Suddenly all resistance failed me and I actually fell dead asleep on my feet. Eyes closed, chin resting my chest I fell back and slid slowly down the store window until my ass struck the cement sill and I was immediately jolted to full consciousness. 

         My collapse had not gone unnoticed; as I struggled back to my feet and dusted myself off I was confronted by several concerned looking citizens clustered around me. One older looking man in a neat business suit asked if I was all right then leaned in close to my face while I replied. I think he thought he would smell booze on my breath but when he didn’t just walked away shaking his head. I didn’t know what to say to the rest of the people so I just smiled- straightened my hat and wandered away chanting fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck to myself.

         I know its telling tales out of school but I feel compelled to confess that shortly after that incident I was taken aside by a couple of older officers, who shall remain anonymous, and given some essential tips on how to survive the rigors of the night and emerge semi well rested. 

         If you were paired up in scout car you and your partner could take turns napping. If you were alone in a car there were several locations in the division that the Patrol Sergeants were unaware of, where you could snooze with impunity. This meant that you must still be aware of and responsive to the police radio while you slept but after a while this became second nature.          There were washrooms in certain office buildings that were open all night where a cop could catch a couple of winks if he was careful. The trick was to nap sitting with your back propped up against the inside of the entrance door so anybody trying to enter would bump you awake and you could leap to your feet and greet him as if nothing had happened.

         There were also certain residences in the area where understanding young ladies would stand guard while a hard working officer had a well deserved rest. This option, however, was reserved for a privileged few and the demands made in return for the hospitality given often left the recipient more tired when he left than when he arrived.

         At first I thought I would be able to soldier up and be immune to the temptation of snatching forty winks on the city’s time but that soon changed.    One night as I made my way along a back alley behind Spadina Ave. with only some dog sized Norwegian sewer rats for company Morpheus swooped down out of a hazy city sky, wrapped his fuzzy wings around me and sapped my last ounce of resistance. I was so tired I couldn’t move. Opening one eye a slit I noticed large flattened out refrigerator box lying near the center of the alley. It beckoned to me.

         A brand new king sized Certa Perfect Sleeper complete with puffy duvet and satin pillows would not have been more inviting. I couldn’t help it I staggered forward and collapsed on the cardboard, then assuming a fetal position and holding my gun holster protectively with one hand and clutching my hat with its shiny badge like a teddy bear with the other I drifted off to sleep.

         “And in that sleep of death what dreams shall come”?

         I was dreaming that I was a child again and sleeping peacefully in the loft of our little house on the prairie. Then suddenly my dream turned into a familiar nightmare- that old bogeyman that had plagued me since early childhood had me pinned in a corner of the room and was blowing his cadaverous breath in my face.  I woke, screaming, to discover that the foul odor was real but originating from the toothless mouth of grisly revolting bum who was bending over me checking to see if I was alive or dead. I suspect he was hoping for the later since as I awoke he quickly withdrew his hand from the vicinity of the pocket I kept my wallet in.

         We never spoke but before we parted company with the sun rising into a smoggy sky I tucked a two-dollar bill in his breast pocket, sort of hush money.

         Sometimes we were paired up with other cops when we patrolled in scout cars but when we walked the beat we were almost always alone. For some reason I wasn’t afraid of the real dangers that I encountered in those dark city streets. Maybe it was because I had grown up in the midst of the danger and turmoil of the inner city and for the most part knew how to deal with it. There was also the effect the police uniform had on me; it was in a sense my magic cloak and when I had it on I felt taller and stronger. I had my tense moments and on several occasions drew my gun in anger but for the most part I was relaxed and confident when doing my job.

         No it wasn’t the real tangible dangers that made me uneasy during those long lonely nights it was an embarrassing fear of a phantom who had been stalking me since I was a kid back in Saskatchewan. He only appeared when I was asleep or on the edge of sleep but during the midnight shift he had ample opportunity to plague me.  

         My sister Janis had scared the hell out of me with tales of the Bogeyman when I was at a very young age and even given him a temporary identity, our old neighbor from the next farm Mr. Pollychuck.

         We had moved countless times over the ensuing years and I would always arrive at our new home hoping that I had given the bogeyman the slip but eventually I would dream about him again and wake up screaming to find his shadow slipping out of my bedroom.

         I could never tell anyone about him it was too embarrassing. I would cover up by just saying I was having a nightmare.

         He continued to pay me occasional visits in my dreams well into my adulthood and continued to seem very real. It always took me several wide-awake minutes to clear my head and realize how ridiculous I was being.

         Once, when I was in my early twenties I woke up in a bed I shouldn’t have been sharing screaming and in a cold sweat. My companion was understandably startled and when she asked me what the matter was I saved face and covered up by saying” I thought I saw your husband coming into the room.”

         So there it was, one minute I was the bold man in blue facing down incredible dangers and the next when on the edge of sleep jumping at shadows as the bogeyman followed me on my rounds.

         Till now the only person I ever shared this problem with was my psychiatrist friend Graham Gower and when I poured my heart out to him over a jug of draft he confessed that he didn’t know of a cure but could indeed commiserate with me. He went on to explain he himself had a constantly resurfacing demon. His was a nasty witch he had acquired while complying with a mandatory requirement for him to take LSD before prescribing it to his patients. No it was my problem but I was determined not to let it defeat me.

         I purposely ventured into the darkest lanes and alcoves in open defiance of my nemesis ignoring the cold shivers going up and down my spine.

         There was one spot on a beat that I was often assigned to that always put my resolve to the supreme test. The stores and office buildings on the southwest corner of Young and St.Clair streets conceal the sprawling old St. Michaels Cemetery and it was part of my job to make sure that the rear entrances to those businesses were safe and secure. This meant that I would have to venture into the dark back lane that separated the businesses with their second story apartments from the graveyard.

         On the best of nights this was one eerie place to be in but on the night in question there was a full moon reflecting its light off the shiny tombstones and mausoleums and making it look like a set from a Boris Karloff movie.

         As I walked between the stores on my way to the rear lane and this creepy scene started to unfold before me my first instinct was to turn around, leave and fudge my memo book to look like I had been there.

         That would not have been right or honorable but more importantly it would have been letting the bogie man win so I took a deep breath and pressed on. 

         I rounded the corner and started testing door handles trying not to spend too much time looking at the graveyard. By the time I reached the far end of the block my teeth had stopped chattering, my knees were a little less wobbly and my unease was starting to drain away.  I turned around to head back down the alley and the full panorama of the graveyard swung into view. Suddenly I was frozen with fear.  As I watched in disbelief a white gossamer clad apparition appeared in the moonlight dancing from headstone to headstone trailing a long white veil behind her.

         It’s true that in moments of terror your hair does really stand on end and with the amount anxious energy that was flowing up through my follicles I’m surprised that that my hat didn’t fly off.  At first I was unable to move but then I heard a voice in the back of my head say “ Legs don’t fail me now” and they didn’t as I ran like a scolded cat down the lane and into the bright lights of Young St.

         As I stood catching my breath and trying to make sense of what had just happened I realized that I had only two choices. I could go back into that lane and face what ever waited for me like the man I professed to be or I could go back to the station turn in my badge and gun and hop a streetcar down to 999 Queen St. W. Toronto’s renowned mental institution.

         Just when I thought I had more or less come to terms with my bogey man this damned ghost had to turn up.

         Somehow I gathered the courage and firmly convinced that my life as I knew it was over I started the return journey towards the graveyard. I was hoping that it all had been my imagination maybe I had dosed off for a moment and my ghost was just another of my weird dreams.

         As I approached the spiked wrought iron fence that enclosed the graveyard my theory seemed to be holding true there was no one or no thing to be seen.  

         I had bravely forced myself to come that far so what the hell why not walk a short way into the graveyard to bolster my recovering self-esteem even further. Stepping more confidently now I made my way through the tombstones toward a huge marble monument that towered over the other memorials. As I reached its far side I saw something that made me gasp so violently that I almost swallowed my tongue.  There reposed on the base of the monument was my ghost. My head said run but my legs would not obey and I stood anchored to the ground.  I tried to close my eyes and blink her away but she remained and so close I could have reached out and touched her. She levitated to her feet and floated towards me with an out stretched arm mouthing something inaudible. My feet refused to move so I closed my eyes and arched my head and body backwards to avoid her deathly touch.

          It wasn’t the cold and clammy claw I anticipated instead I felt a soft warm hand caressing my arm and as I came out of my terror-induced coma I realized that I was confronting a real live woman and she was asking me if I was all right and seemed really concerned.

         After escorting me back to a rear door that led to her apartment above one of the stores and reviving me with a coffee laced with brandy she explained that she was an interpretative dancer and that she often practiced in the graveyard at night working on her routines. After a second brandy I thanked my ghostly Isadora Duncan for her hospitality and took my leave.

          I was feeling that something really important had happened to me. I had truly become a man and would finally be free of the childish nonsense that had plagued me for so long. I had exorcised my demons and could move on.

         Just then the breeze chased a cloud in front of the moon and a familiar shadow skirted down the lane in front of me.  My blood ran cold and I thought I heard his mocking laughter.

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.