In the Voice of Dad

I was a bad boy.

I was a choir boy until two months before they caught me. The church pastor, my parents, even a teacher from high school came to my hearing, but that fuckin judge still gave me 12 months plus two years’ probation.

I’m not a big guy, that’s true. But I was lucky. Us guys from the Soo we ran the laundry. I don’t know if you know what that means, but there were only twenty guys working in there and more than ten of em was from the Soo. So no one touched me, no one touched even the smallest guy from the Soo.

There were some guys who tried to jump me, when I was living at the hotel. They knew I was dealing and that’s what happened to small dealers, bigger guys robbed them. I kept my Winchester in the bar for three months, waiting for them to come see me. So I guess yeah, it’s a good thing that I never got sent down for murder because I was waiting for those guys. But they got wind of it, and they didn’t come downtown for a whole year. Cause yeah, people knew even then I was just a little bit crazy and they knew I’d do it too. So yeah, no one ever bother me, even though I was dealing for a couple years after I came back to the Soo.

Yeah, I was a bad boy and I knew if I didn’t get married, and do the things that a man is supposed to do, you know, have a family, contribute positively to society, I’d be going back there to Guelph, or maybe even worse.

And then one day, your mother, she was back in town, and she come into the Four Winds when I’m in there and I thought, okay. And two months after we started going out, I brought out the ring and asked her. And she said no, and pushed the ring away, but I kept asking, and two weeks later she said okay.