The first thing my father said when I walked in the door, having flown in from Copenhagen was: "Room and board will be $25.00 a week. You can have the first week free. How much money do you have?" I told him. "If you still have a hundred dollars you should have stayed in Europe another month... Go in the living room and say hello to Kim, he's on the couch. He's been in a bad accident." I had been excited to come home that morning, December 23, 1972, walking down Mary Street with my green canvas trapper Nelson backpack—but to see Kim like that was a shock. I walked past the Christmas tree, all lit up, and saw my brother looking frail and weak.
A wheelchair was stationed beside the bed, but Kim didn't use it much. He told me about the accident in a weak voice. "There were seven things that could have killed me..." His teeth were all knocked out, his hip dislocated, a plate had been put in his leg, among other things. He had been a passenger with two others driven by a friend. The convertible spun out of control and rolled over top of him. The driver was unhurt.
About a week or so after my homecoming, Kim was able to walk with crutches. When he was in the wheelchair he would do wheelers, balancing it on the two wheels. "Now that I've survived through my accident I'm invincible," Kim boasted, "Nothing can kill me now..."
Kim would impose his will on Danny, intimidating him with his crutches. One time Kim stood at the top of the stairs and threw his crutch at Danny like a spear, just missing him. It left a dent in that cheap plywood paneling that would have broken my father’s heart, had not Kim strategically covered it up with a family portrait. I would not tolerate spear throwing of any sort, and encouraged Kim to put aside his Barbarian ways, and take a stab at being civilized.
Late one night Danny came home with a considerable amount of nefarious stuff in a clear plastic bag. When he arrived, my father was still awake, so Danny hid it in the doghouse. In the morning when Fern let the dog out of the shed Lester ran straight for the doghouse and brought the bag to Fern's attention. Fern hid it under his bed. Danny woke up; went to doghouse, but it wasn't there. Danny searched the backyard for an hour before Fern came out and said he'd hid it where no one could find it. Off the cuff I said, "What makes you so sure that under your bed is such a good hiding spot?" It turned out to be the exact place my father had stashed it.
At an early age Kim began his life of mischief. Early in the morning, before the milk trucks made their rounds, Kim would steal milk money from peoples' porches. From milk money he went on to stealing baby buggy wheels and dovetailed his pilfering into blackmailing dimes from little kids. I wrote about it all in 'Ballad of A Smart Asked Kid,' when I had that delicate operation in Norway.
Kim wanted his parents to think that the police were out to get him. So when the budding mechanic towed the remains of his first Lincoln Continental into our driveway and told mother that Diamond Ray, the illustrious Police Chief of Milton had 'shot up his windshield,' she believed him. I figured the holes had been punctured with a screwdriver, because bullets holes are usually round, not rectangular. Ma didn't believe me when I told her that Kim was so mad that his engine blew that he jumped up and down on the roof and stabbed the windshield with a screwdriver. To get ma to grasp my point of view, I had Kim reenact his frenzy. “Show me how you punctured the holes,” I said, handing him a screwdriver. He obliged as ma looked out the window.
Being relentlessly mischievous, Kim rigged up the horn of his Continental carcass with a cord to his bedroom, where he could sound it at will. He sounded the horn a few times and told our father, that the police kept driving by honking their horn. Then he called the Acorn Police and said: 'Some idiot keeps driving by my house sounding their horn.' The police drove by investigating, as my dad sat on the front veranda. Each time he passed Kim would sound the horn, thereby causing my father to think that the police were in fact driving by the house honking their horn. My father became so angry, that he went into his car, a dark green 1969 Chevy Malibu, and honked his own horn in retaliation.
Kim was two years younger than me. The first time I stuck up for Kim he had been kicking over someone's gas can while he mowed the grass at the Rotary Park. The guy was twice my size and about three times bigger than Kim. I ended up getting a fat lip that could be seen two blocks away. Kim thought it hilarious and taunted me with: “You should have it amputated.”
With hair down to the middle of his back, Kim usually wore a blue GWG jean jacket and jeans. He used to have three of his friends dressed identically, sitting in the front seat of the Continental. Each would take turns putting their feet on the dashboard pretending to be asleep. Finally Kim would say, “My cruise control — it is engaged,” put his feet up on the dash and pretend to nod off, causing his pack of proteges to panic. The interesting thing about Kim was that he was a diabolical kleptomaniac. If there were a sign on top of a power line that read 'danger high voltage,' he would risk his life to rip it off.
When Kim was well enough I played him Ballad of a Smart Alec Kid, a song I wrote about a local troublemaker. He liked it so much that he would have me sing it to his clones. 'The Clones' were three friends who dressed the same; who would do anything Kim asked. All of them had waist length hair and sported identical blue Jean jackets and jeans. They would gather around to do nefarious stuff, throwing the household into chaos. Kim liked to tell the story of how he had spun the car into a snow bank one wintry night, so that the car was totally covered in snow. Since the light could be seen glowing through, he had everyone convinced that they had died and were in heaven. The incredible thing was that they all believed him. Whenever I played the song they would snap their fingers in a manner that wryly mocked the moves of long departed Beatniks. It never occurred to me that while I was recuperating from my delicate operation in Norway; writing Ballad of a Smart Alec Kid, that Kim was in agony at the time, on the verge of death.
Sister Sue was living in a basement apartment across from the beloved Mill Pond, and introduced me to the young student next door, a photographer who went by the name PB. PB was in the midst of a photographic essay on The Effects of Sanity on a Lumberjack Commune and would fix me a beer in a frosted mug, and share his meals, mostly beans and eggs, omelets or tuna casserole, whenever I visited. Many 8 x 10 black and white prints were scattered about the apartment, from a string on the ceiling where they were hung to dry, to the floor where they had fallen. We would talk about world affairs and PB would back up what he said with quotes from radical books. Being five years older, PB became a makeshift mentor to me, and encouraged me to pursue music. People around town disliked PB; they found his style of photojournalism to be confrontational, but I saw only his good side, which was sincere, intelligent and embracing.
At the Milton Inn, where third-rate country and western singers performed with asinine drum machines, PB slaved as a bartender. Some of the singers were real characters; some were quite pathetic. Some were real pathetic characters. I wrote a few songs at the time, including Sugar Heart, and Expressway. I had not yet reached a level of professionalism to play in public, but aspired of course for something loftier than the legions of dirty rags being aired on the radio.
On the 24th of May I allegedly started working at a small company doing manual labor, sifting raw asbestos, that is, putting the finer parts into drums. I moved into an apartment across from the fair grounds with PB. Each day I would come home, gray with asbestos dust. I would take a leisurely bath, drinking a medicinal Guinness in the process.
The bathroom doubled as a darkroom in the evening. While PB was printing pictures I'd be in the front playing guitar. Often I would hear a loud, "You're flat," emanating from behind closed doors. It took a long time for me to learn to sing on key, so I would flat-pick the tunes and would follow the melody on the guitar.
PB and I shared that apartment across the street from the fairgrounds until Labor Day, when we had an unpleasant dinner party, just as the Annual Steam Show was sputtering out. PB dominated the discussion, making it difficult to talk to the girl I had invited. The next day PB met me walking down Thomas Street, and invited me for a beer. Walking along BP attempted to look at my latest song and reached for my notebook. Usually I would be more than eager for someone to see my work, but when I held back, he knew that my feelings had been trampled. So he apologized. Our friendship was somewhat restored, but I wanted to go on to other things.
With my grandfather's old green canvas suitcase and my guitar I left for Toronto. Right away, I found a place to live in a rooming house on Brunswick Avenue near the By the Way Cafe. The second day I found work at the T. Eaton Company pasting brown paper on the back of frames in the dingy picture frame department overlooking College Street. An elderly woman, and her frail old dog ran the rooming house. The house was ostensibly for students, and she would cook for us. I lasted a couple months in that tiny second floor room that overlooked the tree lined street.
It was depressing, not knowing anyone, working in a dingy warehouse and being on my own. The landlady discouraged me from playing guitar because it disturbed her students. One evening I went to Oakville and visited my brother Rick who was coaching a game of football. I spent the evening as a lineman and returned to Toronto on the Go Train.
After a couple of months I moved to another boarding house, which was even worse. There I lived in a tiny attic room with only enough room for me to sit on a chair and play my guitar. At dinner, the fifteen or so young men would gather around a table and would gulp down the slop prepared by the charming Czechoslovakian landlady. Typical rooming house signs were strategically posted everywhere. "Don't spit on the ceiling;" "Please do not put feet on the coffee table if you have spurs on;" "No Yodeling in the Shower." If we had to make a call, the landlady would dial the number and hand us the receiver through a hole in the wall. It was like the Adam's Family without the ghoul.
By December I lost my alleged job as a picture framer, seeing that I wasn't cut out for the position. I found a place to live in a theatrical commune on Draper Street, in the growing shadow of the CN Tower, which was under construction. Each member of the commune worked at the Tarragon Theater; which was well represented—from the upper echelons of a lighting technician and head seamstress; to the pits; the handyman and his helper.
It was somewhat exciting to live with theater people, because I would get comps to the opening nights and could go to the celebration afterwards. The actors would sit in the living room, and the friends of the crew would gather by the punch bowl and the spread. At one of the parties a mannequin of a monkey dressed in Toronto Maple Leaf hockey tunic sat on a swing above the punch bowl. The situation in the house was unusual though, with everyone pursuing different careers.
I was able to write songs and practice, collecting unemployment insurance and all, having a lot of free time. I wrote Talkin’ CN Tower Blues, and So Close to Being, which ultimately became Leading Man Gets Lost. I would sit at the dining table with song sheets, guitar picks, and harmonicas all spread out in a mess. This bothered some in the household. I spent a good deal of time cooking elaborate dinners and gourmet hot-dogs. There were six people in the house, with six separate personal supplies of food, with each person cooking their own food. Every night I would take my guitar, my Martin D 35, and would sing in coffeehouses. There were many places with open mics where folksingers would gather to sing.
As Spring approached and my unemployment benefits were about to run out I found temporary work with the Royal Canadian Yacht Club as a gardener. Each day I would sail across the harbor to Toronto Islands, in the Kwasind. My duties entailed raking leaves, putting a pipe under a channel, cleaning out a building, and removing hay from a swimming pool. It was a picturesque place to work. One day we made several trips across the harbor to pick up trays of pansies. That day I read most of Spring Snow, by Yukio Mishima sitting by the porthole by the front of the small hull wearing my poetry coat. When the spring rush was over, however, I was laid off. So I traveled across the country with PB.
When PB and I returned from our trip out West in September, we decided to rent a place together again. We agreed to share an apartment from September till May when he finished his last term at Ryerson. The apartment we found had a kitchen, a bedroom and a living room, with access to the second floor back door up an iron fire escape.
I had a birthday party at the apartment attended by a number of folksinger friends. Sam came by with a bottle of Sake and Mary. Many of the folkies were pretty rambunctious — one who imitated Neil Young all the time waltzed on my spool bed in his cowboy boots and busted it again. It had just been repaired from being broken my previous birthday.
We had no idea of the mess we had moved into — the rooming house was being run by a pusher named Pilgrim. Many strange people were living in the house. The person who inhabited the apartment before us had written bizarre things in his journal; I sometimes wondered if I was to be doomed to follow in his footsteps. On the top floor a junky played wacky sitar. The people across the hall attempted to inflict bodily harm on me because they didn't like my voice lessons. Finally the owner of the building had them all evicted.
PB pushed me to make a demo tape of my songs, so I did, the time I played my first gig at the Bavarian in Acorn. That weekend I set out from Long and McQuade, and proceeded by taxi with a sound system, and all my equipment. The bus dropped me off during a blizzard in January, and Marnie and Ron, two friends from my High School daze helped me the last bit of the way with their Jeep. It was at this performance that my dad danced a jig in front of me while I performed The Ballad of Fern Deslaurier, a song about the effects of sanity on a slumbering lumberjack commune. Marnie and Ron drove me the following afternoon to a recording session at Sheridan College in Oakville. Marnie collaborated on a song with me; it was called Soft Winds. My fingers seemed on fire that weekend, from playing almost constantly. Nothing happened with my tape, though, for I had no idea who to send it to. I wasn't ready to promote myself at this time. Only one song survived from that session, How Do You Picture Yourself.
I wrote many good songs through this period living at the house with the blue porch light, being in a suffering position. I was a bit depressed, because my mother was in a poor condition, having just recovered from a stroke, and I wasn't getting along with PB. PB pushed me to get counseling, so I saw a Doctor one time. I talked about my family. At one point something came back that I had been suppressing. "One time I was sitting in the kitchen while my mother was making one of her puzzles. My father left for work; and my mother left the room. I had not noticed anything wrong until they got into a furious argument..." I couldn't envision my mother doing anything wrong. I had to deal with my life my own way. It was up to me to decide to be happy; to do whatever it took to be content with my life.
In my mind, the only thing wrong was that I continued to live with PB. He was domineering and meddling too much in my affairs. He meant well though, but being confronted with his strictness I withdrew. I continued to live with him was because I had promised to stay until his term finished. When his term finished I moved back to my parents house.
It was that summer on June 15th, 1975, having freed myself from the intensity of the big city, that I took the typewriter and went into the backyard of my youth and started writing about the firecrackers.
BALLAD OF A SMART ALEC KID
He started out stealing milk bottle change
He'd blackmail a dime if it could be arranged
A daredevil kid with an attitude
And a reputation for being quite rude
He prided himself he could spit twenty feet
Used to spit over the signs walking down main street
Just don't beat him he'd spit at you when beat
It's funny how his parents thought he was so sweet
Smart Alec Kid Smart Alec Kid
Look what you did you Smart Alec Kid
What would your Mamma say?
What would your Papa say?
If they knew that kid had gone astray
He used to torment and swear at older guys
They'd never hurt him cause they were twice his size
When they let him go there were tears in his eyes
He'd get out of distance and curse and be wise
When it came to money he sure used his wit
Played pool with his brother and the cost they'd split
If he lost the game he would have a fit
When he got kicked out he talked his way out of it
Smart Alec Kid...
He'd always bud in line at the barber shop
He used to love calling his neighbors names
In the wintertime he threw snowballs at cops
The poor kid never knew when to stop
He became famous in the minds of his friends
Cause he had a car and drove it to no end
There was always a fender or something to mend
He stomped on the roof when he blew the engine
Smart Alec Kid...
Every night he'd be gone way past one
Stealing gas and having reckless fun
He told his mamma there was nothing he'd done
When the police came she said "Quit pestering my son"
The police found a charge they thought would stick
They thought reform school would do the trick
He became a model prisoner got out real quick
But ask any inmate they'd call him a...
Smart Alec Kid
Written in Gjøvic Norway, Oct. 1, 1972 (After the Delicate Operation) ©1972 Stefan des Lauriers (Kim's Accident was October 2, 1972)
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