Distressed Pavement: To Ottawa With Love

Excerpt from my new book Distressed Pavement: To Ottawa With Love, which will be published in Fall 2021. 

Lester Swell started at the Ottawa Journal as a copyboy which was the vernacular of the day for gopher. It was the copy boy’s job to run stories typed on pieces of paper from reporters to editors. Often at deadline, reporters would still be writing their stories page by page, giving the copy boys a pretty good workout.

 

They also managed the various wires in the backroom pulling copy from reporters and wire services around the world. 

 

Just as often, copyboys were sent off for beer, cigarettes, dry cleaning and food. It was a thankless job but a great way to get started in the highly competitive news business. Great reporters and photographers often credited their time as copyboys for getting a foot in the door. If a kid was bright enough, he was soon elevated to reporter status. 

 

Lester was a coddled, spoiled brat and quickly grew bored with the job. He didn’t join the newspaper game to be a copy runner, and he knew he had to find a mentor. 

 

His first buddy was Ben Goodyear, the man who wrote the story about his horrific accident. Ben was an ancient Gladiator with gnarly hands and yellow fingers. Clearly, he had already reached his best before date.

 

“When are you off shift?” Ben asked Lester one day.

 

“About an hour, sir,” Lester replied.

 

“Okay, let’s take a jaunt down to the cop shop; see what’s shaking.”

 

The Ottawa Police headquarters was located on Waller Street in a rundown part of town where all the streets were lined with bums and hookers. The walls were an unattractive lime green, and the floors were black and white checkered linoleum. 

 

Lester and Ben checked in with the duty officer at the door then entered the battered elevators that were filled with craters and blood smears. The floor smelled like piss.

 

“A lot of heads have been cracked in this elevator,” Ben chortled. “See the blood? It gives perps a preview of coming attractions.”

 

The staff sergeant’s desk was on the second floor. This was where the action happened. The room was full of cops milling around, drinking coffee, and smoking cigarettes. A few sat in uncomfortable plastic chairs filling out their endless cycle of paper work.

 

Ben went up to the desk.

 

“Hey Millie,” he shouted, “What’s the news?”

 

“Not much, Ben. It’s a pretty slow day.”

 

“Is the old man here?”

 

Sergeant Milliken leaned towards an open door on his left.

 

“Sir. Ben Goodyear’s here.”

 

“Send him on in.”

 

Inspector Guy Charbonneau was a handsome sixty-year-old with salt and pepper locks that hugged his collar. He was 

sitting on a grey desk chair that had seen better days, clacking on an Underwood typewriter. He looked up when he saw Ben and Lester and waved them in.

 

“New recruit?” he smiled, sizing up young Lester who realized he was standing in the presence of law enforcement royalty.

 

“Yes, sir,” said Lester extending a hand. “Lester Swell.”

 

“Milt’s boy?” Charbonneau picked up a pack of Lucky’s and selected a cigarette. “I bought four cars from your old man! Only one was a clunker, and Milt gave me a full refund. Love the guy.”

 

“Yes, sir, he’s the best in town,” Lester smiled. 

 

“Give him my best. And your mom. How is the little lady?”

 

“Good sir.”

 

“Great!”

 

Charbonneau leaned over the desk and offered up Lucky Strikes.

 

Ben took two and handed one over to Lester who at the time was not yet much of a smoker. He lit the kid’s cigarette, and laughed when he coughed.

 

“Newbie,” Ben shrugged. “He’ll learn. You can’t work in a newsroom and be a panty waist.”

 

Charbonneau grinned and showed his yellowing gap-toothed smile. 

 

“That’s a 10-4, Ben. Pretty soon young man, smoking will be your life!”

 

“I’m teaching him the ropes, Guy. Giving him a taste.”

 

“Can’t go wrong on the cop beat,” the Inspector said. “There’s always something new. You never know what councillor or tv star will end up in the drunk tank.”

 

Reporters loved Charbonneau because he was a first-class gossip. It was at his knee that they learned about the private lives of diplomats and politicians who were often found in love nests at the Chateau Laurier. And the time a local tv star was picked up for cruising young boys in the market. (He was later released quietly. As Charbonneau said at the time, “the boys were just fucking with him.”)

 

Most of the stories never made the papers, unless an arrest was made. In those days, the cops looked the other way, and in return found themselves enjoying weekends at posh cottages in the Gatineau eating caviar and blintzes and drinking premium champagne supplied by the embassies. 

 

“We had one of your competitors in the slammer the other day,” Charbonneau grinned. 

 

“Who?”

 

“That asshole Tim McGinn at The Citizen,” he said popping another Lucky in his gob. 

 

“No kidding!”

 

“What’d he do?”

 

“Parking tickets. We ran his plate and realized he had five hundred bucks in unpaid parking tickets. So we put him in the tank, and he had to call his city editor to cut him loose.

 

“He was crying like a baby. It was absolutely hilarious!”

 

Lester had heard the name Tim McGinn before. He was a former Army brat who sweet talked his way into the Citizen newsroom, and became known as a front page hog. 

 

Didn’t matter if a story was true or not. McGinn gave good copy. And the cops hated him for it. 

 

“Jail’s too good for the guy,” Ben told Lester on their way out. “He’s a fucking pariah!”

 

With that, they bade Charbonneau farewell and headed back to the newsroom.