Sergetalks Blog ~ The Official Blog of Serge LeClerc

It was the 1960s, and I was about eighteen when a group of men approached me. The spokesperson was named Ian.

“I work with a man in California named Dr. Timothy Leary,” he said. “Dr. Leary has come up with the chemical formula for manufacturing ‘acid’—LSD. I know how to do that, and I want to set up some laboratories in Canada.

“You have plenty of contacts and a really good enterprise going,” he continued. “You’re the man, Serge. We know all about you. You control a large part of Toronto—all the West End and a good part of the East End. Between your alcohol and fencing all your stolen goods, you have an impressive distribution network. What if I give you another product?”

“Really?” I said. I was very skeptical. “What’s the product?” “Drugs.” I laughed. I knew all about the drug scene that existed at that point.

There was no marijuana, no hashish. It was all heroin and pills— uppers and downers. Truckers used bennies or uppers; prostitutes and grifters took the downers or bombers. It was a very negative scene with no money to be made. Besides, I didn’t want to mess with the Inner City. (more…)

On this occasion, we were in the bank a bit too long, and by the time we made it outside, the police were pulling up. There was none of this “Stop in the name of the law” stuff you see in movies. They came out of their squad cars firing. We fired back.

I got shot twice. The first bullet went into my left hip, ricocheted off the bone and came out my left buttock. It knocked me back about six feet and lifted me into the air. I went down shooting, spraying bullets all over the place, shooting out windows in buildings as far as a block away.

The second bullet went in the front of my left thigh and exited through the inside of my leg.

My partners grabbed me and dragged me to the car. All the while, I was still spraying bullets in every direction.

We got away, and my partners brought in someone to treat my wounds. I don’t know who it was, maybe a veterinarian or somebody. Whoever it was, the wound got cleaned and we figured that was that.

Unfortunately, a fragment of cloth from my trousers was carried in with the bullet and became lodged against the bone. The wound soon became infected.

My partners did their best for me. They got some penicillin and pain pills, but the problem was much more serious than that. Within a week, my thigh was swollen almost to the size of my waist and gangrene was setting in. The leg was blue and green, and starting to smell. Pus oozed from the wound in putrid ropes.

Some of the guys in the Montreal gang were American, so they made some connections and transported me to an underground abortion clinic in Vermont. By this time, I was delusional and running a dangerously high fever.

The doctor at this illegal clinic was a little man with a big hook nose and Coke bottle glasses. He opened the wound and went in with forceps to remove the scrap of fabric. Then he started me on an intravenous antibiotic drip.

Shaking his head, he said to my partner, “We may have to amputate the leg to save him.”

Even in my delusional state, I understood the implications of that.

“No, you won’t,” I said. “Here’s the deal. If you take the leg off, my partner is going to shoot you in the head. Got that? You either save me with my leg on, or I die with my leg on, but this leg ain’t comin’ off.”

We stayed a while in Vermont, then headed back to Ontario and dug in around the Cornwall and Thousand Islands area. It took about three months before I fully recuperated.

The experience persuaded me to give bank robbing a pass, and I eventually returned to Toronto.

Stinky Maguire’s father was a nefarious fellow who helped us pull off the scam. We stole bicycles and he cut them apart and made bicycles-built-for-two with the pieces. In cutting the bikes apart, the serial number was lost, so they were untraceable. We would paint the converted bikes and advertise them for sale in the newspaper. This was in the days before bicycles-built-for-two were trendy. Had I patented the idea, I could have become a legitimate millionaire.

We probably stole two hundred bikes from everywhere in the city—except our own district.

At thirteen, I got the first of my five tattoos. For me, I believe it was a rite of passage to manhood. I chose a peacock because I arrogantly believed I was ‘as pretty as a peacock.’ I considered the tattoo to be a piece of art that I could carry around with me.

At thirteen, I also had my first sexual experience. I moved in with a hooker who was about ten years older than me. I don’t remember her name, but I do recall she had a little blonde-haired daughter who was about five at the time.

Through my relationship with the hooker, I got a first-hand look at the human face of prostitution, and I acquired a deep hatred of pimps8. I became known as a protector of girls on the stroll. I learned that no girl ever wakes up one morning and thinks: ‘My life’s goal is to become a prostitute.’ No, it is always a survival thing. (more…)

I regained consciousness on the way to 311 Jarvis Street and the Juvenile Detention Centre.

Why they would be taking me there was rather confusing to me at the time, because I thought what I had done was perfectly normal given the treatment I had experienced at the hands of this Christian Brother.

The courts did not agree.

“The boy must be brain-damaged,” they said. “For a ten-year-old boy to be so violent as to attack a grown man, he is definitely brain-damaged.”

A disastrous psychological process had begun in me. I had developed an attitude that is common to many people when they are messing up their lives, when they’re making wrong choices and getting involved with drugs and alcohol, or suffering a lot of pain. It is the ‘I don’t care’ attitude which becomes a protective armor. We try to pretend that nothing bothers us, that we don’t care. And at the tender age of ten, I was already an expert at it. (more…)