UnTwisted – Chapter 4

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 bennies13 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.

“Trust me,” I said. “You can’t make any money with drugs. The people who use them are prostitutes, pimps, petty criminals, and bums on heroin; it’s for mooches, garbage people.”

Ian tried another tactic. He began telling me about the United States and what was going on there.

“You read the newspapers?” he asked.

“I don’t read the newspaper,” I said. “I read books.”

“Surely you watch TV.”

“No, I don’t watch TV. There’s nothing on TV that interests me.” The truth was I didn’t have much opportunity to watch television. I was into gambling so heavily that I was lucky if I saw daylight three or four times in a month.

Then Ian commenced to give me a lecture on the Vietnam War. It meant nothing to me because I had no idea where Vietnam was. I knew about the United States and Canada, but that was the extent of my world knowledge.

“The young men in the United States don’t want to fight in the war,” Ian said. “There are draft dodgers, and protests, and a revolution happening down there with the young people. The kids are letting their hair grow long. The music is changing, and so is the way they dress. They want to make love, not war. They’re shedding the values of a generation and they want to party hearty.”

All of this was news to me, especially the part about dress. I was into suits and ties, straight-laced shoes, and overcoats. I saw myself as a gangster like the ones I saw in the movies, and I dressed like one. What he was talking about sounded like something out of a story book. It was completely foreign to me. Besides, what did I care about hippies and flower children running around in Volkswagens singing protest songs? My music was Rock and Roll, black music, Elvis Presley, and
the Blues. In The District, we were strait-laced and anti-drug. This wasn’t for us. I was very, very skeptical.

“Kids in Canada are watching all this on TV,” he went on, “and they want to be cool like the Americans.”

“Really?” I said again. I didn’t believe a word of it.

“Let me show you,” he persisted. “Give me a week and I will prove it to you.”

I was an entrepreneur. It wasn’t like I had a nine-to-five job and couldn’t take time off from work, so I said, “Okay, I’ve always got time for something that looks like a money-making enterprise.”

“You’ll give me a week?”

“Sure…” I was known as a man who kept his word, and in giving my word here, I was promising him a week of my time to show me this scam. For his part, he was agreeing not to approach any other crew with the opportunity.

Interested in reading more, visit Sergetalks.com to get a copy of Untwisted.