There were two primary schools side by side. One taught all their classes in English. My school, St. Louis de Gonzague, taught most of their classes in French. I was bilingual. My friends and I would speak both French and English. It depended on which students I was hanging around with at the time. A schoolmate, Adelard Baker, lived a block away from me, and we often walked the same path home. But he was a pain in the ass. He was a bit of a bully—always trying to lord it over everybody—pushing me and shoving me and teasing me. One day I got pissed and we got into a fight. I think it was a draw. But because I was so angry, I may have won the fight. But from that day on we became best friends, and he never teased me or bothered me again.
I was a good student in primary school. Got good grades. Little bit of a shit stirrer. The school was run by the Grey Nuns, and they did not like students who kidded around. In grade four, I fell in love with my teacher, Miss Charboneau. A gorgeous young lady. And then grade five was Miss L’abbé. She was either widowed or… I don’t know. But she wasn’t married. And she was even more beautiful—a tall, mature, statuesque brunette. She always came to class wearing a tailored suit and high heels. Adelard and I were the beneficiaries of a wonderful moment right before the Christmas break. On the last day of school, Miss L’abbé asked us if we would help carry her presents to her apartment. She lived along the same route that we took when we were going home. When we got to her apartment and unloaded everything, she rewarded each of us with fifty cents and a kiss on the lips. On the lips. I don’t remember how I spent that fifty cents, but I lived off that kiss for weeks. I thought, My God, she kissed me! I’m in love!
In grade six, I got a nun who just didn’t like me, and then in grade seven, I had a lady I referred to as Al Jennings, Last of the Bad Women—a big, tough old broad. She used to drink at the hotel with my dad, but that didn’t soften her attitude toward me in class.
When I write—and my handwriting is pretty good—I slant to the left. She was teaching the students how to write properly and slant to the right. I wasn’t buying any of that. So she whacked me a couple of times. I said, “Screw this.” So I left school. I told my parents, “I’m not going back to Mrs. Jennings’ class. She whacked me on the hands to get me to change my way of writing, and I don’t like that.”
I transferred to an English-speaking school in a different part of town. I lasted there about two months, because it just wasn’t conducive to getting along with the other students. They didn’t accept me. I was new and had come from a French-speaking school. So I transferred back to Mrs. Jennings’ class at St. Louis. Strange, but she left me alone after that. Maybe she had been drinking enough with my dad in my absence.