WEBVTT - One Last Escape 0:00:02.279 --> 0:00:03.199 Campsite Media. 0:00:06.640 --> 0:00:10.240 Roger's second book, Bingo, wasn't supposed to be a big undertaking. 0:00:11.080 --> 0:00:13.760 Most of the material for Bingo was already written in 0:00:13.840 --> 0:00:17.159 his original Go Boy manuscript and was set aside for 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:20.840 book number two. The idea was that his sophomore effort 0:00:21.040 --> 0:00:23.280 was going to ride on the coattails of the runaway 0:00:23.280 --> 0:00:26.560 success of Go Boy and hit bookshelves within a year 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:31.600 or two at most, But Bingo didn't launch until seven 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:36.960 years later in nineteen eighty five. Getting it finished took 0:00:37.080 --> 0:00:40.480 everything he had and all the support he could get 0:00:40.760 --> 0:00:42.120 from those closest to him. 0:00:42.280 --> 0:00:44.800 I dedicated this book to the most important person in 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:48.200 my life, my sister Sue. He never abandoned me. People 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:50.720 read Bingo, and after people read Go Boy, they say 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:52.960 to me, how did you survive twenty four years in 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:57.040 prison under all those circumstances? And it's because of my 0:00:57.160 --> 0:00:58.040 sister Sue. 0:00:58.320 --> 0:01:01.200 Roger told people it took so long because by writing 0:01:01.280 --> 0:01:04.920 about the Kingston pen Riot, he was forced to revisit 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:08.920 the grizzly scenes that haunted him. Or perhaps it was 0:01:09.000 --> 0:01:11.640 just that his life was so full. Now, it's one 0:01:11.640 --> 0:01:13.399 thing to write a book when you're locked in a 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:17.440 prison cell quite another when you're an overnight celebrity with 0:01:17.520 --> 0:01:21.880 more money and attention than you'd ever dreamed of. Like 0:01:21.880 --> 0:01:25.319 the famous boxing quote from Marvin Hagler, it's tough to 0:01:25.360 --> 0:01:27.440 get out of bed to do road work at five 0:01:27.480 --> 0:01:31.480 am when you've been sleeping in silk pajamas. But it 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:35.480 turned out there was another reason for Roger's persistent writing 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:39.679 struggles that was lurking beneath the surface, something that no 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:52.200 one including Roger had picked up on yet. From iHeart 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:57.080 Podcasts and Campsite Media, I'm Sam Mullens and this is 0:01:57.200 --> 0:02:19.200 Go Boy, episode eight one Last Escape. Sue was the 0:02:19.200 --> 0:02:20.560 first one who noticed it. 0:02:21.240 --> 0:02:21.440 Well. 0:02:21.440 --> 0:02:26.119 He was visiting me one time in Cornwall and as 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:33.399 we were outside talking away, I start noticing his arm 0:02:33.480 --> 0:02:37.840 kind of curving and his hand heading more upward towards 0:02:38.440 --> 0:02:43.240 his waistline. And I didn't say anything at first, and 0:02:43.320 --> 0:02:46.960 then seemed to go back down. And then I noticed 0:02:46.960 --> 0:02:50.840 this happened a few times, so I said to him, Roger, 0:02:51.440 --> 0:02:53.280 just look at your hand where it is right now. 0:02:53.360 --> 0:02:56.120 He had no idea that it was coming up in 0:02:56.240 --> 0:03:00.919 a curve and he said, oh, isn't that funny? I said, yeah, 0:03:00.960 --> 0:03:04.560 that's funny. My first thought was, my gosh, I think 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:07.240 he's having maybe a stroke or something. That was my 0:03:07.360 --> 0:03:09.799 first thought on it. But I said, I think you 0:03:09.840 --> 0:03:13.400 should have that checked, Roger, you know, so he promised 0:03:13.440 --> 0:03:15.600 me when he got back to Auttaway, you'd have it checked. 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:19.880 So he went in for a series of tests and 0:03:19.919 --> 0:03:23.519 a physical examination, and the issue was clear. 0:03:23.919 --> 0:03:24.880 I was diagnosed. 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:26.480 I got a physical problem. 0:03:26.520 --> 0:03:29.160 Now I was dagnosed to having parkinson disease. 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:35.080 He was very bluntly told. The doctor said, oh, well, yep, 0:03:35.320 --> 0:03:36.279 you got Parkinson's. 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:40.120 Roger had finally built a comfortable life as a writer. 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:43.240 But what would this mean going forward. 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:47.800 I was in Roger's place in Ottawa and his left 0:03:47.800 --> 0:03:50.600 hand was trembling. And he saw me. 0:03:50.880 --> 0:03:55.680 Notice this is David Schleike, Roger's longtime friend and writing mentor. 0:03:55.920 --> 0:03:59.080 And I said, Roger, what is that because it wasn't 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:01.640 his right hand, and he said, oh, I can still type. 0:04:02.240 --> 0:04:04.520 That's exactly that moment he said, oh I can still type, 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:08.960 and but his hand was trembling. He said, well, it's 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:13.120 probably Parkinson's because he'd been for a diagnosis, and but 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:15.640 that's the first time I saw it. But he expressed 0:04:15.640 --> 0:04:17.119 it in terms of I can still type. 0:04:17.680 --> 0:04:20.800 Roger was never much of a typist anyway, so he 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:23.400 tried to carry on as if there was no issue. 0:04:23.520 --> 0:04:25.640 He was having a hard time with the keys. He 0:04:25.760 --> 0:04:29.080 was finding that he was, you know, hitting different keys 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:31.960 that he did not mean to hit left hand. He 0:04:33.800 --> 0:04:36.400 ain't to say letter all the time, so that became 0:04:36.520 --> 0:04:39.520 quite an issue for him. You know, that was kind 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:41.039 of quite an adjustment. 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:45.760 At the doctor's appointments, Roger started to learn about Parkinson's, 0:04:46.360 --> 0:04:49.920 that it's a neurodegenerative condition that effects one in five 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:54.239 hundred people in Canada. It felt like random bad luck, 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:57.760 something he'd had his fair share of. But when he 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:00.279 learned that there seems to be a correlation between between 0:05:00.320 --> 0:05:05.000 head trauma and Parkinson's diagnoses, and that emotional trauma can 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:09.120 affect the symptoms severity, he stopped thinking of it in 0:05:09.240 --> 0:05:09.960 terms of luck. 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:15.599 He talked about how the tremors were inevitable because he 0:05:15.640 --> 0:05:17.720 had been beaten so much and hit about the head, 0:05:18.240 --> 0:05:20.320 and that it was a result of abuse. 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:23.480 Looking back over his life, you could say he had 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:27.000 enough violent stories to fill a best selling book or 0:05:27.040 --> 0:05:29.120 an eight part podcast about it. 0:05:31.920 --> 0:05:34.040 After surviving the pedal system. I had to come down 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:35.839 with it, but I'm handling that very very well. 0:05:36.120 --> 0:05:40.520 Roger was encouraged by Muhammad Ali's journey with Parkinson's, seeing 0:05:40.720 --> 0:05:43.560 that he was able to still live a fulfilling life 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:44.279 with the disease. 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:46.760 Well, if he could handle it, I can. 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:49.360 You know he wasn't going to He just wasn't taking 0:05:49.400 --> 0:05:50.960 a back seat to it, that's for sure. 0:05:51.360 --> 0:05:55.120 As the symptoms progressed, he would stubbornly keep riding his 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:58.560 bike everywhere, even on days when his tremor was an 0:05:58.600 --> 0:06:02.160 eleven out of ten. Here's Roger's nephew, Todd. 0:06:02.320 --> 0:06:05.279 He was so proud that he was still riding a bike. 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:09.000 He gets on this bike, this two wheeler, and starts 0:06:09.240 --> 0:06:12.200 riding it. And this guy has Parkinson's disease and he 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:15.120 can barely walk, and he's riding a bike and he's 0:06:15.200 --> 0:06:18.040 going down hills and We're like, oh my god, what 0:06:18.120 --> 0:06:18.760 does he doing. 0:06:18.760 --> 0:06:20.159 He's going to kill himself. 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:26.560 You could try tying a piano to his back. He 0:06:26.680 --> 0:06:30.640 was still biking to the store if he needed something. Eventually, 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:33.880 he wound up in the hospital after a bike crash, 0:06:33.920 --> 0:06:37.200 and then he started having violent falls unrelated to the bike, 0:06:38.040 --> 0:06:40.760 But the biggest concern wasn't with how his body seemed 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:43.880 to be betraying him. It was with how the disease 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:47.599 was affecting his mental state. And his riding. 0:06:48.040 --> 0:06:53.120 Bingo brought back some enthusiasm, and then the Parkinson stuff 0:06:53.240 --> 0:06:54.760 took the steam out of him for a while. 0:06:54.920 --> 0:07:00.200 Some people with Parkinson's experienced feelings of distraction or disorganization 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:04.520 and struggled with finishing tasks, and these were things that 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:06.720 Roger struggled with to begin with. 0:07:07.360 --> 0:07:07.960 It took him. 0:07:07.880 --> 0:07:12.800 Longer to get things done. Eventually, it fixed your memory. 0:07:13.880 --> 0:07:15.640 A lot of things he was lost. 0:07:15.680 --> 0:07:19.680 His writing wasn't working, his public addresses weren't working because 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:23.000 he couldn't speak very well because of the disability that 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:25.800 was accruing from Parkinson's. 0:07:26.320 --> 0:07:28.880 It was attacking him. Whether he liked it or not, 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:30.920 it was coming at him. 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:34.520 He tried different treatments, but every time something seemed to 0:07:34.560 --> 0:07:37.040 be working, it suddenly would stop. 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:42.600 This was something he couldn't take control over. This was 0:07:42.640 --> 0:07:47.560 something he couldn't run from. 0:07:47.880 --> 0:07:50.480 Five years had slipped by since I was first diagnosed 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:51.320 with Parkinson's. 0:07:51.560 --> 0:07:54.520 These are Roger's words read here by our actor. 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:57.640 My head tremors were getting worse, and my body would 0:07:57.640 --> 0:08:00.520 shake so dramatically that when I rested my arms a table, 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:04.040 all the dishes would clatter. Sometimes my voice was so 0:08:04.040 --> 0:08:07.320 soft and slurred that I was always asked to repeat myself. 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:10.960 It took enormous effort just to talk and walk and think. 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:14.920 My writing and lecturing dribbled to a standstill as I 0:08:15.000 --> 0:08:18.120 was now too jittery to sit still. The lights were on, 0:08:18.560 --> 0:08:20.080 but no one was home. 0:08:26.160 --> 0:08:29.680 The speaking gigs with the Solicitor General fizzled out, and 0:08:29.720 --> 0:08:32.800 the Big Go Boy film adaptation that he talked about 0:08:32.800 --> 0:08:36.920 for many years never made it to production. All Roger 0:08:36.960 --> 0:08:39.440 really had left to lean on were the two books 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:42.520 of fiction that he signed on to write. He initially 0:08:42.520 --> 0:08:48.200 seemed rejuvenated to pivot finally from memoir to fiction. Finally 0:08:48.480 --> 0:08:50.760 he would be free to stop immersing himself in the 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:55.000 past and free to craft whatever he wanted. But every 0:08:55.080 --> 0:08:57.320 day seemed to be harder than the last. 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:01.880 After years of being on the outside, and I think 0:09:02.520 --> 0:09:06.320 medical problems that he developed in his later years, the 0:09:06.360 --> 0:09:12.600 parkinson and pain, and he started self medicating, which was 0:09:12.640 --> 0:09:15.199 a real slippery slope for him. 0:09:15.440 --> 0:09:19.160 Roger had always prided himself on his ability to abstain 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:23.080 from alcohol and drugs for years and years of enduring 0:09:23.240 --> 0:09:26.000 what he endured and keeping the company he did, he 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:30.160 somehow had managed to never touch the stuff. But one 0:09:30.240 --> 0:09:32.960 day Roger's friend David came over to work on his 0:09:33.040 --> 0:09:36.120 latest book with him when he was surprised to see 0:09:36.400 --> 0:09:38.640 that Roger was using cocaine. 0:09:39.120 --> 0:09:42.720 He'd have lines on his table when I got there sometimes, 0:09:42.720 --> 0:09:44.400 and he knew I wouldn't blow the whistle on him 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:45.120 that he had it. 0:09:45.600 --> 0:09:48.679 Roger claimed that he was only using a small amount 0:09:48.840 --> 0:09:51.199 and was only taking it as medicine. 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:53.880 It really helped with the tremors. That it really helped 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:56.520 with the pain of the tremors and the discomfort and 0:09:56.559 --> 0:09:57.720 imbalance of the tremors. 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:00.720 Roger wrote about this time later in life. 0:10:01.120 --> 0:10:04.400 My medications were no longer cutting through the pain. I 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:06.800 was at my wits end when one day I was 0:10:06.840 --> 0:10:10.480 introduced to the Deadly Lady in White. Cocaine was a 0:10:10.640 --> 0:10:14.040 very expensive powder, and I absolutely hated the idea of 0:10:14.120 --> 0:10:18.320 using narcotics for relief, but it worked. I was no 0:10:18.400 --> 0:10:21.839 longer writing in agony. All of my parkinson symptoms would 0:10:21.880 --> 0:10:25.120 instantly disappear. I felt I was a whole man again. 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:28.160 Yet I was a babe in the arms when it 0:10:28.200 --> 0:10:28.920 came to dope. 0:10:29.320 --> 0:10:33.199 Sometimes I'd arrive at his place and he'd be just buzzing, 0:10:33.440 --> 0:10:35.720 and you could tell he had, you know, taken some 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:40.200 lines prior to my arrival. It helped him forget, you 0:10:40.280 --> 0:10:43.360 know that, he said, I know my days are numbered. 0:10:43.400 --> 0:10:45.319 He said to me more than once. I don't want 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:49.200 to die wiggling. He didn't want to be a wiggling drooler. 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:52.560 Despite all of this, Roger did manage to finish his 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:56.640 two books of fiction, but his novels titled Jojo and 0:10:56.760 --> 0:11:00.320 Dream Caper didn't do what he'd hoped they would, and so, 0:11:00.880 --> 0:11:04.640 through the combination of his work struggling the Parkinson's and 0:11:04.640 --> 0:11:08.880 the growing cocaine habit, Roger entered a new era in 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:11.880 his life where everything started to spiral. 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:17.760 Roger gave me a call, and with Roger, it's always rushed. 0:11:18.320 --> 0:11:20.000 Oh my gosh, her, yep, right now, he needs it. 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:23.520 He needs it like yes they I remember. It was 0:11:23.600 --> 0:11:26.880 a nicy stormy day, nothing but black ice all over 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:29.200 the place. The town was just shut down with ice. 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:32.200 But he needed one hundred dollars and I had been 0:11:32.880 --> 0:11:35.280 ill at home. I had a fever. Whatever wasn't up 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:37.079 to par, and I said, I don't even think I 0:11:37.120 --> 0:11:38.880 can get out of the driveway. It's just nothing but a 0:11:38.920 --> 0:11:41.000 She by, Oh, yes, yes, I need it right now, 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:42.760 And I said, what do you need one hundred dollars for. 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:45.160 He told her that he had a very important meeting 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:46.959 in Toronto that he needed to get to. 0:11:47.559 --> 0:11:49.720 He said, I've got I've got to meet the publisher. 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:50.680 I got to be up there. 0:11:50.920 --> 0:11:53.720 Sue looked out the window at the frozen streets with 0:11:53.760 --> 0:11:56.720 a grimace, and then she did the thing she'd done 0:11:57.080 --> 0:12:00.520 her entire life. She showed up for her brother. 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:08.280 And I did, carried my sorry body out the door 0:12:09.040 --> 0:12:11.960 and drove on the black ice and went to the 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:15.080 bank and deposited one hundred dollars. 0:12:14.800 --> 0:12:18.360 For our confused gen Z listeners. They didn't have banking 0:12:18.400 --> 0:12:19.280 apps at the time. 0:12:19.440 --> 0:12:21.400 And that was on a Friday. 0:12:22.120 --> 0:12:24.360 And then a few days later, Sue and some of 0:12:24.400 --> 0:12:27.400 her and Roger's other siblings met up for their weekly 0:12:27.480 --> 0:12:29.760 cup of coffee at Tim Horton's. 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:33.480 So I walk into Tim's and everybody's saying to me, 0:12:33.880 --> 0:12:37.560 did you hear about Roger? And I said, what do 0:12:37.600 --> 0:12:41.280 you still get that not in your stomach when somebody 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:45.440 says Roger, because you think, oh my, what happened. 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:06.600 Tuesday, March thirty first, nineteen ninety two, at around five 0:13:06.559 --> 0:13:10.079 point thirty pm, a gunman wearing a Richard Nixon mask 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:14.800 walked into a Zeller's department store in downtown Ottawa. He 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:17.640 grabbed a stock boy and demanded to be taken to 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:21.040 the store safe, but all that they could produce was 0:13:21.080 --> 0:13:24.960 two bags of rolled coins, so the gunman grabbed a 0:13:25.000 --> 0:13:29.040 child's knapsack from a luggage display, filled it with the loot, 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:32.800 and began marching the stock boy across the store, pressing 0:13:32.840 --> 0:13:37.560 the gun into his back. They went up an escalator, 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:41.400 across the main floor and out the door, where the 0:13:41.400 --> 0:13:46.960 gunman released the boy and made off with a limp. 0:13:47.640 --> 0:13:50.880 Myself and my partner were patrolling in the Center Town 0:13:50.960 --> 0:13:53.319 area of Ottawa which the call came in. 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:56.280 This is Dwayne Raymond. At the time, he was a 0:13:56.320 --> 0:13:59.320 staff sergeant for the Ottawa Police broadcast. 0:13:59.320 --> 0:14:04.000 So there was a robbery the Zellers. The robbery had occurred, 0:14:04.240 --> 0:14:08.200 the suspect had left the Zellar store. I believed somebody 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:11.720 had followed him from the Zellar store and had called. 0:14:12.120 --> 0:14:14.720 The eyewitness said he saw the robber board a public 0:14:14.840 --> 0:14:19.960 bus nearby. The bus was moving through the downtown core 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:23.520 and was right near the Canadian Parliament buildings when the 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:28.320 cruisers eventually pulled it over. Dwayne and his partner cautiously 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:33.040 approached the bus when suddenly he was stopped in his tracks. 0:14:33.680 --> 0:14:35.160 When I first saw him on the bus, I'm like, 0:14:35.280 --> 0:14:39.040 I recognized this person, and it clicked because it was 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:42.119 not that many years beforehand that I had seen him. 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:47.480 I was introduced to Roger through his book Go Boy In. 0:14:47.760 --> 0:14:50.560 That was a mandatory reading where, of course I took 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:54.400 it at Algonquin College in Ottawa in nineteen eighty six, 0:14:54.600 --> 0:14:57.800 and stood out to me as a story of just 0:14:57.920 --> 0:15:02.600 overcoming everything that he had done and had been through. 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:05.320 They invited him to the college to do a lecture 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:08.760 in nineteen eighty six and got a chance to meet 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:09.600 with him and talk to him. 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:16.160 At that point, even just these few years later, Roger 0:15:16.200 --> 0:15:18.400 looked much different than Dwayne remembered. 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:21.760 There was a frailty to him, and he did make 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:25.000 a statement to us that all right, all right, you 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:28.840 have me and I have Parkinson's. So we took control 0:15:28.880 --> 0:15:31.240 of him on the bus. The two of us escorted 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:34.000 him together, obviously to ensure that he didn't try and 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:37.280 run away from us, and then put him into our 0:15:37.400 --> 0:15:41.040 police car. Had a conversation with regards to what his 0:15:41.560 --> 0:15:43.920 rights were and the fact that what he was under 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:49.040 arrest for. I do recall vividly saying to him that Roger, 0:15:49.040 --> 0:15:54.840 I'm very disappointed in you, and I just I expanded 0:15:54.880 --> 0:15:58.680 on that just where I knew him from, and his 0:15:58.800 --> 0:16:01.920 response to me is that a lot of people are 0:16:02.720 --> 0:16:06.960 disappointed in him. 0:16:07.520 --> 0:16:10.160 So I was at the time, I was doing my 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:11.240 masters in. 0:16:11.120 --> 0:16:14.680 Toronto, Roger's nephew Todd, and I was. 0:16:14.600 --> 0:16:18.120 Just listening to the radio and the I think it 0:16:18.160 --> 0:16:21.320 was like the twelve noon news came on and. 0:16:21.400 --> 0:16:25.040 Carol was arrested yesterday near this downtown department store. 0:16:25.200 --> 0:16:28.320 A few minutes earlier, a gunman wearing a Halloween mask 0:16:28.520 --> 0:16:31.360 robbed the store and briefly held a store clerk cost it. 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:33.720 After the whold up, Carl made his getaway on a 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:34.480 transit bus. 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:39.320 Roger Carroll, you know, famous Governor General as Award winner, 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:47.080 just been arrested for robbery in Ottawa, and my heart 0:16:47.160 --> 0:16:51.520 just sank. It was it was just it was one 0:16:51.520 --> 0:16:53.400 of the worst things that I think I had ever 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:56.240 heard in my life. You know, my uncle, who I 0:16:56.240 --> 0:17:00.320 had always looked up to, who was bigger than life me, 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:03.960 you know, a celebrity, seemed to have been a success, 0:17:05.000 --> 0:17:08.919 had won such a prestigious award. I was so proud 0:17:08.960 --> 0:17:13.040 of him for so many years, and then this all 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:19.119 came crashing down, just very surprisingly, and it was it 0:17:19.200 --> 0:17:19.879 was crushing. 0:17:20.200 --> 0:17:24.000 Sue found out from one of her siblings what had happened. 0:17:23.880 --> 0:17:28.880 And I was devastated. It was like, it was such 0:17:28.880 --> 0:17:32.400 a blow. It was such a blow. At the moment, 0:17:32.480 --> 0:17:37.520 I was very angry at him, extremely angry, and the 0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:39.800 person I should have been angry at was myself. 0:17:40.800 --> 0:17:43.480 Sue wasn't mad at Roger about the one hundred dollars. 0:17:44.160 --> 0:17:47.719 She was mad that, after a lifetime of loyalty and 0:17:47.840 --> 0:17:51.680 encouragement and love, that he could just call her up 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:53.679 and take advantage of her like that. 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:57.280 And as the old saying goes, the straw that breaks 0:17:57.320 --> 0:18:03.040 the camel's back, that was it. I said, I am finished. 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:07.639 It's like a piece of me died right there. So 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:12.280 I thought, You'll never never pull that on me again, never, never. 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:16.040 I couldn't believe that he did that to me. 0:18:19.680 --> 0:18:22.520 Roger found himself behind bars for the first time in 0:18:22.600 --> 0:18:28.399 over thirteen years, and it was just like old times. 0:18:29.680 --> 0:18:32.320 He was immediately caught trying to pry open a window 0:18:32.359 --> 0:18:35.919 covering and was sent to a different prison, where he 0:18:36.000 --> 0:18:39.280 quickly got into a fight with another inmate that left 0:18:39.359 --> 0:18:43.000 him with a broken hand. Roger wrote about what happened 0:18:43.000 --> 0:18:46.200 next in the afterward to the final printing of Go Boy. 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:48.760 One night, I attempted to escape through one of the 0:18:48.760 --> 0:18:51.760 windows in the men's room. I was caught and placed 0:18:51.760 --> 0:18:54.359 in a padded room by the orderlies. While one of 0:18:54.359 --> 0:18:56.399 them came in to give me my medication. I again 0:18:56.560 --> 0:18:59.000 tried to make a break for it. I failed and 0:18:59.040 --> 0:19:01.920 wound up in court Rockville for attempted to escape and assault. 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:05.919 I picked up another nine months of time. In autumn 0:19:05.960 --> 0:19:08.320 of nineteen ninety three, at the age of fifty six, 0:19:08.680 --> 0:19:10.720 I was sentenced to eight years of imprisonment for the 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:13.080 robbery charge. After a very lengthy. 0:19:12.760 --> 0:19:23.840 Trial, Roger was transferred to Hull, Quebec, the same town 0:19:23.880 --> 0:19:26.280 he'd lived in when he was first paroled when Goboy 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:29.879 came out, but this time instead of the halfway house. 0:19:30.400 --> 0:19:34.960 He was in maximum security when one night, the guard 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:38.240 who was supposed to be watching Roger fell asleep. 0:19:39.880 --> 0:19:42.960 So I took my chance and in darkness, scaled the 0:19:43.000 --> 0:19:46.320 old concrete wall, ripping my hands and torso to shreds 0:19:46.320 --> 0:19:48.679 as I tried to untangle myself from the coils of 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:52.080 razor wire. Unknown to me, the guards were holding a 0:19:52.160 --> 0:19:55.680 union meeting that night. It looked like a nighttime football game, 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:57.800 with me at one end of the yard and thirty 0:19:57.880 --> 0:19:59.919 or so guards at the other end advancing on me. 0:20:00.560 --> 0:20:02.520 I was a bloody mess as I jumped from the 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:05.320 high wall to the roof in a very dramatic display 0:20:05.359 --> 0:20:08.760 of willpower. During all of this, inmates who were watching 0:20:08.760 --> 0:20:11.120 from the barred windows of the cell blocks were encouraging 0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:15.840 me by yelling, go boy, go boy. Little did they 0:20:15.880 --> 0:20:18.119 know that the two officers from the cruiser were on 0:20:18.160 --> 0:20:20.480 the other side of the fence with their arms open 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:22.679 wide waiting for me to jump. 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:34.000 Sue fully stopped talking to Roger in the aftermath of 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:38.600 his relapse as robber. When Roger got married during a 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:42.760 stint in prison, Sue was not there. She continued to 0:20:42.760 --> 0:20:45.160 meet up with her other siblings for their weekly Tim 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:48.760 Horton's coffee, like they always had. Some of the siblings 0:20:48.760 --> 0:20:52.080 did a better job of keeping track of Roger than others, 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:56.280 but he was no one's favorite topic of conversation because 0:20:56.320 --> 0:21:01.040 the news was always bleak. They'd heard that the Parkinson's 0:21:01.040 --> 0:21:04.560 had become so severe his wife Barbara needed help to 0:21:04.600 --> 0:21:07.560 look after him, and he wound up in a care home. 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:11.520 One time, when Sue's little brother, Gaston was in town 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:14.679 from Carolina, three of the siblings decided to go and 0:21:14.800 --> 0:21:16.720 check on him to make sure he was okay. 0:21:17.080 --> 0:21:21.480 And they said, aren't you coming? And I said no, no, 0:21:21.600 --> 0:21:26.240 And it was very easy to say no. It's just 0:21:27.160 --> 0:21:31.280 my heart was saying no. And they said, oh, okay. 0:21:31.520 --> 0:21:32.360 So they went. 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:36.919 But when they came back, Gaston looked shaken and he 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:38.480 said to Sue, you. 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:41.040 Know what, you were smart not to go. I said, yes, 0:21:41.200 --> 0:21:43.919 Oh what happened? Well, he said, the good news is 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:46.240 he's got a roof over his head and they're feeding 0:21:46.280 --> 0:21:50.320 them and he gets medicine. The bad news is, I 0:21:50.320 --> 0:21:51.359 don't even think you knew me. 0:21:51.800 --> 0:21:54.520 And this is when something changed in Sue. 0:21:55.320 --> 0:21:58.439 So I thought, okay, I better check into this. So 0:21:59.560 --> 0:22:04.880 I made a call to the establishment and they said, oh, yes, 0:22:04.920 --> 0:22:07.440 we've got him here whatnot? And he falls a lot, 0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:11.439 and when he's not falling, he's sleeping. So I thought, hmmm, 0:22:11.680 --> 0:22:14.840 it was the start eat at me. So I take 0:22:14.880 --> 0:22:17.120 the bull by the horns and I thought, I'm going 0:22:17.160 --> 0:22:23.920 to go and see him. So I drove myself to Plantagenet. 0:22:24.320 --> 0:22:26.919 When I saw him, he was sleeping in a wheelchair 0:22:28.000 --> 0:22:30.719 and he was kind of slanted. Half his body was 0:22:30.880 --> 0:22:32.960 out of the wheelchair with his leg straight out, and 0:22:33.000 --> 0:22:39.080 his head was just plopped to one side. I recognized him. 0:22:39.119 --> 0:22:42.320 So the one of the workers there woke him up, 0:22:43.359 --> 0:22:45.920 and I stood in front of him and she said, 0:22:45.960 --> 0:22:48.479 do you know who this is? And he looked at 0:22:48.520 --> 0:22:53.680 me and he said Susie, which made me feel very good, 0:22:54.600 --> 0:22:56.560 and so I said, how are you, Roger? And it's 0:22:56.600 --> 0:22:58.560 just like I had spoken to him the day before. 0:22:59.440 --> 0:23:02.400 The two of the caught up over a shared treat. 0:23:03.000 --> 0:23:05.240 Roger had been living there for a while and he 0:23:05.359 --> 0:23:08.840 said that everyone there was pretty nice, but the big 0:23:08.880 --> 0:23:12.080 problem he'd been having lately was with gravity. 0:23:12.840 --> 0:23:18.240 So he starts showing me his legs, which was absolutely terrible, 0:23:18.520 --> 0:23:24.119 great big scabs from falling. He had a carpet in 0:23:24.160 --> 0:23:28.240 his room, a small area carpet falling, so it's like rugburns. 0:23:28.480 --> 0:23:32.240 So anyway, this shook me up big time. 0:23:32.920 --> 0:23:35.320 Sue did her best to just enjoy the company of 0:23:35.359 --> 0:23:39.040 her brother and keep things light. But once she got 0:23:39.080 --> 0:23:42.720 back into her car, she knew what she had to do. 0:23:42.760 --> 0:23:46.600 And I thought, there's no way. There's no way I'm 0:23:46.640 --> 0:23:49.080 leaving him there. There's just no way. 0:23:49.680 --> 0:23:51.639 It was like the switch that had turned off, and 0:23:51.760 --> 0:23:59.360