Speaker 1: Campsite media.
Speaker 2: When I looked back over my past, all that dead time,
Speaker 2: all that anguish, all the waste of my life that
Speaker 2: I could see there, I felt as if I was
Speaker 2: bursting with a fierce compulsion to fill the ugly void
Speaker 2: with something meaningful, so that the mirror would quit accusing
Speaker 2: me of being a total failure. That is why I
Speaker 2: habitually returned to crime upon each release from prison, not
Speaker 2: really for the money, but like a compulsive gambler who
Speaker 2: tries to recoup his losses the only way he knows
Speaker 2: how to prove that he wasn't a fool once and
Speaker 2: for all. There lies the proverbial carot that keeps the
Speaker 2: prisons of the world overpopulated.
Speaker 1: Roger had lost a lot of years, but one thing
Speaker 1: he hadn't experienced yet was losing years of his work.
Speaker 1: Imagine the gut hunch of losing that manuscript, close to
Speaker 1: eight years of his work, of his therapy, of his
Speaker 1: hope for the future, literally thrown in the garbage. But
Speaker 1: when the manuscript was miraculously returned to him, after everything
Speaker 1: he'd been through, after everything he'd done, how could he
Speaker 1: not interpret it as a balancing of his fortunes? When
Speaker 1: the teacher accidentally found Roger's discarded manuscript in the ruins
Speaker 1: of the Kingston pen and then a few months later,
Speaker 1: the twenty five years he'd been sentenced to was overturned
Speaker 1: in appeals court. It would have made sense if this
Speaker 1: was the sign for Roger, the thing that made him
Speaker 1: think I need to finally turn my life around, to
Speaker 1: walk down this new path. Someone or something was clearly
Speaker 1: saying to Roger, here is your manuscript, Here is your freedom.
Speaker 1: Do I need to spell out for you what you're
Speaker 1: destined to do next? But, like they say, old habits
Speaker 1: die hard. From iHeart Podcasts and Campsite Media, I'm Sam
Speaker 1: Moens and this is Go Boy, episode six. The manuscript.
Speaker 3: Roger, still wearing his inmate clothes, was riding shotgun in
Speaker 3: a Volkswagen as it tore toward the US border. It
Speaker 3: wasn't his first choice to still be wearing his prisoner clothes.
Speaker 3: It wasn't ideal that the he just stole was bright red,
Speaker 3: or that it had raccoon tail hanging from each of
Speaker 3: the area antennas off the back.
Speaker 1: It wasn't optimal that he had brought with him on
Speaker 1: this escape a green twenty year old who'd never attempted
Speaker 1: a prison break or even a bank robbery. But here
Speaker 1: he was, and here they were. When you bust out
Speaker 1: of prison, the last thing you want to do is
Speaker 1: speed toward the federal agents of another country at a
Speaker 1: border crossing. But given what they'd just done, it was
Speaker 1: the best of their bad options. Back at the Brockville jail,
Speaker 1: Roger and his cellmate, a kid named Doug, had just
Speaker 1: cut the bars to their cell and left three tied
Speaker 1: up guards in their wake. They emerged in the parking
Speaker 1: lot as the storm opened up. Roger and Doug scanned
Speaker 1: the staff lot to determine which of these vehicles corresponded
Speaker 1: with the VW keys they'd taken from the trembling hand
Speaker 1: of the guard. But then they spotted it. The car
Speaker 1: was about as inconspicuous as Santa's slay, but they needed
Speaker 1: to jack wrap it, so they climbed in.
Speaker 4: I said to Doug, okay, I never go both brighten.
Speaker 4: So he gets in, cran up and go. You know,
Speaker 4: it's so old and is shaky.
Speaker 1: But when Doug went to put it in gear, something
Speaker 1: was wrong with the gearbox.
Speaker 5: Couldn't find and reverse tried it like say come on, dog, dear,
Speaker 5: don't get his car back.
Speaker 4: Couldn't find reverse on the job, one thing, don't.
Speaker 1: As Doug continued grinding the transmission, Roger looked back at
Speaker 1: the jail windows in a panic, convinced that at any
Speaker 1: moment one of the guards he'd left behind would suddenly
Speaker 1: appear or call the police. They needed to get this
Speaker 1: thing on the road in whatever way possible, even if,
Speaker 1: as Roger claims, they needed to literally lift one end
Speaker 1: of the car off the ground to swivel it to
Speaker 1: the right direction.
Speaker 4: We picked it up, he turned it.
Speaker 1: There's no going back now, literally get it because the
Speaker 1: car doesn't go in reverse anyway. They knew the provincial
Speaker 1: police would have roadblocks all over eastern Ontario and bulletins
Speaker 1: out everywhere warning the public of two armed and dangerous
Speaker 1: jail breakers, so they opted to roll the dice at
Speaker 1: the border, and if they made it through, they'd then
Speaker 1: find a place to ditch this apple bong on wheels.
Speaker 1: As they approached the crossing, they had no way of
Speaker 1: knowing if the guards they left tied up had been discovered,
Speaker 1: yet no way of knowing if just around the corner
Speaker 1: there'd be a gang of armed border agents waiting for
Speaker 1: them behind the wheel. Doug, who'd never been in a
Speaker 1: situation like this, seemed to be having second thoughts as
Speaker 1: the suspension bridge came into view.
Speaker 4: And pull across me see this big ridge and Doug's
Speaker 4: just so scared.
Speaker 5: Got Ahola's arms and pull it Dugs just three You
Speaker 5: never did any of this?
Speaker 4: Stuck in form it's liking, won't freeze.
Speaker 1: Oning up, Doug brought the red VW to a shaky
Speaker 1: stop at the line as Roger discreetly scanned the scene
Speaker 1: to see if they were in the clear. The bright
Speaker 1: red Volkswagen wasn't ideal for their getaway in general, but
Speaker 1: when the border agent approached, Roger realized that, ironically, for
Speaker 1: this moment, it was the right car for the job.
Speaker 1: In tandem with their mismatched, shabby clothes, the car was
Speaker 1: participating in an inadvertent disguise.
Speaker 4: It looked like a couple of university students said where
Speaker 4: yous going and say we're going to see the girls
Speaker 4: across the bride.
Speaker 1: Ah, the girls across the bridge.
Speaker 3: Eh.
Speaker 1: Doug shifted nervously in his prison attire as Roger smiled
Speaker 1: with confidence.
Speaker 4: See any stranger would bring me some back. He said, yeah, sure, okay,
Speaker 4: right on.
Speaker 1: The border agent waved them through without even asking to
Speaker 1: see their ideas. So our two runaway bandits whooped it
Speaker 1: up the whole way across the Saint Lawrence.
Speaker 5: We went all along with Saint Orn Turver and we
Speaker 5: finally got to see New York.
Speaker 4: And I said, Doug, we can't go another while in
Speaker 4: this crazy car. When we first elucted the park and
Speaker 4: you've gone almost on your files. You got to get
Speaker 4: rid of it.
Speaker 1: So after doing a lab, they ditched their car in
Speaker 1: a parking lot that just happened to belong to the
Speaker 1: police station. From there, they ducked into a local tavern
Speaker 1: and called a cab to take them to their agreed
Speaker 1: upon next destination.
Speaker 5: We called a taxi, and we do the money we
Speaker 5: took in the bus stake and all the guard We
Speaker 5: took a taxi in New York City.
Speaker 1: And you'd think that, given how insanely well their escape
Speaker 1: had gone, that Roger would be the happiest man in
Speaker 1: New York. You'd think he'd be all chuffed, reveling in
Speaker 1: the masterpiece he just painted, cut bars, gagged guards, grand
Speaker 1: theft auto and a border crossing these are a few
Speaker 1: of my favorite things, right, Roger. But instead he felt
Speaker 1: like the dog who had caught the car and was
Speaker 1: consumed by a strange new feeling paranoia. Roger was afraid
Speaker 1: to leave the room, afraid to show his face on
Speaker 1: the street, and most of all, he was afraid of
Speaker 1: what he and Doug would have to do next. Because
Speaker 1: it didn't take long for them to burn through the
Speaker 1: money they'd stolen from the guards in their daring escape,
Speaker 1: and it was only a matter of time before they'd
Speaker 1: need to go get some more.
Speaker 4: And so thirty one days later, we're running out of money.
Speaker 4: We've just got a few dollars left.
Speaker 5: In fact, they eleven eleven dollars with my pocket. He
Speaker 5: Ducks said, if you go to rob a bank, showed
Speaker 5: me out a rock bank, and it was the only
Speaker 5: thing I knew how to do.
Speaker 1: But they couldn't do it here. So they got out
Speaker 1: of the city and headed to Indiana, I'm guessing, a
Speaker 1: state for which Roger's main association was that Dillinger was
Speaker 1: from there. Dillinger was a figure that loomed large, not
Speaker 1: just in Roger's mind, but in Roger's whole generation of
Speaker 1: bank robber he was a legend and was considered accurately
Speaker 1: or not to be a Robin Hood type. But Roger
Speaker 1: rolled into the Dillinger State in the midst of a
Speaker 1: full blown existential crisis. He walked into a gun shop
Speaker 1: to purchase a couple of tools of the trade, but
Speaker 1: when the shop owner placed the handgun in Roger's palm,
Speaker 1: he started to tremble.
Speaker 3: The gun felt in his hand like a slithering snake.
Speaker 3: He put it down on the counter and walked out
Speaker 3: of the store.
Speaker 4: I walked out a store. It even park at you
Speaker 4: ever paying off for carme? Haven't? I said, I don't know,
Speaker 4: dugas is I have to cut that gun? And I
Speaker 4: just realized that I hurt anybody anymore, and I don't
Speaker 4: want to get hurt.
Speaker 1: I don't want any more to the youthful invincibility he'd
Speaker 1: always felt walking into a stick up that he'd always
Speaker 1: counted on just wasn't there. This time. The well of
Speaker 1: mindless confidence had run dry. Even though he had had
Speaker 1: a few weeks to work through the feeling, Roger couldn't
Speaker 1: shake the inevitability that something really bad was going to happen,
Speaker 1: and he kept having these visions.
Speaker 4: I kept seeing at least everywhere.
Speaker 6: And I was convinced that my record was so devastating
Speaker 6: that the police I'm going to take a chance with me.
Speaker 4: They're going to use me in an example.
Speaker 5: And I thought, insist, what all my life is boiling
Speaker 5: down to an auto mike parade, dead and an hourly.
Speaker 1: But he just didn't seem to have any options. He
Speaker 1: didn't know where else to go or what else to do.
Speaker 1: They didn't need to go on a spree or anything.
Speaker 1: They just needed to hit one bank so Roger could
Speaker 1: buy himself some more time to clear his head. Saturday,
Speaker 1: September two, nineteen seventy two, near Indianapolis, Indianaerug arrived at
Speaker 1: a big, modern shopping plaza in the suburbs where they
Speaker 1: first set eyes on their target, the centerpiece of the plaza,
Speaker 1: the bank. The shopping complex was plunked right in the
Speaker 1: middle of some farmland. On all sides were cornfields, tall
Speaker 1: and ready for harvest. Roger had spent the morning checking
Speaker 1: out the immediate surroundings and getting a feel for the place.
Speaker 1: He then went to a toy store to grab one
Speaker 1: last thing they needed.
Speaker 4: Walk in a block five dollar toy pistol dur plastic
Speaker 4: jurdan rug.
Speaker 1: Doug was like a plastic gun. Roger smiled confidently and said,
Speaker 1: don't worry about it. They won't be able to tell
Speaker 1: the only thing they didn't have was a getaway car,
Speaker 1: and they were far enough into the suburbs that a
Speaker 1: car would be essential.
Speaker 4: So I said to double Kate, you're you know a
Speaker 4: little bit about car steal a car.
Speaker 1: So as soon as Doug secured a ride for them,
Speaker 1: it was go time. Roger had burst into a bank
Speaker 1: many times before, but he was mindful that this was
Speaker 1: Doug's first time, and frankly, he seemed scared. He seemed
Speaker 1: unsure of himself as they strode past all the shoppers
Speaker 1: and would be witnesses in broad daylight. As they approached
Speaker 1: the bank, Roger noticed Doug eyeing up a group of
Speaker 1: teenage boys who were lingering near the entrance fighting.
Speaker 4: Other teenagers playing in front of the bank.
Speaker 6: So I said, think, Doug, you don't worry about it,
Speaker 6: and you just concentrate on the teller's cagy all take
Speaker 6: You'll take care of they all take care.
Speaker 4: Of the customer.
Speaker 1: Roger gripped the toy gun tightly as he let his
Speaker 1: muscle memory take over.
Speaker 5: He placed in the bank on Yon and everybody's landing
Speaker 5: on the floor and ducks roving onto all the cage.
Speaker 4: The three vacational.
Speaker 1: As Doug is stuffing the case with cash, Roger was
Speaker 1: on crowd control, a role not unfamiliar to him. But
Speaker 1: as Roger stood there with his toy gun, he started
Speaker 1: noticing the expression of the bystanders, the people on the floor,
Speaker 1: and they looked terrified, scared to death. Some of them
Speaker 1: were crying. And this observation caused Roger to have almost
Speaker 1: an out of body experience.
Speaker 5: And the first thing, all my bank are obsation, think, oh,
Speaker 5: I'm not hurting anybody.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't take any hostages.
Speaker 5: I died before I'd heard a child or a lady
Speaker 5: or something like that, and all a fella reading noble.
Speaker 4: Just as James and Allett and Brodie Clyde.
Speaker 1: Roger had always believed that when he stuck up a place,
Speaker 1: that he was committing a victimless crime, that at worst
Speaker 1: he was just giving the bystanders a good story from
Speaker 1: when they got home to their loved ones. But in
Speaker 1: this bank, on this day, looking at these faces, something clicked.
Speaker 4: I'm looking to stand here all of a sudden, all
Speaker 4: these ladies, a beautiful lady. I think I used to
Speaker 4: think myself with the protector of ladies and that. And
Speaker 4: they're crying just like I was. An escape gorilla from
Speaker 4: this never terrified me. And all of a sudden, I
Speaker 4: feel like apologize. I feel like say, hey, this isn't
Speaker 4: even a real good.
Speaker 7: No good.
Speaker 4: I just felt really bad, like you know.
Speaker 1: Suddenly Doug appeared, snapping Roger out of his days.
Speaker 4: My partner showed up in front of me. He owes
Speaker 4: the sack and he says, I got it off. I okay, Doug,
Speaker 4: give you ten seconds. I start to.
Speaker 1: Assure a quick escape. Roger told Doug to leave the
Speaker 1: car idling in the parking lot so they wouldn't waste
Speaker 1: a single second before putting this place in their rear view.
Speaker 4: And now something happened that no other bankrupt.
Speaker 5: I don't care whether or bank I ret tell you,
Speaker 5: no one is that it's experienced, not in a movie,
Speaker 5: not anywhere a director would even write.
Speaker 4: About in the screen.
Speaker 5: By Rease day act to Corn and deck Cauld, never
Speaker 5: happened while I'm in the bank, didn't by kids store
Speaker 5: or get away car.
Speaker 1: Goddamn teenagers. Roger and Doug stood for a moment in
Speaker 1: disbelief as they could hear the police sirens getting closer,
Speaker 1: and it was suddenly every man for himself.
Speaker 4: I turned around to get away target.
Speaker 3: I have gone that way.
Speaker 4: My partner's gone that way.
Speaker 5: Three cruiser just pulling out the big callut of desk
Speaker 5: and tunning all the machine guns to the knight them
Speaker 5: and you're yelling at him to a bullarm.
Speaker 4: Put your hands up.
Speaker 1: No, Roger had been having a premonition for weeks. This
Speaker 1: was how it was going to end. Gun down, holding
Speaker 1: a gun left in an alley somewhere. Put your hands up,
Speaker 1: they yelled again.
Speaker 4: And time stand, you're at a toy gun. I looked
Speaker 4: at my left and there's all these rolls, a shot
Speaker 4: in class.
Speaker 5: I looked at my right, Oh, Rose is shot in
Speaker 5: plasss and in front of these places the house you
Speaker 5: know where to go.
Speaker 4: And I said, they're gonna kill me.
Speaker 1: But then Roger notices the front door of a beauty.
Speaker 4: Partner from all these ladies with herders and sheets around
Speaker 4: and looking.
Speaker 1: Through the window, and Roger thinks that'll do.
Speaker 4: And I first into the beauty cower before the pups
Speaker 4: can get a shot.
Speaker 1: Everyone was screaming and diving out of the way as
Speaker 1: Roger weaved his way to the back.
Speaker 5: I got the ladies all nicely agitated, all excited, you know,
Speaker 5: so that by timely hit the back door and the
Speaker 5: police were coming in the front door. The ladies were
Speaker 5: throwing sheets over their heads and hanging around the stowing
Speaker 5: down to their progressisting enough to get me out.
Speaker 4: Of the back door.
Speaker 5: And then I opened the back and all cornfields, miles
Speaker 5: and miles of corn fields seven feet high.
Speaker 1: Hearing the police closing in behind him, Roger bolted for
Speaker 1: the corn sprinting into the stalks as fast as he could.
Speaker 1: When he heard the first gun shots ring out.
Speaker 4: Behind him, I first into the cornfield. All of a sudden,
Speaker 4: a corner in front of me boom over my head
Speaker 4: and I said, oh right, you're good.
Speaker 2: I die, You know you die.
Speaker 5: The corn was stepty high. I can't hear if the
Speaker 5: police are underfeet behind me or a fright pepin. I'm
Speaker 5: my old it's gonna blow out the shoulder, and I'm
Speaker 5: running and I'm run a real bow boy, you know,
Speaker 5: go go go.
Speaker 4: You always hear the.
Speaker 5: Canad of the guys in the reformentory. You own, go boy,
Speaker 5: go boy. Bullets are going on and.
Speaker 4: Finally if you got red quiet and I stopped. I
Speaker 4: looked down these rolls.
Speaker 5: I don't see anything, but you're the sirens everywhere you go,
Speaker 5: and I must have rann Able four miles.
Speaker 4: Through the cornfield.
Speaker 1: Roger spotted a big farmhouse with a nice car in
Speaker 1: the driveway, so he ran in, still wielding the toy gun,
Speaker 1: of course, and scared the hell out of the woman
Speaker 1: who lived there when he showed up in her kitchen.
Speaker 4: I won burst in the doors your room. Looked at you.
Speaker 4: I said, just you coo. He says you own the
Speaker 4: carne run She said, I said, do you hear sirens?
Speaker 4: A lot of people up the are gonna meet your
Speaker 4: guards went on.
Speaker 1: She was too shocked to help with the car keys,
Speaker 1: but Roger spotted them hanging on hooks near the front door.
Speaker 1: He leapt into the car and was out of there
Speaker 1: before anyone could catch him.
Speaker 4: Got out of it.
Speaker 6: I got into Ohio, and then I got to Detroit
Speaker 6: and stuck on to sty at ETOs.
Speaker 4: Coming back to Canada. At least for you don't steal
Speaker 4: your getaway cards. Certain.
Speaker 1: Roger pulled into Detroit, just across the river from Canada,
Speaker 1: and checked into a CD motel, But when he turned
Speaker 1: on the TV, he was given a fright when he
Speaker 1: saw his own face on the screen looking back at him.
Speaker 4: Nil most wanted future of out of.
Speaker 1: The state, Roger learned that his partner, Doug, had been
Speaker 1: arrested already, whereas Roger was now a celebrity and being
Speaker 1: hunted by the FBI. After a lifetime of languishing in
Speaker 1: Canadian obscurity, it seemed he had graduated to the big leagues.
Speaker 1: The next morning, Roger came across the Ambassador Bridge on
Speaker 1: a bus and made his way to Toronto. If he
Speaker 1: was going to have to spend the rest of his
Speaker 1: life behind bars, they might as well be Canadian bars.
Speaker 1: They eventually caught him in a motel room, and a
Speaker 1: few weeks later Roger found himself standing before a judge.
Speaker 1: You didn't need a law degree to understand how this
Speaker 1: was going to go for Roger. I think the Latin
Speaker 1: word to describe what Roger was is fucked and it's up.
Speaker 5: And you said your says, I my playing as the
Speaker 5: worst criminal record than any of us in our career.
Speaker 4: I've ever seen her. That's my lawyer, you know.
Speaker 1: When it was the Crown Prosecutor's turn, he held up
Speaker 1: Roger's rap sheet and called him a psychopath, a man
Speaker 1: without conscience.
Speaker 4: I'm not an a million I love the conscience. I'm
Speaker 4: not a criminal. Stuck at fact. That's what kept getting
Speaker 4: any trouble is I thought, a conscience, you don't.
Speaker 1: Even the judge had things like, I've tried to find
Speaker 1: something that would give me some hope for your rehabilitation,
Speaker 1: but I certainly haven't been able to see anything, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera. But then, in the middle of this very
Speaker 1: cut and dry trial, something surprising that would change Roger's life.
Speaker 4: Well, boy said, just a minute to your argum, He said,
Speaker 4: just a minute, and he said, can I talk to you?
Speaker 8: Braver.
Speaker 1: Roger's lawyer had come to learn that for the past
Speaker 1: eight years his client had been working on a manuscript
Speaker 1: about his life in the penal system, and since he
Speaker 1: had almost no other defense to put forward, he figured
Speaker 1: it was worth a shot to at least share with
Speaker 1: the judge some of the highlights from the manuscript before sentencing.
Speaker 4: They had hers, so.
Speaker 6: They had jured it came back to judge to look
Speaker 6: through it all over an hour and he called back,
Speaker 6: he said, he said, boy, he said, pop until an
Speaker 6: hour a boy, he said, I'm going to give you
Speaker 6: a life sentence, he said, but I'm looking through your
Speaker 6: manuscript is stead things and never going to get probablished,
Speaker 6: too primitive.
Speaker 4: But he says, I can see a lot of insight.
Speaker 4: I said, see a lot of hope. I can understand
Speaker 4: you a little better.
Speaker 1: Roger couldn't believe the tone change from just an hour earlier,
Speaker 1: and then when it was time for the judge to
Speaker 1: share his final decision, he said, I sent it to
Speaker 1: you the twenty year twenty years nineteen and a half
Speaker 1: to be exact. Now, nearly twenty years might seem like
Speaker 1: a long time, but you need to remember the judge's
Speaker 1: first instinct was to put him away for life. But
Speaker 1: this was twenty years. Twenty years. Roger could do.
Speaker 4: That was okay to be twenty years. He was delighted
Speaker 4: end of the time.
Speaker 1: But the very important thing about this lenient sentence is
Speaker 1: that it led to an epiphany for Roger about his writing. Yes,
Speaker 1: the near decade of writing had been incredibly therapeutic, and yes,
Speaker 1: He was thrilled by the thought that one day he
Speaker 1: might be able to get one of his stories in
Speaker 1: a magazine or a memoir published. But one thing Roger
Speaker 1: had not considered until that day in the courtroom was
Speaker 1: that his writing could quite literally get him out of prison.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if you've heard, but getting out
Speaker 1: of prison is a hobby of Roger Kuran's.
Speaker 4: So I met the court group, I went to no
Speaker 4: had in jail, and I started right he's writing.
Speaker 1: Roger had tried escaping from prison with grappling hooks and
Speaker 1: self made mannequins. He'd tried tunneling, bar cutting, He'd torn
Speaker 1: himself to pieces climbing over barbed wire. He'd helped stage
Speaker 1: in elaborate distractions so he could try walking out. But
Speaker 1: one thing that he hadn't tried yet was writing his
Speaker 1: way out. And unlike most of his past escapes, he
Speaker 1: knew that if he was going to pull off this one,
Speaker 1: he was going to need some help.
Speaker 9: The first time I met Roger, who was at Collins Bay.
Speaker 1: This is David Schlake.
Speaker 8: I was a teacher of English at St. Lawrence College
Speaker 8: in Kingston, and we volunteered workshop seminars.
Speaker 9: One day.
Speaker 8: I was doing a workshop about creative writing, and Roger
Speaker 8: bounced in at the end of the session.
Speaker 9: And he was remarkable in a couple of ways.
Speaker 8: One of them was he was he didn't have a
Speaker 8: shirt on, and I noticed instantly a lot of the
Speaker 8: lacerations and scar tissue on his arms and on his back.
Speaker 9: And he had a manuscript with him.
Speaker 8: This manuscript was in a grocery bag, brown paper grocery bag,
Speaker 8: and it was very thick. He had many, many pages.
Speaker 8: And he said, I got this manuscript, and what do
Speaker 8: you think. I said, well, I'm glad to look at it.
Speaker 8: And he said, well, he can't take it now. I
Speaker 8: have to get your copy.
Speaker 1: Roger had already lost his work once and he wasn't
Speaker 1: keen on that ever happening again.
Speaker 9: He would not let the manuscript out of his site
Speaker 9: that was guarded leave me.
Speaker 1: The next time Roger saw Dave, he was able to
Speaker 1: get him some stuff that he could take home. About
Speaker 1: sixty pages the first day, but there was a lot
Speaker 1: more where that came from.
Speaker 9: The first time I saw it, it was a stack.
Speaker 9: He said.
Speaker 8: There were fifteen hundred pages. There were scribbler books that
Speaker 8: were marked with number twelve number nineteen, and then there
Speaker 8: would be pages, and then another scribbler and so on.
Speaker 9: It was pretty robust. He had done a lot of work.
Speaker 1: It didn't take much time with the pages for David
Speaker 1: to discover that Roger's story had real potential.
Speaker 8: And my impression of the manuscript when I did read
Speaker 8: it initially was that it was it needed a restructuring,
Speaker 8: as he would jump around a lot, but there was
Speaker 8: real energy in the story. As far as memoirs go,
Speaker 8: it was very intense, and I was impressed with the gusto.
Speaker 1: It was unlike anything he'd ever read in its drive
Speaker 1: and in its willingness to go to dark places.
Speaker 9: What I recall was the.
Speaker 8: Sad accounts of when he was really young, like the
Speaker 8: really bruising, blisteringly sad times he had as a teenager,
Speaker 8: and I thought.
Speaker 9: Boy, that's a rough time.
Speaker 1: David is the type of person that would have been
Speaker 1: willing to help any inmate with their creative pursuits. But
Speaker 1: he could sense that Rogers carried an urgency and in importance,
Speaker 1: so he was keen to do whatever he could to
Speaker 1: help Roger get his book into reader's hands, and it
Speaker 1: would take everything from restructuring to spell checking lots of
Speaker 1: spell checking.
Speaker 8: He would double up on some consonants all the time,
Speaker 8: and I would always circle them and say, Roger business
Speaker 8: has three s's not four.
Speaker 1: Anyway, through their work on the manuscript, David got to
Speaker 1: know Roger well and.
Speaker 9: I nicknamed him.
Speaker 8: I used to call him Immer and he'd say, what's immer?
Speaker 8: I said, well, in German it means always, but it's
Speaker 8: im r and that's from theater, and it means in
Speaker 8: media race in the middle of things.
Speaker 9: You're just you just bounce into the middle of things.
Speaker 8: And so I called Roger Immer. He was always in
Speaker 8: the middle of something and he'd draw you right into it.
Speaker 1: This was a time of unimaginable drive, even for Roger.
Speaker 1: There have been so many periods where he was laser
Speaker 1: focused on making his story as compelling as he could.
Speaker 1: But he could feel how close it was getting, and
Speaker 1: the feedback that David was giving him made him believe
Speaker 1: that he really would be able to get this thing
Speaker 1: out into the world.
Speaker 9: He thought that it would. He's very lucky.
Speaker 8: He might have a pulp novel and I said, no,
Speaker 8: this is a this is a bound hardback copy coming Roger.
Speaker 1: A hardback. Roger was drunk with the idea that if
Speaker 1: he got a book like that out into the world,
Speaker 1: it could help bring him into the world with it.
Speaker 9: He just wanted it out of the system. He wanted
Speaker 9: to be free.
Speaker 1: Roger wanted that manuscript to find its way to a publisher.
Speaker 1: So when it was time to finally start sending out
Speaker 1: let to everyone he could think of to ask for
Speaker 1: publishing help, Nadia Sunic came to mind.
Speaker 7: Quite frankly. I was a busy young lawyer and a
Speaker 7: busy young person doing many things, and often not peddling
Speaker 7: Roger's manuscript.
Speaker 1: Nadia was a young lawyer who was working with Roger's
Speaker 1: main attorney and was a person Roger had become friendly with.
Speaker 1: She was bright, impressive, and she seemed like the type
Speaker 1: of person who might know people.
Speaker 2: Nadia, I am in the process of rewriting a new outline,
Speaker 2: one that is more presentable, more concise. I am convinced
Speaker 2: that within six months to one year after my book
Speaker 2: is launched that I could regain my freedom on parole.
Speaker 2: My penchant for escaping goes heavily against me, so I
Speaker 2: must give prison officials something concrete to prove that I
Speaker 2: am rehabilitated. And that my future is secure, so secure
Speaker 2: that I would not be tempted to escape.
Speaker 1: Step one was lending Nadia a manuscript to read, which.
Speaker 10: May actually still be in my garage.
Speaker 1: Nadia, No, you were supposed to give it back to
Speaker 1: Roger when you were done.
Speaker 7: He was annoyed that there were too many copies of
Speaker 7: the manuscript floating around. Anyway, was so intent on getting
Speaker 7: it published, and he gave it to me, and I
Speaker 7: was to, you know, pedle.
Speaker 10: It and get it published.
Speaker 1: Nadia remembers well reading it for the first time. She
Speaker 1: was at the beach with her husband and some friends,
Speaker 1: sunning herself on an air mattress when suddenly.
Speaker 7: I remember, I started to say, oh my god, Oh
Speaker 7: my god. And my husband said, what's the matter, And
Speaker 7: I said, you know, he's describing this bank robbery.
Speaker 1: Get detail, a robbery that Roger claimed he had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with.
Speaker 10: You know, we just finish working. You say he didn't
Speaker 10: do it, and look at this.
Speaker 7: I still remember lying on that mattress, thinking, wait a minute, here, Roger,
Speaker 7: wait a minute.
Speaker 1: Every cat in every bag was about to be let out.
Speaker 1: Roger started mailing letters to every publisher, magazine, and industry
Speaker 1: adjacent person he could think of.
Speaker 4: Editor.
Speaker 2: Please help me regain my position in society once more
Speaker 2: as a functional, respected human being. Please help me regain.
Speaker 1: My position in society.
Speaker 2: What's my bag? I used to be a bank robber.
Speaker 2: I am now a changed man, no longer abandoned, and
Speaker 2: a jail writer. I've spent the past ten years writing
Speaker 2: my autobiography. I've nursed my book manuscript from prison to prison.
Speaker 2: I fought and bled over it. It kept me sane
Speaker 2: during lengthy stays in solitary confinements.
Speaker 10: He pursued it, and he was determined.
Speaker 1: Roger's sister sue again.
Speaker 10: There's an old thing. He did nothing to lose and
Speaker 10: everything the game, and he was just driven.
Speaker 1: He wrote to all the most reputable publishing houses in Canada,
Speaker 1: and he wasn't above writing the more pedestrian options either.
Speaker 1: I have read every.
Speaker 2: Reissue of Playboy magazine since its inception in nineteen fifty four,
Speaker 2: and I am convinced that my story is slanted to
Speaker 2: the adult male who reads Playboy. You wouldn't happen to
Speaker 2: know a publisher or editor in the market for a
Speaker 2: gutsy prison manuscript, would you. I'm told it reads like
Speaker 2: corn liquor being slashed down a virgin's throat.
Speaker 1: Roger was really feeling himself now.
Speaker 10: He felt, I'm going to win this. I'm going to
Speaker 10: win this. I'm going to do it.
Speaker 1: But after his first flurry of letters, he was surprised
Speaker 1: when people weren't getting back to him right away.
Speaker 7: I would have spoken to him on the phone when
Speaker 7: he was keen to know exactly what was happening. And
Speaker 7: of course nothing was happening because I wasn't paying as
Speaker 7: much attention to it as I probably should have.
Speaker 1: Been, and the people who were writing back were writing
Speaker 1: with bad news.
Speaker 3: We have decided against publishing it.
Speaker 11: There's a chance we may publish it, and as a
Speaker 11: chance we may not.
Speaker 10: I just want to prepare you for either. God knows
Speaker 10: there's a room for a good book about our prison system,
Speaker 10: but I don't feel that this is going to be
Speaker 10: in Incidentally, your spelling is appalling. He got very discouraged.
Speaker 10: Many times.
Speaker 1: He'd been feeling so confident in the beginning, but his
Speaker 1: wish list had written back with a resounding not interested.
Speaker 1: It had been a good try, but it didn't look
Speaker 1: like he was going to get published.
Speaker 10: And I'd say to him well, just read up Roger
Speaker 10: on gone with the Win and see how many times
Speaker 10: that was turned down. I couldn't tell him one hundred
Speaker 10: percent it's going to happen. I mean, I can't tell
Speaker 10: him that, but I sure pushed because I felt this
Speaker 10: was good for him. No matter what, whatever the outcome,
Speaker 10: this was good for him.
Speaker 1: One of Roger's best qualities is that when he's knocked down,
Speaker 1: he doesn't stay down. Because he came to learn that
Speaker 1: he just hadn't written to the right person yet. He
Speaker 1: needed a champion, and he was about to find one.
Speaker 10: That's where Pierre Burton came into the picture.
Speaker 1: Pierre Burton was one of Canada's foremost intellectuals and most
Speaker 1: prolific authors.
Speaker 10: There's a little saying you want something done, go to
Speaker 10: the head of the class.
Speaker 1: Burton was known for being a bit of a rebel,
Speaker 1: a pot smoking liberal, at the forefront of starting conversations
Speaker 1: about LGBTQ issues and the rights of Canada's incarcerated. So
Speaker 1: Roger told David he was thinking about reaching out to him.
Speaker 8: He had heard that Pierre Burton, who was at the time,
Speaker 8: I think one either on the board of or maybe
Speaker 8: the chair of the prison Arts Foundation and very supportive
Speaker 8: of adults and custody who were doing creative things. And
Speaker 8: writing really appealed to Pierre Burton, and adults and custody
Speaker 8: inmates who were writing was something that Roger knew Peter
Speaker 8: Burton would pay attention to us. I said, I don't
Speaker 8: know him personally, but I'm pretty sure we could get
Speaker 8: something to him.
Speaker 10: Roger went for the long shot that a lot in
Speaker 10: his life, and.
Speaker 5: That's when I wrote a letter in mister Burton, I wrote,
Speaker 5: and i's more less said help, And just.
Speaker 1: Like Roger hoped, Burton heard the call and said he'd
Speaker 1: be willing to read the manuscript. So Roger was like,
Speaker 1: holy carow, Pierre Burton had better type this thing up
Speaker 1: real nice.
Speaker 8: And Roger was really eager to get that manuscript in
Speaker 8: a form that was professional enough, and he did.
Speaker 10: Pierre Burton liked what he read. He'd liked what he
Speaker 10: heard for some reason.
Speaker 2: Last fall I started corresponding with mister Pierre Burton, and
Speaker 2: since then he has read my book and liked what
Speaker 2: I accomplished.
Speaker 1: Without asking, he.
Speaker 2: Has volunteered to write a preface and generally endorse my work.
Speaker 2: It was a fantastic break for me, and I deeply
Speaker 2: appreciate everything he is doing for me.
Speaker 1: Pierre Burton understood it for what it was going to be,
Speaker 1: a thrilling scream from the darkness. There's going to captivate
Speaker 1: a nation. He told Roger that he would do everything
Speaker 1: he could to get this thing published, including sharing it
Speaker 1: with his own publisher.
Speaker 10: The publishing company that Peer Burton was with turned it down,
Speaker 10: and Peter Burton was not a happy camera about it.
Speaker 11: I'm sorry to tell you that the editorial board has
Speaker 11: decided against undertaking publication. It was felt that the editorial
Speaker 11: work involved was simply too great for our editors to handle.
Speaker 1: At this time, Burton was like, did you not hear
Speaker 1: what I just said? This book is going to be huge.
Speaker 10: They didn't go for it. I'm sure they lived to
Speaker 10: regret it for.
Speaker 9: A long time.
Speaker 1: I write this letter with sincere personal regret Roger, and
Speaker 1: wish you every success. CC Pierre Burton. This was a
Speaker 1: new disappointment for Roger. Even with the perfect champion, he
Speaker 1: still couldn't get this thing printed.
Speaker 10: Peer Burton was so sure that his company was going
Speaker 10: to take it, and Roger had such a high there
Speaker 10: he was, you know, he felt like it was a
Speaker 10: fair complete and that was a down or for him,
Speaker 10: that was whoa.
Speaker 1: But unbeknownst to Roger, Burton wasn't giving up. And then
Speaker 1: it sold.
Speaker 5: Our company in Sydney will be importing Go Boy for
Speaker 5: Australia New Zealand market.
Speaker 3: Congratulations.
Speaker 10: French rights on Go Boys sold to Bushima.
Speaker 9: They will publish this fall partiest.
Speaker 2: Congratulations.
Speaker 10: My first feeling was good for you because I think
Speaker 10: we all need to accomplish something in life that we
Speaker 10: feel good about. And I really think that this is
Speaker 10: the first thing that he felt, you know, except for
Speaker 10: catching wild animals and whatnot. He really felt accomplished in that,
Speaker 10: you know. But this is something he worked so hard for.
Speaker 9: But the truth is it was really single minded hard work.
Speaker 1: The kid with almost no schooling or training to speak of,
Speaker 1: who'd grown up behind bars, who'd been beaten, paddle shocked,
Speaker 1: shot at punch, who had been buried in solitary for
Speaker 1: an unfathomable amount of time, was going to be published
Speaker 1: by a real publishing house. The world had no idea
Speaker 1: who Roger Karan was, but they were about to find out.
Speaker 3: Go Boy is a production from Campside Media in partnership
Speaker 3: with iHeart Podcasts. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 3: or wherever you get your podcasts. Go Boy was written
Speaker 3: and hosted by me Sam Wellens. Our producer is Rob
Speaker 3: Lindsay of Paradox Pictures. Laine Rose is our senior producer.
Speaker 3: Sound design, mix and engineering by Garrett Tiedeman. Original music
Speaker 3: by Garrett tiedemant fact checking by Michael Kenyon Meyer. Selected
Speaker 3: archival clips are from CBC Licensing. The book Go Boy
Speaker 3: was written by Roger Kuran. iHeart Podcasts executive producers are
Speaker 3: Lindsay Hoffman and Jennifer Bassett. Special thanks to Ashley Anne Crigbaum,
Speaker 3: Spencer Rose, Doug Slaywin, and Shoshy Schmullivans for voicing Roger
Speaker 3: Kuran's publishing correspondence in this episode. Excerpts from Roger Kuran's
Speaker 3: book Go Boy, read by Jamie Cavanaugh. Campside Media's executive
Speaker 3: producers are Josh Dean Vanessa, Gregoriatis, Adam hoff and Matt
Speaker 3: cher A. Special thanks to our operations team, Doug Slaywyn, I,
Speaker 3: Ashley Lawren, Sabina Marra, and Destiny Dingle. If you enjoyed
Speaker 3: Go Boy, please rate and review the show wherever you
Speaker 3: get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening.