Photo by Roe Ethridge.
Everything was going good. I was in secondary one. I went to the Lafontaine Academy of St. Jérome. I was an English French Quebecois who knew all the jokes in Slap Shot, Elvis Gratton, and Blue Powder like all the others. The sole difference was that I would speak English at home with my family. For me, speaking English was always an advantage. Just until my second year of secondary school. At that moment it became a veritable nightmare. The famous Bill 101 [an anti-English law instilled to preserve French culture] had returned to the political décor.
Day after day, the Christs of caves commenced hassling me, flying Christs at me, teasing me, preventing me from sitting with my friends in the café, saying “no ‘blokes’ at the table,” writing on my locker “Return to Ontario, square head” or “101” wherever they possibly could. I received hell for three years thanks to those hosts of the chalice of innocents who play indoor hockey of shit who were supposedly the most cool in the school. After all this time, I would love to see where they ended up, those tabernacles without drawings there, still in St. Jérome on Social Benefits, surely.
I would like to rethank all those who suspended grievance from my square head (Dominic Fortin, Louis-Philippe Bougie, Gregoire Lafortune, Hugo Machicado, Alexandre Desjardins, Charles Boisonneaux, Francis Vachon, Joelle Gagnon…)
ERIK ANTHONY LAVOIE