The Spirit of The Parklands: WHEATFIELD SOULS, #1

By W McKittrick

Male teenage bullies devise their own application for a pig farm's feed grinder. They delight in showing onlooking young teenage girls how a dead squirrel can disappear in a blink of an eye when dropped into the machine's flailing hammers.

In the 1960s small town, chaos hits the Saskatchewan community of Adamsville when one of the fifteen-year-old tough guys suddenly vanishes and leaves a seventeen-year mystery later taken on by an aggressive but corrupt detective.

Two intelligent, bullied and fed-up teenagers with a dying alcoholic for a mentor take control of the ills plaguing their age group in their community. Teenage love and loyalty rule between the two victims of repeated verbal and sexual abuse.

Every brand of crazy runs riots in the adult lives of Randy Johnsen, the farm boy with a destructive love of alcohol, and Brenda Croswell, the girl from across the tracks.

Inspired by a collection of true events, the author hopes to offer a look into the often-thought glorious post-war years in the backcountry of nearly anywhere. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: W McKittrick
• Release date: Jan 9, 2023
• ISBN: 9781716544927

Book preview

Chapter 1 - When We Were Kids

Saturday, November 9th, 1963. Roy McAvoy failed to arrive home for supper. They need not call it an emergency. It was common for Adamsville, Saskatchewan, farm kids to drop in on the neighbors. Often, they rode their bikes too far away to arrive back home for mealtime. Allister McAvoy, a tall, lean man, approaching middle age, had seen worse crises as a World War Two infantry man. His fifteen-year-old son would be fine.

We can eat with or without him, Marg, he said to his wife as she grew silent.

Marg long learned in their turbulent home that silence was golden when involving her husband. 

A daughter of a Ukrainian immigrant dairy farmer, she married Allister days before he signed up to go overseas. She married a mild-mannered, sweet gentleman. The army changed Allister into a paranoid, bad-tempered man, out of touch with reality.

When there was an unusual occurrence, like their son not arriving home for supper, it did not appear to bother him. Yet if Roy came down for school with his hair not combed or a spot on his Eaton’s cotton shirt, Allister would become militant, draw out his belt, and demand answers for such mother and son sloppiness. 

Marg ceased discussing any reasonable concerns with her husband. He would only snapback with nasty sarcasm about her womanhood or intelligence.

Roy was a husky, lean lad. Taking after his lean stature father, he grew somewhat fast for his age. Well-groomed, always wearing clean, well-fitting jeans and shirt, with sleeves rolled to below the elbows. He was a good-looking kid.

Roy made the school softball pitcher in the spring of that year. Kids change overnight and surface with talent. Track, baseball, and hockey became activities Roy excelled in. His parents ignored his failing grades. At age fifteen, he dropped one grade behind most kids his age, to grade eight, with Randy Johnsen and Brenda Croswell.

Post-war babies attended the sixties school system that already had marginal teaching resources. Randy, Roy, and Brenda became the stereotype kids dropping through the cracks.

Brenda Croswell, a beautiful slim girl with long brown hair and wide brown eyes, could have been a contestant in the beauty pageants of the day. She grew to be a good-looking kid at fourteen. Her hair needed a sober mom to help her with it. Her second-hand clothes did not always match. She was a clever student with potential, but missed many days in school. No one cared to make it their business what happened in the Croswell home.

Roy was one of several school bullies among other clouts from the neighboring communities bused into the larger town school in Adamsville.  

Redheaded Randy Johnsen was one of Roy’s biggest harassment targets in school. 

Now that Roy dropped back a grade for the nineteen sixty-three, sixty-four grade eight class, Randy had no reprieve from him. The taunting and bullying would start when Roy got on the bus, throughout the school day, until he arrived at the McAvoy’s farm.

Hey carrot top, Roy would say, hovering down the aisle of the school bus, taking a seat behind Randy. Grow any reds down there, Roy would whisper to Randy, reaching forward over Randy’s shoulder and pointing to his posterior. Revulsion would momentarily overcome Randy as Roy’s warm breath hit his left ear. A bare arm would extend over his right shoulder as Roy directed a figure downward. He could not put a word to the feeling. ‘Violated’ would enter his vocabulary later in life.

Randy would look toward the driver, a brush cut tough guy type who would be better operating a bulldozer than a school bus, hoping for once this behavior would get noticed.

To move to another seat in the bus’s rear for the balance of the trip may help. The move involved taking the risk the driver would see him in his mirror. It would be Randy in trouble if the driver caught him out of his seat while the bus was moving. Roy would get in one more antagonizing comment. He leaned close to Randy without leaving his seat, and formed the word with his lips, with little sound, homo.

Ernest Parsons, sitting in the left seat of the bus’s rear, could not resist getting his poke at Randy, don’t be sitting near me, queer.

All the taunting and bullying led to his striking out to become every bully’s laughingstock, watching Randy get marched off to the principal’s office. At heart, he was no pushover. He fought the guys, but lost in one respect every time. Randy felt denying his part in an incident and telling on the other party was below him. As a result, he would take the full punishment for being the perpetrator.

By fourteen, Randy developed a raging substance abuse problem. Inhaling anything that emitted fumes became a private indulgence Randy loved. He first experienced alcohol during the summer of that year when his parents were partying with neighbors.  

Changes through puberty made his temper retention skills turn for the worst over that summer. He was quieter and more withdrawn than ever. By late October that year, he would go into frightful rages with little provocation. He craved for the next high every day.

The school principal and teachers requested many meetings with his parents to find solutions. In the dark years of education, as in 1963, the mental hospital was what they desired to fix problem kids. Somewhere else. Mental help was essential, but the resources were seriously under-equipped for the many problem children and their war veteran parents.

Tuesday, the day after Remembrance Day, the bus stopped at the McAvoy farm. Roy’s younger brother and two sisters boarded the school bus, but Roy was not there.

By late that previous Sunday afternoon, the McAvoy’s put out the call for help to locate Roy. They called around to the neighbors, and no one had seen him. They knew of roads he traveled on his bike to visit friends, but checking them revealed no Roy. By eight Sunday evening, the McAvoy parents called the police for help with some reservations. Roy must have gone somewhere and would still be in a safe location. His mother thought he had just run away from home and Alister’s beatings. 

The police filed a report and set up a plan to search with all available officers. Black and white police cars with the standard-issue single red bubble light traveled at low speeds along muddy and slush covered country roads. They worked throughout the night, stopping at every farm on a twenty-mile radius and inspecting every ditch, clearing and abandoned farm.

That Sunday morning it rained, then the first snow of the season came. The weather crippled the RCMP search twelve hours before it started. Eight inches had fallen, and the weather cooled. This snow would stay. Mud under the snow had not frozen. The non-graveled back roads and trails were mud bogs. Officers left their fifties and sixties rear-wheel drive cars and walked many roads searching farmyards and forest land. Some officers went from door to door within a thirty-mile radius, searching for clues as to Roy’s whereabouts. 

Adamsville is in a low-lying flatland. Roads in Saskatchewan, where they are unobstructed cross at one mile east to west and two miles north to south to accommodate for the many onetime homesteaders on every quarter section of land. 

By the nineteen sixties, many of these original homesteads became abandoned and left unused roads lined with empty farmyards in various stages of decay. For some farms, owners or buyers moved the original homes to an ideal location, leaving behind old buildings, fences, and wells with the tops rotting away.

A white cinder block building next to the Railroad Inn on the main street became home to Adamsville’s Coffee Row, as named by the local citizens. The small café manager hired by the local business association kept an arrangement of tables in a row just inside the entry for the local coffee patrons to gather. 

By Monday morning it became news at Coffee Row that Roy McAvoy was missing. The small-town rumor machine started.

Harry Livingston, the Adamsville postmaster who had a firsthand look at everyone’s business passing through the post office, could not resist piping up his ideas. Kid, La Rue, Tony La Rue received two parcels from the Princess Auto. One back in the spring, and again in September. They appeared to be rifles.

Ross and Lee Enfield military surplus guns sold in the Princess Auto military surplus catalog for fourteen dollars.

Henry Johnston, the Pioneer grain elevator agent, said, We know old McAvoy is crazy. We know that for a fact.

We saw him lose it last summer at the Legion picnic because Eric Andersen picked his choice steak off the BBQ. He took that steak off Eric’s plate and slapped him across the face with it.

Frank McNevin, the local butcher, said, it is a good possibility the old man could be the only one who knows the whereabouts of his son.

Harry Livingston chimed in, Allister had a contract over at Weldon’s farm all-day Saturday grinding feed with the Art’s Way feed mill. Didn’t get home until supper when they first missed the kid.

A group of local livestock farmers formed a Co-op. They purchased and operated an Art’s Way feed grinder mixer invented by Arthur Luscombe in Dolliver, Iowa. The Co-op contracted Allister McAvoy to supply the tractor power and operate it, maintaining feed supply on the four nearby hog farms.

Tuesday afternoon, the police asked the school principal to excuse students for short periods of time for interviews. After school dismissal, the police visited people at their home locations. Everyone was at a loss to explain what would have ever happened to Roy McAvoy. It seemed for a time everyone had become suspects.

Who could have been where, or with Roy when he was last seen? 

That remained the question for the next few weeks.

Talk surfaced that Roy had some serious falling outs with a few people. The detective soon determined there could be a violent reason for Roy’s disappearance.

The detective drew a short list of suspects up and questioned them, only to have a story and evidence of where they were on the Saturday and Sunday that Roy disappeared.

Roy’s father was grinding feed at the neighbors all day Saturday and with Marg from supper on into the next week seeking the whereabouts of their son. The detective questioned the Weldon family when Allister left their farm and questioned Marg when he arrived for supper. 

Allister gave the police the verbal abuse and vulgar gestures meaning to leave and never come back. The choice was no longer his. They reported their son missing, and the local police had a legal mandate to find him. If Allister did not like it, this would turn into a child services matter. Child services loved to take these matters into their own hands back in the sixties.

Tony LaRue became a suspect. Chances are it got to someone that a sixteen-year-old had gained possession of two 303 British caliber rifles in the last few months. For a while, it seemed like they had a likely suspect. 

Tony was an aggressive son of a large hog farmer. Days after he turned sixteen, he had gained his driver’s license and was often seen speeding about the countryside in his grandfather’s old 1948 Dodge four-door sedan. On a Saturday, he could have just about been anywhere. During the previous winter, he squared off a few fights with Roy in the hockey rink. Team player did not always mean buddies for life, and Tony was one guy who Roy could not get to.

Tony and his parents were in Prince Albert, shopping for pickup trucks all day on Saturday. Dealers would never forget visits from the LaRues. This appeared to be an exercise in hard dealing daddy showing his sixteen-year-old son the ropes of driving hard bargains. One dealer reported later that the LaRues caused a salesperson to resign. 

You don’t forget these dudes, said the dealership owner. 

They worked my guy over bad. 

They wanted a five-hundred-dollar discount for a cash deal on a pickup.

If we had to lose money, we may as well close up.

The provincial government legalized the use of tax-free purple gas in farm licensed pickup trucks in the early sixties. Farmers were parking their cars and switching their mode of transportation to farm licensed pickup trucks. Supply and demand set the prices on these trucks, and the dealers turned out to be the big winners. 

Leroy Fontane was the son of one of the pioneering country store merchants near Adamsville. Leroy wanted to sign up for the Airforce in World War Two. Luck for the airmen he could have killed, his father gave the military recruiters notice his son would be there. He reported his son’s two stays at the mental hospital at North Battleford to the recruiting officers.  

Leroy had already taken flying lessons, which could have given any naïve recruiting personal a bum steer. But the senior Fontane knew the air force would already have recruits like his son.

Despite his mental condition and leaving school in grade seven, he was a math wizard and excelled in every talent that required an in-depth understanding of math, geometry, and physics.

As an unlicensed pilot, he could have been one of the best. He purchased a red and white Piper Cub airplane and built a grass airstrip in a pasture on the remote family farm.

His plane would disappear with him often for days. Folks would wonder who permitted an unlicensed pilot to land in airports. A small plane could not stay up for days with no need to land and refuel.

Or he associated with someone who also had access to a remote airstrip out of sight and out of mind? Perhaps he knew someone from his days in the mental hospital who owned a ranch or a farm. Central Canada has much barren land to disappear into. 

He acquired a checkered past.  Leroy loved the mechanical trades and business opportunities. He never smoked and rarely drank alcohol. He carried a valid driver’s license and operated his pickup as safe and conscientious as he flew his small airplane. But he built up fat files over at the Prince Albert police detachments, and at all four of the Saskatchewan courts.

Being intelligent, Leroy’s actual condition was unknown to everyone. He walked about, leaning forward with his hands together behind his back, mumbling his thoughts and often reciting what sounded like in-depth math equations. That was fine, and he bothered no one.

Leroy had a violent temper. Often, he would become provoked by someone who he felt imposed on his space with a remark, bad or not, or during one of his failing business deals. Leroy had a lifetime of ongoing legal affairs. He defended himself with knowledge and arguments that often baffled the judge and crown lawyer.

His court appearances often amused many glum unfortunates waiting their turn to appear before the judge. 

One of the most talked about antics happened when the Judge called Leroy to appear on a charge of completing home electrical wiring without a trade license or permit. The judge called his name two or three times before he stood to speak, are you calling for Captain Leroy Fontane, My Lord. This appeared to be his effort to restore the honors deprived him by his father in preventing him from being signed to the air force. The antic was a much-needed amusement in a glum court in the legion hall that day. 

Leroy’s bad temper, mental condition, and strength for a one-hundred-and-ninety-pound build led him to become a primary suspect in Roy’s disappearance.

Leroy believed in his right to practice free speech with a passion. That belief went into practice at the hockey rink. Leroy picked his team and cheered for them, and it was not the home team.

During a brief intermission at a home game while the referee and team coaches were sorting out a matter, Leroy kept his place behind the boards. He tried to make himself part of the hockey official’s discussion from his physical position. Roy McAvoy, playing for the home team, skated up to Leroy and mocked up an act of Leroy strolling with his hands behind his back, mumbling his math equations. Roy’s next mistake was placing himself within reach of Leroy.

Everyone forgot the meeting of the referee and coaches, with the echoing sound of Roy’s head being slammed into the boards. Leroy grabbed Roy, using his hold on his jersey to pull himself over the boards. He gave Roy a punch to the gut, clearing any wind he had left to spare in him. That is when he collapsed backwards and his head hit the boards.

Grabbing Roy by the front collar as the referee and coaches approached, they could hear Leroy speaking, without a single real obscenity, something like I will kill you.... The exact version of what he said varied, and there may have been only parts of that one-sided conversation heard. The point being was that he wished Roy would be dead. 

The detective had a suspect. 

Leroy had a partial alibi. He kept the family store open that Saturday while his parents attended a pig farming seminar. Both the store and the Fontane half-section farm had not done well, and diversification to other productive enterprises was in the works. But Leroy left the store by closing time that day. As he was a loner, no one could attest to his whereabouts after store closing time that Saturday.

The detectives took Randy Johnsen in for questioning, even considering in everyone’s mind what Randy can do to a big guy like Roy. 

Randy said, I played chess all day at Brenda Croswell’s place.

Brenda said, I played chess with Randy in mom and dad’s basement all day Saturday.

Brenda’s mom and dad were the town drunks. On Saturdays, there would be no question where they might be. They were at the bar all afternoon and evening. But they did not want to make waves for the Johnsen’s.

Randy’s father, Erik Johnsen, was the president of the alfalfa dehydrator company. Operating hay swather and harvester during summer months was about the only real employment for John Croswell. He had part-time work doing the slaughtering, gutting, and skinning for the local butcher. As a World War Two veteran and having various advanced education degrees, he had the skills and the experience for more intellectual work. Failure had been the story of John’s life. He failed out of law school and then they kicked out of a police academy. His only glory was being part of a successful company going onto the beaches of France during World War Two. We all know fighting Germany did not become a lifelong career. He drank heavily and his wife, Sandy, drank along with him.

The investigators confirmed that Randy, although already an unlikely suspect in Roy’s disappearance, was playing chess over at the Croswells. Both clever teens, Randy and Brenda, loved chess, their chosen pastime on a quiet Saturday. That appeared normal.

Brenda became a loner kid that previous summer. Roy had threatened Brenda’s best friend, Anna Hale, on conditions she stays away from Brenda. He then forced Brenda up a back lane from the legion hall where a legion member dance was in progress, to a machine storage lot. Roy, with four other clouts, gang-raped fourteen-year-old Brenda, in the oil stinking grass under an old John Deere tractor. They told her they would put her in their dad’s Art’s Way feed mill and chop her up into pig feed if she ever told anyone, same as they had threatened Anna.

Brenda did not know why Anna left her when Roy took her away. It would be some time before Brenda and Anna talked. Anna supported the perpetrators who raped her, was all Brenda could think of now.

She told her father, John, who took her to the police station in Prince Albert to tell her story. Brenda could not remember much of what happened and her story became more muddled as the interviewing officer slammed his fist on a table, showing frustration with her confusion and accused her of lying. Misunderstood and assumed to be a mischievous child storytelling, Brenda was in severe shock from the gang-rape.

Brenda and Randy noticeably hung out together from the fall of sixty-three. The gang rape broke her. Randy had serious emotional issues. They, two extremely sick kids, found each other.

John Croswell remained feeling helpless and bitter at the police officers who failed his family. McAvoy would get his ass kicked good someday. Someone may have beaten him to it big time. He felt more compassion for the Germans he shot in action than the hooligans who raped his daughter.

Roy McAvoy remained as much a mystery into the winter as it was the Saturday evening he was first missed. Anyone questioned did not understand where Roy disappeared that Saturday. Kids riding their bikes and horses to and from their friend’s place could happen anywhere out among the flatland farms. Chances are, they could go unnoticed by everyone going about their business.

Mid-December, with the curling ice flooded, bonspiels were underway along with early Christmas celebrations. A weekend men’s bonspiel sponsored by Jacobson John Deere for anyone who wanted to come with a team got underway. A team from Melfort, Saskatchewan, arrived.  

The players brought their wives along with them to cheer for them. Through a municipal vote, women could now go into bars. Parties became more interesting.

Conversations on the whereabouts of Roy still occurred at the social gatherings. 

One curler’s wife was a social worker. She spent her days on the road in and out of Melfort. Upon hearing a description of Roy, she reported attending an emergency call where the local police took parents into custody on the same Saturday Roy went missing. 

She said, I saw a young man fitting that description hitchhiking south of the weigh scales.

Albert, the bar owner, broke into the conversation, this is information the investigating police officers can use.

After that evening, during the first bonspiel of that winter, the missing person and probable murder victim excitement died down. It seemed plausible that Roy may have been the guy fitting the description a social worker had seen hitchhiking to somewhere. 

Chapter 2 - Randy and Brenda

Un-noticed at first by most, Brenda and Randy became close buddies by the late fall of sixty-three. They carried on a confusing relationship to most of the busybodies about the community, who paid attention. 

Never apart, they hung out together walking around town, reading in the school or town library, at the Croswells, and walking out to the Johnsen farm. They attended community and school functions together. Brenda and Randy only appeared to be inseparable buddies. Touching, hugging, kissing, or holding hands remained secretive if happened at all.

Their marks dropped through the sixty-three sixty-four school year. Randy, amid a growth spurt that winter, appeared to be walking straighter and had the frightening new habit of looking everyone straight in the eye. Against the wishes of his mother, he let his red hair grow into a well enough groomed but mighty mop. He let his young facial hair grow, which gave him a tough country lad appearance and made him appear older for his age. By sixteen, he was five eight and had two years to finish near six feet.

Having no previous interest in sports, Randy joined the teen curling club in the winter of sixty-three/four. Taking out opposing rocks and putting them near the button came naturally after his third group lesson. He had all the right body coordination to get off the hatch and leave a controlled rock gliding down the ice. His parents and John Croswell got on board as his accessory coaches. Brenda was a latecomer to the club on time for one lesson before the school bonspiel. His class picked Randy as a skip for all school bonspiels thereafter.

Brenda kept her usual ragtag appearance for a couple of years, over which she grew into a gorgeous young lady nearing the end of her natural growth at five feet three inches. She learned to groom well, but cared not to dress and act like her maturing teen peers. Jeans and a tee-shirt suited her at home and downtown and jeans and basic feminine looking blouse, or buttoned shirt for school. She never strayed far from her preferred, so-called tomboy ways in dress code or the things she liked to do.

Their potty language in an altercation with an accused offender became worse as the altercation progressed. Yet in the formal public setting or school, swearing and temper tantrums rarely happened. Brenda reacted to bullies, but she and Randy tried to take issue with a bully in private, if possible. Only an occasional reaction would be her downfall in the eyes of governing school staff.

Brenda, for reasons unknown and misunderstood, developed a nasty attitude toward several male students throughout the junior high classes in her school. Randy supported her in that manner as they were the general bullies being reined in with their team effort.

Kid gangs were unheard of in small-town Saskatchewan. Occasionally, someone would see them with one, two, or three other teens. A rumor that a tough kid got a punch in the gut behind the old livery barn or another one of the community bullies received a verbal assault would make a new story on Coffee Row. A disgruntled parent would confirm the story if they felt the treatment their well-behaved teen received was unfair.

By the spring of sixty-four, this pair had gained gang leader’s status in the community. 

The Little Barrow Gang. Lack of a black dress and roll-your-own cigarette or cigar hanging from Brenda’s mouth removed her from a real Bonnie look.

Brenda had developed asthma and could not inhale tobacco smoke. Randy took up smoking. His meager earnings from helping on his parent’s farm only afforded players tobacco and papers.

One thing was certain, Randy nor Brenda, and the students of Adamsville school no longer became victims of the local bullies. Numbers mean witnesses, and two so-called gang beatings by two tough guardians were welcome to everyone who became targets of the Parsons and the McAvoy types. 

Both possessed violent tempers, but appeared to run a sparring game when in action. One would be mad while the other appeared to have a role to calm the other before someone got hurt.

What if both lost it with some poor sucker, someone once said in Coffee Row.

We want to hope Little Bonnie and Clyde are not packing weapons someday.

Reports about the awful teens made their way to Randy’s parents, who thought their son played an honorable role in forming a friendship with Brenda. Eric and Elda Johnsen were sure Brenda aided the self-esteem Randy developed. Elda had a special identity with Brenda. Prewar life on the prairies was hard for young women like Elda. Elda Johnsen, though an unrelenting control freak, became the second and much-needed mom image to Brenda as she felt young women did not need to suffer her experiences.

The Johnsen home was like many, as everything looked fine from the outside. Perhaps for most farm kids, what they had was the only normal they knew. It’s only way off in later years they understand what could have been different.

Randy’s declining marks became a concern for his parents and school staff. Teachers talking to Brenda’s parents never happened. Brenda remained that girl across the tracks who would never amount to anything in the minds of most people. 

Together, they gained respect from a slice of the teenage community. Sometime along the way, Randy had won over the respect of Brenda’s father. He came under his direct mentorship. Physically broken-down, John Croswell could no longer do much on a wrestling mat himself but made a great trainer on military and police martial arts, and assertive/aggressive attitudes.

Billy Bigalo was one of the more interesting but repulsive characters in junior high in Adamsville. He was a farm kid, bussed into Adamsville after a distant country school closure. Approval from peers is the goal during a year a boy at fourteen turns fifteen.

Billy did not appear to be having a good time going down any kind of safe and respected road to approval from his peers. He was positive doing all the wrong stuff would get him a warm place in Adamsville teen society.

Being of slight build destined to grow to the upper five feet in the height range, he was no match to the bigger guys in the school. Billy was losing fast on Randy, who filled out fast on local-grown beef, pork, poultry, garden vegetables, and fresh cow’s milk. Billy’s irritating tactics were a perfect match to his weasel appearance. As he cleared puberty, his antics to gain approval become downright revolting.

Brenda could never understand why she could not remember everyone who attacked her on the night of the gang rape. The police officers took her statement as incomplete, inaccurate, and outright lies. No one understood she was in a state of shock then and days later. One teen there that night was Billy.

Billy made a pretense of trustworthiness and innocence around the girls, surveying the situation for teachers and other witnesses on the watch. Seeing the right moment, he would go for their crotch. Brenda discussed the first known incident with Randy, who told Billy he will get himself hurt carrying on this way.  

Brenda and Randy had become the school staff’s favorite offenders of the year. They could pin nothing on them in relation to school premises or happening within school hours. However, Brenda and Randy knew well they were under surveillance by all school staff. They both knew to keep their confrontations out of school.

With Billy, there was a problem. He was back out onto his school bus, ready to ride home each day. They rarely saw him on the loose around Adamsville, as his parents lived close enough to the next town where they did their day-to-day business.

Brenda’s tolerance for Billy went to an all-time low.

Billy’s major problems began when he somehow got himself seated behind Brenda in a French class. She turned fifteen a few weeks before and was trying to overcome her hang-ups from being gang-raped and become proud of her new woman look. Many of the guys realized the golden opportunity to snap a bra strap, hence the reason Billy took the desk behind Benda. He hoped for the approval of the guys, perhaps from some who knew better than to mess with Brenda Croswell’s bra strap. He should have known he would be the last one permitted to even touch Brenda, much less snap her bra strap.

This day, the class was not doing well with a French lesson. French was never a loved subject that captivated a class, least of all Billy. Mrs. Croker was at the height of frustration scribbling separate French words on the green chalkboard with the chalk clicking louder as she composed each word of the sentence.

Then it happened.

Brenda chose the forward desks just because she did not care for the general classroom distractions. Show time for three quarters of the class seated behind her. Billy only got one light pick at Brenda’s bra strap. A muffled sound came from under her shirt.

Brenda’s fist contacted Billy’s nose in a flash. The hollow sound of wooden desks being forced into other desks carried throughout the entire upper floor of the school building as Billy went careening back with an instant nosebleed. Randy and six other students came to Brenda’s defense about the cause of the altercation. Staff knowing that sound of crashing furniture meant fighting, then flocked into the classroom.

Nothing justifies physical violence in a classroom. Brenda took the strapping from the school principal with a smile.

Billy’s parents called a community meeting, warning of severe legal consequences if these kid gangsters assaulted their son again. They walked out of their own meeting when John Croswell pointed out that their son should quit feeling up girls and pulling their bra straps.

They write sexual abuse into the bowels of the law books and if you like I can dig it out for your review, a freshly shaven John, dressed in his best out of style suit, spoke as he addressed the group.

Everyone knew of and respected John’s connection to law studies and his home library from his unsuccessful attempt at a law degree.

Randy could not leave it alone. He told Brenda he had a surprise once in a lifetime show for her at the student swim on the last day of school.

Saskatchewan was developing a regional park program in the sixties. A new park and a golf course bordered by the Carrot River included a back-water lagoon that was once a part of the river flow. With truckloads of sand and gravel, the community made a usable swimming place and beach. Satirically dubbed Little Lagoona by American tourists who visited that summer, it kept that unofficial name for the next two generations.

Two shacks built by the Legion and Odd Fellows Lodge in a partnership charity served as male and female change rooms. The bus rolled up to the buildings to unload. Randy put his madness and Brenda’s surprise to work.

The guy’s change shack had a distinct smell of something bad when they arrived. No doubt, as these were sub-serviced places, anything can go unattended. Maybe a child had a bowel accident and left a dirty garment in a corner or a decaying dead rodent made the unrelenting stench. Coming and going of unbathed bodies and week-old changes of clothes added to the mix. In the sixties, not everyone had seen daily baths and showers and changes of clothes.

Someone, from a wealthier family, brought their beach items used during their summers at the real beaches of Candle or Emma Lakes. The guys went about playing catch with the beach balls, wrestling, diving, and daring. The girls swam and lounged in the sun and under umbrellas. Just like life at a real beach. Everyone had a delightful afternoon.

The new park attendant fogged DDT about the grounds with an attachment on the gray Fordson tractor exhaust system. Bugs were no problem. Every critter up to the little fingertip size in the area was dead. DDT was not illegal in Canada in nineteen sixty-four. Everyone’s ability to define odors may have gone by inhaling DDT and tractor exhaust.

Unknown poisoning happened often. If it were not DDT and carbon monoxide, it was lead soldered strawberry jam cans.

Someone fixed the smell in the boy’s change shack. As they entered, there was a smell of something unknown. Something clean and medical smelling. Someone commented it smelled like something used in the Adamsville hospital. It was strong, but much better than the pungent smell upon arrival. 

Randy remained as he dried and changed, combed his hair, and laced his shoes. Billy did as expected, was all he wanted to know. He was the last one on the bus seating himself with Brenda, who saved the seat next to her for him. There had been the usual rush to the favorite bus seats. Someone should have flagged a problem when the clean hospital smell stayed with them on the bus. The guys were used to it in the boy’s change shack. It was a fresh smell to the girls as they boarded the bus. Perhaps not everyone could smell anything after a dose of fogged DDT and exhaust, but some did. Maybe the diver used one of the new deodorizers now on the market.

The yellow bus rolled down the long exit road past the length of the new golf course under construction. Inside everyone chatted joyfully, being it the end of the school year, refreshed with a cool swim, and getting on with sharing summer plans. Perhaps they all were a little high on high carbs, packed to the event and lacking a hot protein meal. The only one not into the joyful mix was Billy Bigalo. He was becoming red in the face and very agitated. His eyes watered. At that point, Randy nudged Brenda to get her attention on Billy. After all, it was her surprise. She needed to relish in the impending events from start to finish.

Then Billy set into motion, appearing to pull the crotch of his jeans away from his genitals. Soon he had his fly down, trying to rip his white shorts out. That not being effective, he started up, making the sound of the Adamsville siren at noontime, then emitting outright screams. He stood and dropped his pants.

Being in a rush to get the best seat on the bus, he had failed to dry himself before dressing. The wet skin only gave him minutes of protection.

Slight terror came over Brenda as she wondered how far Randy had gone with his prank.

The teacher sitting in the bus’s front alerted the driver to stop the bus and headed down the aisle to see what was happening with Billy. Billy already removed his bottom garments. Screams and whales like the fifteen-year-old Billy was being murdered had the whole bus in shock. The laughter had not begun. Randy whispered to Brenda, surprise sistaaa. He had read every Hardy Boys book available, along with a raft of other books. He often used dramatic short quotes from somewhere.

Billy headed down the aisle to the rear of the bus with his jeans and shorts dragging off his right leg and unlatched the emergency exit door. He continued his mournful howl as he headed for the nearest puddle in the ditch and plunked bum first down into it. By then, the shock and horror in the bus turned to roars of laughter with a teacher trying to comprehend the problem.

Brenda continued to cover her mouth and imagine only what Randy had done to Billy. She remained a little frightened at the possibility of this not ending well. What if Randy disfigured him for life? She knew Randy had shortcomings in judgment and foreseeing consequences. What if it was battery acid stolen from the local garage?

The old-fashioned Heet Liniment is a wonderful product for sufferers of arthritis and muscle strains. It is a blend of three vile products with wicked effects if not used properly. Oleoresin capsicum is an extract of hot peppers and used in pepper spray. Perhaps that explains the watering eyes if Billy made hand contact with his face after touching his shorts. Methyl salicylate is an extract of wintergreen plants which contributes to the smell that the boys became used to. Camphor is turpentine found in an Asian evergreen tree and rosemary leaves.

Put it on aching joints, and any skin over the muscle pain, and it does wonders. It has a list on the label of body parts it is not to treat. Never apply Heet Liniment to the genitals.

Someone loaned Billy a towel to wrap up in to get back to school.

Randy planned his prank well. He used an unusual obsessiveness to neatness and routine to stall and observe, which was Billy’s undershorts when he stripped to put on his swim shorts. When everyone left to swim, he moved Billy’s shorts under a bench, so they would not get kicked around from the coming and going of students in the change shack.

He checked with the chaperoning teacher for the time they would leave the park. What would a fifteen-year-old have to do on a school swim day when he would only return to school at the same time as the other students? The teacher may have connected him to the prank as an afterthought.

A half-hour before the time of departure, Randy returned to the shack, located Billy’s undershorts. He spilled a liberal dose of the hot stuff into the crotch and up the fly hole and placed the shorts back on Billy’s pile of clothes.

Brenda honored Randy with a hug and one of her few kisses ever that evening while John Croswell entertained her and Randy at their back-yard fire pit with a beer for Randy.

Retaliation and relishing in it would soon become a nasty game for these kids. They were only fifteen, with a drunken old man mentoring them. A drunken old man bitter with the society he felt shortchanged him and his family. It will not happen to his little girl and her friend.

No one heard of the Bigalos again in Adamsville school. Mrs. Bigalo tried to take her case to Mr. Silversides, the school principal, with no results. School was out for the summer. Felix Silversides had the summer off and who knows where Randy was. The kid who the school should expel was off for the summer. 

Billy attended school in the next town for the rest of his school years.

Chapter 3 - Alberta Bound

Failing his tenth grade and then his eleventh was enough for Randy. His little sister would catch up to him before he graduates. A drop from a grade A student to a failure in his mind became all he could handle. Randy elected to leave school.

His self-esteem wavered as Brenda tried to fix him. He and Brenda had spent hours working on their homework. Perhaps the effort became one-sided on Brenda’s part. Brenda trying to help Randy. She was his only best buddy, and he wanted nothing more than