When we moved to the city on Lyon Street I brought with me my innocence. Even though my childhood was not without trauma it did not prepare me for life in the city. My father continued his drinking to excess on the weekends and I returned to wandering away from home. We lived in what would be called today a duplex. The owners had the duplex next door to us. The next house over was a rooming house filled with drunks and drug addicts. Often late at night you could see drunks fighting in front of that place. I actually remember the landlords name it was Bob Saunders and if you can believe it one of the never sober tenant Ivan. If I climbed on the roof through the bedroom window I would often find needles because our roofs were joined by a walk board. My sister’s first boyfriend lived there but he wasn’t an addict. His name was Denis Cloutier and my sister was attracted to him because he looked like young Elvis Presley. He milked that right to the end. He would often come over play his guitar and sing Presley songs but my dad didn’t like him. Actually my Dad didn’t like Eugene (aka Paul Dubreuil) the guy Francine dumped Denis for .My sister was a virgin and Denis wasn’t getting pass first base with her which drove him crazy .Night time in the city has always seen strange to me . It always seemed to me then and right up to today that people behave differently at night .I rarely went out at night pass nine pm. When I wasn’t in school I would explore my nieborhood and go pick bottles. It was through this bottle picking hobby of mine that I was introduce to adults who’s behavior was very bizarre to me. First I met Bob who invited me into the building he managed to donate bottles to me he had in his basement. Bob was a probation officer who in his spare time had parties in his basement with many of his delinquent offenders. He once told me they would have orgies at these parties. I barely knew what that was but I knew enough to know orgies without girls was weird. Bob was a homosexual or queer was the term I later learned. Bob befriended me for motives not the same as my own. He had access to a building swimming pool he would let me use. Although he openly told me he liked men which were something very strange to me he never tried anything on me. He was the one who help me find my first bicycle I bought for $20.00. Apparently Bob was bisexual because he often talked about his girlfriend. During my bottle picking I had a few other encounters with homosexuals some would be define pedophiles today. I stop picking bottles after a while because of the strange people I was meeting and because I discovered in my exploration a dairy factory who discarded the plastic jugs once a week. I would sneak over and jump in the bin to salvage from this gold mine. The dairy would crush the plastic bottles but I would reinflate them with hot water and cash them in at the corner store for Oh Henries chocolate bars, liquorish, and other junk foods. You would think my father would be proud of me for making money and even paying for my first bike but instead he would cal me selfish for not sharing with my sisters my chocolate bars.When I was young he would often tell me i'm crazy but now I had graduated to being "heartless" and "selfish"
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