Roger Caron
Encyclopedia
Roger "Mad Dog" Caron is a Canadian
bank robber
and the author of the influential 1978
prison
memoir
Go-Boy! Memories of a Life Behind Bars. At the time of publishing, Caron was thirty-nine years old and had spent twenty-three years in prison.
Roger Caron was born to extremely wealthy parents Donat and Yvonne in Cornwall, Ontario, Canada in 1938. During his first weeks of infancy Caron couldn't keep food down and was constantly gasping for breath, which subsequently led him to being rushed to the local hospital on a few occasions. Though no definitive diagnosis was given for his breathlessness, Caron grew up "very edgy about anything affecting [his] breathing." To this day he cannot swim or hold his head under a shower
for too long because of it. Caron was a quiet and secretive child who liked to keep to himself and pass the time by taking apart clocks.
His sister Suzanne was born in 1939 and kid brother Gaston followed in 1944. His father Donat, being twenty years older than Yvonne, had children from a previous marriage, Caron's half brothers and sisters, who by this time were off fighting in World War II
. The family lived in an old run-down converted barn
that would vibrate when a nearby train passed, rattling dishes and moving beds while the family slept. Caron's mother, Yvonne, was compulsively clean and kept the antique furniture in the house shining.
Caron was "spooked" easily as a young child. With their house full of religious articles and the dishes rattling and bed shaking caused by the train, Caron felt ghost
s were haunting him. Up until the age of eight, he was plagued by horrifying nightmares that would leave him physically ill. He would imagine shadowy apparitions coming through the bars of his bed to choke him or large waves that would crash over him making it impossible to breathe. Later, a parish
priest was able to help Caron fend off his nightmares. He (Caron) told the priest he had accidentally broke the hand off a large Saint Joseph
statue in his house while playing, thinking Saint Joseph's vengful spirit was choking him in the night. The priest had him pray to the life-size Saint Joseph statue at the church where the Father explained to the saint that the boy was only young and didn't know better. He gave Caron a silver medallion to wear around his neck and said Saint Joseph would be his protector from now on. Caron's nightmares disappeared and he continued to wear the medallion through adulthood.
During the final years of World War II, Caron's father found it difficult to feed the family and turned to bootlegging
as a source for income. In the beginning it was a small scale operation, but it soon grew to a level where Donat would have to rent parking for his customers and find hiding places to stash the surplus booze
. The family's house was raided numerous times by the local police
until Caron's father struck a deal with a local cop who would warn them when a raid was coming for twenty-five dollars a week. When a tip was phoned in, the family would rush outside and hide all the bottles in the empty field next to their house and the police were left empty-handed. Donat would chuckle at having outwitted the law once again all while young Caron sat by observing everything, wondering what was "right" and what was "wrong."
Around age eleven, Caron began having altercations with his father's drunken "customers." In one instance, a man killed his pet rooster claiming it was an accident. Caron flew into a rage and he had to be physically pulled off the man. His father beat him severely. Beatings from his alcoholic
father and fighting between his parents became more common as the bootlegging business continued to grow. Donat would later give up drinking and bootlegging after realizing the damage that was being done to the family.
Caron cites this time when he began feeling like he was a bad seed. He felt a tremendous drive to do something shocking. People in the community would pass scorn on Caron but, not wanting them to see they were emotionally scarring him, he would laugh it off and run away and do something bad. His older stepbrothers would hold him down while his father mercilessly whipped Caron when he got into trouble. The whippings had little effect on Caron and he would find other ways to punish himself like punching a shed door until his knuckle
s bled.
Caron's first brush with the law came at age twelve. He and a gang of youths broke into a boxcar
with the intention of stealing canned goods. The police arrived and Caron made a daring escape, darting between an arresting officer's legs. One of the other youths gave up Caron's name and a motorcycle
cop arrived at his school and arrested him in front of his class. The class waved goodbye as he rode away, a passenger in the motorcycle's sidecar
, remarking how he "felt like [John] Dillinger
". At the court appearance, Caron was let off with probation
and a stern lecture by the judge.
By age fourteen Caron had become more of a loner and had a hair-trigger temper that would get him into trouble on a regular basis. He would appear quiet and easy going on the surface but would launch into a full blown rage if pushed. At fifteen, Caron had built a lengthy arrest record topped off by stealing the town's cache of Dominion Day
fireworks
and three kegs of gunpowder
with two other boys. At age sixteen on September 8, 1954, Caron tripped the alarm at a sporting goods store. The police caught him after he hit his head on a beam in an alley and fell while escaping. On October 17 Caron was driven to the Ontario Reformatory in Guelph
, Ontario
with other future inmates on a bus dubbed the "Black Maria." His memoir Go-Boy! documents the next twenty-three years of his life.
Roger Caron's nephew, son of his brother Ray Caron, Jay Caron was shot dead in the back by Cornwall Police. Jay's younger brother Raymond named his son after his brother. A common mistake is that his son was shot, Roger does not have any children due to the fact that he has spent much of his life incarcerated.
Go-Boy! details Caron's life growing up in reformatories, prisons, and mental institutions from the age of sixteen through his thirties. Originally sent to the Ontario Reformatory in Guelph as a teenager for breaking and entering, his "career" in prison grew exponentially after constant bad judgements and a personal inner rage that Caron seemed unable to stifle.
As a teen still in Guelph, Caron was fortunate enough to earn a transfer to the medium security reformatory in Brampton
, Ontario
. His luck didn't last as he had the misfortune of crossing a bigger inmate which culminated in him smashing said inmate in the neck with a hockey stick during a recreation period. Thinking the inmate was deceased (he was actually only unconscious
), Caron hid the body under a boxing ring out of sight of the guards. Knowing he would face serious jail time, possibly hanging
, for murdering someone rather than the original fourteen months he was scheduled to be incarcerated, Caron made the decision to escape as soon as possible.
While they were being marched from the recreation center, Caron and a handful of inmates made a break for the woods at the fringes of the Brampton reformatory amid cries of "Go-Boy!" from fellow convicts. Go-Boy is a prison yell used when an inmate (or inmates) break from a work detail or crew in an attempt to escape. Caron successfully eluded the stalking prison guards and fled, not fully aware of how bleak his life would become over the following decades. He was recaptured three days later and sent back to the Ontario Reformatory in Guelph, this time as a member of the general population (gen pop).
Caron successfully broke out of thirteen prisons and jails, more than any other criminal in Canadian history, exploits he covers in vivid detail throughout the book. Go-Boy! was awarded the 1978 Governor General's Award
for non-fiction
and was widely acknowledged for its insights into prison life.
by being whipped with paddles
designed to inflict physical pain. Caron was paddled on two occasions with a 1/4 in leather paddle while strapped into a device he described as "a mass of metal tubing contoured to embrace a human form and, affixed to it, shackles and restraining straps" (an old photo of the device taken from the front page of the Toronto Telegram
on February 14, 1956, and a computer-generated update, can be seen here). The paddle had tiny holes drilled through it to decrease wind resistance and hence increase the force of each stroke. Then he left. He was afraid of being raped for the 16th time in prison.
Excerpt from Go-Boy!:
Caron suffered scarring on his buttocks and lower back as a result of the paddling. The head guard in charge of Caron's bull gang in Guelph, Sergeant Tracy, was so infuriated by the damage to Caron's body from one whipping that he personally threatened the medical officer in charge of supervising the punishment with physical violence if he ever witnessed another inmate treated in such a manner again.
Seven years
after publishing Go-Boy!, Caron released Bingo! The Horrifying Eyewitness Account of a Prison Riot about the 1971 Kingston Penitentiary
riot. Originally part of Go-Boy!, Caron pieced together outtakes from the memoir, including a lengthy section about the Kingston riot, to tell the tale as a separate story. The book narrates the most violent prison riot
in Canadian history at one of the oldest prisons in the country from the perspective of Caron, himself an inmate at Kingston during the riot.
Published in 1988
, Jojo was Caron's first attempt at writing fiction
. In this novel, a half-breed Indian by the name of Lloyd Stonechild begins his life on a reserve in Western Manitoba
and grows up to be strong, handsome, and ominously quiet. After one bad decision after another leads him to prison in Kansas
he undertakes a harrowing and daring escape to Canada. Unlike Caron's first two books, Jojo was not well-received by critics who panned its lack of character depth.
On April 1, 1992, Caron robbed a Zellers
department store in Ottawa
. High on cocaine
and visibly shaking from the effects of Parkinson's disease
, he tried to flee on a city bus only to be caught minutes later by police. Caron was denied bail and held until his trial in 1993. While awaiting trial, Caron tried to escape no less than three times. Initially sent to the Royal Ottawa Hospital to undergo a thirty-day competency test, he tried to pry open the wire mesh covering a window and was immediately sent back to the Ottawa Detention Centre.
Later, Caron was sent to the Brockville Psychiatric Hospital for another attempt at a competency test. He again tried to escape through a window but was caught and placed in a padded cell. When orderlies came to administer Caron's Parkinson's medication, he fought with the staff and tried to make another break.
In autumn 1993, after a lengthy trial, Caron was sentenced to nearly eight years for the Zellers robbery. An extra nine months were added to the sentence because of the previous year's escape attempts, and a further nine months were added for an attempted escape at Gatineau Maximum Security Detention Centre in Hull, Quebec
from over a decade earlier, bringing Caron's total sentence to nine years and three months. On July 15, 1994, while imprisoned at the Joyceville Institution, Caron married Barbara Prince, a legal secretary from Ottawa he had been dating prior to his latest incarceration. He also suffered two heart attacks and underwent open heart surgery on December 2, 1998 to have a triple bypass performed. Caron was paroled on December 10, 1998, partially due to his health, and moved to Barry's Bay, Ontario
to be closer to his new wife's family. His parole was to last until 2003.
On October 12, 2001, police, acting on an anonymous phone tip, arrested Caron at the Rideau Center in downtown Ottawa
for allegedly carrying a loaded revolver
, wig, scarf, several hats, and a change of clothes http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Toronto/Mark_Bonokoski/2004/09/29/647591.html http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20011014/ctvnews816520/20011014/. In February 2004, he was sentenced to twenty months in prison for being in possession of a loaded .32-calibre semi-automatic pistol at the Ottawa mall, which was a violation of his parole. While in prison for the parole violation, Caron was charged with fifteen more robberies that occurred in Toronto during the summer of 2001. Fourteen banks and one grocery store were robbed. Witnesses thought the robber was over six feet tall and in his thirties. Caron stands five foot eight inches tall and would have been sixty-three years old in 2001. The number of robberies was reduced from fifteen to five and on March 3, 2005 Caron was found not guilty on all charges.
At sixty-seven years old, Caron was released from Maplehurst Corrections Centre in April 2005 and has been living as a free man in Barry's Bay with his wife, Barbara, ever since. He now lives alone in a retirement home in Plantagenet, Ontario. He suffers from Dementia and Parkinson's.
. The following month, Paradox entered a pitch competition at the Raindance Film Festival
. Go-Boy! was pitched to a panel of judges that included Neil Jordan
and the producer from Bend It Like Beckham
, and came in first runner up out of twenty-nine other submissions http://www.paradoxpictures.ca/news.html.
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
bank robber
Bank robbery
Bank robbery is the crime of stealing from a bank during opening hours. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reporting Program, robbery is "the taking or attempting to take anything of value from the care, custody, or control of a person or persons by force or threat of...
and the author of the influential 1978
1978 in literature
The year 1978 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*The Bookseller/Diagram Prize for Oddest Title of the Year, a humorous award given annually to books with unusual titles is created. The first winner was Proceedings of the Second International Workshop on Nude...
prison
Prison
A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...
memoir
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
Go-Boy! Memories of a Life Behind Bars. At the time of publishing, Caron was thirty-nine years old and had spent twenty-three years in prison.
Biography
Bathing
Bathing is the washing or cleansing of the body in a fluid, usually water or an aqueous solution. It may be practised for personal hygiene, religious ritual or therapeutic purposes or as a recreational activity....
for too long because of it. Caron was a quiet and secretive child who liked to keep to himself and pass the time by taking apart clocks.
His sister Suzanne was born in 1939 and kid brother Gaston followed in 1944. His father Donat, being twenty years older than Yvonne, had children from a previous marriage, Caron's half brothers and sisters, who by this time were off fighting in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The family lived in an old run-down converted barn
Barn
A barn is an agricultural building used for storage and as a covered workplace. It may sometimes be used to house livestock or to store farming vehicles and equipment...
that would vibrate when a nearby train passed, rattling dishes and moving beds while the family slept. Caron's mother, Yvonne, was compulsively clean and kept the antique furniture in the house shining.
Caron was "spooked" easily as a young child. With their house full of religious articles and the dishes rattling and bed shaking caused by the train, Caron felt ghost
Ghost
In traditional belief and fiction, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to...
s were haunting him. Up until the age of eight, he was plagued by horrifying nightmares that would leave him physically ill. He would imagine shadowy apparitions coming through the bars of his bed to choke him or large waves that would crash over him making it impossible to breathe. Later, a parish
Parish
A parish is a territorial unit historically under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of one parish priest, who might be assisted in his pastoral duties by a curate or curates - also priests but not the parish priest - from a more or less central parish church with its associated organization...
priest was able to help Caron fend off his nightmares. He (Caron) told the priest he had accidentally broke the hand off a large Saint Joseph
Saint Joseph
Saint Joseph is a figure in the Gospels, the husband of the Virgin Mary and the earthly father of Jesus Christ ....
statue in his house while playing, thinking Saint Joseph's vengful spirit was choking him in the night. The priest had him pray to the life-size Saint Joseph statue at the church where the Father explained to the saint that the boy was only young and didn't know better. He gave Caron a silver medallion to wear around his neck and said Saint Joseph would be his protector from now on. Caron's nightmares disappeared and he continued to wear the medallion through adulthood.
During the final years of World War II, Caron's father found it difficult to feed the family and turned to bootlegging
Rum-running
Rum-running, also known as bootlegging, is the illegal business of transporting alcoholic beverages where such transportation is forbidden by law...
as a source for income. In the beginning it was a small scale operation, but it soon grew to a level where Donat would have to rent parking for his customers and find hiding places to stash the surplus booze
Alcoholic beverage
An alcoholic beverage is a drink containing ethanol, commonly known as alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are divided into three general classes: beers, wines, and spirits. They are legally consumed in most countries, and over 100 countries have laws regulating their production, sale, and consumption...
. The family's house was raided numerous times by the local police
Police
The police is a personification of the state designated to put in practice the enforced law, protect property and reduce civil disorder in civilian matters. Their powers include the legitimized use of force...
until Caron's father struck a deal with a local cop who would warn them when a raid was coming for twenty-five dollars a week. When a tip was phoned in, the family would rush outside and hide all the bottles in the empty field next to their house and the police were left empty-handed. Donat would chuckle at having outwitted the law once again all while young Caron sat by observing everything, wondering what was "right" and what was "wrong."
Around age eleven, Caron began having altercations with his father's drunken "customers." In one instance, a man killed his pet rooster claiming it was an accident. Caron flew into a rage and he had to be physically pulled off the man. His father beat him severely. Beatings from his alcoholic
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
father and fighting between his parents became more common as the bootlegging business continued to grow. Donat would later give up drinking and bootlegging after realizing the damage that was being done to the family.
Caron cites this time when he began feeling like he was a bad seed. He felt a tremendous drive to do something shocking. People in the community would pass scorn on Caron but, not wanting them to see they were emotionally scarring him, he would laugh it off and run away and do something bad. His older stepbrothers would hold him down while his father mercilessly whipped Caron when he got into trouble. The whippings had little effect on Caron and he would find other ways to punish himself like punching a shed door until his knuckle
Knuckle
The knuckles are the joints of the fingers and toes, which are brought into prominence when the hand is clenched and a fist is made. The word is cognate to similar words in other Germanic languages, such as the Dutch "Knokkel" or German "Knöchel" , i.e., Knöchlein, the diminutive of the German...
s bled.
Caron's first brush with the law came at age twelve. He and a gang of youths broke into a boxcar
Boxcar
A boxcar is a railroad car that is enclosed and generally used to carry general freight. The boxcar, while not the simplest freight car design, is probably the most versatile, since it can carry most loads...
with the intention of stealing canned goods. The police arrived and Caron made a daring escape, darting between an arresting officer's legs. One of the other youths gave up Caron's name and a motorcycle
Motorcycle
A motorcycle is a single-track, two-wheeled motor vehicle. Motorcycles vary considerably depending on the task for which they are designed, such as long distance travel, navigating congested urban traffic, cruising, sport and racing, or off-road conditions.Motorcycles are one of the most...
cop arrived at his school and arrested him in front of his class. The class waved goodbye as he rode away, a passenger in the motorcycle's sidecar
Sidecar
A sidecar is a one-wheeled device attached to the side of a motorcycle, scooter, or bicycle, producing a three-wheeled vehicle.-History:A sidecar appeared in a cartoon by George Moore in the January 7, 1903, issue of the British newspaper Motor Cycling. Three weeks later, a provisional patent was...
, remarking how he "felt like [John] Dillinger
John Dillinger
John Herbert Dillinger, Jr. was an American bank robber in Depression-era United States. He was charged with, but never convicted of, the murder of an East Chicago, Indiana police officer during a shoot-out. This was his only alleged homicide. His gang robbed two dozen banks and four police stations...
". At the court appearance, Caron was let off with probation
Probation
Probation literally means testing of behaviour or abilities. In a legal sense, an offender on probation is ordered to follow certain conditions set forth by the court, often under the supervision of a probation officer...
and a stern lecture by the judge.
By age fourteen Caron had become more of a loner and had a hair-trigger temper that would get him into trouble on a regular basis. He would appear quiet and easy going on the surface but would launch into a full blown rage if pushed. At fifteen, Caron had built a lengthy arrest record topped off by stealing the town's cache of Dominion Day
Dominion Day
Dominion Day is a commemoration day of the granting of national status in various Commonwealth countries.-Canada:Dominion Day was the name of the holiday commemorating the formation of Canada as a Dominion on 1 July 1867...
fireworks
Fireworks
Fireworks are a class of explosive pyrotechnic devices used for aesthetic and entertainment purposes. The most common use of a firework is as part of a fireworks display. A fireworks event is a display of the effects produced by firework devices...
and three kegs of gunpowder
Gunpowder
Gunpowder, also known since in the late 19th century as black powder, was the first chemical explosive and the only one known until the mid 1800s. It is a mixture of sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate - with the sulfur and charcoal acting as fuels, while the saltpeter works as an oxidizer...
with two other boys. At age sixteen on September 8, 1954, Caron tripped the alarm at a sporting goods store. The police caught him after he hit his head on a beam in an alley and fell while escaping. On October 17 Caron was driven to the Ontario Reformatory in Guelph
Guelph
Guelph is a city in Ontario, Canada.Guelph may also refer to:* Guelph , consisting of the City of Guelph, Ontario* Guelph , as the above* University of Guelph, in the same city...
, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
with other future inmates on a bus dubbed the "Black Maria." His memoir Go-Boy! documents the next twenty-three years of his life.
Roger Caron's nephew, son of his brother Ray Caron, Jay Caron was shot dead in the back by Cornwall Police. Jay's younger brother Raymond named his son after his brother. A common mistake is that his son was shot, Roger does not have any children due to the fact that he has spent much of his life incarcerated.
Go-Boy!
As a teen still in Guelph, Caron was fortunate enough to earn a transfer to the medium security reformatory in Brampton
Brampton
Brampton is the third-largest city in the Greater Toronto Area of Ontario, Canada.Brampton may also refer to:- Canada :* Brampton, a city in Ontario** Brampton GO Station, a station in the GO Transit network located in the city- United Kingdom :...
, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
. His luck didn't last as he had the misfortune of crossing a bigger inmate which culminated in him smashing said inmate in the neck with a hockey stick during a recreation period. Thinking the inmate was deceased (he was actually only unconscious
Unconscious mind
The unconscious mind is a term coined by the 18th century German romantic philosopher Friedrich Schelling and later introduced into English by the poet and essayist Samuel Taylor Coleridge...
), Caron hid the body under a boxing ring out of sight of the guards. Knowing he would face serious jail time, possibly hanging
Hanging
Hanging is the lethal suspension of a person by a ligature. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", though it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain...
, for murdering someone rather than the original fourteen months he was scheduled to be incarcerated, Caron made the decision to escape as soon as possible.
While they were being marched from the recreation center, Caron and a handful of inmates made a break for the woods at the fringes of the Brampton reformatory amid cries of "Go-Boy!" from fellow convicts. Go-Boy is a prison yell used when an inmate (or inmates) break from a work detail or crew in an attempt to escape. Caron successfully eluded the stalking prison guards and fled, not fully aware of how bleak his life would become over the following decades. He was recaptured three days later and sent back to the Ontario Reformatory in Guelph, this time as a member of the general population (gen pop).
Caron successfully broke out of thirteen prisons and jails, more than any other criminal in Canadian history, exploits he covers in vivid detail throughout the book. Go-Boy! was awarded the 1978 Governor General's Award
1978 Governor General's Awards
Each winner of the 1978 Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit was selected by a panel of judges administered by the Canada Council for the Arts.-English Language:*Fiction: Alice Munro, Who Do You Think You Are?...
for non-fiction
Non-fiction
Non-fiction is the form of any narrative, account, or other communicative work whose assertions and descriptions are understood to be fact...
and was widely acknowledged for its insights into prison life.
Corporal punishment
Go-Boy! covered in graphic detail how prisoners were subjected to corporal punishmentJudicial corporal punishment
Judicial corporal punishment refers to the infliction of corporal punishment as a result of a sentence by a court of law. The punishment can be flogging, caning, birching, whipping, or strapping...
by being whipped with paddles
Paddle (spanking)
A spanking paddle is an implement used to strike a person on the buttocks. The act of striking a person with a paddle is known as "paddling". A paddling may be for punishment , or as an initiation or hazing ritual, or for erotic purposes.A paddle has two parts: a handle and a blade...
designed to inflict physical pain. Caron was paddled on two occasions with a 1/4 in leather paddle while strapped into a device he described as "a mass of metal tubing contoured to embrace a human form and, affixed to it, shackles and restraining straps" (an old photo of the device taken from the front page of the Toronto Telegram
Toronto Telegram
The Toronto Evening Telegram was a conservative, broadsheet afternoon newspaper published in Toronto from 1876 to 1971. It had a reputation for supporting the Conservative Party at both the federal and provincial level. The paper competed with the liberal Toronto Star...
on February 14, 1956, and a computer-generated update, can be seen here). The paddle had tiny holes drilled through it to decrease wind resistance and hence increase the force of each stroke. Then he left. He was afraid of being raped for the 16th time in prison.
Excerpt from Go-Boy!:
- The eerie ritual began when the dozen witnesses ominously scraped the soles of their shoes on the floor in unison, deliberately done to confuse my sense of direction.
- "ONE!" I clenched my teeth and my body went rigid as the strap sliced through the air, 'CRACK!' Like a pistol shot, it made solid contact with my buttocks, my head snapped backwards, while violently driving my shackled body forward. White searing pain exploded throughout my being and blood gushed from my lips as I struggled to stifle a scream. It was brutal and it was horrible. My whole body vibrated like a band of tempered steel and my mind filled with nightmares as I awaited the next blow.
- "Two!" swish, crack! "Three!" swish, crack! "Four!" swish, crack! "Five!" swish-crack!
- Over and over again I heard the scraping of the shoes, the sharp command, the long seconds, the strap cutting through the air, the explosion and then the crazy-out-of-this-world pain that struck terror into my very soul. Finally it was all over. Ten strokes of the paddle and I didn't scream or beg as so many did. That was very, very important to me.
Caron suffered scarring on his buttocks and lower back as a result of the paddling. The head guard in charge of Caron's bull gang in Guelph, Sergeant Tracy, was so infuriated by the damage to Caron's body from one whipping that he personally threatened the medical officer in charge of supervising the punishment with physical violence if he ever witnessed another inmate treated in such a manner again.
Bingo!
1985 in literature
The year 1985 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Isaac Asimov - Robots and Empire*Margaret Atwood - The Handmaid's Tale*Jean M. Auel - The Mammoth Hunters*Iain Banks - Walking on Glass...
after publishing Go-Boy!, Caron released Bingo! The Horrifying Eyewitness Account of a Prison Riot about the 1971 Kingston Penitentiary
Kingston Penitentiary
Kingston Penitentiary is a maximum security prison located in Kingston, Ontario between King Street West and Lake Ontario....
riot. Originally part of Go-Boy!, Caron pieced together outtakes from the memoir, including a lengthy section about the Kingston riot, to tell the tale as a separate story. The book narrates the most violent prison riot
Prison riot
A prison riot is an act of concerted defiance or disorder by a group of prisoners against the prison administrators, prison officers, or other groups of prisoners in attempt to force change or express a grievance....
in Canadian history at one of the oldest prisons in the country from the perspective of Caron, himself an inmate at Kingston during the riot.
Jojo
1988 in literature
The year 1988 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-New books:*Margaret Atwood - Cat's Eye*J.G. Ballard - Memories of the Space Age*Iain M...
, Jojo was Caron's first attempt at writing fiction
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
. In this novel, a half-breed Indian by the name of Lloyd Stonechild begins his life on a reserve in Western Manitoba
Manitoba
Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...
and grows up to be strong, handsome, and ominously quiet. After one bad decision after another leads him to prison in Kansas
Kansas
Kansas is a US state located in the Midwestern United States. It is named after the Kansas River which flows through it, which in turn was named after the Kansa Native American tribe, which inhabited the area. The tribe's name is often said to mean "people of the wind" or "people of the south...
he undertakes a harrowing and daring escape to Canada. Unlike Caron's first two books, Jojo was not well-received by critics who panned its lack of character depth.
Where he is today
Zellers
Zellers Inc. is Canada's second-largest chain of mass merchandise discount stores, with locations in communities across Canada. A subsidiary of the Hudson's Bay Company , it has 273 locations across the country....
department store in Ottawa
Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...
. High on cocaine
Cocaine
Cocaine is a crystalline tropane alkaloid that is obtained from the leaves of the coca plant. The name comes from "coca" in addition to the alkaloid suffix -ine, forming cocaine. It is a stimulant of the central nervous system, an appetite suppressant, and a topical anesthetic...
and visibly shaking from the effects of Parkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease
Parkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system...
, he tried to flee on a city bus only to be caught minutes later by police. Caron was denied bail and held until his trial in 1993. While awaiting trial, Caron tried to escape no less than three times. Initially sent to the Royal Ottawa Hospital to undergo a thirty-day competency test, he tried to pry open the wire mesh covering a window and was immediately sent back to the Ottawa Detention Centre.
Later, Caron was sent to the Brockville Psychiatric Hospital for another attempt at a competency test. He again tried to escape through a window but was caught and placed in a padded cell. When orderlies came to administer Caron's Parkinson's medication, he fought with the staff and tried to make another break.
In autumn 1993, after a lengthy trial, Caron was sentenced to nearly eight years for the Zellers robbery. An extra nine months were added to the sentence because of the previous year's escape attempts, and a further nine months were added for an attempted escape at Gatineau Maximum Security Detention Centre in Hull, Quebec
Hull, Quebec
Hull is the central and oldest part of the city of Gatineau, Quebec, Canada. It is located on the west bank of the Gatineau River and the north shore of the Ottawa River, directly opposite Ottawa. As part of the Canadian National Capital Region, it contains offices for twenty thousand...
from over a decade earlier, bringing Caron's total sentence to nine years and three months. On July 15, 1994, while imprisoned at the Joyceville Institution, Caron married Barbara Prince, a legal secretary from Ottawa he had been dating prior to his latest incarceration. He also suffered two heart attacks and underwent open heart surgery on December 2, 1998 to have a triple bypass performed. Caron was paroled on December 10, 1998, partially due to his health, and moved to Barry's Bay, Ontario
Barry's Bay, Ontario
Barry's Bay is a community in the township of Madawaska Valley, Ontario, Canada, located two hours west of Ottawa on the shores of Kamaniskeg Lake, with a population of approximately 1,300 people...
to be closer to his new wife's family. His parole was to last until 2003.
On October 12, 2001, police, acting on an anonymous phone tip, arrested Caron at the Rideau Center in downtown Ottawa
Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...
for allegedly carrying a loaded revolver
Revolver
A revolver is a repeating firearm that has a cylinder containing multiple chambers and at least one barrel for firing. The first revolver ever made was built by Elisha Collier in 1818. The percussion cap revolver was invented by Samuel Colt in 1836. This weapon became known as the Colt Paterson...
, wig, scarf, several hats, and a change of clothes http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Toronto/Mark_Bonokoski/2004/09/29/647591.html http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20011014/ctvnews816520/20011014/. In February 2004, he was sentenced to twenty months in prison for being in possession of a loaded .32-calibre semi-automatic pistol at the Ottawa mall, which was a violation of his parole. While in prison for the parole violation, Caron was charged with fifteen more robberies that occurred in Toronto during the summer of 2001. Fourteen banks and one grocery store were robbed. Witnesses thought the robber was over six feet tall and in his thirties. Caron stands five foot eight inches tall and would have been sixty-three years old in 2001. The number of robberies was reduced from fifteen to five and on March 3, 2005 Caron was found not guilty on all charges.
At sixty-seven years old, Caron was released from Maplehurst Corrections Centre in April 2005 and has been living as a free man in Barry's Bay with his wife, Barbara, ever since. He now lives alone in a retirement home in Plantagenet, Ontario. He suffers from Dementia and Parkinson's.
Adaptations of Go-Boy!
In September 2004, Canadian film company Paradox Pictures secured the rights to Go-Boy! and began work on a screenplayScreenplay
A screenplay or script is a written work that is made especially for a film or television program. Screenplays can be original works or adaptations from existing pieces of writing. In them, the movement, actions, expression, and dialogues of the characters are also narrated...
. The following month, Paradox entered a pitch competition at the Raindance Film Festival
Raindance Film Festival
Raindance is an independent film festival and film school that operates from various cities including: London, New York, Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Budapest, Berlin and Brussels...
. Go-Boy! was pitched to a panel of judges that included Neil Jordan
Neil Jordan
Neil Patrick Jordan is an Irish filmmaker and novelist. He won an Academy Award for The Crying Game.- Early life :...
and the producer from Bend It Like Beckham
Bend It Like Beckham
Bend It Like Beckham is a 2002 comedy-drama film starring Parminder Nagra, Keira Knightley, Jonathan Rhys Myers, Anupam Kher, Shaznay Lewis, and Archie Panjabi first released in the United Kingdom. The film was directed by Gurinder Chadha...
, and came in first runner up out of twenty-nine other submissions http://www.paradoxpictures.ca/news.html.
Awards
- 1978 Governor General's Award1978 Governor General's AwardsEach winner of the 1978 Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit was selected by a panel of judges administered by the Canada Council for the Arts.-English Language:*Fiction: Alice Munro, Who Do You Think You Are?...
(English non-fiction) for Go-Boy! Memories of a Life Behind Bars
External links
- World Corporal Punishment Research - Detailed account from Go-Boy! about Caron's experiences being paddled (scroll half-way down page)
- Paradox Pictures - Film company producing Go-Boy!'