The Years of Fire

Other Titles from Douglas Gibson Books

CHARLES THIBODEAU
, born in 1966 in the east end of Montreal, experienced a hard early life. His mother, Alice, died when he was four. A few years later, his father, Wilfrid, a carpenter with a drinking problem, treated him so badly that, with the help of a local notary, he was taken in by kind neighbours, Lucie and Fernand Fafard. This was a godsend for Charles and his dog, Boff, since the Fafard children, Henri (a boy of his age) and his younger sister, Céline, were fond of Charles, as was his good friend Blonblon.

Charles is very bright and a keen reader, but by the time he begins classes at Jean-Baptiste-Meilleur Secondary School, his adventures have already earned him the nickname “Charles the Bold.”

T
here was no student revolt at Jean-Baptiste-Meilleur School, at least not at mid-term. The school’s principal, Monsieur Robert-Aimé Doyon, was a small, lively man with piercing eyes, a firm jaw, and even firmer ideas, which were as integrated with each other as bricks in a wall. He wanted his school to be a bastion of discipline, hard work, and cleanliness. He considered the establishment of such a cult his personal duty, and he imposed it upon everyone who passed through his school, whether regularly or only occasionally. His subdued but steely voice drew instant attention and respect. He forbade his teachers to wear beards or moustaches, had metal flanges screwed to the stair handrails to discourage anyone from sliding down them, and flew into such cold rages at the sight of a poorly swept hallway or a scrap of paper lying on the grounds that the caretaker had become a ghostly insomniac who made tours of inspection in the middle of the night. The poor travelling salesman who stood before him with a shirt button unfastened, or his tie knot slightly askew, or his shoes less than impeccably polished had his attention politely but firmly drawn to his deficiency at the start of any meeting. And if the same salesman was so imprudent as to adopt some of the overly familiar sales strategies that were practised in America – calling the client by his first name, for example, or resting a hand on his shoulder while telling an off-colour joke – the principal would fix him with his famous cold stare and ask, icily, “I’m sorry, do we know each other?”

It was therefore not a good idea to be sent to Robert-Aimé Doyon’s office on any disciplinary matter. Students who entered his precinct did so with the pallor of a French nobleman climbing the steps to the guillotine, and left looking overwhelmed, and with a fairly full timetable. As a result, the teachers at Jean-Baptiste-Meilleur felt no particular warmth towards their principal, though each was well aware that the man’s despotic approach made their jobs a lot easier.

The students were no less keen to get through their time at Jean-Baptiste-Meilleur and move on to their next level of education. Pierre-Dupuy High School was just down the street, and was a stark contrast to their own school; it was co-ed, for one thing, and seemed possessed of an infinitely more relaxed attitude. The fascination the high school exerted on the younger students had increased when a fire broke out in the building the previous winter, caused by a student with an acetylene torch, and completely demolished the building’s fifth floor. And then there were the stories told about the high school’s famous shower rooms, in which students were obliged to shower in groups, naked, whether they liked it or not.

After class, the students of Jean-Baptiste-Meilleur would gather discreetly on rue Fullum, across from Pierre-Dupuy, to watch the “big kids” leaving their enviable school. It was a way of preparing themselves for the new life that awaited them. They would observe the expressions, learn the swear words, and study the behaviours that were current among high school students. Thus it was that one afternoon Charles received his first hormonal shock.

The large, rubber-boned student whose ego had received a bruising in the scuffle with Charles at the Sacred Heart statue earlier in the year had slowly developed a kind of friendship with him. He had the somewhat picturesque name of Steve Lachapelle, and he lived with his mother and two sisters (his father having taken off several years before). Like many of his fellow students, Lachapelle came to school two out of three days with an empty stomach, a mouth full of saliva, and his attention scattered to the four winds. Charles and Henri had noticed this and from time to time shared their lunches with him. Despite his name, Lachapelle was a
real devil. He was in school only because the law forced him to be, and so all he wanted to do was play tricks on his comrades, have a few laughs, and get out as soon as he was legally able to get a “good job” that paid “lots of dough” so he could buy himself some “wheels” and “pick up chicks.” His physical development was a bit ahead of Charles’s, whose own interest in the opposite sex existed somewhere out on the fringes of his consciousness.

One afternoon after class, however, Lachapelle invited Charles up to Dupuy to “check out the action” leaving school. The two friends stationed themselves in front of the Grover Building, a textile factory across from the high school that, day and night, filled the entire neighbourhood with a low hum. With their school backpacks on the sidewalk, they pretended to be engaged in an animated discussion, but their eyes constantly scanned the flood of students pouring into the street. Lachapelle was excitedly eyeing the “chicks,” and Charles was imitating him. They were, however, being discreet about it, since it was well known that any “babies” from Jean-Baptiste-Meilleur caught hassling their elders on rue Fullum were liable to get a shit-kicking.