Larry got on well with his new boss. Don Wyatt was an affable westerner and a veteran of thirty years’ “hard time,” as he jocularly termed his life as a history teacher in prisons. He was a natural storyteller, and Larry lapped up his tales of prison life, especially those of luckless inmates, for many of whom Don had a great deal of sympathy, especially native convicts whose lives had taken a wrong turn due to a weakness for strong drink. “Good boys, most of them,” sighed Don. “I never met a Charles Manson, and I was in maximum security prairie prisons for years.” For Don Wyatt, life was an adventure. He told Larry why he had enlisted in the Canadian army in 1940. “It was the Depression. My dad rode freights looking for work. I didn’t want to do the same. Thought it’d be a hoot to sign up. It wasn’t, but I didn’t know that then, years ago…”
The prison service was in transition. It was not replacing retiring staff, especially not teachers, preferring to contract out services to local educational agencies across the country. New hires were idealistic young social scientists “wet behind the ears,” Don said, with a “touching faith in psychotherapeutic rehabilitation,” convinced recidivism would be eliminated in time. Don was a realist who was not in sympathy with the changes, and was restless for a career change himself. He liked young Larry, who spoke and wrote well, was dutiful and almost painfully honest, had a commendable work ethic, and showed an intuitive grasp of departmental procedures, at one point writing a survey on prison educational programs for the Commissioner on the strength of a few telephone calls and careful research. Larry was surprised that it was such enjoyably interesting work, and it did not trouble him that Don took credit for much of it, as he was only a temporary employee, and Don his mentor. “I like writing,” said Larry simply.
“I have to go to a regional meeting in Edmonton next week, son. I’ll use the speech you wrote. How would you like to be me this coming Monday? You’d have to take a senior official of our Service, to a graduation ceremony in Kingston. Lets you see inside and gives you a day off. Take my car. How about it?”
Anxious to please as always, Larry enthusiastically accepted. He met his passenger as arranged at a nearby parking lot. The high-ranking official, described earlier by Don as a ‘pajandrum’ or ‘mandarin’ and a pompous nonentity, was introduced by a fawning subordinate at his side. His passenger was a heavy-set man in his early fifties who looked askance at the young man who was to be his driver. His expression indicated hearty disapproval both of the kid assigned to drive him and of the Rambler Rebel, Don’s car, in which he was to be conveyed. Larry opened the passenger door for him, but he pointedly opened the rear door for himself and climbed into the back seat, and was soon busily engaged with paperwork behind the raised lid of his attache case. The only conversation on the two-hour drive occurred when Larry opened his window, at his passenger’s request, as the air-conditioning did not work, and the man let fly with an oath. “ Hey! There’s important papers blowing about back here! Close that window! Get yourself a real car.” Larry forbore to tell him it was not his. The man was on edge, so he made allowance.
