Читать книгу The East Side of it All - Joseph Dandurand - Страница 7

When I was five I was put on a bus and sent to Catholic school not unlike my mother who was five when she was put on a train and sent to residential school, both feeling that gut feeling that this was not going to be a place we would like.

My parents told my older sister to watch over me but she had long ago grown to not like me, let alone protect me.

As we waited to go in that first morning a group of boys decided they did not like my brown skin. The biggest of them came at me but I was prepared as I had already been beaten up when I was four, again because of the colour of my skin.

So the big kid and I scrapped and soon the sisters were on us. We were sent down the hall as all the other kids and their glorious uniforms went down into the classrooms to begin their first day. The big kid and I were told to stand against a brick wall and the main Sister Superior of all the sisters told us if we wished to punch, then punch the wall. So we did. As my five-year-old fists smashed against the wall and soon blood formed on my knuckles and the Superior smiled and praised the Lord. She told us that was enough and I kept swinging as the big boy cried and said he was sorry. But I wasn’t.

The sister again told me to stop and I threw one more punch at the wall for her and one more for Christ who the whole time stared down from his cross. And that was the first day of my time with the Lord.