Mahatma arrived at the arena seventy-five minutes after the riot ended. Pushing into the crowd, he got the name of the boy who was killed. Then he found a boy with a Princeton
Hawks jacket. Peter Griffiths had been in the penalty box when fighting broke out. “Why were you in the penalty box?”
“I was doing two minutes for frog bustin.’”
“I see,” Mahatma said. “A penalty.”
“I speared a frog. Big deal. Everybody does it. You’re not putting that in the paper, are you?”
“I’m just doing research right now,” Mahatma said. “I don’t know what will go into the paper.”
“If you’re just researching, I guess I can talk to you.”
Griffiths said he had been waiting for his penalty to end when a St. Albert player—Emile Moreau—clobbered an English opponent—Jack Hunter—right in the face. Hunter was so stunned that Moreau was able to hit him again. This took place by the boards, after a whistle, and so close to the penalty box that Griffiths could almost touch the blood on Hunter’s face. Griffiths hopped over the boards and crosschecked Moreau, knocking his helmet off. Moreau fell to his knees. Hunter recovered in time to break Moreau’s nose. He cut him over the right eye with a second punch. And a third.
“Why didn’t you pull Hunter back?” Mahatma asked.
“Because Gilles Gendron from St. Albert hit me when I wasn’t looking,” Griffiths replied. “Then Ernie Cohen took Gendron out. Then a frog knocked down Ernie. I took on that frog. Then everybody got into it.”
The more Mahatma heard, the faster he wrote. Griffiths said the tensions were nothing new. “We’ve always hated them and, I guess, they’ve never been exactly crazy about us.”
“Why do you hate them? Why was that kid killed?”
“Hey, I didn’t do it, I didn’t kill him. You’re not going to put in there that I killed him, are you?”
“No.”
Friends led Peter Griffiths away. “Hey man,” one said, “don’t talk to that guy. He’s a fucking reporter.”
Mahatma interviewed another player and three parents. The teams apparently fought a lot, but nobody could say why the French and English hated each other. “Why don’t you get along?” Mahatma asked a player.
“We just don’t.”
“And where are all the French people now?”
“They hang out at the community centre. You’re not going to talk to them, are you?”
“Maybe. Where’s the community centre?”
Slade spent half the time Mahatma had spent in the hockey arena, and interviewed half the people Grafton had seen, but still managed to extract vivid quotes. “People say you guys are getting rowdy and that local hockey should be banned for kids your age,” Slade told a few English hockey players. They replied that the fight was the fault of the French, that Gilles Baril deserved what he got, and that English hockey players were banding together in the streets. “What if they came after you in dark alleys?” Slade asked. “Have you thought about that? How will you protect yourselves then?”
“We’ll break their skulls with hockey sticks!”
From this, Slade wrote the lead for one of his many stories: “Teen-aged anglo goons have vowed to prowl St. Albert-Princeton at night, carrying hockey sticks to fight the French…”
Slade asked boys in the arena where the victim’s family lived.
“You wanna go there?” someone answered. “That’s not where the other reporter was going. He was going to the French community centre.”
“What reporter?” Slade asked.
“Black guy.”
“Mahatma Grafton? Shit! Where’d he go?”
“To the community centre. What kind of name is ‘Mahatma Grafton’?”
“Not sure,” Slade said, “but it could be French.”
“You telling me that black guy’s a frog?”
“Could be,” Slade said.
“Get off it! Black guys aren’t French! They’re English!”
“Well, this one’s a bit of everything. See ya.”
“What explains the violence?” Mahatma asked a woman at the French community centre.
“We’ll have to look into that,” she shot back at him. “What do you want from us?”
“Something to help people understand what happened tonight.”
“You’re not interested in our pain,” the woman told Mahatma. “You can’t know our pain if you’re an outsider.” She was accusing him, excluding him, but it was a good quote. He wrote it down. It wasn’t until he had lived in Quebec six years ago that he had been forced to see himself as an anglo. People there were keen to categorize him. He was a man, Canadian, a student, black, but there, in the eyes of those living around him, Mahatma Grafton was an anglais.
“Why can’t anglophones understand your pain?” he asked. “Aren’t English parents suffering today too?”
“When people see an English boy in the streets tomorrow, are they going to say: ‘There’s the one who killed Gilles Baril’? Of course not. But when they see a French boy five minutes later, they will say: ‘There’s the one who started the riot.’” Mahatma wrote that down. “I don’t want that in the paper,” she said. He kept writing. As far as he was concerned, it was too late: she had already spoken. And anyway, what harm could it do her? Now, he simply needed her name. How would he get it? She would refuse, of course, to give it. At that instant, two men swept up to her.
“Louise,” one man said, “I’d like you to meet Pierre Gagnon. Pierre, this is Louise Robitaille, one of our town councillors.”
There. He had her name. Then he had another stroke of luck: he spotted Georges Goyette! “Georges! What are you doing here?”
“My son plays for St. Albert. I came to watch the game.”
“You saw it, then?”
“Yes.”
“Is your son okay?”
“He’s fine. I dragged him off the ice when the fighting began.”
While Mahatma scribbled, Goyette described the fight. “It was tragic. I saw two fathers going at it in the stands. Part of the age-old hatreds around here.”
“By the way, do you know where Gilles Baril’s family lives?”
“You’re not going to bother them?”
“I have to.”
“You have to? Just tell your editors the family was out.”
“This is my job.”
“That’s how you see your job? To invade families in times of shock?” Goyette, for once, wasn’t smiling. The comment didn’t affect Mahatma. He had no time to think about it. He spent half an hour finding the modest bungalow on an icy rural route fifteen miles out of town.
“Qui est là?” The woman didn’t want to open the door.
Mahatma knew that getting her to open it would be the hardest part. He held up a card with his photo. She unhinged the chain and opened the door. “Police, encore?” She urged him in so she could close the door.
“No, Madame, I’m with The Winnipeg Herald,” he replied in French. “I’m awfully sorry to trouble you.”
“With The Winnipeg Herald and you speak French like that! My Lord, you speak well. You speak better than we do. We’re simple folks out here, but we never hurt anybody, either.” She was a thin woman, about five-two. She had grey hair and clear blue, baggy eyes, and she wore a pink nightgown and knit slippers.
“I’m terribly sorry about your son, Madame.”
She hung her head to the side, then looked at him again. “What can you do? The Good Lord needed him.” Mahatma slipped the pad out of his pocket and noted that down. He could picture the quote on the front page.
“I won’t bother you for long. It’s just that…”
“Sit down. My husband and my other son have gone out to take care of everything. It’s hard, staying alone at home when your son has died.” Mahatma got that down too. She asked, “Would you like some tea?”
“Please.”
“You speak a very nice French. Are you from Haiti?”
“No, I w
as born in Winnipeg.”
“Vraiment? Such good French.”
She walked into the kitchen. Mahatma studied the room. Pictures of the boys playing hockey, playing baseball, at communion, at Christmas. Family pictures. A simple living-room. A rocking chair, a blanket-covered couch, a TV. An ashtray, five times bigger than necessary, and a statue of Christ and, in the corner, a photo album. In his notepad he described these objects, as well as the dim lighting, the simple wallpaper and the thin rug. She brought him tea, milk and sugar. And a slice of pie. “You’re young. I bet you love sugar pie. It was Gilles’ favourite.” Mahatma jotted that down. “So this is for the paper?” she asked. The idea pleased her. “When will it be out?”
“Tomorrow, Madame.”
“Please, call me Gisèle.”
“All right, Gisèle. May I see a picture of Gilles?”
“That is him on the wall.”
Mahatma looked at the sixteen-year-old with a peach fuzz moustache. “Do you have any other photographs of him? We would like to put his picture in the newspaper. Perhaps one with the whole family.”
She reached for the photo album. “You can borrow this album. Just bring it back next week.”
Mahatma placed the album in his briefcase. He asked for Gilles’ full name and the other son’s name, and their ages, and her husband’s name, and her husband’s work. She offered surprising details. “I burnt a pecan pie yesterday; Gilles was furious. He told me if I didn’t watch so much television it wouldn’t have happened. I don’t think he really meant it. Do you? I think he really did love me. I do watch television, that’s true, but I’m not lazy. It’s a lot of work taking care of a husband and two boys. And I drive the school bus in the morning and the afternoon too.”
“Why do you think this happened?” Mahatma asked. “Do you think there’s tension between the English and the French?”
“I don’t know about things like that. Ask my husband.”
“But you, personally? Do you sense the tension?”
“Sometimes. The other day I was shopping in Princeton with a friend, talking to her, you know, in French, and this man passed us and said, ‘In Manitoba we speak English!’ Why would that man tell us that? What would he care what language I was using?”
“Did Gilles have English friends?”
“His best friend was English. And he had an English girlfriend.”
“Had Gilles been in any fights recently?”
“My boy almost never fought. But last week he had some problems with an English boy. It wasn’t about language, though. The English boy was after Gilles’ girl.” Mahatma took that down. The doorbell rang. “You’re a nice man, would you please send them away?” Gisèle asked. “I’m very tired now.”
“Certainly.” Mahatma walked to the door. “Who is it?” he called.
“The Winnipeg Star!”
“Mrs. Baril doesn’t want to be disturbed,” Mahatma said. Two eyes stared through the glass at him.
“Mahatma! Lemme in!”
“Sorry,” Mahatma said cheerfully.
“How’d you get in there?”
“Tell you later.”
Turning back to Gisèle Baril, Mahatma suppressed a grin at the shouts from outside. “Let me in, Grafton!”
“Who was that?” Gisèle asked.
“A reporter.”
“His language is not very Catholic.” The doorbell rang three times. “Who are you?” Gisèle called through the door.
“I’m with The Star,” Edward Slade shouted. “Please let me in, Ma’am. I’m freezing.”
She opened the door. “You’re a reporter too?”
“That’s right, Ma’am,” Slade said.
“Can’t Mr. Grafton tell you about all this later? I feel tired now.”
“I’m afraid that won’t do, Ma’am. If you let him in, you have to let me in too. It’s only fair.”
“Oh dear.”
“I’m awfully chilled, Ma’am. Do you mind if I close the door? You wouldn’t have a sip of something hot, by any chance?”
“Well, if you’re cold, do come in. We have tea and sugar pie.”
She went into the kitchen again. Slade elbowed Mahatma. “Nice try, jerkoff.”
Gisèle returned with tea and pie. Slade got to the point. “If you don’t mind me asking directly, Ma’am, who killed your son, and what do you think should be done about it?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Well, would you say the anglos are a bad lot?”
“Some of them, sure. I mean, as I was telling Mr. Grafton here, my son Gilles was fighting one of them a few days ago, but it had nothing—”
“So they are a bad lot, are they?” Slade scribbled. “And your son was fighting one of ’em, was he? When was that? Last week?”
“Yes, I think it—”
“Fighting an anglo last week,” he said, flipping a page of his notepad. “He get roughed up badly, Ma’am?”
“He came home with a black eye, but he said—”
“They gave him a shiner, did they? I see, I see! Can you spare me a photo, Ma’am?”
Gisèle turned to Mahatma. “Could you give him one from the album?”
“Certainly,” Mahatma said. The door opened. Gisèle’s husband and second son came in.
“Dehors!” the husband shouted.
“What’s he saying?” Slade asked.
“He wants us to leave,” Mahatma said, tugging on his boots. Gisèle began to sob.
Slade approached the father. “Sir, the two of us should have a chat. Man to man. People want to help you through this tragedy, but, to do so, they need to hear from you. The Star can help them hear from you.”
“Sacrez-moi ce tabarnac dehors,” the father shouted to his second son, who, although only fifteen, was bigger than Slade. He pushed the journalist toward the door as Slade continued to protest, “Sir, I have a job to do, and the public is very upset about this and is demanding to know why this happened to your son, and how to prevent it in the—”
Slade found himself flung outside, where Mahatma was buttoning his coat. “My boots,” Slade shouted, pounding on the door. It opened. Two boots sailed out into the snow. Slade ran after them in his socks.
Mahatma had locked his doors and put his key in the ignition when Slade rapped on the window. “The photos,” Slade said, “give me some photos!”
“Can’t hear you!” Mahatma revved his engine.
“You heard me! Turn over those photos. She said we were to split them!”
“Call me later.”
“Bastard!” Puffs of vapour formed and vanished outside Slade’s mouth. “You sneaky bastard!”
Mahatma drove off, leaving Slade gesticulating from behind.
The next day, Mahatma’s story provided pictures of the family, quotes from the mother and a detailed description of the riot. Slade had quotes from the mother, a photo he’d dug out of a school yearbook borrowed from the victim’s school principal, and quotes from English and French hockey players. Murder at Anglo-Franco Battle, read The Winnipeg Star headline. One Killed, Six Wounded in Hockey Riot, read The Herald. The news flashed across the country.
Mahatma didn’t get to bed until five that morning, and had to be up early to attend a press conference given by the Manitoba Amateur Hockey Association. He arrived with bags under his eyes. He felt shame when he saw the headlines and his byline. He hadn’t misquoted anybody, and there were no errors of fact in his story, but the incident seemed repugnant now. His intrusion on Gisèle Baril seemed ugly.
St. Albert—One boy died and another six were hospitalized here last night in a hockey brawl which pitted English players against French opponents and raged for ten minutes until police burst onto the ice.
Gilles Albert Baril, 16, of St. Albert, died immediately when struck by a hockey stick in the back of the head. Manitoba Provincial Police homicide detectives have questioned Baril’s teammates on the St. Albert Lions and players on the opposing Princeton Hawks, but no charges have been
laid.
Held in the Manitoba Legislature, the news conference was packed. The Toronto Times, CBC-TV, every local TV and radio station, and newspaper reporters from across the country had crammed into the room. Out-of-town reporters kept stopping Mahatma for questions. The press conference did not go well. Jean-Guy Robert, the hockey association president, condemned the riot. He vowed to do everything possible to prevent such a thing from happening again. He said the league had cancelled the hockey season for boys in the sixteen-to seventeen-year-old division. Journalists demanded to know why English and French players were fighting. “I don’t know. We’ll look into it.”
“Who do you blame for the altercation?”
“I don’t have enough information to say.”
“Did a French player begin the fight by punching an English opponent?”
“We haven’t had a chance to look into that yet.”
“Do you think this fight reflects language tensions in the province?”
“No,” said Robert, biting the hairs under his lower lip into his mouth.
“You deny there are tensions?”
“Boys started fighting. It got out of control. Several were hurt. One was killed. I knew his parents. They—” Robert bit his beard again, then, suddenly, his face collapsed into his hands. This made national TV.
Meanwhile, word spread that an opposition member of the Manitoba Legislature was available for comment. The reporters rushed into an adjacent room.
Facing the scrum of journalists, the politician accused the government of ignoring violence in amateur sport and fomenting language tensions by planning in secret to extend French language services. “This may have been avoided if the government had listened to the people instead of plotting to ram French down our throats.”
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