Hard Road

by Peter Edwards

—

  One night in April 2006, Steven Gault dropped by Guindon’s home unexpectedly. Gault, another former Satan’s Choice who was now in the Hells Angels Oshawa chapter, offered Guindon work but didn’t spell out what that would involve. Guindon hadn’t really trusted Gault back when he was in the Choice, and he certainly didn’t trust him now. “He promised me five thousand dollars a month and I said no. I didn’t know what he meant by ‘work with him.’ I just knew it would mean trouble.”

  Guindon still harboured doubts about Steven Gault and Bill Lavoie, the two former Choice members who now also wore Hells Angels patches. Long gone were the days when Guindon could expel someone with a left hook on a suspicion or because he didn’t like his attitude. It was dangerous to call a Hells Angel a police informer, even if you were the charter’s president. Eventually, Guindon would learn that his suspicions were right. Gault was a paid police agent who received more than a million dollars for his role in an eighteen-month police operation, called Project Tandem.

  While Guindon was a reluctant Hells Angel, there were still some perks to being a member of the world’s largest outlaw motorcycle club. One of them concerned his mother, who now lived in an Oshawa seniors’ home. She liked it when her boy dropped by to see her, wearing his biker vest or something with “Hells Angels” on it. Guindon had been her protector since his mid-teens.

  “She said, ‘That’s my baby,’ ” Guindon reminisced. “She wanted the old people to know that she was protected by her baby.”

  Being able to put fear into the blue-rinse set wasn’t a strong enough inducement for Guindon to stay in the Hells Angels. There’s a five-year pin for being in the club, but he never received it. He announced he was quitting at an Oshawa chapter meeting. “They didn’t like it. I told them I wasn’t staying. I can’t afford it…Everybody thinks you’re a millionaire because you belong to all of these clubs.”

  Guindon left the club in good standing after a respectful ceremony, in which he was given a metal plaque with his image on an Angels’ death head. “I had made my decision. I had been thinking about it for a while. Quite a while. Thinking, Where do I go from this?”

  Guindon was sixty-four years old and he had been an outlaw biker for almost a half-century. Since Gault was the secretary of the Oshawa charter, it was his duty to burn Guindon’s patch to make things official.

  CHAPTER 42

  Culture Shock

  It was a culture shock. It was gloomy. Rusting away.

  HARLEY GUINDON on Millhaven Institution

  Harley Guindon looked out from the courtroom prisoner’s box in early 2007 and saw his father giving him the finger. The extended middle digit came after Harley pleaded guilty to extortion with a firearm, two counts of forcible confinement and two counts of assault causing bodily harm. For this, he was sentenced to a prison term of five years.

  Seeing his father’s gesture was a troubling sight in an already unpleasant environment. But for once, Harley knew something his father didn’t. “He was unaware that my lawyer, Alan Richter, had advised me during trial that the Crown was charging me with attempted murder if I didn’t take a plea bargain,” Harley later said. “To me, I had no choice. The rat…got on stand during the preliminary hearing and said I shot him. How do you fight that?”

  At this point, Harley had been held inside the Lindsay jail for almost two years awaiting trial, after initially being charged with attempted murder. He faced the possibility of ten years on the attempted murder beef and another twelve for the related charges. That added up to twenty-two years and he was only twenty-one years old. Five years seemed like a bargain, especially since he might be released on parole before that.

  The Crown agreed to drop charges against some of Harley’s co-accused if he, Brendan Mak and David O’Neil all pled guilty. “After explaining why we all pled, my father understood,” Harley said. “Bottom line: we were ready for trial. No one snitched and my crew took it on the chin wilfully. Not many men group together and take five years each out of loyalty these days.”

  Just a decade earlier, Harley had been working hard to win merit badges as a Boy Scout to make his father proud. In March 2007, he followed more directly in his father’s footsteps. Harley entered the Millhaven Assessment Unit, where his father had been processed three decades before. Harley’s file noted he lacked a high school diploma, trade or profession and added that he also was considered to lack initiative. After he sat through a battery of tests, he was found to have a 9.3 grade equivalency in language, an 8.3 grade equivalency in math and a 10.2 grade equivalency in reading comprehension.

  Harley had heard plenty of bad stories about Millhaven, and his buddy Scotty Jones was killed there just before his arrival. That said, there’s no real preparation for walking into a maximum-security prison for the first time. “It was a culture shock,” Harley later said. “It was gloomy. Rusting away.”

  After his assessment, Harley was transferred to medium-security custody in Collins Bay Institution, where his father was also once an inmate. Soon, Harley was phoning his father a couple times a month. The line was monitored, so conversations were predictable. One would ask how the other was doing. “Oh, you know,” father or son would reply. “Same shit, just a different day.” Still, it was always nice to hear the voice of a loved one.

  —

  Guindon once dreamed of turning his son into a fighting machine. Now he imagined Harley getting out of prison and finding a job with a pension. “He needs a good job. Some kind of a job that he likes to do and intends on holding onto it.”

  As Harley settled into prison life, assistant Crown attorney Paul T. Murray filed a blunt report on him on May 3, 2007, to the National Parole Board:

  He has shown complete disregard for the rules of society or for authority. I have attached a number of police intelligence reports that highlights his audacity and attitude towards police, including threatening officers, as well as other gang activity and violence. If he is prepared to take this position towards law enforcement officials, one can only presume that his level of disdain for the rights of normal citizens is greater, as was evidenced in the facts underlying the present conviction. Mr. Guindon will do what he wants to get what he wants, and if such involves violence or guns, then so be it. He is a dangerous individual who will no doubt revert to the only lifestyle he has embraced if given the opportunity: that of a violent drug dealer; he revels in the violence…

  Murray was equally grim about the prospects for Harley’s coconvicted, Mak and O’Neil, writing, “These three have had access to guns and are prepared to use them for their criminal activities. I have no illusions about these three ‘turning their lives around’ for the greater good.”

  CHAPTER 43

  Home Fires

  I was told that my house had been burned to the ground.

  BERNIE GUINDON

  On March 30, 2008, Guindon received a call from Orono while he was attending the Toronto Motorcycle Show. “I was told that my house had been burned to the ground.” No one was injured, but all of the cash he had hidden under a bookshelf was consumed by the blaze. He didn’t believe in banks and had kept all of his money close to him. Now it was all ashes. He also lost his jewellery, including Rolex watches, artwork that he had made in prison, club memorabilia including his old Satan’s Choice patches, motorcycles, bike parts, clothes, boxing memorabilia, and phone numbers and addresses for his old friends. Worst of all, he lost freedom.

  The house wasn’t insured because Guindon had been in the process of buying another house and had just cancelled the policy. Either it was extremely bad luck or someone knew when to hit him to hurt him the most. All of his possessions had been boxed up, ready for the move, when the house burned down. “He was more bent out of shape about his pictures than pretty well anything,” Harley said. “He had a lot of art. I’m sure that took a toll on him.”

  Harley’s half-brother Rick Gibson tried to help out, but there wasn’t much anyone could do. The structure had collapsed and ther
e was four and a half feet of water in the basement. “There was nothing left,” Gibson said. “He was devastated.”

  A disaster relief worker gave Guindon a cup of coffee as he stood by the ruins and stared. Soon, police forensics officers arrived and started to root about, suspecting they’d find a body under the water. They searched thoroughly but found nothing to turn the rubble into a homicide scene. Apparently, someone had called in with a crank tip about a body in the basement just to make sure Guindon had as miserable a day as possible. “He didn’t sleep that night,” Gibson said. “He just stayed there. He was completely in shock. Didn’t know what to say.”

  For the next two weeks, Guindon worked on the cleanup, but there was precious little to salvage. “He was just completely run off his feet,” Gibson said. Some biker friends organized a poker tournament called “Bernie’s Burnout,” which raised a quick $2,400 to help get him back on his feet.

  Guindon suspected that the family of a spurned woman, not a biker club, was behind the attack, but he couldn’t prove anything.

  His relationship with his girlfriend died with the fire. Guindon was sixty-five and homeless. Had he stayed on at General Motors all those years ago, his pension would be just kicking in. People close to him noticed that something happened inside him that he just couldn’t fight. “I think when he had that fire, that’s when age really kicked in for my dad,” Shanan said. “He lost everything in the fire. Everything that made him.”

  “I was in bad shape,” Guindon said.

  He moved in with Gibson and his wife, Vanessa. They had been his sureties after he was charged for a domestic against his former common-law wife in Orono, which was dropped to a peace bond after taking two years in the courts. Guindon busied himself with working on Harley’s motorcycle, which had sustained four thousand dollars in damages in the fire.

  Gibson had always sought a tighter connection with his father, and now they were living under the same roof. There was certainly love there, but Guindon still felt awkward. Once, he had been president of the second-largest outlaw motorcycle gang in the world. He had been the go-to member of the inmate committee in one of Canada’s toughest prisons. He had been captain of Canada’s amateur boxing team. Now he felt like he was in the way and not even the man of the house. “It’s hard, trying to fit in,” Guindon said. “You can’t just go into the fridge and get what you want. You’ve got to wait until dinnertime.”

  “He’s not a man for change,” Shanan said. “He likes routine. He’s happy with a set schedule he likes to follow.”

  Despite the upheaval, one thing remained a constant in his life: Suzanne Blais seemed to be forever in the background, cheering him on. She and Guindon rode out east to the Maritimes in the summer of 2008. The trip marked the fiftieth anniversary of their first meeting.

  A lot of time had passed since Guindon first climbed onto a motorcycle. He had lost friends to road accidents and gang violence. Now, natural causes were taking a toll too. On September 29, 2008, Sarah’s mother, Marlene, died after a ten-month battle with lung cancer. She had remained close with Guindon since their early teens, and he often visited her during her sickness. At her funeral, attended by hundreds, Guindon was the first to shovel dirt onto her grave.

  Guindon’s mother was also frail. She had kept her spirit intact through a brutal marriage and seemed somehow unstoppable. “She was just there forever,” Shanan said. “She was always there.” She also knew she was loved in Oshawa. Guindon saw to that. In the final years of her life, Guindon and Suzanne got her groceries and took her to medical appointments, and Guindon wrote all of her Christmas cards out for her. “He was very much in his mother’s life,” Shanan said. “He was there once a week.”

  Her sickness was a profound blow to Harley, now settling into his first federal prison term. When she was younger, she had taken her grandson swimming every Wednesday. Now, Harley wasn’t allowed passes from prison to be with her, and she wasn’t healthy enough to visit him. “My grandmother was my heart,” Harley said.

  Albini (Lucy) Guindon died in November 2008. She was eighty-five. Harley was permitted to attend her funeral, escorted by three guards and shackled and handcuffed “like Hannibal Lecter,” in Harley’s words.

  Suzanne gave a prayer and a speech for “Mom” in French. Then the francophones present joined hands and sang a drinking song that had been her favourite, even though she wasn’t a drinker herself. Fitting the life of a woman who had done with so little, and whose infamous son found himself with so little after so many years of fighting, the lyrics included: “Tu prends un verre, tu m’en donnes pas/J’te fais des belles façons/J’te chante des belles chansons/Donne-moi-z-en donc,” which translates roughly to “You take a drink, you do not give me any/I’m looking good for you/I’m singing beautiful songs for you/Give me some of that.”

  CHAPTER 44

  Prison Reputation

  I’ve heard about you.

  Mafia leader JUAN RAMON FERNANDEZ PAZ

  A personal drama played out quietly behind locked doors in Penetanguishene. At the Oak Ridge mental health facility, former Richmond Hill Satan’s Choice member and convicted rapist Gerald Michael Vaughan began a series of treatment programs after being diagnosed with “narcissistic, antisocial and paranoid traits, and paraphilia [psychosexual disorder].” At first he co-operated, then after a few years in custody, he began refusing all forms of rehabilitation. His counsellors considered his growing obstinacy a psychological battle for control. Instead of trying to get better, he set out to better conditions for himself.

  Vaughan wrote to his Member of Provincial Parliament, complaining that he should have the right to smoke and watch cable TV in his room. He already had a computer with Internet access. He also demanded privacy from female staff while in the shower and began to sponge-bathe himself using a bucket in his own cell. Then on July 14, 2004, Vaughan tried to kill a fifty-nine-year-old employee by clubbing him with a pot. The attack was nothing personal. Vaughan just reasoned it would get him transferred to a prison, where he would have more rights.

  Vaughan learned he was suffering from more than psychosexual disorders. He was diagnosed with colon cancer and was often out of the facility for medical treatment. He began requesting a change of doctors, often with no apparent reason or warning. Cecil Kirby wondered if he was just scoping out the security of various medical offices. “He might have been looking for an escape route,” Kirby said. “That’s a game we all play.”

  Colon cancer killed Vaughan on May 5, 2008, at the age of fifty-seven, before he could make his escape bid. He drew his final breath in the Huronia District Hospital in Midland. The man who was perhaps the least stable, least known and most dangerous member of Guindon’s old gang had been in maximum-security custody for twenty-eight years.

  —

  Harley Guindon was released to a Hamilton community residential facility two years after he was sent to prison. His limited freedom didn’t last long. Hamilton police called him a key suspect in a June 2009 stabbing and also believed he was trafficking drugs. He was returned to Collins Bay later that month on a parole violation, and that’s where he was on November 18, 2009, when his son was born.

  The birth announcement read: “Our dear ‘Junior’ came out punchin’ on Nov 18th, 2009 at 5:39 pm weighing 7 lbs 15ozs, 21 inches tall with an 8 inch reach.” Harley appealed to prison authorities to give him an open visit, so he could hold his boy. He couldn’t stand the idea of seeing him for the first time while behind a thick wall of Plexiglas. They refused.

  “After this, I went haywire, punched a few guys out and went to the hole for being a threat to the safety and security of the institution. I spent six months in the hole and requested to be sent to Millhaven maximum penitentiary.” His parole file states he was placed in administrative segregation for what authorities called “the safety and security of the institution.” The experience made him despise the parole officer who yanked his freedom in the first place. “I still have dreams about that wom
an and they’re not healthy,” he said.

  Harley’s next stop was Millhaven’s ultra-tough J-Unit. A lot had changed there in the few decades since his father had helped tear apart the walls between cells in a riot, but an inmate could still kill his time with a game of bridge.

  To play bridge well, you have to be able to count cards. Strong bridge players often graduate from the ranks of lesser skilled games like cribbage and bid whist. “Bridge is the game for focus and concentration,” Harley explained. “You don’t play cribbage when you know how to play bridge.”

  In Millhaven, serious bridge players sweetened the pot by playing for money. Putting actual money on the table wasn’t possible, but prisoners could arrange for friends and family on the outside to make bank deposits and settle debts. “I made lots,” Harley said. “You just play with the people who have money.” Bridge meant Harley could pay for a 1999 Harley-Davidson Softail custom ride that his father was building for him. “I gave him $10,500 while I was in custody because I always wanted a bike built by my father.”

  Harley was winning at more than bridge. He fought in cramped cells and he fought in wide-open hallways. Fighting in a cell meant close quarters combat, which favoured strength. Harley had that. Fighting in the open rewarded speed, and Harley had that too. “In a cell, you’re using the wall, you’re using everything,” Harley said. “In the open, you can dance. You’re not tripping over chairs.” In both cases, most prison fights were settled quickly. “It’s pretty well a hockey fight,” Harley said. And when it came to “hockey fights,” Harley quickly distinguished himself from the hated “cell warriors.” A cell warrior is comfortable shouting out tough statements from his cell, knowing the steel bars and the guards are there to protect him. If confronted, he screams early and loudly, knowing this will summon the guards to save him.