Latchkey Kids.

Like so many kids living in the Jungle, my brother and I were latchkey kids. A latchkey kid is a kid who comes home from school to an empty house. To prevent losing their house key the key is worn on a string around their neck.

Once my mother started to work more part-time hours up at the Eaton’s store she would not always be home when we got home from school. Both me and my brother were not allowed outside at all to play and we had to stay inside our apartment until she got home from work. Not only were we not allowed outside, but we were also forbidden to answer or even use the phone while she was at work.

Every afternoon my mother would call us at the exact same time to make sure we were safe and sound in our apartment. She had a secret code ring that she used for as long as I can remember. For the most part my brother and I went to different schools and would be home at different times. At around 4 pm she would call us and let it ring just once then hang up. She would immediately phone us again and we would then be allowed to answer the phone.

We would know it was her.

I remember a few times forgetting and I answered the phone on her first ring. She got very angry and she would always tell me that someday my inability to follow simple instructions could cost me my life. Then she would quote the same bible scripture about being faithful in little things; I was more likely to be faithful in bigger things.

Blah Blah Blah.

So why was my mother so paranoid and overly protective of her two teenage sons? Her biggest fear was my brother and I falling prey to child molesters and homosexuals. She actually believed that those evil men were lurking in our Lawrence Heights neighborhood. They were forever on the prowl searching for kids like my brother and I. They would always be looking for kids who would be heading home after school alone and on their own. Latchkey kids with their house key dangling from their necks would be the telltale sign as to which kids were more than likely to be all alone after school.

My mother believed they would follow a latchkey kid to find out where they lived. They would then watch our comings and goings all the while planning their attack. Once they got our phone number they would call to find out if we were at home alone.

Hence, the reason for my mother’s secret code rings.

If they got a busy signal then they knew we were at home and most likely we would be alone.

Hence, the reason we were not allowed to even use the phone after school.

My mother even had extra long laces for our keys to be worn around our necks. It would be harder for the key to pop outside of our shirts and become visible to any of those prowling perverts.

During the summer of 1977, Toronto was shocked by the murder of a twelve year old shoeshine boy named Emanuel Jacques. Emanuel was a popular little street kid who was very visible just outside of the Eaton’s Centre on Yonge Street. He earned extra money to help his impoverished family by shining shoes at one of the city’s busiest intersections. One day Emanuel just disappeared, he was no longer at his usual corner. Total strangers gathered together and searched everywhere for the little Portuguese boy.

Four days later his body was found on the roof of a building just steps away from the corner where he shined shoes. He had been sexually assaulted and then drowned. Emanuel had been lured away by four homosexuals on the promise of earning thirty-five dollars to help them move some photographic equipment.

I was sixteen years old, going to high school and working as a vendor at Blue Jays games when Emanuel Jacques was murdered. My brother would have been thirteen years old; he was just a year older than Emanuel. The murder of the shoeshine boy shocked the city of Toronto right to its core. The public outcry was immense and the much needed cleanup of the sordid, seedy Yonge Street began almost immediately.

Emanuel’s murder by homosexuals just fueled my mother’s paranoia and ramped it up to the next level. Her paranoia now was not so much focused on me anymore, but more towards my brother. It also gave my mother the satisfaction that she had been right all along. By being so strict with me and my brother all those years, we never fell prey to homosexuals like the little shoeshine boy.

She would never let my brother become the next Emanuel Jacques.

Over the course of writing my memories, there are just so many and I wish I could write them all. Some I have forgotten only to remember them at a later date. However one thing I do remember, the 70's was a great decade for growing up a teenager. Although, I may sometimes depict my life as if I was locked in a basement with a ball and chain around my ankle.

I wasn’t, far from it.

Like most teenagers, I would always try to derive ways to outsmart my parents or in my case my mother. At times she could be equally as smart and on the ball as to know exactly what I was scheming behind her back. She could be just as equally naïve and not have a clue as to what I was up to. I was lucky; for the most part she had no clue. I was never a bad latchkey kid growing up, I was obedient and I always for the most part did what my mother told me to do.

I lived in constant fear of my mother.

However during my later teenage years, I did do things I am not proud of and now wish I had never done. I did some things that I knew my mother could never find out about. I have no doubt had she known, I'd have been turfed out from under her roof immediately. Although, that can also be said for most of the other kids I associated with from our Kingdom Hall. We were all just teenagers being typical teenagers. Some of us learned from our mistakes while others just kept making the same mistakes over and over.

We all had one common denominator; we were all being raised to be God fearing Jehovah’s Witnesses. Without any doubt or hesitation, I can truly say my brother and I had it the toughest out of all of our JW friends.

Why?

Because both of us latchkey kids were being raised by the most devout, fanatical and obsessive Jehovah's Witness I ever knew.

Our mother.