I can’t remember when exactly it occurred, but an Edmonton police officer came to grandma’s apartment during the summer of 1985.
The officer came into grandma’s apartment and talked to Scott and I by ourselves.
I can’t remember what exactly the officer was asking, but I do remember that he said that he had to see both my brother and I in person to make sure that we were okay.
Okay from what?
He wouldn’t say.
At the end of the summer Scott and I flew back to Toronto from Edmonton.
Richard picked us up from the airport.
He didn’t say a single thing. He just picked up our luggage and loaded it in the back of the Mustang and then we drove back to our PMQ on CFB Downsview.
As we were driving up Keele street and approaching the base Richard told Scott and I that when we got back home we’d have to wait in the dining room and wait for the military police to come talk to us.
When we got back on Stanley Green Park and into the PMQ we sat down at the dining room table.
The instant I sat down I noticed that something wasn’t right.
Sue’s dining room furniture was all wobbly.
This is furniture that you didn’t drag as you sat in it. And you sure as hell didn’t sit at this table unless you were eating.
Over half of Richard’s National Geographic magazines were missing.
The windows in the dining room were all new. The glazing putty was fresh and unpainted. I could see that there had been some large holes repaired in all of the dining room walls.
I snuck a quick peek into the living room.
All the windows had brand new glass.
Sue’s drapes were missing and replaced with the standard military issued roll shutters.
Sue’s stereo looked like it had been through hell and back.
Richard’s aircraft models were all missing.
Two military police officers arrived.
Both MPs came into the PMQ and instructed Richard and Sue to step outside while the MPs talked to my brother and I.
The military police asked Scott and I if the Edmonton Police Officer told us anything when he paid us a visit.
The MPs started receiving frantic calls from occupants of the other PMQs with reports of Richard throwing furniture through the windows and screaming and yelling.
The military police said that when they attended the PMQ neither Richard or Sue would explain where Scott and I were. The MPs said that they were concerned about the welfare of Scott and I as the neighbours had told the MPs about the way Richard treated Scott and I.
According to the MPs it took three military police officers to bring Richard under control on the evening of the dispute.
The amount of damage done to the PMQ was substantial.
The MPs asked Scott and I if we knew any reason for the dispute.
I don’t think Scott or I said anything to the MPs, but for Richard and Sue to snipe at each other or to slam doors and huff away from each other was nothing out of the ordinary.
The military police told us that if Richard ever lost his temper again that we should get out of the PMQ by any means possible. Even if we had to jump from the second story, just get out of the PMQ.
We should call the MP shack and have the MPs dispatched to the PMQ right away. But they cautioned us against from calling from inside our PMQ, that we should go to a neighbour’s PMQ and call the military police from there.
The MPs also cautioned us against calling the Toronto Police as this would waste time as the Toronto Police couldn’t just come on to the base without themselves going through the military police.
At the end of the meeting, the two MPs gave Scott and I each a pair of business cards with the number for the MP shack. They also made sure that we watched at they put a sticker on the kitchen telephone of CFB Downsview emergency contact phone numbers.
After the MPs left, Richard came in and told us to put our clothes away and to go outside and play.
Neither he nor Sue ever talked about this.
I found out much later in life that the military police never informed the Children’s Aid Society of Toronto about the domestic dispute. At the time the CAST had a file open on my family. My family had been assessed as a low risk case due to my father’s insistence that everything in the PMQ was okay.
I cannot prove motive from memory alone. But the practical effect was clear: the matter stayed inside the military policing system, while the civilian child-protection agency with an open file on my family was apparently left uninformed.
Life in the PMQ patches was a lot more rough and brisk than it was in civvy land.
What we accepted as normal inside the chain-link perimeter of the PMQs was not normal at all. The military police knew enough to warn two children how to escape their own home, but not enough — or not openly enough — to bring civilian child protection into the room.
