Terfry - Wicked and weird: the true tale of Buck 65

COPYRIGHT 2015 RICH TERFRY

All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in a retrieval system without the prior written consent of the publisheror in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, license from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agencyis an infringement of the copyright law.

Doubleday Canada and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House of Canada Limited

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Terfry, Rich, 1972-, author
Wicked and weird : the amazing tales of Buck 65 / Rich Terfry.

ISBN 978-0-385-67972-5 (bound)ISBN 978-0-385-67973-2 (epub)

1. Buck 65 (Musician). 2. Rap musiciansCanadaBiography.
3. Radio personalitiesCanadaBiography. I. Title.

ML420.T316A3 2015 782.421649092 C2015-901934-6
C2015-901935-4

Cover photographs: (front) Rob Campbell
Cover design: CS Richardson

Published in Canada by Doubleday Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, a Penguin Random House Company

www.penguinrandomhouse.ca

v3.1

THE DEVIL FOLLOWS ME DAY AND NIGHT,
BECAUSE HE IS AFRAID TO BE ALONE .

FRANCIS PICABIA

WHEN I WAS A KID , I would believe almost anything I was told. I was wilfully gullible. People close to me knew it. To amuse themselves, theyd fill my head with all kinds of fantastic stories and images. When my friend Peter told me he had a pet tiger that lived in his basement, I believed him; it was more interesting than knowing he had a basement filled with neglected exercise equipment, old tires and boxes of Christmas decorations.

I am no longer a kid, but my imagination remains more reliable than my memory. It may be worth bearing that in mind as you turn these pages.

Please state your name, said the interpreter.

I said my name. I barely recognized the sound of my own voice. My throat was hoarse from screaming.

Now please state your home address, the interpreter said. Not only did she translate the interrogators words, she softened them. What he made sound so ugly and threatening, she made soothing.

Eleven, rue Princesse in Paris, 75006. There was something especially painful about saying the French word for princess. It felt underscored with a knife. Rotting in a jail cell was the furthest thing from royal.

And your date of birth, please.

I recited the date. An image of me as a baby flashed in my mind. It was an image from a photograph, one of my favourites: me as an infant in my mothers arms. Her smile is so bright. Its a real smile.

Shes not just saying cheeseshe means it. I like how her hands look in the photo: clever. Theyre hands that can do anything. And her hair is jet black and longer than I ever remember it being. Shes so pretty. And she looks happy. Genuinely happy. It was a rare and precious sight to see her look so happy. I was glad she wasnt alive to see this daya day when her thirty-three-year-old son, whod devoted his life to proving he was a good boy, was languishing in a Moscow jail.

Place of birth?

Halifax. Nova Scotia.

Another memory now took shape in my mind: a trip to that city Id made with my father when I was eight years old. The day I got my first baseball glove.

MY FATHER AND I drove into town, an hour from our home, in his yellow pickup truck. The old man was in a good and generous mood. As he waited for his paint-and-lumber order to be filled at the hardware store, he saw me eyeing the baseball gloves. The store carried only three or four el-cheapo models. I tried out each one with a few short jabs of my fist into the pocket. I liked the sound it made. I still do.

You want to play baseball, Buck? he asked. He had an amused look on his face, a look I now know all parents get when they see their kid begin to turn into their own person.

I hadnt thought about playing baseball; I was seduced by the leather of the glove.

Yeah I shrugged.

Well, youre gonna need a glove then, wont you?

I hated the thought of money being spent on me, because I knew the family didnt have much of it. Money problems were at the heart of our daily domestic warfare. But the old man insisted and so I chose: the glove emblazoned with the logo of the cursed Montreal Expos.

During the drive back home, I marvelled over this miracle of leather-and-plastic craftsmanship. El cheapo the glove may have been, but it was the most expensive thing I had ever owned. I kneaded and moulded it with my hands. I buried my face in its pocket and inhaled the fumes of the cowhide and synthetics. I even tasted it, chewing on the loose ends of the laces that bound the fingers. I was falling in love.

I was determined to put the thing to work as soon as I arrived home. I called my best friend, Burt Reynolds fan club president and future inside trader, Buzzy.

I got a glove! Wanna play catch?

Kay. Where to?

Lets go down to my dads store and get some gum and then over to the park.

Kay.

Oh, wait. I dont have a ball. Can you bring one?

I think I got one.

Kay. See ya.

My father ran the only business in our tiny hometown of Mount Uniacke, Nova Scotia. It was an Esso service station where the locals could fill up, get their oil changed and buy a pack of smokes, a pair of socks and a porno magazine. There were fifty varieties of cigarettes to choose from, the socks were knit by Buzzys mom (her sweaters, hats and mittens were sold seasonally, too) and the magazines were strictly the raunchiest. Playboy was for men who wore neckties, not guys with calluses on their hands and black under their fingernails. There were no rich people in Mount Uniacke.

I hung my glove on my handlebars and made the five-minute bike ride from my house to the gas station. When I got there, Buzzy was practising wheelies in the parking lot. Cat walks, we called them. He wore a scowl of determination. His bike was a rickety Frankenstein job.

Cmon, lets get gum!

We leaned our bikes against the facade of the building and scrambled inside. At the counter we each grabbed a handful of two-cent Bazooka. Sherry was working the register. She was a real basket of oranges. I was in love with her; and I knew she dreamed of leaving town. Her fancies carried her twenty minutes down the highwayto Sackville, where there was a mall and a McDonalds and black people. In the mean-time, in addition to minding till for my dad, she cut my hair. First time she did so it was a disaster. But I always begged my mother to hire Sherry because sometimes shed thoughtlessly push her large, beautiful breasts into the side of my face while she worked. Buzzy and I trained ourselves to unload our pennies near the edge of the counter so that Sherry would have to lean over to collect them and we could look down her top. We thought we were pulling the fast one of the century, but Im sure she knew what was up. Then again, maybe her smile and the slow motion and the