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I lived in a jungle. I survived in a jungle, and every conceivable thing could have happened. The person happened to me who I was. To take off my shirt and you're a see my body just totally crisscross from bob wire, knife wounds, jumping through windows. I got about two thousand stitches sold me together, and then I suppose that the scars within me are even more so.
We opened on the grounds of the Brampton Reformatory, which really was a former World War II military base repurposed by the Canadian government to be a place where criminals deemed strong enough to hold a shovel could learn a trade. The year is nineteen fifty four. Out of a gymnasium, into the frosty moonlight march is sixty seven of the type of men your mother used to warn you about. Among their ranks are certified rob thieves and killers, all clad head to toe in denim, all marching the five
hundred yards back to the barracks. Near the front of the pack are the two kids I really want you to see. There's Red, a short, wiry kid with a face full of freckles, and then beside him is sixteen year old Roger Roger Caron, a strapping, dark haired French Canadian kid. If the story I'm about to tell you has a hero, and I would argue that it does,
it's him. While those around them march drowsily toward the barracks at the end of another hard day, Roger and Red's bodies are coursing with adrenaline because they know that they have only five minutes before someone will discover the body. As they march in lockstep, Roger gives his friend Red a reassuring wink as he takes stock of what they're
up against. There were the guards who did the head count, following behind, a few marching on either side of the pack, and up ahead, three standing between them and the fence, night sticks drawn. Roger squints towards the spotlight from the tower that follows their every step. The silhouette of an idling jeep hovers near by, daring these sorry teens to try something stupid. It wasn't their plan to be in the situation where they had no choice but to do
what they were about to do. But things on the inside tend to explode out of nowhere. It was as prism shit as it gets. The toughest guy in the place, a dude literally named Boner, saw that Red had a
fancy cigarette lighter and wanted it. During recreational time, verbal jabs between the two escalated to fisticuffs when Roger, who was playing floor hockey in another part of the gymnasium, sprinted to his friend, and before anyone could react, Roger brought the hockey stick down on the crown of Boner's skuld with everything he had. The goliath crumbled and lay motionless before Roger read and the dozen other inmate witnesses when someone said, your best bet is to jack Rabbit,
and I mean tonight. As Roger's eyes flicked to the fences topped with barbed wire, he didn't know if Boner was alive or dead in the gymnasium behind him. As it worked out, Boner would regain consciousness and was fine. Boner isn't even what mattered, because what does is that
that night, in that reformatory, a legend was born. As they approached the bottleneck before left turn, three guards stood in their big swinging Dick's stances, the first and last line of defense between Red and Roger and the prison fence, the barbed wire, the beyond wheat fields, woods and darkness. The two friends exchanged one final look and they made a move for it. They bolted. Roger thought it was boring here anyway. The guards were quick with their hands
and nightsticks. Before he knew what was happening, Roger had one guard clamped on his coat and the other with a firm grip on his hair. As Roger rolled like a crocodile to get them off of him, he saw that his friend Read was already on the ground, being pummeled by the guards. In a fit, Roger shoved them away, leaving one guard with nothing but a fistful of his curls. And from there it was a pure hundred yard dashed
to the fence. Roger's feet pound the frozen ground, and as he leaps onto the fence, he hears a chance has broken out among the inmates and the distance the barbed wire. With his bare hands, and hoists himself up. As the chant grows louder, the barbs rip into his clothes and then his flesh as he furiously pushes his
way over. When he can first make out what they're saying, the boys across the field were chanting the thing that inmates in that era, in that region would chant whenever anyone would make a break for a chant that Roger would hear many times in his life. But atop that fence, covered in his own blood, with a floodlight shining on him, this was the moment of his christening, as he tore the barbs from the bloody denim and he fell through the air to the other side. This was the moment
he became Goboard. From iHeart Podcasts and Campsite Media, I'm Sam Mullens and this is Go Boy Episode one, run Roger Run. The story begins for me with my friend Rob telling me to meet up with him in a coffee shop. He said he had something he wanted to give me. When we were in the place, he reached into his bag and slid across the table between the americanos a worn out copy of an out of print book. On the cover was what looked like a stock photo of prison bars and the title read Go Boy Memories
of a Life Behind Bars. As I leafed through the pages, Rob told me it was a book he'd been obsessed with for most of his life, that it was a story filled with fistfights, bank robberies, jail breaks, and prison riots. Very much the type of book that one dude would give to another dude. But why was he giving it to me? Rob told me this is a true story about a real guy, and that he'd met and spent
time with this Roger Karan. And while the book is an incredible story, his life beyond the margins was even more compelling. And this, Rob explained, should be our next project. Rob's a documentary filmmaker, and I make podcasts like this, so I was like, what happened in his life beyond the book? Rob said, just read this first, and sitting down with this thing was unlike any reading experience I've
ever had. Yes, the writing is exceptional and violent, but beyond the violence is a singular voice that is like an electric howl from the dark, And the book itself performs a magic trick where with each page turn you slowly come to grasp the insane unlikelihood of the book in your hand existing at all.
Our guest is a man who's said that he was borne to raise how.
Roger Karan was sixteen and first convicted a.
Forty two, has spent twenty four of those years in jail, twelve years in solitary.
To see Roger Koran on his book tour, and many speaking engagements captured in glorious, crackling vhs. You're struck first by how much he doesn't sound like an author.
And I broke up with jail more than you have in Canada, take thirteen times, and I really am for it.
When he's on TV promoting his book Go Boy, he just doesn't look or move like a person who has ever written anything. He looks more like a boxer, an athlete, like Brando in on the Waterfront. And no matter how puffy the early eighties sweater he's wearing, it's clear that underneath his body is carved from granite.
I've just come to the conclusion that I'm, in fact, almost two people I have to be to keep my stand. I think you guys, spend twenty four years in prison in a sudden transition to the outside world is mind boggling.
As he sits in these TV studios, he has an appealing shucks approachability. There's no airs here. He instead wears an expression that says, can you believe it? Like he's a lotto winner holding one of the those big checks, which isn't far off. Now, tell me how well has that book done. It's been on two printings, right.
Oh, extremely well.
Sales of god Boy are skyrocketing.
In less than ninety days, It's sold one hundred thousand copies in Canada. It's everywhere drug stores and supermarkets and everything. It's bestseller in French, bestseller earning is It's throughout the Commonwealth now as far as Australia and New Zealand.
But in these interviews there are moments where one is reminded that this is not a man or story that would usually be featured in these programs. Television hosts and panelists and people in the studio audiences will ask them straight up, how are you still alive? Did you ever think you were losing your mind? Why would they starve you? Can we see your scars? How did you never take
your own life? The words on the page that changed Roger Kuran's life, that had brought him to these heights, that had captivated a nation, were covered in blood and grime. While everyone and their dog was reading it, there was one person decidedly avoiding its pages.
I'm probably the only author in the world who hasn't read its own book.
I haven't read the Gold Boy and hardcover. I haven't read it the paperback. I haven't read it in the French version. I here's a good book. I haven't read it.
He didn't need the help of his book to remember the things he'd seen, the horrors he'd survived. It came back to him often enough in his nightmares.
I screamed so loud in my sleep that I dislocated my right my job. So this is a very real book. This isn't fection, and it is so scary it's incredible.
Twenty five years before the Go Boy book tour, sixteen year old Roger leaped from the top of the barbed wire fence. He could hear his friend Red's voice cut through the night. Go Roger, Go, Go Go. He emerged from the brush and entered the town a mess after just one night on the run. He looked and walked like a zombie. The cut on his chest from the
barbed wire needed stitches. He was covered in welts from the struggle with the guards, His uniform was in shreds, and he was caked in blood and mud from writhing on the ground in pain all night because also a horse stepped on him while he was catching his breath
in a field. But at least he was free. He made it all of seventy two hours before he was arrested in a diner and he was driven to Guelph, Ontario, one of Canada's oldest cities, known for its hockey culture and known among juvenile delinquents as the place you don't want to go. He entered the reformatory, this time as a repeat offender and was thus placed among the general
population of the prison. He heard through the grapevine that his good friend Red was being disciplined internally back in Brampton for their escape attempt, but it seemed only a matter of time before Red would do something to wind up here too. Roger would need a friend, because this time he was in the true jungle Gwelph Reformatory.
In those days it was one thousand inmates.
There was more guns there than any penitentiary in Canada. That was a pretty tough joint.
If he was going to survive, he had to learn quickly the art of being invisible among the milling bodies. He took on the posture of a shadow on the wall, arms crossed, hat perched on the tip of his nose, seeing all around him, careful to never be caught looking. The only conspicuous part of him was his unfortunately shiny boots he'd been issued a few weeks prior, and it wasn't long until a dude with an entourage swung by
to ask if they could try them on. Roger stood still as a statue as this welcome wagon hectored him, wondering aloud if they might be the same size. But then, at the instant the bully reached for Roger, he planted his shiny leather boots so swiftly into the testicles of the leader he crumpled to the floor, gagging on the air. Roger switched into his fighting stance and shoved a hand into his pocket to firmly grip his imaginary shive, daring
them to call his bluff. The guys backed off, but unfortunately for Roger, one of the guards had seen the whole thing, and he was taken to the warden to receive his punishment ten days in the cooler. They shoved them in and closed the door. The bed was made of uneven steel slats, and in place of a toilet. There was just a hole on the ground that flushed every sixty seconds day and night.
And as cold, dead as this coal started making me shiver and natica rabbit waters running along the walls, and the rats are running along that fights.
You know.
Part of his punishment was that his diet was reduced to just bread and water. Bread and water, three times a day. Bread and water.
We used to break water and pick our guys in virginios. We had eight food to sleep it, he said, Bring the biggest water bringers in the world. I had to put something in our stomach.
Castik Roger would be in many cells just like this one in his life, hungry and cold, where the only company was the rapid engine of his thoughts and the thick walls that seemed to move a little closer every time he blinked. While Roger was down in the cooler, his friend Red was transferred to Gwelph, just like he'd
hoped and had scored a job in the kitchen. Roger couldn't wait to link up with his buddy, to slap him on the back and go about finding a way to survive this place together, but they never got the chance. Red and some of the guys on kitchen detail had tried making a prison brew out of some cherries they had in the kitchen. They let the fruit ferment in a metal container they'd found, and when the brew was ready,
they all got hammered off their glorious artisanal sauce. But later that night, the four who drank from the brew suddenly developed severe cramps. Red had it the work, and he was rushed to the hospital. It turned out that the metal lining of the container they used for their brew poisoned the whole batch, and Roger's good friend Read had died. This was Roger's introduction to life behind bars.
In just the first two months, he'd committed assault with a weapon, split his chest in two on the barbed wire fence, was stomped by a horse, kicked someone's testicles into their body, was thrown into solitary, and lost the only friend he had on the inside. It was a wicked and bitter first taste, and as Roger shivered in his cell, he wondered how did he end up here? Roger was born to a poor French Canadian family in Cornwall, Ontario,
in the spring of nineteen thirty eight. In the context of this large Catholic family, juxtaposed with the throngs of siblings to compare him to. It was clear from an early age that Roger was a little different.
I had this tremendous energy that kept propelling me to do things, and because I had no education, I couldn't understand what was happening inside me.
Every adult in his life was trying to get this spirited boy to sit still at the dinner table, the church pew, or the classroom seat. But he couldn't do it. Roger had to go.
He had to run naturally. I disrupted classes. I just couldn't sit down.
I couldn't concentrate. That put me down in a classroom on a chair was like couh, an unusual punishment.
He just didn't sit his little Putsi down at all. He just go, go, go. He learned to be go boy very young.
This is Sue, Roger's little sister. As with any large fan, the kids will break into smaller subgroups, and to Roger, Sue was the closest in age and the closest in heart, the Lisa to his Bart Simpson.
It was it was never a dull moment between the truant officer coming looking for Roger daily.
A truant officer back then functioned like a dogcatcher, but for children.
He actually kept the truant officer in a full time job.
I just couldn't concentrate the cossman. Therefore I became a truant officer's number one.
Sure, he'd roam the streets feral, usually with a fishing rod over his shoulder and a slingshot in his pocket, always on the lookout for the officer.
They just never seemed to be able to find him. He'd make his little appearance for a few minutes at the school and have him forbid there was a recess, because then he just never made it back in the class.
His passion was to play hooky by fishing on the banks of the Saint Lawrence or by practicing his aim on the squirrels during school hours. You know, if Roger was born today, it's easy to imagine how a parent nowadays would be like, Oh, he just has different needs and learns in a different way. But he grew up in the forties when they dealt with kids like him with a firm hand in the shape of a fist.
Was a hyperactive kid, queen says, still in the classroom, and hyper activity wasn't diagnosed back in at night I went to school, it.
Was he got the devil. Were only one way to get the devil see John Bosco school. I had religious brothers and nuns, you know, and they'd just get you an am right. I mean this for your own good kids, saying boom, don't do again.
Everything Roger did seemed to land him in trouble and complicating things further. For young Roger was that the grown up world of what was right and wrong and good and bad was slippery and shaped almost entirely by the actions of his father, a man for whom the laws of the land would bend as he saw fit. His old man would find as a carpenter, and Roger used to see him come home with items he'd swiped from the work site.
I watched him come home with a keg and nails one night.
Next night with a hammer. And you ever accused my father's stealing? He said, that's not stealing.
He says. They're a rich capitalist. He says, in my roof is leaking. I need the nails and a hammer for that.
His father would catch fish out of season and he'd say, if I throw this fish back, it's just going to be caught by some fat cat with a yacht downriver. Having a misguided moral compass like this translated into him never holding down a job for very long, perhaps because he was stealing. But eventually Roger's father did discover his true calling.
Yes, my father was a bootlegger.
When they were tucked in their beds at night, the booming adult voices would echo through the house. Roger would nudge Sue awake, and they'd hear through the vents the discourse happening downstairs.
That was always interesting, Always interesting stories you'd hear as children. Our ears are always wide open.
The kids learned to adapt to their father's side hustle and the shenanigans it brought with it into the house.
If cops used to come, you know, surround the house, gang bus your style, come in the front door, back door and search and bust my father.
I remember being a child where the police would come in to me. It was the middle of the night with big flashlights in my face.
In the comfort of his childhood bed, being surprised by an angry man in uniform shining a bright light in his face was an image Roger would never shake.
They would actually make me get out of my bed to check my sheets to make sure that no beer or anything was hidden in there.
These types of scenes were happening often enough at the house that Roger and Who's Dad took it upon himself to build some new relationships.
One of the most popular policemen in Cornwall used to come in our driveway and he went, if you're paying me a certain percentage, I'll tip this off whenever we're going to RADI you.
He knew most of the time when a raid was coming. Very seldom he didn't.
He wasn't doing wrong because he was given twenty five percent of his take every Sunday to the parish priest, and so therefore he had he had God's blessing for doing for selling boost.
Young Roger was watching all of this very closely.
It's catch twenty two. Really, you know when you say, well, if you're going to tell me to do this, then how come you're doing this.
Roger was only twelve years old when he was arrested for breaking and entering. To the surprise of no one, I'm.
A kid, I'm getting banged around, bounced off the walls because I'm bad, because I'm no good, I'm going to end up in prison on the gallows.
I'm a thief on this and that.
It was only a matter of time before Roger would get into more serious trouble.
Everybody told me I was bad and I can't and I was going to end up in jail. So I said, well, I got this energy drive, this motor drive, so if I'm going to be bad, I'm also to be the baddest.
When he was sixteen, he got pinched for stealing from a sporting goods store. If it was any other kid who didn't have a several years long reputation for trouble making with the truant officer, they might have just given him a slap on the wrist. But the court wanted to send a message, so they sent him to the gwelf Reformatory, one of the most notorious prisons in Canada.
And the judge told me, I hope you go in there. I'm going to send you into the school and I hope you learn something.
You come out a better man.
Man man. Roger didn't feel like a better man sitting in his cell at the Gwelfer formatory, he felt worse than ever. He was still coming to grips with the reality that his only friend, Read was dead, coming to grips with the reality of his new life in general.
While other kids his age were learning how to drive so that could take their date to the movie house, Roger was here where the only entertainment was to rest his head against the cold iron bars of his cell and eavesdrop on the guys talking nonsense after lights out. And that's exactly what he was doing, drowsily listening to the forbidden conversations on the range one night, when suddenly
a government issue flashlight was thrust into his face. A guard's voice boomed, So you think we're all a bunch of farmers and cowfuckers? Eh? I caught you talking and here with a screw screaming at him for something he didn't do. Is when something seems to click. The prophecy had become true. Everything everyone said about him had come true. They said he was the worst kid in school, the worst kid in town, and now he was the worst kid in po And he hated it. He hated that
this was his lot. So as the mist of the guard, saliva sprayed his face Roger lost control. In a blink. Roger snatched the flashlight from the guard and began hammering it against the bars. He swung wildly as the other inmates heckled and cheered him on. He swung again and again. The thing was practically pulverized by the time he was done, and for a moment it was still again. Roger's eyes lifted to the guards, who returned his look with a twinkling eye, as if to say, you're gonna be sorry
you did that. The guard blew his whistle and the goon squad came in with their clubs swinging, overpowering Roger, they handcuffed his hands and feet and dragged him out of his cell. It's one thing to get into it with other inmates, but when you put your hands on a guard or on a guard's property, what Roger didn't realize was that he was provoking something much bigger. He was so young and new to the inside, he didn't know what to be afraid of.
Yet.
They led Roger to the elevator and began taking him all the way down.
And underneath the prisoners, all these catacombs, these mind shafts snaking all around there, for Semo City block.
They led him deep into the underbelly to a place he would never forget, a place that would make him avoid reading his own book because of what happened there, a place called the Limbo.
There was a saying in French, I say could be a at pool for Pimi, for I feel good in my flesh for the first time in my life. I just feel so durned good. And being able to wake up in the outside world in the morning is so fantastic. Being able to put my feet on a carpet. I put my feet on concrete floor for twenty four years, and it's such a fantastic feeling to put my feet on a rug.
The journey between these two Rogers we've met, the sixteen year old on his way to the basement to receive his punishment, and the forty year old Roger smiling and being celebrated on national television is more unpredictable, unlikely and dark than you would believe. And it was only possible because there's something you don't know yet, and that is that Roger Karan had a superhuman ability to survive. He was going places simply because nothing they can could do to him could stop him.
People wonder where did I get the strength to go on? Where did I get the determination of want? It was just a composition. I would have climbed that mountain till I was ninety nine years old. But when my book got published officially, well then I had crested and yes, yes I am a winner.
Damn it.
Coming up this season, pun go boy, I.
Can get that one big score. I'll prove to them that they're wrong. That's just a man.
In the years to go mad Dog Karate, I.
Used to look at things like some guys look at girls and ministrits.
No, oh my god, Oh my god. No, he's describing this bank robbery in detail. Roger went for the long shot. Does that a lot in his life, and he was instantly a celebrity.
A gunman wearing a Halloween mask robbed the store and briefly called a stork er Costa. You couldn't think somebody in Hollywood came up with this story as a movie.
It would really you wouldn't think it.
Would be livable.
Go Boy is a production from Campside Media in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or Wherever you get your podcasts. Go Boys was written and hosted by me Sam Won. Our producer is Rob Lindsay of Paradox Pictures. Laine Rose is our senior producer. Sound design, mix and engineering by Garrett Tiedeman, original music by Garrett tiedemant fact checking by Michael Kenyon Meyer. Selected archival clips are from CBC Licensing. The book Go Boy
was written by Roger Kuran. iHeart Podcasts executive producers are Lindsay Hoffman and Jennifer Bassett. Campside Media's executive producers are Josh Dean Vanessa, Gregoriatis, Adam hoff and Matt Cher. A special thanks to our operations team Doug Slaywyn, Ashley Lawren, Sabina Mara and Destiny Dingle. If you enjoyed Go Boy, please rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening.