The Manuscript

Campsite media.

When I looked back over my past, all that dead time, all that anguish, all the waste of my life that I could see there, I felt as if I was bursting with a fierce compulsion to fill the ugly void with something meaningful, so that the mirror would quit accusing

Roger had lost a lot of years, but one thing he hadn't experienced yet was losing years of his work. Imagine the gut hunch of losing that manuscript, close to eight years of his work, of his therapy, of his hope for the future, literally thrown in the garbage. But when the manuscript was miraculously returned to him, after everything he'd been through, after everything he'd done, how could he

Roger, still wearing his inmate clothes, was riding shotgun in a Volkswagen as it tore toward the US border. It wasn't his first choice to still be wearing his prisoner clothes. It wasn't ideal that the he just stole was bright red, or that it had raccoon tail hanging from each of the area antennas off the back.

It wasn't optimal that he had brought with him on this escape a green twenty year old who'd never attempted a prison break or even a bank robbery. But here he was, and here they were. When you bust out of prison, the last thing you want to do is speed toward the federal agents of another country at a border crossing. But given what they'd just done, it was

I said to Doug, okay, I never go both brighten. So he gets in, cran up and go. You know, it's so old and is shaky.

But when Doug went to put it in gear, something was wrong with the gearbox.

Couldn't find and reverse tried it like say come on, dog, dear, don't get his car back.

Couldn't find reverse on the job, one thing, don't.

As Doug continued grinding the transmission, Roger looked back at the jail windows in a panic, convinced that at any moment one of the guards he'd left behind would suddenly appear or call the police. They needed to get this thing on the road in whatever way possible, even if, as Roger claims, they needed to literally lift one end of the car off the ground to swivel it to the right direction.

We picked it up, he turned it.

There's no going back now, literally get it because the car doesn't go in reverse anyway. They knew the provincial police would have roadblocks all over eastern Ontario and bulletins out everywhere warning the public of two armed and dangerous jail breakers, so they opted to roll the dice at the border, and if they made it through, they'd then find a place to ditch this apple bong on wheels.

And pull across me see this big ridge and Doug's just so scared.

Got Ahola's arms and pull it Dugs just three You never did any of this?

Stuck in form it's liking, won't freeze.

Oning up, Doug brought the red VW to a shaky stop at the line as Roger discreetly scanned the scene to see if they were in the clear. The bright red Volkswagen wasn't ideal for their getaway in general, but when the border agent approached, Roger realized that, ironically, for this moment, it was the right car for the job. In tandem with their mismatched, shabby clothes, the car was participating in an inadvertent disguise.

It looked like a couple of university students said where yous going and say we're going to see the girls across the bride.

Ah, the girls across the bridge.

Eh.

Doug shifted nervously in his prison attire as Roger smiled with confidence.

See any stranger would bring me some back. He said, yeah, sure, okay, right on.

The border agent waved them through without even asking to see their ideas. So our two runaway bandits whooped it up the whole way across the Saint Lawrence.

We went all along with Saint Orn Turver and we finally got to see New York.

And I said, Doug, we can't go another while in this crazy car. When we first elucted the park and you've gone almost on your files. You got to get rid of it.

So after doing a lab, they ditched their car in a parking lot that just happened to belong to the police station. From there, they ducked into a local tavern and called a cab to take them to their agreed upon next destination.

We called a taxi, and we do the money we took in the bus stake and all the guard We took a taxi in New York City.

And you'd think that, given how insanely well their escape had gone, that Roger would be the happiest man in New York. You'd think he'd be all chuffed, reveling in the masterpiece he just painted, cut bars, gagged guards, grand theft auto and a border crossing these are a few of my favorite things, right, Roger. But instead he felt like the dog who had caught the car and was

And so thirty one days later, we're running out of money. We've just got a few dollars left.

In fact, they eleven eleven dollars with my pocket. He Ducks said, if you go to rob a bank, showed me out a rock bank, and it was the only thing I knew how to do.

But they couldn't do it here. So they got out of the city and headed to Indiana, I'm guessing, a state for which Roger's main association was that Dillinger was from there. Dillinger was a figure that loomed large, not just in Roger's mind, but in Roger's whole generation of bank robber he was a legend and was considered accurately or not to be a Robin Hood type. But Roger rolled into the Dillinger State in the midst of a

The gun felt in his hand like a slithering snake. He put it down on the counter and walked out of the store.

I walked out a store. It even park at you ever paying off for carme? Haven't? I said, I don't know, dugas is I have to cut that gun? And I just realized that I hurt anybody anymore, and I don't want to get hurt.

I don't want any more to the youthful invincibility he'd always felt walking into a stick up that he'd always counted on just wasn't there. This time. The well of mindless confidence had run dry. Even though he had had a few weeks to work through the feeling, Roger couldn't shake the inevitability that something really bad was going to happen, and he kept having these visions.

I kept seeing at least everywhere.

And I was convinced that my record was so devastating that the police I'm going to take a chance with me.

They're going to use me in an example.

And I thought, insist, what all my life is boiling down to an auto mike parade, dead and an hourly.

But he just didn't seem to have any options. He didn't know where else to go or what else to do. They didn't need to go on a spree or anything. They just needed to hit one bank so Roger could buy himself some more time to clear his head. Saturday, September two, nineteen seventy two, near Indianapolis, Indianaerug arrived at a big, modern shopping plaza in the suburbs where they first set eyes on their target, the centerpiece of the plaza, the bank. The shopping complex was plunked right in the

Walk in a block five dollar toy pistol dur plastic jurdan rug.

Doug was like a plastic gun. Roger smiled confidently and said, don't worry about it. They won't be able to tell the only thing they didn't have was a getaway car, and they were far enough into the suburbs that a car would be essential.

So I said to double Kate, you're you know a little bit about car steal a car.

So as soon as Doug secured a ride for them, it was go time. Roger had burst into a bank many times before, but he was mindful that this was Doug's first time, and frankly, he seemed scared. He seemed unsure of himself as they strode past all the shoppers and would be witnesses in broad daylight. As they approached the bank, Roger noticed Doug eyeing up a group of teenage boys who were lingering near the entrance fighting.

Other teenagers playing in front of the bank.

So I said, think, Doug, you don't worry about it, and you just concentrate on the teller's cagy all take You'll take care of they all take care.

Of the customer.

Roger gripped the toy gun tightly as he let his muscle memory take over.

He placed in the bank on Yon and everybody's landing on the floor and ducks roving onto all the cage.

The three vacational.

As Doug is stuffing the case with cash, Roger was on crowd control, a role not unfamiliar to him. But as Roger stood there with his toy gun, he started noticing the expression of the bystanders, the people on the floor, and they looked terrified, scared to death. Some of them were crying. And this observation caused Roger to have almost an out of body experience.

And the first thing, all my bank are obsation, think, oh, I'm not hurting anybody.

I wouldn't take any hostages.

I died before I'd heard a child or a lady or something like that, and all a fella reading noble.

Just as James and Allett and Brodie Clyde.

Roger had always believed that when he stuck up a place, that he was committing a victimless crime, that at worst he was just giving the bystanders a good story from when they got home to their loved ones. But in this bank, on this day, looking at these faces, something clicked.

I'm looking to stand here all of a sudden, all these ladies, a beautiful lady. I think I used to think myself with the protector of ladies and that. And they're crying just like I was. An escape gorilla from this never terrified me. And all of a sudden, I feel like apologize. I feel like say, hey, this isn't even a real good.

No good.

I just felt really bad, like you know.

Suddenly Doug appeared, snapping Roger out of his days.

My partner showed up in front of me. He owes the sack and he says, I got it off. I okay, Doug, give you ten seconds. I start to.

Assure a quick escape. Roger told Doug to leave the car idling in the parking lot so they wouldn't waste a single second before putting this place in their rear view.

And now something happened that no other bankrupt.

I don't care whether or bank I ret tell you, no one is that it's experienced, not in a movie, not anywhere a director would even write.

About in the screen.

By Rease day act to Corn and deck Cauld, never happened while I'm in the bank, didn't by kids store or get away car.

Goddamn teenagers. Roger and Doug stood for a moment in disbelief as they could hear the police sirens getting closer, and it was suddenly every man for himself.

I turned around to get away target.

I have gone that way.

My partner's gone that way.

Three cruiser just pulling out the big callut of desk and tunning all the machine guns to the knight them and you're yelling at him to a bullarm.

Put your hands up.

No, Roger had been having a premonition for weeks. This was how it was going to end. Gun down, holding a gun left in an alley somewhere. Put your hands up, they yelled again.

And time stand, you're at a toy gun. I looked at my left and there's all these rolls, a shot in class.

I looked at my right, Oh, Rose is shot in plasss and in front of these places the house you know where to go.

And I said, they're gonna kill me.

But then Roger notices the front door of a beauty.

Partner from all these ladies with herders and sheets around and looking.

Through the window, and Roger thinks that'll do.

And I first into the beauty cower before the pups can get a shot.

Everyone was screaming and diving out of the way as Roger weaved his way to the back.

I got the ladies all nicely agitated, all excited, you know, so that by timely hit the back door and the police were coming in the front door. The ladies were throwing sheets over their heads and hanging around the stowing down to their progressisting enough to get me out.

Of the back door.

And then I opened the back and all cornfields, miles and miles of corn fields seven feet high.

Hearing the police closing in behind him, Roger bolted for the corn sprinting into the stalks as fast as he could. When he heard the first gun shots ring out.

Behind him, I first into the cornfield. All of a sudden, a corner in front of me boom over my head and I said, oh right, you're good.

I die, You know you die.

The corn was stepty high. I can't hear if the police are underfeet behind me or a fright pepin. I'm my old it's gonna blow out the shoulder, and I'm running and I'm run a real bow boy, you know, go go go.

You always hear the.

Canad of the guys in the reformentory. You own, go boy, go boy. Bullets are going on and.

Finally if you got red quiet and I stopped. I looked down these rolls.

I don't see anything, but you're the sirens everywhere you go, and I must have rann Able four miles.

Through the cornfield.

Roger spotted a big farmhouse with a nice car in the driveway, so he ran in, still wielding the toy gun, of course, and scared the hell out of the woman who lived there when he showed up in her kitchen.

I won burst in the doors your room. Looked at you. I said, just you coo. He says you own the carne run She said, I said, do you hear sirens? A lot of people up the are gonna meet your guards went on.

She was too shocked to help with the car keys, but Roger spotted them hanging on hooks near the front door. He leapt into the car and was out of there before anyone could catch him.

Got out of it.

I got into Ohio, and then I got to Detroit and stuck on to sty at ETOs.

Coming back to Canada. At least for you don't steal your getaway cards. Certain.

Roger pulled into Detroit, just across the river from Canada, and checked into a CD motel, But when he turned on the TV, he was given a fright when he saw his own face on the screen looking back at him.

Nil most wanted future of out of.

The state, Roger learned that his partner, Doug, had been arrested already, whereas Roger was now a celebrity and being hunted by the FBI. After a lifetime of languishing in Canadian obscurity, it seemed he had graduated to the big leagues. The next morning, Roger came across the Ambassador Bridge on a bus and made his way to Toronto. If he was going to have to spend the rest of his life behind bars, they might as well be Canadian bars.

And you said your says, I my playing as the worst criminal record than any of us in our career.

I've ever seen her. That's my lawyer, you know.

When it was the Crown Prosecutor's turn, he held up Roger's rap sheet and called him a psychopath, a man without conscience.

I'm not an a million I love the conscience. I'm not a criminal. Stuck at fact. That's what kept getting any trouble is I thought, a conscience, you don't.

Even the judge had things like, I've tried to find something that would give me some hope for your rehabilitation, but I certainly haven't been able to see anything, et cetera, et cetera. But then, in the middle of this very cut and dry trial, something surprising that would change Roger's life.

Well, boy said, just a minute to your argum, He said, just a minute, and he said, can I talk to you?

Braver.

Roger's lawyer had come to learn that for the past eight years his client had been working on a manuscript about his life in the penal system, and since he had almost no other defense to put forward, he figured it was worth a shot to at least share with the judge some of the highlights from the manuscript before sentencing.

They had hers, so.

They had jured it came back to judge to look through it all over an hour and he called back, he said, he said, boy, he said, pop until an hour a boy, he said, I'm going to give you a life sentence, he said, but I'm looking through your manuscript is stead things and never going to get probablished, too primitive.

But he says, I can see a lot of insight. I said, see a lot of hope. I can understand you a little better.

Roger couldn't believe the tone change from just an hour earlier, and then when it was time for the judge to share his final decision, he said, I sent it to you the twenty year twenty years nineteen and a half to be exact. Now, nearly twenty years might seem like a long time, but you need to remember the judge's first instinct was to put him away for life. But this was twenty years. Twenty years. Roger could do.

That was okay to be twenty years. He was delighted end of the time.

But the very important thing about this lenient sentence is that it led to an epiphany for Roger about his writing. Yes, the near decade of writing had been incredibly therapeutic, and yes, He was thrilled by the thought that one day he might be able to get one of his stories in a magazine or a memoir published. But one thing Roger had not considered until that day in the courtroom was that his writing could quite literally get him out of prison.

So I met the court group, I went to no had in jail, and I started right he's writing.

Roger had tried escaping from prison with grappling hooks and self made mannequins. He'd tried tunneling, bar cutting, He'd torn himself to pieces climbing over barbed wire. He'd helped stage in elaborate distractions so he could try walking out. But one thing that he hadn't tried yet was writing his way out. And unlike most of his past escapes, he knew that if he was going to pull off this one, he was going to need some help.

The first time I met Roger, who was at Collins Bay.

This is David Schlake.

I was a teacher of English at St. Lawrence College in Kingston, and we volunteered workshop seminars.

One day.

I was doing a workshop about creative writing, and Roger bounced in at the end of the session.

And he was remarkable in a couple of ways.

One of them was he was he didn't have a shirt on, and I noticed instantly a lot of the lacerations and scar tissue on his arms and on his back.

And he had a manuscript with him.

This manuscript was in a grocery bag, brown paper grocery bag, and it was very thick. He had many, many pages. And he said, I got this manuscript, and what do you think. I said, well, I'm glad to look at it. And he said, well, he can't take it now. I have to get your copy.

Roger had already lost his work once and he wasn't keen on that ever happening again.

He would not let the manuscript out of his site that was guarded leave me.

The next time Roger saw Dave, he was able to get him some stuff that he could take home. About sixty pages the first day, but there was a lot more where that came from.

The first time I saw it, it was a stack. He said.

There were fifteen hundred pages. There were scribbler books that were marked with number twelve number nineteen, and then there would be pages, and then another scribbler and so on.

It was pretty robust. He had done a lot of work.

It didn't take much time with the pages for David to discover that Roger's story had real potential.

And my impression of the manuscript when I did read it initially was that it was it needed a restructuring, as he would jump around a lot, but there was real energy in the story. As far as memoirs go, it was very intense, and I was impressed with the gusto.

It was unlike anything he'd ever read in its drive and in its willingness to go to dark places.

What I recall was the.

Sad accounts of when he was really young, like the really bruising, blisteringly sad times he had as a teenager, and I thought.

Boy, that's a rough time.

David is the type of person that would have been willing to help any inmate with their creative pursuits. But he could sense that Rogers carried an urgency and in importance, so he was keen to do whatever he could to help Roger get his book into reader's hands, and it would take everything from restructuring to spell checking lots of spell checking.

He would double up on some consonants all the time, and I would always circle them and say, Roger business has three s's not four.

Anyway, through their work on the manuscript, David got to know Roger well and.

I nicknamed him.

I used to call him Immer and he'd say, what's immer? I said, well, in German it means always, but it's im r and that's from theater, and it means in media race in the middle of things.

You're just you just bounce into the middle of things.

And so I called Roger Immer. He was always in the middle of something and he'd draw you right into it.

This was a time of unimaginable drive, even for Roger. There have been so many periods where he was laser focused on making his story as compelling as he could. But he could feel how close it was getting, and the feedback that David was giving him made him believe that he really would be able to get this thing out into the world.

He thought that it would. He's very lucky.

He might have a pulp novel and I said, no, this is a this is a bound hardback copy coming Roger.

A hardback. Roger was drunk with the idea that if he got a book like that out into the world, it could help bring him into the world with it.

He just wanted it out of the system. He wanted to be free.

Roger wanted that manuscript to find its way to a publisher. So when it was time to finally start sending out let to everyone he could think of to ask for publishing help, Nadia Sunic came to mind.

Quite frankly. I was a busy young lawyer and a busy young person doing many things, and often not peddling Roger's manuscript.

Nadia was a young lawyer who was working with Roger's main attorney and was a person Roger had become friendly with. She was bright, impressive, and she seemed like the type of person who might know people.

Nadia, I am in the process of rewriting a new outline, one that is more presentable, more concise. I am convinced that within six months to one year after my book is launched that I could regain my freedom on parole. My penchant for escaping goes heavily against me, so I must give prison officials something concrete to prove that I am rehabilitated. And that my future is secure, so secure that I would not be tempted to escape.

Step one was lending Nadia a manuscript to read, which.

May actually still be in my garage.

Nadia, No, you were supposed to give it back to Roger when you were done.

He was annoyed that there were too many copies of the manuscript floating around. Anyway, was so intent on getting it published, and he gave it to me, and I was to, you know, pedle.

It and get it published.

Nadia remembers well reading it for the first time. She was at the beach with her husband and some friends, sunning herself on an air mattress when suddenly.

I remember, I started to say, oh my god, Oh my god. And my husband said, what's the matter, And I said, you know, he's describing this bank robbery.

Get detail, a robbery that Roger claimed he had nothing to do with.

You know, we just finish working. You say he didn't do it, and look at this.

I still remember lying on that mattress, thinking, wait a minute, here, Roger, wait a minute.

Every cat in every bag was about to be let out. Roger started mailing letters to every publisher, magazine, and industry adjacent person he could think of.

Editor.

Please help me regain my position in society once more as a functional, respected human being. Please help me regain.

My position in society.

What's my bag? I used to be a bank robber. I am now a changed man, no longer abandoned, and a jail writer. I've spent the past ten years writing my autobiography. I've nursed my book manuscript from prison to prison. I fought and bled over it. It kept me sane during lengthy stays in solitary confinements.

He pursued it, and he was determined.

Roger's sister sue again.

There's an old thing. He did nothing to lose and everything the game, and he was just driven.

He wrote to all the most reputable publishing houses in Canada, and he wasn't above writing the more pedestrian options either. I have read every.

Reissue of Playboy magazine since its inception in nineteen fifty four, and I am convinced that my story is slanted to the adult male who reads Playboy. You wouldn't happen to know a publisher or editor in the market for a gutsy prison manuscript, would you. I'm told it reads like corn liquor being slashed down a virgin's throat.

Roger was really feeling himself now.

He felt, I'm going to win this. I'm going to win this. I'm going to do it.

But after his first flurry of letters, he was surprised when people weren't getting back to him right away.

I would have spoken to him on the phone when he was keen to know exactly what was happening. And of course nothing was happening because I wasn't paying as much attention to it as I probably should have.

Been, and the people who were writing back were writing with bad news.

We have decided against publishing it.

There's a chance we may publish it, and as a chance we may not.

I just want to prepare you for either. God knows there's a room for a good book about our prison system, but I don't feel that this is going to be in Incidentally, your spelling is appalling. He got very discouraged. Many times.

He'd been feeling so confident in the beginning, but his wish list had written back with a resounding not interested. It had been a good try, but it didn't look like he was going to get published.

And I'd say to him well, just read up Roger on gone with the Win and see how many times that was turned down. I couldn't tell him one hundred percent it's going to happen. I mean, I can't tell him that, but I sure pushed because I felt this was good for him. No matter what, whatever the outcome, this was good for him.

One of Roger's best qualities is that when he's knocked down, he doesn't stay down. Because he came to learn that he just hadn't written to the right person yet. He needed a champion, and he was about to find one.

That's where Pierre Burton came into the picture.

Pierre Burton was one of Canada's foremost intellectuals and most prolific authors.

There's a little saying you want something done, go to the head of the class.

Burton was known for being a bit of a rebel, a pot smoking liberal, at the forefront of starting conversations about LGBTQ issues and the rights of Canada's incarcerated. So Roger told David he was thinking about reaching out to him.

He had heard that Pierre Burton, who was at the time, I think one either on the board of or maybe the chair of the prison Arts Foundation and very supportive of adults and custody who were doing creative things. And writing really appealed to Pierre Burton, and adults and custody inmates who were writing was something that Roger knew Peter Burton would pay attention to us. I said, I don't know him personally, but I'm pretty sure we could get something to him.

Roger went for the long shot that a lot in his life, and.

That's when I wrote a letter in mister Burton, I wrote, and i's more less said help, And just.

Like Roger hoped, Burton heard the call and said he'd be willing to read the manuscript. So Roger was like, holy carow, Pierre Burton had better type this thing up real nice.

And Roger was really eager to get that manuscript in a form that was professional enough, and he did.

Pierre Burton liked what he read. He'd liked what he heard for some reason.

Last fall I started corresponding with mister Pierre Burton, and since then he has read my book and liked what I accomplished.

Without asking, he.

Has volunteered to write a preface and generally endorse my work. It was a fantastic break for me, and I deeply appreciate everything he is doing for me.

Pierre Burton understood it for what it was going to be, a thrilling scream from the darkness. There's going to captivate a nation. He told Roger that he would do everything he could to get this thing published, including sharing it with his own publisher.

The publishing company that Peer Burton was with turned it down, and Peter Burton was not a happy camera about it.

I'm sorry to tell you that the editorial board has decided against undertaking publication. It was felt that the editorial work involved was simply too great for our editors to handle.

At this time, Burton was like, did you not hear what I just said? This book is going to be huge.

They didn't go for it. I'm sure they lived to regret it for.

A long time.

I write this letter with sincere personal regret Roger, and wish you every success. CC Pierre Burton. This was a new disappointment for Roger. Even with the perfect champion, he still couldn't get this thing printed.

Peer Burton was so sure that his company was going to take it, and Roger had such a high there he was, you know, he felt like it was a fair complete and that was a down or for him, that was whoa.

But unbeknownst to Roger, Burton wasn't giving up. And then it sold.

Our company in Sydney will be importing Go Boy for Australia New Zealand market.

Congratulations.

French rights on Go Boys sold to Bushima.

They will publish this fall partiest.

Congratulations.

My first feeling was good for you because I think we all need to accomplish something in life that we feel good about. And I really think that this is the first thing that he felt, you know, except for catching wild animals and whatnot. He really felt accomplished in that, you know. But this is something he worked so hard for.

But the truth is it was really single minded hard work.

The kid with almost no schooling or training to speak of, who'd grown up behind bars, who'd been beaten, paddle shocked, shot at punch, who had been buried in solitary for an unfathomable amount of time, was going to be published by a real publishing house. The world had no idea who Roger Karan was, but they were about to find out.

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 Boy was written and hosted by me Sam Wellens. 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

Thanks for listening.