Another night in this dreadful town. Sometimes I wonder why I came here in the first place. My name is James Bien-Aime. I was born and raised in the town of Newton, Massachusetts. In September 2010, I had the world on a string. I was a freshman at Boston College and life was good. I had everything in the palm of my hand. I was a second-string quarterback on the Boston College football team, and life couldn't be better. My father Louis Bien-Aime used to play football for Boston College, before he went to the Massachusetts State Police Academy. Pops is now a sergeant with the M.S.P.s and I couldn't be prouder of him. Unlike many sons out there, I was happy to follow in my pops footsteps. He raised me by himself, since my mom Alexandra Winston Bien-Aime died giving birth to me. There aren't too many African-Americans on the State Police force and I endeavored to be one of the few. Just like my old man before me. At least, that's what I wanted to do until everything started to go wrong.
After the Boston College football team's devastating loss to those punks of Duke University, I went home and found my sexy Jamaican-American girlfriend Sheila Johnson in bed with my Irish-American roommate Alexander O'Reilly. I cussed them out and chased them off. As I sat alone in my dorm, a whirlwind of anger and despair soared through me. And I did the one thing I shouldn't have done. I had a couple of beers, got in my red convertible ( a graduation gift from my father) and went to chill at my friend Jamal Lester's house in the west side of Brockton. At least, that was the plan. I only had two beers, and with my six-foot-three, 240-pound, rock-solid Black athlete's body, I thought I could handle it. And unfortunately, I couldn't. I got busted by the Massachusetts State Police. The officer who took me in was Troy Henderson, a stocky old Irish cop and my father's best friend. Instead of taking me to jail like he should have done, he brought to my pops. You see, cops in Boston have a code when dealing with each other's brats. They treat each other's brats as if they were their own. It's all part of the brotherly code of the fraternal order of police. My father was far less forgiving than officer Troy Henderson. Let's just say that I caught the beating of a lifetime, and I lost my driver's licence.
I thought I had walked away scot-free but my father wasn't done punishing me. He basically used his clout to strip me of everything I held dear. Gone was my football scholarship to Boston College, one of the most prestigious schools in the state of Massachusetts. Gone was my chance at earning my bachelor's degree in Criminal Justice while playing NCAA Division One football. At the beginning of the year I was debating whether to go straight to the police academy or at least try to get into the National Football League after graduating from Boston College. Now my options were far simpler. My father felt that the City of Boston was too tempting an environment for an impulsive young African-American male like myself. He banished me to the middle of nowhere, also known as Ottawa, Ontario. A fate worse than death. My father felt that I had it too easy in this life. And in many ways, he was right. I did have it easier than him, though I didn't consider my life to be easy. My father was born and raised in the City of Cap-Haitien, Republic of Haiti. He was a student at College Notre Dame Du Perpetuel Secours, an all-male Catholic high school, when his own parents were gunned down by the Tonton Macoute, the ruthless military men who enforced the will of the infamous Haitian dictator Duvalier. My father was a kid when he lost his father, mother and sister. That was the early 1980s. He became a United Nations refugee, and was eventually granted asylum in the United States of America. He attended Dorchester High School in Boston, Massachusetts, while staying with a host family. Then he won a scholarship to Boston College, where he played football. He graduated from Boston College's Law School eight years later, but opted for a career in law enforcement rather than becoming a lawyer. The Massachusetts State Police considers him one of their best men.
Now, my father wasn't alone when he left the island of Haiti in the early 1980s. His younger brother Marc-Henri Bien-Aime was also granted asylum and taken in by a U.S. family. My uncle Marc-Henri moved to Canada seven years after he arrived in America. He settled in the region of Ottawa, Ontario, met a lovely Haitian woman, got married and had a son and two daughters, my cousins Jacques, Vanessa and Evelyn. My uncle Marc-Henri is a Constable for the Ontario Provincial Police. It seems law enforcement runs in the family. Anyhow, my father sent me to live with my uncle Marc-Henri in Ontario. In one fell swoop I had not only lost my driver's licence and my scholarship to Boston College, I had also gotten myself thrown out of the United States of America, the country in which I was born. Can you imagine this shit? I can't believe it, and I was there!
Man, I did not like Canada when I first got there. I tried to get into the University of Ottawa, mainly because it had a football team but they didn't accept me. I had an incomplete for my classes at Boston College. The only other university in the City of Ottawa was Carleton University, derisively called Last Chance University by many folks in proper Canadian society. I guess beggars can't be choosers so I was smiling when I got the acceptance letter from Carleton University in the mail. Now, since I'm American and not Canadian, I had to apply as an international student. That means they charge me twenty one hundred dollars per class, instead of the eight hundred or so dollars they charge Canadian students. Man, I was mad as hell when I found that out. I wasn't eligible for any of the usual scholarships. I had to get a job if I wanted to go to school. Being an American in Canada isn't easy. I learned the hard way that Canadians aren't the nice, friendly people most of the world thinks they are. Canadians are mean as hell but they hide it. And they aren't in love with America. They seem to envy us and resent us, though I don't know. We've never done anything to them, as far as I know. Anyhow, I had to get myself a J.O.B. First I applied for a work permit, and found out the only job I could get was that of a security guard. And even for that lousy job, I had to file security clearance forms and a whole bunch of crap. All for a measly twelve bucks an hour. Nevertheless, a job was a job. I worked for various security companies in the summer of 2011, and saved every penny. When September 2011 came, I was ready to enrol at Carleton University. I had saved enough to pay for two classes. I almost killed myself with overtime shifts at work. Don't ask me how I did it but I got it done.