The Padlock

By W. R. Morency

A collection of eight short stories by W. R. Morency. This is his second book. In this book, the author is sharing some real moments in life which he found out of the ordinary. A few of these stories are inspired from incidences in real life. In these stories, we see boy taking a dangerous ride on a freight train, an auctioneer who has trouble getting the auction started, a woman find herself deeply embarrassed when driving through a village. It is a collection of stories that you wont be able to put down and which will capture your interest and leave you asking for more

• Language: English
• Publisher: W. R. Morency
• Release date: Sep 12, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311942753

W. R. Morency

W. R. (Reg) Morency left home at 16, and traveled with a carnival for a few months until he was old enough to join the army. He served for three years with the famed R22R "Van Doos" Regiment. Then worked for the Ontario Government in the courts, then as a trust officer, and finished is career as an investigator. Later, he worked in property management, started a locksmithing business and operated a flea market booth for a while. He has a passion for writing and has written many short stories, mostly fictionalized events, a few loosely based on his previous life and work experiences.

Book preview

The Padlock

Copyright 2015 W. R. Morency

Distributed by Smashwords

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

About The Author

The Bank Inspector

A Drive Through Sainte Rose

The Carpet Cleaner

Riding The Freight Train

The Auction

The Old Man

The Colonel's House

The Padlock

Connect with Reg Morency

Other book by the author

Acknowledgements

I have been writing short stories for many years. I often contemplated sending my stories to magazine publishers, but never had the nerve to send them. More often than not from fear of rejection. I did however sent one story which earned an honorable mention. That was 'The year I played with Dave McKay' in my first book 'Fish For Dinner'. It is with the continuing encouragement of my good friends Ridy and Raymond Skyrme that I am continuing to publish these stories . I hope that you enjoy reading these short stories as much as I enjoyed writing them. A few of these stories are loosely based on real life experiences. The cover photo is of an old shed at the back of my apartment reminiscent of the shed where I got the idea to write The Padlock.

W. R. (Reg) Morency

The Bank Inspector

Gripping his cane firmly with his right hand Harry slowly made his way home looking carefully down at the sidewalk. His shoulders were stooped, making it difficult for him to look up at the people walking toward, or past him at a much greater speed than he could manage. There was a time when he could walk with the fastest of them, but not now, his back was acting up. His legs, his feet, were giving him a lot of trouble in this humid weather. He carefully measured every step he took, the last thing he needed was for someone to bump into him.

The old man felt, rather than saw, the stares of the people. He was too busy concentrating on walking, and not falling to stare back. He did not like the stares but had learned to live with them. The children troubled him the most with their cruel taunts.

Here comes daddy short legs, run run pants on fire. Some of the kids down his street would chant wherever they saw him. Then they would run away laughing.

Harry loved children, and wished he had a daughter, a son would do also, but he would really have liked a daughter. Years ago when they were younger he and Mandy had tried but couldn't have children. When they realized that this would not happen they had seriously considered adopting a child, and even went to the adoption agency. The social worker told them that their lifestyle was not suitable to raise a child. That was when they were doing the carnival circuit.

Just one more block and he would be home. His legs and feet were sore all the time now. He remembered when they hurt only when the humidity was high. Lately, the prickly aches were with him constantly. Last month he spent two weeks in Sunnybrook Hospital, in the veterans' section. They told him the he had neuropathy in his feet. There was nothing they could do for him. Except medication that did not seem to be very effective. He knew he might lose the legs one day, this; he did not want to face.

Maybe, a good shot will help, he told himself, as he slowly climbed the front steps of to his house.

Is that you Harry? She always asked, as if someone else would come into their house.

Yes, it's me he answered, closing the door behind him to keep out the cold.

The man called again, about the account. Said the elderly woman, standing in the living room. She watched as her husband placed his coat over the hot water radiator.

He said he would call back.

I just come from the bank, what’s the matter with them? Exclaimed Harry, visibly annoyed.

He said it was important that he come to see you tomorrow morning, she added, noting her husband's annoyance.

Oh, all right then, replied Harry as he slowly made his way toward the kitchen, she picked up his coat and hung it on the coat rack by the front door.

He opened the kitchen cupboard above the sink, took out a water glass from the shelf, and a small bottle of rum from the same shelf. Measured three generous fingers of dark rum into the glass, and then put the bottle back in its place. He turned on the tap, waited for the water to cool, before filling the glass to the brim. He never mixed his drink with cola, or any other fancy concoction. It had to be water or nothing, a habit he kept from his days in the Navy.

Good days they were too, only for the dammed torpedoes. He said to anyone who asked why he drank grog.

He had served on an escort ship with the Canadian Navy during the Second World War, and had made twelve crossings without incidents. Near the end of the war on his thirteenth crossing they were in mid-Atlantic when a U-boat torpedoed his ship. Harry was thrown into the freezing water, and it took nearly an hour before he was rescued. He was lucky not to die from hypothermia. His feet suffered the most damage. After the rescue, he was hospitalized at Halifax. Fortunately the blood circulation returned to his legs and feet and he did not have to lose his limbs as the doctors feared he might, but his feet were never the same.

After the war he was awarded a small disability pension, but it was not enough to live on. Jobs were scarce and the only work he was able to get was with a local carnival.

He and Mandy spent their summer storming the country, working the small carnivals and fairs, always ending in Toronto in mid August with the Canadian National Exhibition. This was where he had met Mandy. They fell in love and got married at the exhibition grounds; it made the front page of the Telegram at the time. Her father operated the candy floss concession, which she eventually owned, and for a while, he worked as a gunner for a man who owned the Knock Down the Cat concession. The idea of the game was for the customer, ‘sucker,’ to throw three baseballs at stuffed cat figures and knock them all down from their shelf and win a stuff animal.

It was a simple easy game except for the gunner who hid out of sight underneath the shelves. When the right code word was given by the barker, the gunner would push a lever and a board hidden from view at the back of the shelf would be raised about an inch. It then became impossible to throw a ball hard enough for the cat to fall off its perch. It was a simple con game and no one seemed to catch on to it.

Later Harry devised his own game where the players would try to win a prize by tossing a dime on a waxed plywood board. The board had a number of strategically placed small stars and circles painted different colors. The idea of the game was to completely cover one of the small circles painted on the board with the coin and win a prize, depending on the colour of the circle. If they covered one of four stars painted on the board, they won a live toy poodle. The con was that the stars had one slightly longer point that the dime could not cover. As a result no one ever won the poodle.

It was a simple scam. Once in a while someone would land on a star and complain. The police would be called and they would stop his operation. Harry would close the concession and work with Mandy selling candy apples and sugar