The beating

Lately I’ve been living in a movie set. Schwarzenegger’s kid and some babe have been roaming the main street snofling gelato between takes of a new romcom that has clogged the place with panel trucks, lights, camera cranes and oodles of people with headsets.

No wonder. This town (kinda like Lunenburg) has a 19th Century vibe that makes for a perfect backdrop if you’re creating a gauzy film about the romantic, simple, human way people used to live. So Dorothy and I came back to Niagara-on-the-Lake after being away seven years. We bought a little brick 207-year-old house and, yeah, we eat the occasional gelato (there are about three dozen places selling it).

As mentioned, I also volunteered to write a weekly column for the local Lake Report. It took about five minutes of doing that to become controversial. I can’t imagine why.

Apparently there are consequences. Even in a quaint, upscale, affluent crossroads where people come to make movies about good things. Six days ago the good turned ugly for me. I am hoping this is isolated rage. Not decay.

Here’s my local piece, published today.

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Well, this is a column I didn’t want to write.

In my decades on this planet I’ve been pushed around a few times. Taken some punches. But never been beaten, viciously, until one pleasant and warm Friday afternoon in the bucolic bosom of Old Town NOTL.

“Oh my God, what’s happening to you?”

That was Amy, the nice lady at Cogeco who was helping me with a cable TV bill as I ambled down the shoulder of Centre Street, yakking with her on my phone speaker.

An older VW drove towards me on the deserted street and stopped an inch from my knees. Out jumped a white-haired guy who rushed me, yelling, “Get off the effing street. Get on the effing sidewalk.”

Hang on, I said. I’m just on the phone.

“Not any more,” he shouted in an eruption of expletives. He knocked my phone from my hands, went to crush it with his foot and started pushing and punching. In the melee I thought I heard my name. I fell backwards into the ditch. As I struggled up on one hand he kicked me in the face with such force I briefly blacked out. My eye took a direct hit and immediately stopped working. The blood started.

It was like a movie clip. Gratuitous, unprovoked violence for the sake of hurt and domination.

As I regained my senses he was about to go further – preparing another kick, despite his conquest. I rolled, staggered to my feet and tried to flee. A hundred feet away was Mississagua Street but there were no cars to flag. Dizzy, with my ass totally whipped, my glasses broken and clutching the messy eyeball, I was shocked to see him pursuing me. Two terrifying blocks later, he turned back.

I learned later Amy had called 911 and told the police to ping my cell. I called Dorothy. She freaked. I called the cops and was told by the dispatcher, “We are going to get you lots of help.”

It happened.

Minutes after I got home there were six sturdy people in the living room, paramedics and officers. Rob the medic and his team hooked me up, did the protocol, pried open my eye and told me about the real potential for a brain bleed. Luke and Bruno were there from the police. One stayed with me for an hour to get details and a recorded statement. The other started canvassing the street where the attack took place. Later than evening Luke showed up again with my busted glasses, vowing to call the next day. He did.

A short post on Facebook brought an overwhelming response before the admin killed comments. But there were leads and information. One person confirmed that the details – car, man, clothes, age, accent – fit his neighbour, who also has a history of assault. He lives two doors from where my assailant beat me. I told Luke everything. “This is good information,” he said. “We’re on it.”

That night I called the answering service of Marianne Hopkins, an optometrist on Mary Street, and left a message asking for an appointment. My eye was swollen shut and unresponsive. There was a boot mark on my forehead.

The next morning, Saturday, she called back. Soon I was in her clinic, opened generously for a single patient. The eye was damaged, she concluded. But not pooched. In time I will see things again. She sent a prescription to Shoppers Drug Mart, which was filled in minutes. When I hobbled in to retrieve it the pharmacist gave me everything short of a hug.

So here it is. Writing this with one eye and thinking about life in NOTL. One supporter who called talked about a home invasion that just happened close by – guns, injury and robbery. “The GTA is coming here,” she said. “And nobody knows how to stop it.”

Dorothy asked me if we need to leave this place now. “I’m going to worry every time you open that door and walk out,” she said, in tears. It’s hard to see the one you love hurt.

I thought about Amy, Rob, Luke, the 911 dispatcher, the hundreds of FB comments, the people I barely knew who called, our neighbour Karen who brought fresh scones, Marianne tending to my eye, the drug store empathy, those who hastened to identify the perp and the people on the street I’d never spoken to who approached me with warmth and support.

“We’re staying,” I said.

About the picture: “This is Tuna,” writes Tyler. “He’s from Qatar and he’s a lot.”

To be in touch or send a picture of your beast, email to ‘[email protected]’.

Source: https://www.greaterfool.ca/2026/06/18/the-beating/