Meet "The Marc Boutin," a true hero in the profession of life

David Sherman

For half a decade I lived in an old fishing lodge that Brian had devoted the last decades of his life converting to a rambling home on a trout-filled lake near Lachute, a little north of Montreal. The house held a million images -- well-heeled men spending their days fishing, evenings being served dinner and drink from a kitchen designed for people paid to cook in cramped spaces.

And, of course, of Brian’s partner and love, Candy, a dancer who cancer claimed young. People will tell you Brian didn’t want to live without her and when cancer invaded him, he did nothing to slow its slaughter.

He was a quiet man of charm and wit who embraced life. He spent his career, when not restoring his 10-rooms of polished wood or devising a solar-heating system for the floor, transforming a drum into an oil-can smoker, working as a rigger. Rock ‘n’ roll to ballet, theatre to opera, he travelled the world, giving audiences sound and lights.

The house was a monument to Brian and Candy and their dedication to each other – and to the unconventional, including several wood stoves, bois massif winding staircases, giant chandeliers and countless windows.

A stranger at a party said, “I hear you’re living at Brian and Candy’s. You like it?”

“I love it,” I said. “How could you not?”

“Some people don’t get it,” she said.

I got it.

Brian’s son didn’t. He had grown up there and if he felt any magic within its walls, it didn’t show. But I fashioned it as Paradise and rented it.

My paltry lap top and guitar skills are useless for fixing sump pumps that don’t pump sump or dock repair or hanging massive curtains to keep out the cold.

Brian’s house was Shangri-La but he had not insulated the ceiling or walls. It had been empty for six months or more. Summers on a lake were a dream come true while the focus of every winter was split logs and survival.

The house needed work from someone who “Got it!” and had ingenuity on par with Brian’s. I was handy with a phone and my neighbour gave me a number and a name: Marc. I called and when he came on the line, I introduced myself.

“The David Sherman?” he said. Didn’t know about the “The,” but it turned out I was a family habit for Marc, his wife and the four kids. They listened to a CD of mine every night in his hand-built home north of us on the 117. I was a go-to-bed ritual like the Berenstain Bears, a song-writing hero he was happy to work for … “The David Sherman,” he said. “Sure, man. My hands are for rent. I do anything.”

And he did. Repair stairs, clean 20-ft. high ceilings, hang impossible drapes, make sure the chimney wasn’t going to burn the house down, clean antique chandeliers, repair, install anything.

When I pulled out the stops and brought in a band and topped the table with food and drink for 40-50 guests, Marc would come by. He knew more people at my party than I did.

Today, the house on the lake is a memory, sold, but Marc is upstairs with his father, where I live today with my partner. His dad Fern, short for Fernandes, a couple of years short of 80, is topped with a crop of white hair bright like whipped cream. He, too, works non-stop, like the rest of the clan.

They’re having a good time tearing our bathroom apart. The steady stream of gentle conversation in both languages as they figure out the strangled maze of tubes and pipes and wires hidden under the floor and behind the walls tells me they like working together.  

Marc’s father is a plumber who still plumbs and works with a smile as he dances like Fred Astaire, from one floor joist to another.

Jobs are often a family affair for Marc. Last week, his eldest son, Sonam, 24, was harnessed half-way-up our ant-eaten spruce, during a blizzard, trying to cut it down before it joined a few of its cousins that had cracked and fallen on our roof and barely missed our two old cars.

Marc has handed his-tree cutting and roof-cleaning business to his son, who seems to like nothing better than being strapped to a swaying tree, 50 feet off the ground, and holding on with a smile as the wind threatens to take him and the spruce for a hard landing on a tired Subaru.

When we left town for a couple of months, we gave Sonam and his girlfriend, Marilou, our car and house keys and they made sure the cars were run every week, the roof and carport were shovelled, the trees would not collapse and the house stayed in one piece. Marilou joins him for most jobs, and they share this peculiar habit of asking for nothing -- no water, no coffee, no washroom, no cellphones, no breaks. They work like machines, with smiles on their faces. They like each other, they like working.

When summer makes its pit stop, Marilou works the flower beds and drives the wheel barrow. They have knees that work as designed.

Marc, his father, Fern, the offspring, all work with a smile and inexhaustible determination.

Hard work for me means staring at the computer or the guitar. If I want to break a sweat, I join the gym.

When Marc finishes work, he picks up the kids from school if his wife can’t, cooks dinner and rests the aches and pains imposed by carrying and hammering gyprock and cutting pipes. His wife Sophie has worked as a midwife, a consultant for the dying, a firefighter, a rescue worker during flood season and several other generous tasks I can’t keep track of.

Last week, Marc stood in our kitchen and talked about his inability to think of working at a desk, in an office or a store.

“I get to take my kids skiing after work,” if the snows not too bad – it rarely is – and after dinner the family hangs out. “I’m my own boss, living in the mountains. What could be better?”

Marc’s outlook is basic. Life is short, decide how much do you want to sell a day of it for and how do you want to spend the money earned by giving up a day.

No one in the family seeks the “security” of a nine-to-five gig where there are mountains and trails to explore, trees and roofs to climb and the elements to embrace. And having customers you can compare dinner menus with.

Winters are often harsh, indoor work hard to find, so shovelling roofs without falling to mangle a vertebra or two, is as much part of the game as tracking down organic grown sides of pork and chicken and vegetables from a network of suppliers Marc has cobbled together. He sells his hands and makes sure his labour buys the best he can find to feed the family.

I’m no longer “The David Sherman.” I’m just another in a long list of demanding clients lining up for the services of a man with as many arms as a spider and works with the same quiet determination.

He’s “The Marc Boutin,” a hero in the profession of life.