From the Ashes

by Jesse Thistle

  “No one will know.” Mitch thrust a ten-dollar bill into my hand. “Player’s king-sized—20s. Now go. I’ll be here.” Mitch pushed me toward the store and watched as I pulled on the glass door. I hauled away on it until my arm almost came out of its socket, it was so heavy. Each of the boys cracked a sideways smile. I didn’t have a choice. They beat guys up if they didn’t listen, and I was small. I smiled back and made it in. John was at the counter.

  “What is it today, chief?” he said, his tanned face beaming in the dust-filled light. John’s hair was curly and cut short. I once heard Grandpa say he was a half-breed like me and my brothers, but our hair and skin didn’t look like his. He looked half black and half white to me.

  “Here. The silver ones. For my grandma.” I slapped down Grandma’s letter. John turned around to select a pack from the shelf behind him, and my hand shot toward the shelf of candy bars. I grabbed as many as I could and stuffed them into my underwear—just like Josh and Jerry had taught me. I must’ve snatched about ten.

  John turned back, cocked his head, and asked, “Is that it, chief?”

  I almost shit my pants.

  “No . . . sir . . . I’d like to buy another pack of cigarettes. Player’s King, 20.” I reached into my pocket for Mitch’s ten. The ruffling noise of candy bar wrappers sounded louder to me than someone crunching up hundreds of newspaper pages. I kept my eyes on his to see if he’d notice.

  “Player’s?” he asked. “Your grandparents don’t smoke those.”

  “I—I—um . . . My uncle!” I burst out. “They’re for my uncle!”

  He looked me up and down, then swivelled back to the shelf. I saw my opportunity and my hands darted forward, grasping about five packs of Fun Dip and six packs of Big League Chew and rammed them in my pants. I felt a chocolate bar fall to my ankle. Somehow my pants kept it there.

  “I’ll give them to you today,” John said as he slid the Player’s and change across the counter. “But next time I’ll need a letter from your uncle, too.”

  I grinned even though it felt weird and said I’d bring the letter next time, then waddled toward the door. It sounded like I was wearing a diaper.

  “Hey, wait!” John called out.

  Sweat was pouring from my forehead like water from a faucet.

  “Tell your grandpa I say hi. The lottery is up today. He needs to play to win!”

  “Okay.” I nodded and left. Before the door closed, the chocolate bar down by my ankle dropped out onto the floor. I booted it onto the sidewalk and waited for the door to close behind me. I thought for sure John had seen it, but I walked over to the pay phone to give Mitch the cigarettes, and John just stood behind the counter and watched as the older boys ran up to me. One of them, the one who appeared the slowest and sleepiest of them all, scooped the candy bar off the pavement.

  Mitch’s gang told me I could keep the change for the work I’d done—about $4.50. I told them John needed a letter next time.

  “No problem,” Mitch said as he lit a smoke. “This will be our little thing, okay?”

  I agreed. Buying cigarettes for the older boys for pocket change sounded great. They were so busy swarming for cigarettes, they didn’t even notice that my gotchies were filled with about a half-case of chocolate bars and gum.

  When I got home, Grandma wasn’t in her rocking chair in front of the veranda door like usual. Something was up. Yorkie barked, and I heard Grandma stampede down three flights of stairs—faster than I’d ever heard her move before. She charged at me. I turned to escape, but she shoved the door closed.

  “John called!” she roared like a pissed-off bear, her lips gnarled back so I could see her black cigarette-stained teeth. “His candy bar shelves are bare. He also told me you bought a pack of Player’s.” She pulled my pants down before I knew what was happening, and my hoard fell onto the floor.

  I started crying. She was having none of it and started spanking me.

  “Why?” she screamed. “Why. Are. You. Stealing?” She started to weep and hit me even harder.

  “I didn’t steal, Grandma. Some kids gave these to me, and I stuck them in my pants.”

  She looked confused. “Now you lie to me on top of it! My God, Jesse. What is going on with you?” She smacked me across the mouth, then pushed me into the corner while she gathered the chocolate bars and gum.

  I tried to pull them out of her hands but she was stronger than me. She slapped me again. My cheek was on fire.

  “I’m not lying, Grandma. The bad kids outside of the store got me to buy them a pack of cigarettes and gave me this candy! That’s what they paid me with.” I knew that was something she would understand: The bad drug-dealing kids—just like her son. Grandpa always cursed them, and I hoped my lie would sound believable to her.

  “They said they’d beat me up if I didn’t.” To my surprise Grandma stopped. I stared at her. I knew she was weighing the possibility of truth in my gigantic lie.

  “I’m sorry, Jesse.”

  The lie had worked! She thought I’d been bullied. Guilt washed over me—I’d used my dad against her—but I didn’t tell her the truth.

  “Well, your grandfather will hear about this.”

  But when Grandpa returned home from work that night, nothing was said. My grandmother, I figured, didn’t want to get in trouble, either.

  I thought about the feeling of excitement I’d had grabbing the chocolate bars off the shelf when John had turned his back, the feeling of power. Now I had a strange and satisfying feeling of control—control I’d never had before.

  I liked it.

  SUPREMACY

  MY BROTHERS AND I FOUGHT almost every day at school. This was my second time in Grade 2, and fighting probably had something to do with that.

  If anyone too big or too strong, from say Grade 4 or 5, picked on me, I’d band together with Leeroy, and we’d annihilate them. We’d chuck rocks, throw baseball bats or whatever, trip people when they weren’t looking, or pummel them right in the hallways—whatever it took. Many times, we ended up in detention or in the principal’s office together. But Leeroy and I weren’t bullies—we didn’t go looking for it. We only reacted when we were picked on. And if Leeroy and I couldn’t handle it, I’d run to my brothers—by far the strongest kids their age—who could.

  We Thistle boys, plus Leeroy, formed a kind of warrior clan that dominated a section of the schoolyard near the portables and the benches. We covered about twenty square metres of terrain, but our domination over this area was contested. There were other tribes of boys, older and younger than us, vying for supremacy, always trying to take our spot. These clans were formed by friends, brothers, cousins, and, if things got intense enough, competing enemies would forge alliances to vanquish common foes.

  Otis, Hershel, and the other five black kids in the school formed the strongest clan, but they were more interested in breakdancing and girls and were too old to bother with us second- and third-graders.

  Next, there were the two Smith boys and their sister, Tania, along with the rest of the Simmons Street kids. They all played rep hockey, which meant they fought well as a coordinated team. They were quick with their fists and reminded me of professional NHL enforcers.

  The Histon crew, on the other hand, was a handful of kids who weren’t into sports at all and liked to read the Hardy Boys. James and Doug, two English-descended kids who lived near the fence, were friends with me and Josh. Sometimes, when we needed to duck out from a beat down, they’d invite us over for KD until things cooled off.

  The most dangerous kids, however, were the loners. Amongst them was a Vietnamese girl named May, who was the most brutal fighter at our school even though she was tiny. Once, I pissed her off and she just about scratched my eyes out. Even the older kids wouldn’t mess with May. She sent scores of tough guys home, crying, to their mothers. But May was sweet if you didn’t provoke her, and she never bothered me about my missing parents or called me “Indian.”

  Our archenemies at school,
though, were Ronald and Kurt and their sidekick, Ethan. They didn’t need provoking. They’d go out of their way to kick my shins, steal my lunch, push me face down in mud on the way home from school, or embarrass me and my brothers in front of everyone. Ronald, the eldest, was in Josh’s Grade 4 class. Kurt was my age but in Jerry’s grade, and Ethan was a year younger and in my class. He resembled Beaver Cleaver but had the dastardly personality of Eddie Haskell. Rumour had it that Ronald and Kurt were so tough because they knew karate and had black belts.

  When Leeroy and I tried ambushing Ronald and Kurt, they always outsmarted us, leaving us with bloody noses and black eyes. Even my brothers seemed powerless against the duo. You could never catch them off guard or alone. They were strong, tactical, and had backup with Ethan always close by.

  Going to school was like entering a battleground full of feral gangs, chanting and scheming and beating the shit out of one another.

  I hated every minute of it.

  HEART ATTACK

  “WHERE’S YOUR MOM AND DAD?” Mando asked. She was a pretty East Indian girl new to the school and my class. She sat in the desk in front of me and when I got frustrated I’d stare at the back of her head—the light played on her shiny black hair whenever she moved and reminded me of my mother’s.

  I kept my eyes on the dragon I was drawing and thickened the lines until they turned ugly. I wanted to bawl whenever I thought of my parents. My dad hadn’t come home from the hospital two years ago like Grandma said would happen over Christmas. All I knew was that he was sick and that he’d be home when he was better. But he didn’t show. Grandpa was furious and started spending a lot of time in the garage building and fixing stuff, drinking more brown pop than usual, and yelling at us. I got yelled at the worst, maybe because I looked like Dad the most, but Jerry got hit the most because he stood up to Grandpa.

  Maybe he just stayed in the hospital? I reasoned.

  Grandma started to eat and sit in front of the TV watching her soaps more. Sometimes the phone would ring in the middle of the night and she’d run downstairs to see who it was. She’d whisper, “Sonny, is that you? Is that you? Please, come home. We love you.” She’d say this over and over until Grandpa came downstairs and yanked the receiver from her hand.

  Sometimes the phone would ring in the middle of the day and I’d rush to answer it. I’d hear breathing but no words. Grandma usually took the phone from me before I had a chance to ask who it was, but sometimes I was on long enough to ask if it was me who made him run away. The breaths would sometimes turn into what sounded like whimpers, but never words, and never a dial tone. Someone was listening.

  Grade 2 was tough on us. Josh had failed it in 1981. Jerry failed it in 1982. And I failed it in 1983. I couldn’t concentrate. I kept thinking about Dad. I didn’t learn how to read, write, do math, or anything. Mrs. Z., my first Grade 2 teacher, held me back. I hated that Leeroy and all my other friends were a year ahead.

  I knew Mando didn’t know any of the stuff about my parents, or that I was a failure. My old classmates, on the other hand, did. For a while I used to tell kids at school that my grandparents took care of us to give my mom and dad a break, that they’d come back to get us soon. I stopped when I realized that no one believed us, that our enemies loved watching us squirm. They said our parents had abandoned us because we were ugly Indians who ate from the dump. They’d ask about our missing parents to be dicks and start fights. They’d chant at us with war whoops because Josh told them we once lived in a tipi in Saskatchewan. Idiot, I thought.

  The tip of my pencil buckled and a shard broke off, hitting Mando’s sundress. She brushed it away, and I knew she was waiting for an answer.

  “Go away, please,” I said.

  “Didn’t you hear me, Jesse?” she said patiently. “I asked, ‘Where are your mom and dad?’ I’ve seen you with your grandma on parent-teacher night, but never your parents. Why?”

  “If you really want to know, they’re dead, and I’m an orphan,” I muttered. But in my head I was yelling, I don’t fucking know where they are. If Mando were a boy, I would’ve hauled off and punched her in the mouth right in the middle of class.

  Mando’s lip quivered as she shifted backward.

  I pushed my dragon drawing off the desk and watched it float to the ground.

  The old tipi in the hippie colony near Debden, Saskatchewan. We stayed there one summer with some of Mom’s friends before our family fell apart.

  Mando leaned over. “I’m sorry, Jesse. I didn’t know.” She grabbed my hand and started crying.

  Her hand felt warm on top of mine, and I started crying, too. She squeezed my hand.

  There was a nudge against my back.

  Then another.

  Then another.

  “Look at the crybaby crying!”

  A finger jabbed into my shoulder. I turned around and saw Ethan, Ronald and Kurt’s sidekick. The freckles on his nose looked like someone shit on his face through a screen door. He was laughing and so were some of his buddies.

  “Look at Jesse, crying in class. Just like a baby. Boo hoo!” Ethan pushed me and I fell forward into Mando’s chair.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” she yelled.

  “He’s a baby,” Ethan teased. “Baby, baby, baby!”

  I punched Ethan square in the eye. Spit flew out of my mouth, and my head felt like it was going to explode. I flipped the desk nearest to me into the air, knocking over a few chairs and hitting a couple of people by the blackboard.

  “Who’s the baby now?” I yelled.

  I could see Mrs. C. leaping over about five desks to try to get to us. I grabbed my pencil and lunged at Ethan, aiming for his heart. Mrs. C. tried to push me away, but I kicked and punched her. She had a tough time blocking my shots, and I think Ethan was afraid I’d murder her to get to him, cause he scuttled like a rat to the back of the room.

  I couldn’t breathe. My chest heaved up and down, my heart was going a thousand beats a minute. I started slamming my fists against my head. Mrs. C. grabbed my arms and placed me in the hallway. Ethan and his cronies were making war whoops as she slammed the door behind us. Mando was at the door trying to say something, but it got lost in the ruckus. Mrs. C. tried to restrain me.

  “What happened?” she asked. “Why are you fighting again? Why did you try to stab Ethan?”

  I could tell she was shocked. Hell, I was shocked. Ethan was lucky—I’d wanted to kill him. I would have gutted him if it weren’t for Mrs. C.

  “Answer me!” She put her hand under my chin and forced me to look at her. I squirmed under her gaze. I kept my mouth shut and furrowed my forehead right back at her.

  “Answer me. You could have really hurt him!”

  I imagined Ethan dead on his back with a pencil jutting skyward out of his chest. I grinned at the thought.

  The more Mrs. C. pressed me, the more I dug in. If I was good at anything, it was keeping my mouth shut. I wasn’t going to rat, not even on him. Not to her, not to the principal, and certainly not to my grandparents.

  NOT A PICTURE IN SIGHT

  I LOVED CHRISTMAS.

  “I hope I got the new Megatron,” I said to Josh as I launched myself down two flights, landing near the base of the tree. Shimmering boxes, bows, and tinsel busted out across the living room floor. The lights flickered and danced, adding to the drama.

  After unwrapping half my presents, I realized, to my dismay, that I’d gotten practical items like underwear, socks, or cruddy, oversized long johns. It was, after all, Christmas with my grandparents, and they always bought us grandparent-like things.

  For breakfast we had our traditional bologna, bacon, egg, hash brown, pancake, and bannock meal. I ate until I couldn’t see.

  “My stomach hurts,” Jerry complained as he finished, adjusted his PJ bottoms, and belched.

  “It’s because you drank the corn syrup,” Josh said. “Should have left some for the rest of us.” We all laughed because it was true.

  Even Gra
ndpa was chuckling as he hummed to the Boney M. song that blasted over the old record player. Grandma was at the counter—she was already three-quarters of the way through all her prep work, but she still had lots to go.

  I eyed the about fifty pounds of potatoes that needed peeling—a job she always saved for Aunt Sherry—and fired whatever leftovers I had under the table, so Yorkie could partake in the gluttony. My hand was covered in slobber, but it was his way of saying thank you, and I loved the way his tongue tickled my fingers and the bing sound his tail made when it banged against the table leg.

  At noon, everyone began to arrive—first my aunt Sherry and uncle John; then my dad’s brother uncle Ralph and his wife; Uncle Ron, who was my dad’s younger brother and best friend; and all my cousins—accumulating until we were packed in like sardines.

  The whole comedy roast started with my aunt Sherry’s cackle. “The only thing worse than Ralph’s turkey farts,” she said, adjusting her apron, “are Jesse’s butter-tart farts—so creamy. Can you believe a smell like that can come from such a scrawny kid?” The living room quaked with laughter, and the pile of skinned potatoes next to my aunt almost fell over from the commotion.

  Each of us took a turn razzing the person next to us, and I swear my aunt turned beet red when Uncle Ron laid into her. As I sat on the couch and watched everyone bellow with laughter, I envisioned my dad at home with us, and it was like the instant I’d opened my eyes that morning, hours before everyone came, before all the jokes.

  When I woke up, I’d pictured him arriving at home looking like a gentle yet rugged Marlboro man in a black overcoat, with rosy-red cheeks and a long knitted scarf like Tom Baker’s from Doctor Who. Grandma watched Doctor Who in between reading her Harlequin novels and watching her soaps. She’d been a fan since the early ’60s, had seen all the Doctors throughout the years, and thought Tom Baker was the best one of them all. I always figured Dad looked like him for some reason. Maybe I just wanted him to be as smart and brave as Tom Baker, as the Doctor.