From the Ashes

by Jesse Thistle

  “That’s not nice,” the man said as he grabbed their luggage and placed it inside the house beside where I was standing. “He’s your little brother—my son. His name is Daniel and mine’s George. Nice to meet you.” He, too, stuck his hand out. I kept mine down by my side.

  “It may take some time,” Mom said to him as she pushed Daniel and me closer together. We did eventually embrace, but the whole thing seemed wrong. I wanted to bear hug him until he couldn’t breathe, crush his ribs, then stomp his tiny head on the driveway right in front of George.

  Jerry sighed and went back upstairs without saying hello. I figured he was just as upset as me about Daniel. Josh and Yorkie, however, were wagging their arses like fools at their new friends.

  Fucking traitors, I thought. But I forced myself to be nice to Mom and George and helped them with their stuff.

  The last time we’d seen Mom was in 1985, when I was ten. She’d bussed out by Greyhound from Saskatchewan—it took her three days to get to Toronto. When she arrived, I’d just stood in the doorway clutching a dream catcher I’d made for her at school, my mouth open. She looked exactly like she did in my faded Polaroid. The photograph was yellowed at the corners and curling inward, but she remained untouched in the centre, standing gracefully in front of some snow-peaked mountains. She looked like a real-life Indian in that photo, one from the movies, not like me and my snotty brothers.

  I ran and hid in the boot box, a giant wooden cabinet Grandpa had made beside the downstairs doors, until he yanked me out to say hello. I couldn’t muster a sound, just handed her the dream catcher. She laugh-cried and hugged me tight, lost for words herself, holding my gift.

  During her visit, Grandma only let us out of her sight a couple of times: once when Mom took us to catch a Saturday matinee of The Jungle Book. I thought Grandma was crying as we drove off, but it was hard to tell through the back window of the taxi. The other time was when Grandma went to bed early after dinner one night and we snuck down to the basement to watch TV with Mom. Grandpa saw us tiptoe past his armchair and waved us downstairs like he was landing a plane.

  “Go, go,” he said, with a grin. He had a soft spot for my mom. He told her she was a good person, that none of it was her fault, and that we’d go back to her once we’d grown up and left home.

  Mom was sitting cross-legged on the couch, reading a comic. She had a stack of them she’d brought with her. Josh and I knelt in front of her, while Jerry sat across from us on the wood stove under the window, as silent as ever.

  “Josh, I want you to have these before I go back home tomorrow morning.” She waved her hand at the comics. “Conan’s a fighter like you.”

  The first time our mother came to visit us at our grandparents’, in 1985. I’m on the left; Josh is on the right.

  “Cool!” Josh cried out, his eyes lighting up as he rifled through his hoard of newfound treasure.

  I strained to imagine my brother wielding a massive broadsword and lopping off the heads of demons, like Conan was doing on the cover of the comic in my mother’s hand. Conan’s muscles rippled, and his shiny black hair made him look like an Indian, like my uncle Ron, but certainly not like Josh.

  Josh splayed the comics across the floor and lost himself in them, turning the pages faster than any human eyes could read.

  “And you, Jerry,” Mom said, remaining on the couch and respecting the distance between them. “I’ll always keep the picture you drew for me. I won’t ever fold it or lose it or anything. I promise. Will you do the same with the one I gave you?” The roar of the water heater filled the basement as she waited for an answer. Jerry just shifted his ass around on the stove, then nodded while looking at Josh freaking out.

  Mom smiled, then turned to me, and I shifted my knees closer to her.

  “And for you, my little pumpkin head, I have something special.” She reached down under her ashtray and handed me a glossy photograph. It was of her. Her hair was wet and sticking out all over the place and she was lying on a bed holding a baby.

  “That’s your younger brother, Daniel,” she said.

  “What?” the three of us asked in unison.

  “You have a brother,” she said as she took a drag of her smoke and leaned in close to point to the baby. “I want you to have this picture of us, Jesse.” She looked so happy. “I met a kind man a couple of years ago and this is our son. I wanted to tell you before I left and waited for the right moment.”

  I fell back, the air sucked out of my lungs, but I managed to squeak something out. “I wish we had a sister instead.”

  Mom looked hurt and confused. I knew she was waiting for me to say something more, but Josh spoke first.

  “I think it’s wonderful. Now I’ll have three younger brothers I can beat up.”

  Mom didn’t laugh, nor did Jerry, and I just stared at the picture, wondering how my mom could start over without us, and what Dad would think.

  After Mom left, Grandma took us to a drugstore. We were told it was for something called the Kids Identification Sign Up and it was because strangers in our city had murdered and killed children our age and we had to watch out that we weren’t stolen from right under our parents’ noses.

  During the fingerprinting and mug shot process, the workers briefed us on child sexual abuse, stranger danger, street proofing, and how to call the police, and we were told that we should memorize where our home was on a map. Grandma gave them our dental and health records, blood types, and known allergies. I didn’t understand much of what I was told, or why I had to promise to keep my eyes out for trouble—trouble that wanted to kill me. I’d never thought about dying or going missing before, and both scenarios scared the shit out of me.

  After, Grandpa told us it was because Grandma loved us so much and was trying to protect us.

  From what? I thought.

  I don’t know what I did with that picture Mom gave me. I certainly didn’t have it when she, George, and Daniel showed up at our door on Christmas Eve. It was like my memory of it had blacked out.

  I had a hard time getting used to seeing myself as a middle brother—it meant I was like goony Jerry all of a sudden, with his middling spot as neither oldest nor youngest. No special responsibilities like Josh had as the oldest to take care of business and teach us younger boys about life or protect us. And Jerry didn’t get away with stuff like I did as the youngest because I was too small to understand anything. I was now just an invisible middle child like him.

  The whole time Mom was visiting with Daniel and George, I tried my best to reclaim my status as the “baby boy.” I acted younger than I was, purposefully messing up my grammar and asking her to cut my meat at dinner, like she did with Daniel. She ignored me and Grandma swooped in with her mother cape to do it, ruining the whole thing. I showed Mom a photo of when I was five smoking a cigar with Grandpa at the cottage in Nova Scotia—everyone else loved that photo of us, but she barely glanced at it. I tried to remind her that I was the youngest Thistle boy, not Daniel—Daniel was just some latecomer. Turned out he also somehow had our father’s name, but he clearly wasn’t his son, he was George whatever-the-fuck’s son.

  My grandparents’ cottage in Bay St. Lawrence, Cape Breton. We all got to smoke cigars that summer.

  It was all to no avail. Daniel was the centre of her affection—he was her new “baby boy.” She let him rest on her lap like an infant in front of everyone, she got him dressed every morning, she made sure he was always with us. I wanted to vomit whenever he was around.

  Grandpa, though, was nice during their visit. He went out of his way to make them feel at home, even making George and Daniel baked beans and bannock twice—a record, considering he’d only ever made those staples of the Cape Breton diet for us three times in ten years! He also made them his “special” sugar-glazed apples. “When I was a boy, molten apples were like golden candy,” he said. “Everyone lost their minds whenever they got them.”

  If they’re so special, I sneered as Grandpa, Daniel, and Geor
ge devoured them in front of me in the kitchen, why don’t you stick ’em up your ass.

  Grandpa and George even had a few private heart to hearts in the living room while watching the Leafs play, and I could tell from my vantage point on the stairs that Grandpa was sizing him up. He watched the way George drank his beers, how fast or slow they went down, and if he requested another once the last was done. Grandpa said you could tell a lot about a man by how fast he drinks, how he holds himself during conversation, how he asks for things, and how firmly he shakes your hand. I was sure George had no idea he was under my grandfather’s microscope.

  Grandma barely spoke with George, Mom, or Daniel. She’d acted the same way when Mom had come before. Just plenty of flybys and quick, probing questions, like, What’s going on? Where’re you going? Why’re you here? What do you want? She was like a patrol helicopter looking for a bank robber. Josh told me it was because she was scared—of what I don’t know. Wherever we were with Mom, Grandma was close by, pacing, silent, breathing heavy. She didn’t even read any of her Harlequin novels, which was odd considering she did that obsessively any other time. Josh even found her with her ear up to the wall once, listening to our conversations with Mom.

  “I’m keeping an eye out for mice,” she’d said.

  We knew that was bullshit because she kept the house crumb-free and spotless.

  One day before New Year’s, Mom made me my favourite lunch. Spaghetti and meatballs—she remembered.

  “Of course I remember,” she said as she placed my plate in front of me. “You’re my little pumpkin head.” I was happy that I still had a special place in her heart.

  Josh and Jerry were outside playing hockey, Grandma was in the living room, the theme to General Hospital was blaring, and Daniel and George sat across from me watching Mom serve us.

  There was what sounded like an avalanche of two-by-fours outside. Grandpa started swearing. He’d come back from the hardware store with framing wood and I thought maybe I should be outside helping him.

  I dug into a meatball and George spoke.

  “Look here.”

  He pulled out a black-and-white picture of a strange man from his wallet. He had on a black robe with a huge cross draped over his shoulder. He was like Friar Tuck from the Rocket Robin Hood cartoon: bald on top with a long, unkempt beard. There was a severe look about him. I twirled my noodles around my fork and tried to ignore George and the picture.

  “This is Gregory XVII,” George said. He yanked a similar photo from the other side of his billfold. Mom placed George’s lunch in front of him—I think she was trying to get him to keep quiet.

  “He’s the real Pope,” George went on.

  I glanced over at the picture; he didn’t look like Pope John Paul II to me.

  “A long time ago,” George said. “The Catholic Church lost its way. It became decadent and stopped following the true way.” Mom’s left eyelid twitched.

  “That’s when Pope Clement XV—the order’s first Pope—decided to split from Rome and form the Apostles of Infinite Love out in Quebec, about two hours from where we live in Ottawa.”

  Daniel sat up straight at his father’s words.

  “It’s nice there,” Daniel said, a noodle hanging out of his mouth. “I lived there with the brothers for a few months.” He smiled.

  Grandma stormed into the room—the strong scent of tobacco trailing behind, which was odd because she was out of smokes. She scowled at George and Mom like a mama bear defending her cub. George stuffed his pictures away. Mom smiled.

  “No religion in this house,” Grandma barked as she slammed some dishes in the sink. I felt that awesome power in her again, the same as when she got us years before.

  I didn’t know what to make of George or his picture, but it was creepy.

  Mom, George, and Daniel left later that week. I asked Grandma and Grandpa if Mom was okay. They didn’t seem too concerned. But Mom and Daniel kind of disappeared after that, no phone calls or anything.

  TRADITION

  “THIS ONE HERE LOOKS NICE, try it on.” Grandma handed me a preppy white button-up shirt to go with the black slacks she’d pulled from the good section of the Hudson’s Bay men’s department, over near the Polo clothes. The shirt fit slim around my torso and snug around my neck when she buttoned it up. She turned me to look in the mirror, but before she did, she licked her fingers and slicked my eyebrows into place.

  Spiffy.

  “Well, look at you! My baby boy all grown up and ready for work!”

  I fixed my collar and stuck my chin up slightly. I knew this was a special occasion because Grandma usually took me to Bargain Harold’s or Zellers, and we’d go to the Skillet Restaurant and eat hot dogs in a basket afterward. Not today, though.

  I thought of those Skillet hot dogs as I admired myself, and said, “But, Grandma, these pants and shirt are nearly $200. We can’t afford that.”

  She wagged her head and scoffed. “You better believe we can. When it comes to work you gotta knock ’em dead.”

  I’d never seen her so excited or generous before, except when it came to Grandpa’s work boots and overalls. He always had the best. Even his lunch pail and thermos. Work was important to the Thistles, and Grandma made sure her man looked good and was well-fed when he made our family its money.

  Grandpa, too, had acted differently since he’d gone across the street a month ago to talk with our neighbour, Mr. Q . He’d come back whistling, Yorkie by his side, and the dog appeared just as gleeful as he did.

  “Good news, Jess,” he said with a huge smile. “You’ve got a job.” Mr. Q. was a manager at the produce department at the grocery store in the biggest mall in town, and Grandpa told me I’d start in a few weeks. “You’ll be a produce clerk. $3.75 an hour.”

  He walked past me into the house to announce the good news to Grandma, who was watching a soap opera. She gasped with joy—I could actually hear it through the screen door, from where I was on the driveway. As I pulled out the lawn mower, she waved to me from the balcony. Like those old pictures of when men went off to war on battleships or trains and their women saw them off. I could feel my face flush, and I flashed a smile at her. I knew it looked weird. Grandpa didn’t drink that day, and I caught him singing to himself later in the garage as he organized his bits and bobs for his job on Monday.

  I examined myself in the mirror. I was now receiving the same treatment as Grandpa, and I smiled. Grandma hiked my pants up, exposing my socks and squaring my nuts in the process. “They fit nice,” she said, “but up here, around your waist. I don’t want to see you with them hanging low around your ass like you do with your jeans, that godawful rap style.”

  I thought I looked like Urkel on Family Matters, and I grimaced but somehow managed to keep my smile.

  Grandma pivoted, grabbing one paisley and one striped tie from the shelf beside me. I covertly pulled my pants back down. Relief.

  The ties in Grandma’s hand weren’t the wide-bottomed ones Grandpa wore to the elevator awards once a year that were the worst shades of brown and green, putrid remnants of the 1960s that he refused to replace. The same colours as those hippy flowers on the bath tiles in the upstairs bathroom. No. These ties were royal blue and black, thin at the bottom—actually fashionable.

  “Calvin Kleins,” she said as she turned them over to show me the labels. She lassoed one around my neck and had it bound up before I could say go, pulling it tight. My eyes bulged in the mirror and she patted my bum. “A lady killer, you are. Tall, dark, and handsome.”

  I looked at myself in the mirror with doubt. I was tall, but lanky as a daddy-long-legs, and still covered in zits.

  But I had just started Grade 9, and Leeroy and I were taking a drama class, and, to our surprise, discovered it was filled with beautiful girls who found us funny. And in one of the photography classes I took, a girl named Heather asked to take my headshot. She had a crush on me, or so I’d heard from classmates.

  “Sure,” I said. “As long as
I get a copy.”

  She made a bunch of prints and posted them on a wall near the gym—I saw them when I walked past. By the end of the day all the girls at school had stolen them. I knew because they’d been waving them at me in class. I couldn’t be angry—I was more flattered than anything.

  “No facial hair, though,” Grandma said. She rubbed the back of her hand against my cheek and then pinched it hard. I pulled away, rubbing it with my fingers.

  “Toughen up, sunshine!” She waved it off like it was nothing. “Native men don’t get hair the same as others,” she added. “Maybe you’ll be lucky and never have to shave, like me.” She hiked up her fuchsia slacks, exposing her leg. “It just didn’t grow. That’s the Algonquin in me.”

  The thought of never shaving upset me for a brief second. I pictured Grandpa dipping his razor in the sink before work every morning. I loved watching him shave when I was small. Sometimes, he’d lather up my face and we’d shave together. It was serious business. The silence between us was only broken by our laughter when he slapped on aftershave and screamed from the sting.

  “Your granddad is as hairy as a Scottish musk ox,” Grandma said, as though she could sense what I was thinking. “He hates shaving every day.” Not wasting time, she wrangled a black leather belt from over by the till and fastened it around my waist. It fit perfectly, its chrome buckle reflecting light into the mirror. I felt like a millionaire.

  “That’s it,” Grandma said. “That’s your uniform.”

  We stood admiring the ensemble, Grandma holding my shoulders. I loved her so much at that moment—she was a good grandma, I knew that. I leaned over and gave her a big hug. I did look good, in a grown-up kind of way. My new job represented a real step toward adulthood. Most of my friends, like Derick down the street, only had paper routes. But here I was with a real-deal outfit and, soon, a real-deal paycheque. I suddenly felt confident and handsome.