From the Ashes

by Jesse Thistle

  I called Harvest House, dreaming of their abundance of blocks, hoping to get someone to vouch for me in court and bail me out.

  The intake worker picked up the phone. “Have you had enough of the life, of the Stone Age, Thistle?”

  Employees at Harvest House could be so smug.

  “Get me outta here!” I begged. “I’m sick of it all and I’m especially sick of this jail food—reminds me of crappy retirement scraps they feed old people.”

  “What, you don’t like steamed dog food?” He laughed.

  Eleven days later, someone from Harvest House came and bailed me out, and I was released directly back into rehab where I could do my dead time before sentencing.

  Rehab. I was arrested before I could sell the gold chain to get cash for dope. I can’t remember where I got the chain from, but I gave it to my roommate after he achieved three months’ sobriety.

  The judge who granted my surety said that if I made the year in rehab, it could serve as my jail time. “But if you skip out, Mr. Thistle, we will find you and send you down to the darkest prison we have because the justice system has had quite enough of your nonsense.” The pound of his gavel scared the shit out of me.

  A few hours later, I was back at Harvest House shaking and vomiting and praying for mercy. But it was a chance at redemption, and I was grateful for it.

  RUNNING ON GLASS

  THE LACES ON MY BLUE ASICS were discoloured and frayed, evidence of previous ownership, but they were brand spanking new to me and I loved them for what they were—a second chance.

  The shoes had been donated to Harvest House by the local Running Room—all the guys got them when they came to rehab. Some guys mocked them, but they were the ones who relapsed and ended up back in the can within weeks. Those who appreciated them lasted a little longer but still seemed to go back eventually—usually within two or three months.

  Harvest House director Gary Wand was a recovering addict like us who had turned to running to get sober some fifteen years earlier when he washed up on the front lawn of Harvest House from Montreal. Everyone at the centre said that he’d been worse off than all of us, and his entry photo, taken the day he arrived at Harvest House, seemed to confirm that. He looked like a real bag of shit in it.

  Wand now ran the running program at Harvest House, and had arranged the shoe donations. The concept of running as therapy was brilliant, actually. “The dopamine from running affects the same part of the brain as coke,” he said. “Running quells cravings.” Lots of guys were in the program, and those who did the ten- or twenty-kilometre runs instead of just running away to smoke cigarettes seemed to fight relapse better.

  I wanted what they had. I thought if I ran I might have a chance to stay clean and honour my surety. I had to go all the way this time around, give it my best.

  “If Wando can do it, I can do it,” I said to myself as I hobbled onto the driveway for the daily five-kilometre jog. The reality of my foot, however, quickly snuffed out my newfound courage, replacing it with doubt and apprehension. It was withered and meatless, bones popping out where flesh should be, and the pins and screws holding my heel together dug into my ankle joint whenever I took a step. I’d never run on it without vast amounts of drugs or alcohol to numb the pain.

  “Gary, I’m scared,” I said, as the pack gathered. “I don’t know if my foot will hold . . .” The grind of pebbles under shoes drowned me out, as everyone began running. I waddled to catch up. I must have looked like a penguin shuffling against the wind on a sheet of ice.

  Gary looked back and smiled. “Just go slow. Trust me,” he said and turned to join the others.

  “Go slow?” I shot back. “Are you fucking kidding me?” No response. “Fuck you!” I yelled. It was no use, everyone had already gone.

  I looked down. My damaged foot was longer than the other one, due to the surgery, and the leg it was attached to was atrophied and resembled a sad dollar-store broomstick, the hollow kind that bends if you sweep too hard.

  Will it bend and break if I run? I contemplated. Better that than my foot falling apart.

  I laughed out loud at the image of both gruesome scenarios, even though I felt like crying. Then Grandpa popped into my head. “Get going,” I heard him bark in his thick Cape Breton accent. “Get going and stop feeling sorry fer yerself.” It had been a long time since I’d thought of the old man, but there he was, kicking my ass again, as always.

  I got pissed off and let go and ran. I didn’t think about it, I just put one foot in front of the other and went. I tilted and slipped on stones, my leg and foot buckled and shook and wobbled—but they held. I had no push or spring to my gait, burning pain shot up from my ankle to my brain, and the bottom of my foot felt like I was running on broken glass—but it was bearable.

  Is this how it feels for babies to walk? I wondered. As soon as that thought ran through my mind, my leg gave out and I tumbled down into a cloud of dust and pebbles.

  The dirt in my mouth tasted glorious.

  “Holy Christ, I did it!” I exclaimed.

  AT LAST

  MY HAND SHOOK AS I dialled the number Nicole, the CEO of Harvest House, had given me.

  I sat listening to the phone ring. When it clicked, I panicked and hung up. I sat staring at the dial pad. It seemed to get bigger the longer I gazed at it. I dialled again, and again I hung up when I heard an answering click.

  I just don’t have it in me yet. What do I say to her?

  Earlier that day, Nicole had come to my bedside in the dorm room and asked me into her office. She was solemn as I took a seat. I thought I was in trouble for violating a rule—what, I wasn’t sure.

  “I got an email today,” she said. She typed something into her computer. I thought for sure the police were bringing a new charge against me, for something I’d done, from somewhere, some time ago. The long arm of the law was something I always dreaded but had to accept now, in my second attempt at sobriety.

  “There’s no other way to say this,” Nicole said. Her eyes were welling up, but she was smiling.

  So not the cops. I was puzzled.

  “I’ll just let you read it,” she said. She turned her screen toward me, and I saw the email.

  Hello,

  I’ve been trying to contact my son Jesse Thistle for quite a while and he is never where I’m told he is. I heard he was in Harvest House and I’m sure God had a hand in it. It’s a long story, but I haven’t talked to Jesse for a long time and I don’t know what problems he has anymore. I hope he’s not suffering too much. Our family was torn apart a long time ago and I wasn’t able to be around Jesse too much, but he always seemed to calm down around me.

  Anyway, if he is there, tell him I’m happy he’s getting help if he needs it. I love him very much and please just let me know if he is there. If he needs anything, socks, underwear, whatever, let me know and I’ll try to send it.

  Thank you.

  Blanche Morrissette

  It was my mom. I couldn’t believe it. I held my head low, but my emotions rolled out and down my cheeks onto my lap.

  I dialled my mom’s number one more time and tried to steady my nerves. Ring—it was picked up straightaway this time.

  A shaky, small voice answered, “Hello.” It sounded like an old lady, not the mom I remembered from the snowy mountains.

  “Mom . . .” was all I could muster before losing my breath. I tried to say more but couldn’t.

  “Jesse? Is that you?”

  I’m not sure if I answered her, but we both began crying. Not sobs, more like sweet sucks of air, the silence between us saying more than any words. Finally, she told me that she’d been searching for me for ten years, since just after she saw me in Vancouver at Josh’s wedding. In shelters, in the jail system, at places I’d just lived for a spell, in mental health facilities, in detoxes all over Ontario, and at Jerry’s.

  “You were like a phantom,” she said. “I almost caught up to you a couple times, but always just missed you. I’m sorry
life has been this way for you. I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

  I’d forgiven her before the words even left her lips.

  The rest of our conversation melted into a drizzle of emotions that fogged my heart in the nicest way. Like a silent summer rain that lightly quenches the prairie after a long drought, or the cloud of droplets that kicks up at the bottom of a waterfall, delicately misting your face. Refreshing and warm, like I’d rediscovered some fragment of home, some lost piece of myself.

  It filled me up.

  A PLAIN PIECE OF PAPER

  A PROFESSOR FROM THE UNIVERSITY of Ottawa who specialized in human relationships was overseeing classes her grad students were giving us Harvest House goons on communication skills, including basic etiquette.

  Many of the guys in class mocked the lessons.

  “What kind of idiot needs to relearn how to wash their ass,” said one.

  Another said, “Only total ratchets and baseheads need this.”

  Maybe I’d been at “the life” longer than they had—over a decade—and had forgotten more than them, but I was determined. And maybe hearing my mom’s voice again made me feel like I could do this, made me feel like I could try, gave me that small bit of courage I needed to open my heart once more. I sat in those classes every week. I was embarrassed to admit to the professor, Dr. Jenepher Lennox Terrion, that I needed help with everything—brushing my teeth, combing my hair, dressing myself, washing my clothes. I was really rough around the edges.

  Over two months, I relearned everything—I practiced in my dorm room. I looked at myself in the mirror and timed myself while brushing my teeth. I trained myself to look people in the eye and not interrupt them. I shaved with such precision I could run a credit card up my face and not hear it flick.

  Perfect.

  I spent months working on my reading and writing. When I got to Harvest House, I’d pore over the stack of encyclopedias I got from the rec room every night before bed, forcing the words to make sense. Just like my cellmates did years before, my Harvest House roommates teased me, calling me “Einstein” and “Mr. Spock,” and some said it was ridiculous, a crackhead trying to get an education.

  “You think people will hire you?” someone said in the slop hall one night. “You’re a criminal, junkie piece of shit. You’re no better than the rest of us.” The table laughed. I wanted to respond, to tell him I had dreams now, but I just took it and kept the bigger picture in mind, kept pressing forward. I took my GED and passed with flying colours. When I received my final report card, I thought of my buddy in jail who’d got me interested in school—I hoped he’d gotten free and found a new life, away from the cinder blocks.

  When it was time to graduate the etiquette modules, Dr. Lennox Terrion handed out our certificates as we walked up single file to collect them. She was beaming, and so was I. Some of the guys trashed the certificates as soon as they left the room. But I kept mine. When I got back to the rehab centre, I placed it within a large book to keep the edges from folding or crumpling. It meant the world to me. Every now and again, I’d open the book and just stare at it.

  It lit me up to see my name, “Jesse Thistle,” alongside “University of Ottawa.” I’d done something significant. I’d actually achieved something in my life. I didn’t have a driver’s license, ID, a proper high school education, a health card, nothing—but here was this completion certificate that had “university” with my name under it!

  A PUSH

  “HEY, THISTLE . . . GET OUT OF bed, you have a phone call!”

  It was 9:30 p.m. and I was already passed out, exhausted from my daily responsibilities at Harvest House. I barely heard Rob’s voice when he yelled for me a second time.

  “Dude, get up! It sounds important. It’s your grandma in Toronto!”

  Rob was always the type to be joking or laughing. He was never serious, but he sounded like he was this time. I jumped out of bed and ran to the phone.

  “Jesse,” whispered Grandma. “I need you.”

  I hadn’t seen her in over four years.

  “Where are you, Grandma?”

  “Room 525 at William Osler hospital. Come see me.”

  “But what about Grandpa? I can’t come if he’s there.”

  “Just come. It’s my time. He’ll come around someday, you watch,” she said. “He really does love you, you know.”

  I had betrayed Grandpa and all the good he had taught me and I knew he resented me for it, but I also knew she was right.

  “I love you, Grandma. As soon as I get my day pass I’ll be there.” I hung up. By the end of the next day, I was on a moving truck on my way to Toronto. Randal, my AA sponsor, was my driver. Harvest House let me out on furlough on the condition that he never leave my side.

  Grandma’s arms were frail and covered with deep purple-black bruises. I tried not to stare, but she caught me looking and pulled the covers over them.

  “Don’t worry, Jesse,” she said. “That’ll clear up soon enough.”

  But I knew the bruises were a sign of the leukemia that was threatening her life and almost broke down.

  “You know,” she said, “I love science fiction novels. I’ve already finished the ones everybody brought me and need some more. Could you send me one or two from rehab?”

  “Sure,” I mustered, immediately thinking of Doctor Who. I knew she was trying to distract me. “Anything you want.”

  She looked at me. She rarely showed her front teeth all the way—one of them was black—but she did now, her face beaming, her smile so warm it could defrost Siberia in January. “Why don’t you keep going with the school, baby boy, and give it your all? You were always smart, just a little angry.”

  I could see the hope ignite in her milky-grey eyes. “Of course I’ll keep going,” I said.

  “Good.” She perked up, her grin widening even more. “And university? You don’t wanna half-ass it; you’ve gotta take it all the way.”

  “Yes, Grandma. Just get better.” It wasn’t quite a promise, more like words I blurted out to try to comfort her. Anything to make her feel better, to make me feel better, here in this hospital room.

  “Good. And don’t you worry about me, I’ll be fine.” She drew me in for a hug from my chair near her bed. “Remember, I’m always with you.”

  I wrapped my arms around her and could feel how feeble she was, but she squeezed me with all her might. Then all of a sudden she let go and pushed me away. I remembered my first day of kindergarten, right before I met Leeroy. I cried the whole way and didn’t want to go in. I was so afraid to let go of Grandma and go to the teacher until Grandma knelt down, looked me right in the eye, and said, “Go on, Jesse, it’s okay. Grandma will be here at the end of the day. I promise.” She smelled like old cigarettes and perfume as she pushed me toward the teacher.

  It was that same push she was giving me now. A push that said, “Go on, make your way in the world. Make me proud.”

  Two weeks later, she was gone.

  THE CLEANEST BACHELOR IN THE WORLD

  ON THE DAY MY GRANDMOTHER died, Harvest House took pity on me, I assume, and graduated me. There was no ceremony, no fanfare, no anything. Nicole just came into the dorm room, informed me that I’d completed the first phase of treatment, and told me to pack my things. I was upgraded to a room in reintegration housing, aftercare dwellings adjacent to Harvest House that guys moved into after they’d completed the immersion part of treatment and were transitioning back into the real world.

  On my way over, around the boundary fence I’d hopped with Max a year earlier, a gust of wind hit me. It carried a faint smell of burnt hickory and cedar, like a campfire. I wanted to believe it was my grandmother’s spirit telling me to keep going. I said a prayer and felt her presence leave this earth, galloping away to the west.

  When I got to reintegration, one of the first things I did was start a Facebook account. I didn’t even know what Facebook was, but the guys there told me about it and helped me get it set up. Minutes after I s
igned up, I started getting messages from people I knew from years before—Derick, Brian, Karen, and other neighbourhood friends. They were glad I was still alive—they’d all been searching for me for years, just like Mom.

  I heard Leeroy had cleaned up and joined the army and was shipped off to Afghanistan five years before. I was glad he’d straightened out and said a prayer for my old friend. I also heard Stan had gotten a good job and was doing well, and that he often asked if I was okay. He was solid—always was.

  I also got a message from Lucie. She was the girl on the hill in middle school who’d been nice to me in front of the popular girls, and she was the red-haired girl at the party the night I’d fallen off Jerry’s building and wrecked my foot.

  Her message was consoling. She’d heard of my grandmother’s passing from Jerry and wanted to make sure I was okay and wouldn’t fly off the handle and use again. I thought that it was kind of her to think of me when I needed it most. Her gesture reminded me of Karen—that unconditional kindness, a kindness I hadn’t felt for decades.

  Intimidated isn’t the right word to express how Lucie made me feel as we got to talking—it was more like a mixture of shock and fright, total excitement and extreme pride. I was super pleased with myself for catching the attention of such a respectable woman: she was in university as a mature student, she had her own place, she knew what she wanted out of life, she was more or less sober, she was independent, she didn’t need a man to support her or take care of her, and she was beautiful—like some kind of red-headed fire goddess. Me, I was just a recovering addict trying to do right by the world.

  Connecting with her, though, I felt like the luckiest guy in the world.