Blood Brothers

by Colleen Nelson

  I get up off the couch and I’m going upstairs when he calls me over. He doesn’t say anything, just stares at me till I look away. I think about that look all night. It keeps me awake. Cuz I don’t ever want him to look at me like that again.

  Jakub

  Dawn scissors across the sky, tearing through the night clouds. Dad hugged me as I left, his stubble scratching me on the cheek. My first day of school at St. Bart’s. He hadn’t questioned the dark rings under my eyes, or the frown that etched itself into my skin.

  I barely slept. The red digits on the alarm clock flicked by, and it felt like I was awake to see every one of them. I waved off breakfast, too, claiming nerves to Dad. I couldn’t tell him about Lincoln, how he saved my ass last night. Or that I spent the night tossing and turning, thinking about how close I came to being caught.

  My hoodie smells, like fryer oil and pierogi. I cringe against it, wondering if anyone else at the bus stop notices. I wish I’d worn a T-shirt under my hoodie instead of the dress shirt. It’s going to stink when I get to school. I’ll smell like the West End Polish kid I am.

  Father Dominic bought me some pens, a sketchbook for art class, and a binder. The fancy zippered kind with a cloth top and lots of pockets, filled with lined paper and dividers. The colourful plastic tabs remind me of the stained-glass window at the church. Everything is stuffed in my backpack, beside the folded-up blazer that would be unfurled at school.

  I wait at the bus stop with two other people. All of us quiet and tired, staring into headlights, waiting for the bus. Another guy joins us. Younger, with a scruffy beard and pock-marked face. He collapses onto the bench with a sigh. I feel him eyeing me. I don’t need trouble, not on my first day of school. Looking over my shoulder, I meet his gaze. Tucking some greasy hair behind his ear, he stands up, using a pole for support. “What’re you lookin’ at?” he slurs.

  I don’t answer. The bus is a block away. I can hear the labouring engine gaining speed. I take a step closer to the curb. The other people waiting look at me with worried glances. They don’t want trouble first thing in the morning, either.

  “Huh? Buddy? You got a problem?” Drunk Guy moves toward me. He’s looking for a fight. I can punch him if I have to. Wiry limbs don’t make for good boxers, but I have a long reach. If this asshole is going to push me, I’ll fight back. I shake my head and exhale a tight breath. The bus is slowing down, closing in on our stop.

  A woman gasps and shrinks away. Turning quick, I see a knife glinting in the guy’s hand. A small switchblade. His hand trembles with effort to hold it steady. The bus is in front of the stop now, and the air brakes gush as the door opens. The woman and the man with a lunch kit bolt onto the bus. I can hear her fearful, high-pitched voice as she tells the driver the guy has a knife. What if he leaves without me? He doesn’t want trouble on his bus. I lunge for the doors and trip, my hands slapping on the steps. The driver reaches down and hauls me in. The doors flatten shut, almost catching my feet as they close. Drunk Guy hammers on them, yelling and cursing at me.

  My hand shakes as I drop a bus ticket into the slot. “You okay?” the driver asks. He’s a meaty guy, with glasses and a moustache. A travel mug of coffee sits beside him. The bitter smell makes me nauseous.

  I nod and catch the eye of the woman who talked to the driver. She looks frazzled, her eyes wide and mouth pinched tight. “Thanks,” I mumble as I walk past her and find a seat. The few other people on the bus crane their heads to look outside. Drunk Guy is kicking at imaginary rocks and waving his hands in the air.

  As the bus pulls away, I slouch in my seat, holding my backpack on my lap. Just another day in my neighbourhood.

  Three bus transfers later and I’m standing in front of St. Bart’s. It’s still early. School doesn’t start for another half-hour, but there are lots of people around. The air is heightened with first-day-of-school excitement. I can feel it. I smirk at the parents taking photos: the kids posing awkwardly in front of the doors and parents squinting at the screen to line up the shot.

  Guys reunite with backslaps and one-armed hugs. I think of Lincoln. We are both on our own this year, first time since kindergarten. Would he even go? Guilt stabs at me, looking for a soft place to dig in. I have to stop thinking about him, at least until school is over. I’ll go find him when I get back home, find out what happened after the cops took him away.

  Pushing past a group of guys, I enter the school. My locker is at the far end of the building, in an alcove. I hang up my hoodie and put on my jacket. Pulling the sleeves down and straightening the collar, I settle into it. I slip my tie, still knotted, around my neck and pull it tight to my throat. There isn’t a mirror anywhere, but I know I look like every other kid. No one will guess I had a knife pulled on me or that it took me an hour and a half to get to school. Or that my best friend had been hauled off by the cops last night for graffiti writing, while I cowered in the shadows.

  An announcement comes on the PA: all students are to report to the chapel for a service. I shuffle in, take a seat, and look around. Filled with five hundred guys, it’s like no church I’ve ever been in. But we all stand and sit as one robotized mass when Father O’Shea gets to the microphone. His service is about the school motto: Brotherhood above Everything. I curl my toes against the stiff leather of my dress shoes. I can only think about Lincoln. Brotherhood above Everything is right, only these guys aren’t my brothers. My brother is in the West End, probably ditching school and playing video games on a TV with a cracked screen, on a couch that smells like cat piss. My brother is the one who took the fall for me last night.

  I’ll skate through my classes, put on a veneer of a good attitude, make Dad happy. But there’s no way in hell I’d think of boys from St. Bart’s as my brothers.

  My name was spelled wrong on the attendance sheets. The teachers call out for Jacob, not Jakub. I think about going to the office to have it corrected. But St. Bart’s is a school made for Jacobs, not Jakubs. Jacob is comfortable in a blazer and tie; he belongs at St. Bart’s. Jakub is the Polish bursary kid who eats lunch on a meal plan in the cafeteria by himself.

  When the art teacher, Mrs. Zielstra, a short, round blond lady, bustles into the classroom and gives us our list of assignments, my stomach drops. Art class at St. Bart’s isn’t the cakewalk it was at Wilson High. A sketch due each week, plus in-class work. A kid groans beside me. The teacher pushes her glasses into her mass of frizzy hair. “Your first assignment, due Friday, is a sketch of someone important to you,” she says. “I won’t mark this one. I want to see your skill level. Begin.”

  I stare at the blank paper. This new sketchbook is a stranger to me. Same black cover as my other one, but we have no history together. It could be anybody’s.

  “Jacob?” The teacher looks at the attendance sheet and calls my name. “You can begin.” A nudge to stop staring at the paper. I scan the room: a sea of bent heads, the sound of pencils scratching across the page.

  I want to draw Lincoln. After last night, I owe him something. I think of his face just before he disappeared down the fire escape; a lump of guilt rises in my throat.

  Then, another memory flashes through my mind. From way back, it’s Lincoln holding my dad’s hand on the first day of school. My pencil flies across the page, outlining a rough sketch of where the figures stand and the background. Later, I’ll add the details, fine lines, and shading that make the people real, not just two-dimensional.

  I’m so engrossed in what I’m doing, I don’t hear Mrs. Zielstra walk up behind me. The catch in her breath makes me jump. “Oh!” she says. “My goodness, you’re a talent.”

  My face flushes because the guys around me crane their necks to see what I’m working on. A couple of them snort in surprise. Others make a low whistle, impressed.

  Mrs. Zielstra lays a hand on my shoulder. “I’m looking forward to seeing the finished piece.” I’ve never had anyone, other than Link, compliment my w
ork before. It feels good. I catch sideways looks from the guys beside me as we sketch for the rest of class. I’m not invisible anymore, sneaking around back alleys in the dark. Morf isn’t the artist this time; I am.

  Lincoln

  When I wake up, I don’t know where I am. The room’s murky, sheets cover the window and the mattress stinks. It takes me a minute to figure it out. When I do, I groan and wish it had been a nightmare. Getting caught on the building, running from the cops, the look on Henry’s face; it all comes rushing back to me. My tongue is thick with sleep and I stumble to the toilet to take a piss.

  A couple guys look at me funny when I go down to the kitchen. “Seen my brother?” I ask. “Henry?”

  They ignore me, except for one who shakes his head. I stand beside the counter for a minute, trying to decide what to do. No one says, “Sit down” or “So, you’re Henry’s brother.” They don’t want me there; I can feel it.

  I slink out and let the door slam shut behind me. I’ve got my phone in my pocket, but I don’t have anyone to call. I squint into the sunshine and start walking. Don’t even realize I’m on Koob’s street till I see his rooming house is in front of me. It’s like my feet found their own way, without me even thinking about it.

  I stand in front of the building for a minute, empty lots on either side, trying to decide where to go next. Guess I could go to school, but that idea makes a bad taste in my mouth. Without Koob, there’s no point. I don’t get school the way he does. I want to, but I can only sit still for a few minutes, till the ticking of the clock hammers on my brain so loud that it’s all I can hear.

  “Lincoln?” I turn and Mr. K’s limping down the sidewalk toward me.

  He’ll ask why I’m not at school. I hunch under my hoodie and try to come up with an excuse before he gets to me. “Hey, Mr. K,” I call.

  He waves a hand at me and holds on to the fence. I walk beside him toward the front steps. Mr. K holds the railing and sits down, pulling his leg toward him with a quiet groan.

  It takes him a minute to catch his breath and then he turns to me. “Why aren’t you at school?” He pats the step next to him, an invitation to sit.

  I do it, but pull my hat down low so he can’t see my eyes. “Doesn’t start till tomorrow,” I lie.

  He grunts and I breathe a sigh of relief. “Jakub started today,” he says.

  I don’t say anything, but it feels like when a knife slips and slices into my finger. The cut is numb at first, but then a rush of blood fills the space where there used to be flesh and it starts throbbing. I took the fall for him last night and look where it got me. If I’d let the cops catch us both, he’d be in trouble, but at least we’d be together.

  Mr. K fiddles with the key in his hand.

  “Guess he had to leave early,” I say, to fill up the space between us.

  He nods. “Probably won’t be back till dinner, either. It’s a long day.” Mr. K sounds far away when he talks and I stare at my feet. The week, month, and year stretch in front of me, all empty without Koob to hang out with.

  “You’re going?” Mr. K asks when I stand up.

  I nod, stuffing my hands in my hoodie pocket. “Got to meet my brother.”

  A funny look crosses his face. “Jakub told me he was back.” He doesn’t sound happy about it.

  There’s nothing else to say, so I raise my hand. “See ya, Mr. K.”

  “Anything you want me to tell Jakub?” he calls after me.

  I shake my head. “Nah. I’ll catch him later.”

  I start walking again, fast when I leave Koob’s, so it looks like I have some place to go. I get to the bridge that takes me out of the West End, but don’t cross it. Below, the river swirls, its current real fast like when a tub drains. There’s cars and trucks thumping across the bridge, the stink of the exhaust pushing me to the path down the river bank.

  Koob likes being up high, on the roofs of buildings. It’s quiet up there. No traffic noises or other voices. Just us. But I never liked being that far from the ground. I like walking along the scrubby riverbank, tucked under the bridge, the tall buildings rising in the distance.

  The concrete footing of the bridge has layers of tags tangled up together. Mine are in there somewhere, covered up, suffocated by others.

  I pick up a stick left behind when the river rose in the spring. It’s thick, more like a branch. Water ripped off the bark, so now its insides are its outsides, bleached white by the sun. It’s a muddy river. Brown and murky, can’t see two inches below the surface.

  I stab the stick into the ground. It’s baked hard on top, but the stick goes in. Not too far down, it’s wet, and the stick sticks. It’s a stuck stick, I think, and wonder how long it’ll stay like that till it tips over.

  I sit down beside the stuck stick and watch the little hurricanes of water swirl past me. The river’s in a rush to get somewhere. Why? Maybe it should slow down and hang out for a while. I look at the stick again, how it’s not moving, just jammed in the gummy muck below the surface of the ground.

  I’m like the stick. Stuck. Not going anywhere.

  I can’t stand looking at it anymore, so I rip it out of the ground and toss it as far as I can into the river. But instead of floating, it gets sucked into the current and disappears, like being flushed down a toilet bowl.

  Jakub

  I shed the blazer for a hoodie as soon as I get on the second bus and cross the river that divides the city. Slouching low in my seat and pulling the hood up over my head, I slip back into Jakub Kaminsky from the West End. The well-manicured homes turn into offices and then factories before the bus pulls into my stop. I have at least three hours of homework to get through and my backpack feels like a bag of cement, it’s so heavy with books. I can’t help cursing Dad and Father Dom for their great idea. They weren’t the ones who’d be hunched over textbooks all night.

  But if I’m honest, St. Bart’s wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. In some ways, I felt more like me. I didn’t have to hide that I was a good student at St. Bart’s. It was the opposite. I had to work hard, or I’d get kicked out. And no one was looking to pick fights, trying to pump themselves up by pummelling someone. The toughness I needed at Wilson High was wasted here. Guys were more interested in showing off their cars than bravado. Or maybe the cars were the bravado: a wealthy kid pissing match.

  I’m sweating by the time I open the door to the apartment, my shoulder rubbed raw from the heavy backpack. “Dad?” I call. No answer. I thought he’d be home, eager to greet me and find out how my first day was. Dumping my backpack on the floor, I fall down onto the couch and lie staring at the watermarked ceiling. My brain buzzes with the day and my stomach growls.

  I think about starting my homework, but I’m too hungry. I pull a pot from the cupboard, open a can of soup, and let it heat up. We’re out of crackers. And would be for a while. Those are the kind of extras that only come from a visit to the food bank, and it’s two more weeks till the next one in the church basement.

  Maybe it’s thinking about dates, or standing in the kitchen by my mom’s photo, but all of a sudden, my stomach seizes. I know where Dad is. Killing the heat on the stove, I grab my keys and bolt from the apartment.

  “Why didn’t you say something this morning?” I ask. We stand together at Mom’s gravesite, like we do every year on this day. His hand used to fit on the top of my head when he said a prayer for her. But now, I’m taller than him. It’s my hand on his shoulder.

  “It was your first day.” He shrugs. There are fresh flowers on her grave, but to the side are the shrivelled remains of a bouquet, their soft petals now brown and disintegrating.

  He reaches up and puts a hand on my shoulder. We are intertwined, our arms braided together. His eyes get watery. “She’d be so proud of you.” His hand grips my shoulder, rocking me toward him. The flesh of his finger swells around his wedding ring.

  I u
sed to come here with him a lot when I was little. Now, I just make the yearly trek on her birthday. With no memory of the real person, I think of her as the gravestone. Cold, chiselled granite; unbending. He thinks I come here to be with her. But I don’t. I come to be with him.

  I wonder how often he drags himself down here without me. There’s a bench not far away, under a sprawling tree. The thought of him sitting here for hours, talking to her while I’m at school or hanging out with Link makes my chest tight.

  A trickle of water runs out of the showerhead. And then completely stops. I look up at it with disbelief. I went out last night, after we came back from the cemetery and Dad’s snores filled the apartment. I wasn’t in the mood for anything complicated, so I ducked into an alley. Seeing Morf go up in block letters, covering a mash-up of other tags, calmed me.

  The fumes of the paint and stink of the garbage mingled together. They should have made me nauseous, but I barely noticed them.

  I went to bed not caring what I smelled like or that I hadn’t finished my homework. I could deal with it tomorrow, I thought, when was my brain wasn’t so cloudy. And now it is tomorrow, and I have to deal with it. But first, I have to get some friggin’ water.

  “Dad?” I holler. He woke up with me and was frying eggs for my breakfast. “Is there water in the kitchen?”

  “No,” comes his thunderous reply.

  Shit. I can’t go to school like this, stinking like a West End alley. I jump out of the shower and throw on sweats and a T-shirt.

  Dad lays a plate of eggs on the table. The yolks wobble with my footsteps. “I can’t, Dad. I have to get to school. I can use the showers in the locker room.” He stares at me, a spatula in one hand. “Seriously, the bus comes in two minutes!” They won’t go to waste; I know that. He’ll eat them with a heavy heart, his effort wasted on himself.