No Good Brother

by Tyler Keevil

  On the way in, to reach the North Shore, we usually take the Trans-Canada straight to the Second Narrows Bridge. That day I had a pick-up to make for work, so we took a detour along Main, and ended up at the waterfront before swinging east. The route led us past the Westco plant, and it pained me something fierce to see the old place. I looked for the Western Lady in her berth, but the boat wasn’t moored up. It being August, and salmon season, I presumed they were already out at sea, waiting for the fisheries window to open.

  ‘That’s where you used to work, right?’ Sam asked.

  She gestured to the cluster of docks, zigzagging across the placid waters of the boatyard. A few gulls floated above the plant, and I could smell the fish-stink from afar.

  ‘Yes ma’am,’ I said.

  That’s all it is, now: a place I used to work. I haven’t been asked back, and I won’t be. Albert might have forgiven me for jumping ship, with time and coaxing from Tracy, but he wouldn’t ever forgive what I’d done to his boat – no way, no how. During the trial, he lied and said he’d agreed to let me use it, not knowing my intention to help my brother transport an animal with it, and I suppose I ought to be grateful for that: it spared me jail time (along with Jake’s testimony that I hadn’t been his accomplice at the stables) but still it grieves me to think of the wrong I’ve done them, for which Albert will allow no amends. I mailed him a cheque to help with the repairs, but it was never cashed, never used.

  I talked to Tracy a few times, and even met up with her, but we didn’t get back to where we had been. I guess she figured it wasn’t worth crossing her old man for, and I’m prone to agree. The hard-hearted stance hurt me at first, until I realized it simply meant Jake was right: I wasn’t quite family, to them. At least not in the way I am to Jake. And Sam, now.

  As she and I headed west on Powell, the plant and boatyard fell away out of sight. And when we reached the Second Narrows Bridge, with that view of the North Shore mountains – some of them still capped with snow, even in summer – I felt a lightening, as if we were lifting off, the two of us, and taking flight.

  When Ma opened the door, her face lit up with this beatific expression: pure and unbridled blissfulness. She didn’t have her shower cap on, though she was wearing a pair of large and obviously mismatched earrings: one a golden hoop, the other a carved wooden cross, in the Celtic style. It’s a new habit she’s developed of late. Sam predicts it could become a trend.

  Ma beamed at us and said, ‘Kids – come on in.’

  She ushered Sam and I down the hall to the kitchen. On the table sat a box of Tim Hortons’ doughnuts, next to a steaming pot of coffee and three mugs: she had remembered we were coming. Her memory, well, it ain’t half bad these days. She has her good spells and bad spells, but there are more good than bad, and the people at her care company believe she’s had a turn for the better (that was the phrase they used).

  ‘Sit, sit, sit,’ she urged us. ‘We have so much to talk about.’

  She doled out the doughnuts, poured the coffee, tapped a cigarette from her pack, and lit it with shaky fingers. I’d hazard that wasn’t from the nicotine need, so much as the elation.

  ‘How are you two? How are you?’

  ‘We’re great, Ma.’

  ‘We sure are,’ Sam said. ‘We’re on our way to see Jake.’

  ‘Poor Jake,’ she said.

  ‘He’s doing okay, in there.’

  I can’t quite tell if Ma knows he has gone back to jail, or if she thinks he’s in there for the first time, all over again. But she’s lucid enough to grasp that’s where he is, and on some days I even take her over for a visit.

  ‘And how’s your work, Timmy?’

  ‘It’s good, Ma. It’s fine. It’s a job.’

  I’m working cutting lawns, and doing landscaping – at least for the summer. What my long-term plans are is anybody’s guess. But it keeps me afloat, and helps pay her bills.

  ‘That’s wonderful, Tim,’ said Ma.

  But really her interest in my lawn-cutting career was a courtesy. She took a sip of coffee and placed it deliberately on the table and turned her full attention to Sam.

  ‘Now Samantha,’ she said, ‘tell me how my favourite grandchild is.’

  ‘I’m your only grandchild, Grandma.’

  ‘Don’t you think I know that?’

  And she sat back and let Sam regale her with every detail of her life: how her hockey team was doing, the movie she’d seen on Tuesday, whether she intended to come down to the city for high school, and heck, even what she’d eaten for breakfast. And Sam, as ever, was happy to oblige.

  The first time I brought Sam out, I thought Ma might have a heart attack, out of shock or joy or what have you. And she damn near did. But the jolt seemed to rejig some part of her brain – the part that got wiped out after Sandy died. And since that one occasion, she’s never again mistaken Sam for her daughter. She still doesn’t talk about Sandy much, but she’s no longer living in some fantasy realm, where her only daughter is still alive.

  ‘And what about the fighting?’ Ma said. ‘Is that settling down?’

  There’d been a few incidents, upon Sam transferring to Hope. We were infamous by then and Sam, she didn’t take kindly to people making snide remarks about her family.

  ‘A bit,’ Sam said. ‘One girl called Jake a cripple, so I hit her.’

  ‘Good. I hope you knocked her block off.’

  ‘Jesus, Ma,’ I said.

  ‘Well,’ she said stoutly, ‘that is a nasty thing to say about your brother.’

  It was getting near on time to go, and I broke it to Ma as gently as I could.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘So soon?’

  ‘We’ll be back, Grandma.’

  Then Ma perked up and said, ‘Wait! I almost forgot.’

  She pushed herself up and shuffled out of the room, into the kitchen. I heard the microwave in there, and couldn’t figure out what the hell she was doing – until she came back in, holding a microwaveable burrito, steaming in its plastic wrapping.

  ‘Take this for the road,’ she said, grandly.

  Sam ate the burrito on our way to the Fraser Regional Correctional Centre, the place out in Maple Ridge where they’re keeping Jake. He was arrested in America but due to the main charge – the theft – having taken place in Canada they allowed him to be extradited and tried back home. The only crime he’d committed in the States was a smuggling one, and despite the bizarre nature of the offence, smuggling an animal isn’t nearly as serious as drugs, or even alcohol or cigarettes: such are the ways of the law. For his crimes, he was given four and a half years, but with good behaviour there’s the chance he’ll only serve three.

  They put him in the minimum security wing on account of his disability. At first that was crucial, since it kept him separated from the actual criminals, including the Legion and the Delaneys’ boys, but that’s not as much of an issue now. Shortly before the trials, another drive-by occurred in front of the Delaney house on Upper Lonsdale. Pat Delaney was getting out of his SUV – that big Durango – and was shot and killed. He’d been wearing his bullet-proof vest but that didn’t save him. Whether the other gangs had simply had enough of his antics, or whether the kidnapping of the horse had been the last straw, I can’t rightly say. It meant that Jake could claim Pat had been his accomplice all along, and the one who’d stolen the horse with him – since Pat wasn’t around to say otherwise I’d merely been coerced into the transportation of it.

  A few months later, Mark was arrested and is currently awaiting trial for drugs trafficking. What with that, and the death of Novak, the Legion is in freefall, and it doesn’t look as if there will be any repercussions for Jake’s own role in the kidnapping of Shenzao.

  All the same, Jake’s glad to be where he is.

  I wheeled into the visitors’ entrance, parked up, and Sam and I hopped out together. In the sun, on a bright summer day, the place didn’t look like a prison, lacking as it did any guard towers or gun turrets or
barbed wire. It consisted of one long central block and a series of outbuildings, all built from beige brick and lined with tidy turquoise trim. It looked more like a further education college or community centre.

  ‘Ready for your surprise?’ I asked Sam.

  ‘I thought the surprise came after the usual stops.’

  ‘It does. But it starts here.’

  We were accustomed to going through the visitors’ entrance, checking in at reception, and walking down a long corridor to a room where Jake could meet us – and either chat to us there, or join us in the yard.

  But that day, as we entered, he was sitting in his chair just inside the doors.

  ‘Jake!’ Sam said, and ran to him.

  He hugged her and held her, leaning forward to do so.

  ‘They gave me a day pass,’ he said. ‘I get to fly the coop.’

  He looked past her, to me, and I went up and crouched down and gave him a big hug, too. I still ain’t gotten used to it – seeing him in that chair – and I don’t reckon I ever will. He himself rarely mentions it, and when he does it is without bitterness or regret, but more with a sense of stoicism, as you might refer to an unavoidable accident, or natural disaster.

  ‘You ready to ride, partners?’

  ‘Hell yeah,’ Sam said. ‘You want a push?’

  ‘I got it.’

  He wheeled himself towards the door, with us on either side.

  ‘Tim tell you we got a surprise for you?’

  ‘I thought this was the surprise.’

  ‘This ain’t the half of it, Calamity.’

  Then, as we came out the doors and he rolled into the sunshine, he stopped himself and tilted his head back, closing his eyes, just soaking up all that warmth and freedom.

  Sam must have begun to suspect, when we drove her out to Castle Meadow, but Jake – he played it pretty cool. He’s a damned good liar and always has been (I should know) and he told her we just intended to spend an afternoon out there, watching the horses train, having lunch and enjoying some time together.

  ‘Oh,’ she said, cautiously. ‘Okay.’

  But when I parked up, instead of heading towards the clubhouse, we took her on over to the stables. Jake said he wanted to show her where he used to work, and how we’d stolen Shenzao. He distracted her with the story of that night as we passed between the stalls, with Sam steering his wheelchair left and right to avoid piles of manure. In the daylight the place looked cheerfully rundown, and it’s hard now to imagine Shenzao being kept there: she’s gone on to the real races, at Hastings Park, and wins more often than not. Which means we win too, since we always bet on her.

  In the middle of the stables, and his story, Jake got Sam to stop in front of the stall we’d chosen, and with a big gesture of his hand he told her, ‘And this here is the very stall.’

  Sam looked. Inside stood a brown gelding, with a splash of white on its forehead. It regarded her bashfully, and she looked from it to us, puzzled.

  ‘The stall you stole Shenzao from?’ she asked.

  ‘And the one you’ll keep your horse in,’ he said.

  ‘That horse there, as a matter of fact,’ I added.

  I expected her to maybe shriek, or squeal, or do any of the kinds of things that a young girl is prone to do. But Sam, she just up and shouted, at the top of her lungs, so it echoed throughout the stables: ‘Are you fucking kidding me?’

  Then she whooped and tried to hug us both at the same time, and nearly tipped over Jake’s wheelchair.

  It goes without saying that we never saw a cent of the hundred grand we’d been promised by the Delaneys, but in the end we came into some money by other means. Those video clips of us online shot up in popularity during Jake’s trial, and the ladies from the hen party started turning a tidy profit through ad revenue. It wasn’t a fortune but it wasn’t peanuts, either, and the gals were kind enough to cut us in on it. Some of it went towards Sam’s horse, and some to getting Jake a laptop and microphone to record his music. They let him do that, inside.

  ‘You laying down any new material?’ I asked him.

  We were sitting on the clubhouse patio, looking out at the training paddock, nursing a couple of cold Molsons. Sam had stayed in the stable, to get her horse saddled up.

  ‘Some,’ he said.

  ‘You should put together an album.’

  ‘I got a bunch of tracks, but they need shaping.’

  ‘The ones I heard sound ready to go.’

  ‘You’re tone-deaf.’

  ‘Don’t wait too long. You got to cash in on your popularity.’

  What with the trial, and being shot, Jake’s got something of a cult following, due in part to a website set up by that girl – the shop clerk we met in Roche Harbor. She’s even started a campaign to grant Jake early parole, which is as hopeless as it is endearing.

  ‘I need you to break big,’ I said. ‘I can’t cut lawns forever.’

  ‘You want your vegetable farm.’

  ‘Damn straight. The fat of the land, remember?’

  A horse came trotting out of the stables, and we both leaned forward, but it wasn’t Sam. As we settled back, Jake asked about Maria, and if I’d seen her lately. I told him I’d seen her in passing a few times, out at Sam’s grandma’s. She’s moved back to Vancouver, and has a new boyfriend: an accountant she met online, who has a stutter, a Ferrari, and an apartment in Yaletown. Sam thinks he’s square (another of her Archie comic insults) but I get on with him all right. It’s a step up, I suppose, and he’s been good for Maria.

  ‘The last time,’ I said, ‘she said she’d been thinking of checking into a clinic.’

  ‘You reckon she’s serious?’

  ‘I hope so.’

  ‘Ah well,’ Jake said.

  ‘She come to visit you?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘She hasn’t yet.’

  ‘She’ll get around to it.’

  ‘If she does it’ll be just that: a visit.’

  ‘If it makes you feel any better, Tracy’s dropped me, too.’

  ‘So we’re both lonely losers who didn’t get the girl.’

  ‘We got the one that mattered, I guess.’

  ‘Or she got us.’

  ‘Hey,’ I said, leaning forward, ‘that’s her there.’

  A brown gelding was coming around the enclosure. I could tell from a distance the rider was Sam: she had that confident poise, a sense of dauntlessness, just like her aunt. And of course, on her first lap she was already going hell bent for leather, and far faster than was safe. Jake hollered out, telling her to slow down, but she tore right past us in a low crouch.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Jake said, and gulped his beer, ‘she’s crazier than me.’

  ‘She takes after her dad, all right.’

  It sounded right, calling him that. The other possibility, well, it’s just never come up. It’s clear enough whose daughter Sam is, and whose she needs to be. We watched her hurtle away from us, down to the far end of the paddock, and then circle back, overtaking a slower rider. Both Jake and I stood up to watch, anxious and fretful and worrisome in a way that’s already becoming far too familiar around her, and will no doubt only worsen with the years. And as we watched her go around and around, faster than a carousel, I gripped my bad hand with my good, telling myself over and over that I had to let her grow, that I had to let her live.

  Acknowledgements

  Many thanks to all the people who have contributed to the development of this story: Annie, Becky, Fraser, Hannah, Holly, Jonny, Naomi, Malachy, Marilyn, Mike, Rhian, and Richard.

  Thanks as well to Mr Bruce Springsteen for the permission to quote from ‘Highway Patrolman’, Golden Castle Riding Stables for teaching a tenderfoot how to saddle up, and Stiwdio Maelor for providing a quiet place to work on the manuscript.

  About the Author

  Tyler Keevil grew up in Vancouver and in his mid-twenties moved to Wales. He is the author of three previous books and has received a number of awards for his writing, inc
luding the Missouri Review’s Jeffrey E. Smith Editors’ Prize, the Wales Book of the Year People’s Prize and The Writers’ Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize. He lectures in Creative Writing at Cardiff University.

  Also by Tyler Keevil

  Fireball

  Burrard Inlet

  The Drive

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