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Chapter Five – The Hierophant

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide

Even though I was staying with Shades, my bag was always with me.

It held everything I owned, and I didn’t feel safe leaving it with him. I just got a feeling that my belongings weren’t safe with him if I wasn’t with them. To a passerby, the bag was full of an odd sort of collection, a hodge podge of things that didn’t seem to connect or have any kind of order.

They were the only things I left home with.

My stepfather had given me fifteen minutes to pack what I wanted to take with me when he kicked me out. I had looked around my room and tried to think of what I would need to make me feel more comfortable in a transitory lifestyle. I had no idea where I would end up, no set notion of where I was going and no idea what I was about to do.

That was okay, though. It was better than living under his roof. I was never really at home beneath it. I had a room, but it was never really mine. It was a waystation of sorts, even I knew it in some rudimentary way. It was a home, but it wasn’t mine, not really.

I had looked around my room and thought logically about what I would need, knowing that everything would have to be small and lightweight. I went around my room, looking at everything I had gathered crow like around me, all my clothes and things: gadgets and wonders, books filled with worlds, CDs filled with anthems, joys and understanding.

I knew that I would need to take very little with me. What did I actually need beyond a shadow of a doubt. I took my time to choose the things I would need no matter where I was. I took my alarm clock so that I could set always get up when I need to and have order in a world that had none. I took three t shirts and three pairs of underwear so that I would always have a spare and a change plus the shirt I wore. I took one hoodie. I had a little bag of toiletries: deodorant, toothbrush, soap. I took Playing Beatie Bow by Ruth Park and Mine for Keeps by Jean Little because they were a comfort, and they were thin and light.

I took what ID of mine that I could find and my tarot cards, the box beginning to fall away. I checked my wallet. I had thirty dollars to my name and little bit of paper that contained things I had written down.

I had collected these things to me, going around the room and gathering to me and finding a place for them in my bag. Every spot was special, and I didn’t want to weigh myself down too much with a lot of stuff. I took one last thing: a silver ring with a wolf etched to it in Haida art. It was my connection and touchstone to spirit.

I kept all of this with me at all times, either on my back or beside me, always in view and I had chosen each piece for myself. There was no panic in any of my choices. I knew that I had to leave room for other items and treasures that I would find along the way. I had to leave room for myself so that I could grow wings.

I knew that every time I took my bag with me that I didn’t trust him. Could I love someone I didn’t trust? I knew the answer and wasn’t sure how long that I could stay with someone who I didn’t trust, who hadn’t so much as kissed me. We’d done other things, but never that. I knew that it was the most intimate that you could be with another person and Shades and I didn’t share that between us. I knew the signs were there and that this was only the fist step along on this new journey.

I had no idea where it would take me, but I knew that I had packed my talismans and brought them with me for some semblance of normalcy. Less a bag of personal items, it was a bag that contained what I thought contained magic. I just wondered where that magic would take me.

I lay there at nighttime, Shades shirtless beside me, listening to his breathing as he slept. His snores sounded like the wind as I looked at the night stars outside the window, the air hot with the heat of summer, a candle we had lit earlier beginning to sputter.

As I fell asleep, I watched the shadows on the walls and wondered what I would become.

Chapter 4 – The Emperor

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide

As I began to make my way around the streets, I began to meet more people.

They were from all walks of life and many of them had chosen the streets because the anonymity had provided them with something they didn’t have before: safety. We were all outrunning our own kinds of demons.

One of the people I hadn’t met yet was Jesus. That’s what everyone called him. I’m not sure what his actual name was, but the name suited him. He treated everyone with a benevolence that didn’t speak of worship, but more of a kind of fundamental respect. I asked Sunshine who he was when I first saw him.

“That’s Jesus. He’s pretty cool. He’s like our protector, you know? You can’t approach him though. You have to wait until you’re summoned to meet him.” He shrugged at my look of confusion. “It’s his way. He keeps an eye out for all of us and makes sure that we all have places to go to sleep and eat.”

Jesus was taller than anyone else around him. He had long hair, and the ends had been dyed black. He had tattoos covering almost every surface of skin that was visible. There were multiple piercings in his ears and his skin was darkly tanned from spending a lot of his time outside. Despite his fierce exterior, I knew that there was a kind soul within him because I watched the way that he interacted with everyone else. He really did seem like a wiseman walking amongst his flock.

I was sitting in the Square when Jesus came for me. It was a section of the Byward Market where all the street kids hung out when the weather was good. We gathered in groups and clusters of people. I would sit and watch Angel as she drew her chalk drawings that were so hyper realistic they looked like photographs. Friends met there, hung out and felt like they were part of something, even if it was just for an afternoon. Everyone there just wanted to belong. We had left our families, or been pushed out, but that didn’t stop the need to find our spot.

I was sitting on the pavement, my back against a wall, reading a book. It was called Time Cat and it was about a cat that helped heal the world by travelling through time. A shadow fell across my page and when I looked up and found myself looking into the kind and wise eyes of Jesus.

“Mind if I sit with you?” He asked before sitting down.

“Sure,” I said, trying to keep the awe from my voice.

He handed me a cigarette and lit it for me. I’d come to realize that cigarettes were how people on the street showed kindness. They gave one, even if it was all they had to give. Jesus took a drag and looked at me. I tried to keep the fear off of my face. He was very intimidating. Finally, he nodded as if he had come to a decision.

“You look like him, but only just. There are a lot of differences.”

I knew he was referring to my brother. “Well, we are identical twins.”

“Nah, it’s more than that. You may look alike outside,” Jesus patted his face. “But you’re different here.” He put his hand on his heart.

I nodded as if I understood, but I didn’t. Not yet.

“Now, your brother got himself into a lot of trouble. You need to remember that there is only one rule out here: Your word is all you have. When you have nothing, all you have is your word. I need you to remember that. It was something your brother forgot from time to time, and it got him in trouble.” He let out a puff of smoke and in the sunlight, it looked as if he were part ghost, part man, able to choose between the sun and the shadow. “I don’t want that for you.”

He stood and gave me a pack of cigarettes and some change he had collected. “You’ll find your way; I know you will. Just remember what I told you, okay?”

I nodded, and I could feel the words etching themselves into my skin. A small part of me wondered how easy they would be to unravel.

Chapter Three – The Empress

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide

There were many people who showed me kindness, fresh as I was to the streets.

None more so than Sunshine. He truly fit the name he had chosen for himself. I remember the first time I saw him. He exuded colour and I watched as he walked and talked to others. Their very faces lit up when he spoke to them, truly a light in their lives. There was a brightness about him that was genuine.

He came up to me right away and hugged me as if he had known me forever. He could feel me tensing up. I wasn’t prepared or used to random acts of kindness like a hug. From what my brother had told me, you had to protect yourself and protect your own. You could make friends, sure, but never let your guard down.

It didn’t feel like Sunshine had any guard up at all. He was just so completely himself that you couldn’t help but love him back. Loving Sunshine was instantaneous, and it felt wonderful in a world that had all of a sudden become very uncertain.

“Honey! Hi!” He hugged me again. “I know who you are of course. I knew your brother. Everyone here does. Who are you staying with? You gotta come with me, I’m going to take you some place nice. It’s wonderful. Have you ever heard of the Youth Service’s Bureau?”

He talked in a constant stream and I had to keep up with him. When I told him that I was staying with Shades, he pulled a face. “That one, I don’t know. I tell you, I’ve seen him around and you gotta be careful with him.” His face darkened as if a shadow had come alive across his skin. “He takes what he wants. Just know that whatever happens, you can come and stay with me, okay?”

He took me to the front doors of the Youth Services Bureau, and it didn’t look like much, just another building. I had no idea what to expect, but when we walked through the doors, the first thing I noticed were the kids like me. They were all milling about and there was food being served. Sunshine took my hand and brought me further into the building, introducing me to everyone there.

“That’s Angel, she’s an amazing artist. You should see her chalk drawings. This is Teddy. He’s trying to figure out who he is like we all are. This is Mike and Tash, they’re dating, and Tash is a photographer. Mike writes slam poetry. Josh and Nicky are like cousins or something, and they’re both singers.”

It seemed that the streets held no end of talent. Looking around the YSB, I could see kids reading while they ate or talking on a nearby telephone. There were other kids painting or drawing. I was drawn to the large bookshelf filled with copies of books that had been loved. “We’re free to take a book if we want one, isn’t that cool? There’s even a place where we can get showers if we need one.”

I followed him out to a small courtyard out back. There were a couple of picnic tables and there were more kids smoking. Sunshine and I joined them and he gave me a cigarette and lit it for me. Taking a puff off his own, he cocked his head at me. “You look like you’re full of questions, honey. So, spill.”

It took me a moment to form what I wanted to ask. There were so many words running around him my mind and I didn’t know where to start. Finally, I spoke the question that came to my lips. I tried to ignore the fear in the back of my head. “Everyone is themselves.” I said. “I don’t know if I will ever be that confident here or that comfortable.”

“Honey, don’t believe a word of it. Angel left home to get away from her parents. Teddy was kicked out when he told his parents that he liked boys. Mike found Tash living on the streets in Montreal and she came home with him here. Josh and Nicky had to go into foster care after their parents left.” He took my free hand in his. “We’re all just making it through the best we can. We all look out for each other, and that includes you.”

We sat on the tables, our eyes closed, and our faces upturned towards the sun.

Chapter Two – The High Priestess

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide

Life took on a different shape for me.

I found it surprisingly easy to let go of the life I had lived and embrace the new one that stood out in front of me. No rules, no engagements, no expectations of me. The sheer amount of freedom was almost intoxicating.

Shades and I shared the same bed, but it turned out the only way that he would let himself act on his impulses with me was if he got drunk beforehand. I hadn’t known or wanted to see that about him. There was a lot that he had kept hidden from me, the biggest omission was that he was dating a woman.

Rainbow didn’t exude an array of different colours. Instead, she looked at everything with a very calm outlook. There were some in our group that thought she was arrogant. I recognized a little of myself in her and I knew that her attitude wasn’t arrogance. She was trying to protect herself. Rainbow had been drawn in by the flame that Shades put out, but she was being careful.

Despite Shades pressuring her for sex, she refused. She would look at him with a coy glance and give him a little smile as if she were laughing at him internally. When she refused him, he would turn to me. I wondered what Rainbow had seen, what she had dealt with to make her so able to observe the true heart of any matter that was placed before her and speak her mind about it.

Rainbow and I would sit outside waiting for Shades to come back with money, cigarettes or food. He took his ability to provide for us very seriously. Rainbow and I would smoke and look at the world around us, wondering if we ever fit within it.

“You deserve better,” she said to me once.

I shrugged. “I love him,” I told her, knowing that she was referring to Shades. I don’t know what made that love so vital to me, but there it was. It was the first time I had said the word.

Taking my right hand, she traced a finger around its knuckles. “I know it may seem like love, but I’m not sure that Shades is capable of it.” She let my hand go and pulled a cigarette out of the pack. “You deserve someone who loves you as much as you love them.”

“What about you?” I asked.

Now it was turn to shrug. “I know that I love myself,” she said, taking a drag off of a cigarette. “That seems to be enough.”

“Then what is he to you? How can you be with someone you don’t love?”

Rainbow gave me a genuine smile. “Haven’t you ever been with someone you don’t love?”

I thought back to the people I had been before I came out of the closet. I loved them, but not in the way they needed. I thought, too, of the men that I had been attracted to since coming out. They were all unattainable in some way. None of them got too close to me and I’m not sure if it was me keeping them away or their non-ability to have an actual relationship.

“I guess it’s enough for now.” I said.

Nodding, Rainbow blew out a plume of smoke and kissed my cheek. “Well, at least you know that I love you and that’s what really matters.”

I sat there in the warmth of the sunshine and wondered if this was enough. I took a cigarette out of the pack and lit it, drawing smoke into my lungs. I pictured the cloud of smoke becoming a wall of thorns, hiding who I had been and who I was going to be. All that mattered was who I was right now and I could tell my own story.

Chapter One – 1 – The Magician

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide

There was only one place that I could think of going. I still didn’t know if it was sensible. I knew he was bad for me, and maybe that was part of the attraction.

I had known Shades before, when I used to come and visit my brother. He had stayed in the shelters and couch surfed and lived off the streets. They had become his home for a while, and he was completely himself there. More than that, we didn’t have the influences of our parents who liked to pit us against each other. All parents do this when there is a divorce; mostly, it’s just happenstance.

My brother and I were our complete selves on the streets.

Everyone mistook me for him. It was hard not to what with us being identical mirror image twins. Each time someone asked if I was him, I felt a sense of pride. I was proud of what my brother had created here. He had made room to fit in and what’s more, he had made room for me.

Even back then when I was just visiting the streets, Shade had an alure about him. He had a chiseled jaw that was always covered in stubble and dirty blond hair that he always wore pushed back. His blue eyes made you feel like you were really being seen. He was such a man, and yet there was an attraction even then, all those years before. He would always be able to charm someone for money and my brother and I would sit with him in numerous coffee shops of Nickels Diner. There was one diner that I’ve forgotten the name of. I know that there was checkered floors, red and white striped walls and green booths. We would go there and get coffee and smoke, choose songs at random on the jukebox. The light would hit his face, and it looked as if it were drawn out of shadows.

When my stepfather kicked me out of my home, I went right to Shades. It was the only place I could think of going. Shades was so enthralling to me. I lost all sense around him. Part of the reason that I got kicked out of home was that I had started seeing Shades. It was only fitting that he provide me with safety in some way, even though I knew he was anything but safe. That was part of his allure.

He could spin the story, work the trick, make the magic, but there was nothing safe about him. That was part of his allure and what drew me to him. I had been the smart boy for so long, the good son. I was desperate to rebel in every way possible.

I didn’t even know which apartment he lived in. I stood in the alleyway and threw small rocks up at his window. Shades opened it and looked down. I didn’t know what else to say, but though that honest probably was best.

“I had nowhere else to go,” I said, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice.

            He looked down at me, his blond hair flashing in the half light of the alleyway. “I’ll be right down,” he said.

I stood there in the dark and thought that he might not show, that he would hide from me inside of his room, the light shining out into the cerulean blue of the night sky. The air was so thick with summer heat and the want of my own body.

Then there were his footsteps, and I knew that I would be okay, at least for now. He took my hand in his and we raced up the stairs to his room. He let go of my hand when we entered the apartment. It had three bedrooms, a common room, bathroom and kitchenette. The other people there were like him, trying to find a place to call home.

“This is my friend,” he said as we walked toward his room. That was the only explanation he gave them, and they didn’t ask for more details. When he closed the door behind him, he shucked of his shirt and we sat there in the summer heat so warm against our skin, listening to his old radio as it played old rock and roll and breathing in the smell of each others sweat.

It wasn’t home, but it was in its own way a beginning.