Tag: Brother

Chapter Eighteen – The Moon

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide, Tarot

The world always looked different at night.

I was completely myself within the darkness of the streets. There was no need to hide myself because I was already hidden in the shadows. Renee was the first person to notice this. “Why do you avoid the light?”

We were walking in the square. The Ottawa Mission had a truck that would drop by the square and give out clothing, blankets and warm food like prepared soups. Renee and I walked around the square, our bags a little heavier with soups for later and new blankets. I wore a pair of socks over my hands as the cans of soup were quite hot. I had forgone the spoon for now and sipped the soup out of the can.

“I don’t know what you mean,” I said.

She gave me a look that I could discern even in the half light. It was one of exasperation and patience. Renee did something then that I wasn’t expecting; she took my hand and wouldn’t let go when I tried to pull away. “You know exactly what I mean. Why do you hide?”

“You make it sound like I’m some kind of fucking vampire.”

“You might as well be. Anytime that someone asks you a question directly, or focuses on you, you tend to go inward. You’re fine with the people you trust, but you shrink away from the people you don’t know.”

I shrugged. “It’s a learned habit. Being noticed before tended to get me hurt. It was easier to hide.”

“Well, I don’t want you to hide.”

I thought of how comfortable I was in Sunshine’s apartment, hiding from the world. Or amongst the kids that gathered at the YSB, or the crowds that gathered for lunch and dinner at the Mission. I could disappear in those places and seek to be unseen. I said as much to Renee.

“You must be joking!” She said, her eyes sparkling with merriment. “You are the one person that everyone sees.”

I shook my head. “That’s not true.”

“Of course it is,” She let go of my hand and turned her head skyward to look at the stars.

I was drawn to look at the moon. I always marvelled at the fact that it seemed so large, but it was so far away. I never felt afraid of the dark when I could see the moon. I had always been drawn to it, but more so lately. I thought of the moon as the all-seeing eye, more so than the sun. The sun brought light into the day, but the moon helped me sit with my truths

“You carry your brother’s mystique,” Renee said. “There’s that. He left quite the impression here, but you’re doing one better. You’re making your own path.”

I looked up at the stars then and they looked like they were dancing for the crescent moon. They looked unafraid to find their way forward. “Did you know my brother?” I asked her.

She nodded. “I only knew him by reputation, but he seemed okay.”

I often felt like I was walking with his shadow beside me, and I could reach out and take his hand, letting it guide me to where I needed to go, but of course every time I went to take his hand, he wasn’t there. We had always been two halves of the same whole. I had been cast into the role of the good son and my brother had been made into the bad son. We had always been good and bad, light and dark, sun and moon. Whenever the moon was full, the shadow of my brother that walked with me seemed the clearest. I looked beside me now and saw only a thin wisp of an outline, all smoke and no shadow, but he was still there.

“You don’t have to be afraid of the light, you know? Like the moon? Look how bright it is and it’s not even a full moon! Shows us where we are right now. It’s different every night, like it gives us a chance to take in what it’s shown us?”

She said this like a question, and it got me thinking about the traits I shared with my brother. We were identical mirror image twins, but so incredibly different. My brother had been unafraid to go after what he wanted, I didn’t even know what I wanted out of life yet, but looking up at the moon, I imagined it showing me a little of the path forward.

I tried to see where my path had started, but that part of it was lost to the clouds and the movements of the stars.

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.

Before

by Jamieson Wolf, posted in A Tarot Guide

My brother gave me my first deck of tarot cards.

We hadn’t spoken a lot since he had been kicked out of home. Truthfully, we hadn’t spoken a lot before that either. There was a wedge between us, even then. Looking at us, you wouldn’t be able to see it, but we felt it. It was a physical presence in our lives. I’m not sure it we put it there to keep us safe, or if my parents placed it between us for our safety.

I was still living at home. My brother had been kicked out for stealing, or getting into a fight, or mouthing off. My brother was a rebel, and I don’t think he knew how much I looked up to him. He’s my older brother by fifteen minutes. I joke about how my order was fucked up and I ended up with him, as if having him in my life is some kind of mistake.

The truth that I’ve been coming to terms with lately is that I didn’t talk to my brother often enough in the end. We existed in two different worlds. We had our own language growing up, but now, we don’t even speak to each other. The irony isn’t lost on me.

I don’t know what he did to end up in the shelter, but at least he was staying somewhere this time. Normally, he just disappeared, and I didn’t hear from him. It felt like a piece of me was missing. He would come back eventually, he always did. It was those times that I was left on my own that I was most afraid. My brother had a way of looking at life that I admired. He didn’t say much, but he didn’t need to.

To me, it looked like my brother was free.

I know that this isn’t completely true. He was free spirited, but there were secrets he carried, too. We may have had an ocean of unspoken words that swam between us, but he had grown up in the same house I did. I went within and Robert would explode outwards, his actions and interests his way of escaping and speaking without words.

I remember phone call. My father and stepmother had been out. Robert knew when they would be at work. I remember his voice on the phone and it sounded like him, but calmer. Hearing his voice was like a breath of fresh air in the cloud filled world which I lived in. His voice parted the smoke and fog that surrounded me. If I remained in the fog, I wouldn’t be seen. Hearing Robert’s voice made me want to be seen again.

“Come on over and see me,” he said. I remember this part, but not how I found the shelter or if I looked up the address first. I don’t remember how I got there, but I do know that I went to find him. I remember the blue drawer, the darkness within the room punctuated by a single light.

I remember Robert gathering the tarot cards off the floor. I don’t even remember if this is true, or if he had the cards gathered in his hand. I remember seeing flashes of colour and the hieroglyphics that covered the card backs.

“Someone gave these to me,” he said. “I think they’re meant for you, Jamie.”

I remember taking the cards and the book that was falling apart. They had been loved, these cards, whether by him or someone else. I wasn’t sure how he had come by them, but I knew that I was more than intrigued. I didn’t have the words to describe what I was seeing yet. Those words would come eventually, but for now there were the pictures.

Robert had given me a copy of The Ancient Egyptian Tarot by Clive Barrett. Robert had been the one to find the first Ankh that I wore. I wore an ankh all the time as a teenager, and he knew how much I loved anything Egyptian. I remember flipping through the cards, wondering what kind of interactive book this was to come with a set of cards.

I remember taking the book out and reading it on the bus back home. I would take the cards out again when I was alone, but for now, I read what I learned was the guidebook and let Clive tell me a story. I thought what it must be like living in a shelter or on the streets. It seemed a tough way of living, but Robert was free in a way. 

I had no idea that a few years later, I would learn what that was like firsthand.