Brother Broken


Foreword Clarion Review 

Alf Reads about about skull cramps...

The next afternoon, John was slouched in a chair in the kitchen when Alex came in from outside. He watched as John sat up, using his elbows to steady himself at the table.

“Uncle, what’s wrong with you?”

John’s reply to the question came out slurred and slow, with a garbled chuckle: “Too many barley sandwiches last night.”

“What’s a barley sandwich?”

Alex waited, watching as John tried to light a smoke. But the shakes made it difficult. The little spectator wasn’t going anywhere. John cocked an arm to rest his forehead in his palm. He tilted his head slightly and stared, glossy-eyed, at Alex. They ogled each other for a silent moment. Then John raised his eyebrows as if to convey the burning question, What?

“Can you give us rides on the trail bike?”

“Do it later, ’kay? I got skull cramps.” He reached for the ashtray, turning his attention away from his nephew.

Alex went outside to the backyard, where his buddies sat waiting.

“He can’t. He got skull cramps.”

“He got what?”

“Is that like when you get the shits?”

Dad was making himself a fresh cup of coffee, trying but failing to ignore John, who was hunched at the kitchen table nursing a hangover. The sight upended Dad, and he couldn’t help but pose the question.

“Can’t you stay off the booze for a while?”

“Oh, for shit’s sake.” John didn’t want to hear another lecture. He spewed whiny sarcasm: “Well, I’m not drinking now, am I?”

There was no point getting into it again, so they quickly dropped the exchange.

Tension always mounted the morning after. Dad couldn’t ignore the boy’s drinking. Mom was better at sidestepping arguments. She understood there wasn’t a thing she could say or do to mend his ways. It had to be John’s doing and John’s alone, and a change didn’t seem to be coming anytime soon.

https://www.brotherbroken.com/

Follow me on: 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
  Brother Broken Here's Johnny! ... this goes waayyyy back, like 1963... I wasn’t allowed to follow John the day he started school. I wanted to go with him, but Mom held me back. I had a difficult time being left behind. Going to school was hard for John, too. The school was run by nuns, even though it was a public school. The nuns taught Grades 1 through 12, and attendance peaked at about 120 students. Most students were bussed in from the country, which meant John met new kids. School administrators had an ass-backwards way of staffing teachers. Grade 1 students should have a kid-friendly teacher, but that was not the way schools operated in Northern Saskatchewan. Perhaps it was done on purpose, to have the strictest nun initiate the new students—a sure-fire way to pre-establish order in the school room. John told me a bit about his first day of school. It sounded like he approached the classroom and lingered in the doorway. The teacher nun was waiting inside to greet all t...
Read more
Image
   Brother Broken Photo taken at John's funeral May 1990:  Front row l to r, Pauline (Pauly), Mom, Dad, me (Céc) , with John's photo between Mom and Dad. Back row l to r, Mitch, Gerard (Gus), Roger (Rod), Denis Good morning Sunshine. I think it's time for you to meet the family. Dad was a WWII vet. He had served in the Royal Canadian Navy. After the war, he pedalled a bicycle four hundred miles north of his parents’ home in Gravelbourg, Saskatchewan. He bought land and started a farm. Dad caught the eye of my mom with his drop-dead good looks. She was the cute little farm girl whose family lived nearby. She stole his heart, and they married in 1949. Marguerite and Jean were their names, but most people called them Margaret and John, the Anglicized version of their French names. They were French-Canadian Catholics, expected to populate with more French Catholics, so they started une famille . Their first-born was my sister, Pauly. After Pauly came Rod, Denis, John, m...
Read more
Image
  Brother Broken Meet the protagonists: Denis, John and Mitch.  Their stories begin in the 1950s and 60s, in a village, in Saskatchewan, somewhere north of normal. It's not one that's dark or depressing, it's a story of hope and gratitude, with a touch of ridiculous. Some parts are complicated, because there is nothing straightforward pertaining to broken. I remember my brothers with words, I share the story of their lives. l tell of what decent boys they were, what they meant to me, how their lives were ordinary and sound before all the trouble started happening. I write, so people will learn the goodness of my parents, the wholesomeness of my extended family, that my kin weren't lowbrow hicks, who screwed-up raising kids. Brother Broken Foreword  Clarion Review   https://www.brotherbroken.com/ Follow on:    
Read more