From the Ashes: My Story of Being Métis, Homeless, and Finding My Way

Jesse takes his friend Marko along to get crack from Jesse’s regular dealer, Flip. Flip is aggressive and secretive, and his only rule is that he does not serve new customers. When he sees Jesse arrive with Marko, he holds Jesse at gunpoint; Jesse barely escapes death as a police cruiser drives by, causing Flip to flee.

Jesse meets Lucie (from Part 2, Chapter 21) again at a Halloween party, but she doesn’t remember him. He goes back to Jerry’s apartment late that night, where he is staying with Samantha (from Part 3, Chapter 53). No one lets Jesse in, so he attempts to scale the building wall and climb in through a window but falls 35 feet and breaks his leg and wrists. He calls out to Jerry, who unsympathetically throws down a pair of crutches and goes back inside.

Jesse painstakingly climbs up using the crutches, and Samantha is barely awake. He dials 911, and the paramedics who arrive are shocked at how he managed to reach the apartment. Jesse is rushed into surgery, and the doctor claims he is lucky to have survived. Jerry and Samantha arrive at the hospital, deeply apologetic for not having taken Jesse’s injuries seriously. He is released from the hospital three days after surgery.

Jesse recovers from surgery, but his leg starts to feel painful and itchy a week later. He takes some Tylenol and falls asleep, and he dreams he is on a battlefield, fighting alongside other Indigenous people; some of the men look familiar. The scene changes, and Jesse floats above his own body; a herd of horses runs toward him, pulling him along to a door to the west. Jesse feels himself crossing over from this life but resists, promising to change and do better. The herd releases Jesse, he opens his eyes, and Jerry runs in, having heard Jesse cry for help. Jesse is covered in sweat; Samantha, beside him, has slept through it all.

At a post-surgery check-up, Jesse discovers his leg has gotten infected and gangrene is setting in. The doctor cuts and cleans the wound but warns Jesse to take care of himself or else he will lose the leg. Jesse has no place to recover, as Jerry kicked him and Samantha out after one of their friends stole a neighbor’s vintage bicycle. Jesse is given antibiotics and promised an aftercare nurse, but upon learning that he is staying at a shelter, the nurse never turns up.

At the shelter, Jesse’s medicine is stolen. He begins to smoke crack to deal with his pain, and the infection returns. When Jesse goes back to the doctor, the latter claims they will have to amputate Jesse’s leg to prevent the infection from reaching his brain. Jesse refuses and runs out of the hospital with a plan.

Jesse robs a convenience store with the intention of getting arrested and going to jail so that he has a place to rest and have his foot treated. However, at the last minute, he panics and hides in the dumpster behind the store until the police leave.

Constantly high, Jesse grows paranoid and imagines cops everywhere. He drifts between shelters, unable to return to Samantha’s after he cleaned out her bank account and used the money on drugs and alcohol, thus ending their four-year relationship. Finally, Jesse calls the police and confesses to having robbed the convenience store.

Jesse is arrested; in jail, he makes the mistake of whistling and gets beaten up by fellow inmates. He tells the guards that he is suicidal. Both of these incidents see him moved to solitary confinement and outfitted in an “indestructible pink dress with no arms or legs” (272), meant for prisoners on suicide watch.

The first few days of solitary confinement are excruciating, as Jesse goes through withdrawal and is tormented by memories of the past. The only object in his cell is a Bible, but he kicks it away, refusing to read it.

Part 3, Chapter 61 is a verse chapter in which the speaker dreams of walking in Jerusalem where David once betrayed Uriah and left him to die. Uriah calls out helplessly, “a coyote / languishing in the land of jackals” (275).

Jesse sobers up and his infection subsides, after which he is placed in the protective custody wing. His cellmate, Lauriston, is a 70-year-old man from Bermuda, who receives a steady supply of sugar packers from other inmates. Jesse is surprised by this, and Lauriston advises Jesse to give his food away without asking for anything in return; this is a significant gesture in prison, but he is never to give to someone who tries to take things by force. The next day, Jesse gives his milk to an inmate named Bucky. Later that day, Bucky gives Jesse his jail sandals to use in the shower, to protect Jesse’s foot from infection.

Over time, Jesse gains respect and has a steady supply of food and sugar. When Bucky and another inmate, Priest, are transferred to a different prison, Jesse is made quartermaster. Priest advises Jesse to ensure new inmates know the rules and keep clean and to distribute food fairly. He is also to keep the drugs and tobacco flowing and ensure no new inmate smuggles drugs in. Priest tells Jesse how to spot real criminals: Those charged with serious crimes always have a religious scripture by their bedside, as they have no comfort other than god, unlike “fake” criminals who sleep easy.

After getting out of jail, Jesse meets and moves in with a woman named Audrey. They regularly shoplift together, selling their loot to buy food and drugs. A few weeks in, Audrey comes onto Jesse, but he refuses, as he thinks he loves her and eventually wants a better life for them; Audrey throws him out.

Jesse constantly smokes crack to deal with the pain in his leg, but this also leads to paranoia, delusions, and hallucinations. Broke but desperate to get more crack, he carries a road flare disguised as a stick of dynamite and threatens to blow up his dealer Green’s house. Green is not fooled; however, he enjoys Jesse’s “joke” and gives him more crack.

Jesse is jailed again in 2007 for accidentally assaulting some cops when he was high and hallucinating. In jail, he tries to do push-ups for the first time in years but loses consciousness. When he comes to, the medical attendant tells him that he is too weak to be exercising; he doesn’t need to toughen up to defend himself, as the infection in his foot is more dangerous than anything else in the prison.

Jesse learns that another inmate is completing high school in prison as a way to pass time, and he decides to do the same. He initially struggles but gets help with reading from other inmates. He eventually obtains decent grades, and three months into his sentence, he is only two credits short of finishing high school.

Jerry comes to visit Jesse in prison with a message: Grandma is sick, and Jesse living like this is hurting her. A couple weeks later, Jesse is released. He is dismayed that he came so close to finishing high school but has been released back into a life that is slowly killing him.

Desperate for money to get high, Jesse starts stealing bikes. He ventures into gang territory and gets attacked, with a steak knife stuck in his face. His attackers leave him as a squad car approaches. Jesse gets arrested for theft, but the arrest saves his life.

Jesse gets out of jail and decides to go to Harvest House, a Christian rehabilitation center recommended by Olive. He stays at a shelter for one night before leaving and meets a man who knew his father, Sonny. The man tells Jesse that his father was a great man. When Jesse expresses his hope of meeting Sonny again, the man says, “He’s gone, son. They got him in ‘82” (306). The man leaves before Jesse can ask for an explanation.

Jesse arrives in Harvest House in November 2007 and stays for three months before he leaves, wanting to get drunk and high again. He continues his bad habits for 14 days, before passing out in a parking garage.

Jesse pukes bile and blood and soils himself. He recognizes his body is giving out, and he longs to be a part of something meaningful again.

Jesse gets in and out of jail again, this time planning to jump off a building upon his release. However, when he is halfway up a building on Rideau Street, a woman calls him down, threatening to call the cops. She works at a shelter and recognizes him, calling his name and reminding him how he once said he wanted to make his grandmother and brother Jerry proud; this stops Jesse in his tracks. After Jesse climbs down to a promise of soup and socks, the woman hugs him, noting, “That was close” (315).