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

A few weeks after Jesse moves in with Josh, Leeroy turns up desperate and penniless in his father’s car. Two days later, Josh, who is now a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, throws Jesse and Leeroy out when he finds them smoking pot in his house.

Jesse and Leeroy drive around looking for a place to park and discover that the streets are full of people who are unhoused. Leeroy refuses to tell Jesse why he left home. Eventually, the car battery breaks down, leaving the pair stranded. By the third day, it becomes difficult to find food, as Jesse and Leeroy get caught shoplifting. Both men call their respective homes, but neither receives any help; Grandpa tells Jesse that he is not part of the family anymore.

Two weeks into sleeping in the car, Jesse begins to burn up, developing ketoacidosis (a diabetic complication). One of the locals, Troy, introduces Jesse and Leeroy to job agencies for temporary jobs and places to sell their clothes. However, money is still scarce, and Jesse and Leeroy eventually give up looking for work. Troy begins to sleep in the car with Jesse and Leeroy, and Leeroy and Troy both fall sick. A piece of Jesse’s tooth breaks off, and he stops smiling altogether.

Troy leaves, and Jesse and Leeroy take to begging. Four months into living in the car, they find the back window shattered one day. That night, unable to sleep, Jesse watches Leeroy and decides it is time for leave. He does not say goodbye, setting out to hitchhike back to Ontario early in the morning.

Part 3, Chapter 42 is a verse chapter recounting Jesse’s experience trying to hitchhike home. He describes being picked up by farm boys, who eventually attack him. He escapes and runs into the forest and feels the trees keeping him safe. Jesse later emerges onto the highway and tries to hitchhike again, but no vehicles stop for him.

Jesse eventually makes it back home, and friends comment on his emaciated condition; some are afraid to talk to him. He heads to a nightclub with an old friend, Rex, who buys him a drink. They get high on ecstasy, and Rex gives Jesse money, aware that he is broke. Rex buys him another drink and leaves, asking Jesse to meet him elsewhere later.

Jesse begins to feel disoriented and tries to make his way across the club but loses consciousness. He eventually wakes up and finds himself near the washroom with his pants undone, underwear missing; he is bleeding internally and realizes he has been sexually assaulted.

After the assault, Jesse struggles to find his bearings. He moves in with Uncle Ron and mostly sobers up, though he is still smoking weed. Five months later, Uncle Ron gets a call from Uncle Ralph in the middle of the night. He leaves and only returns the next morning; he has clearly been crying.

Uncle Ron tells Jesse that Grandma got a call from the police; they picked up a man who claimed to be Ron and knew Ron’s details. Grandma instinctively knew the man was Sonny and asked Ralph to identity him, but he was at work and instead sent Ron. However, it was too late—by the time Ron got there, the police had let the man go. Upon hearing this, Jesse sinks into despair; he leaves Uncle Ron’s place the next week and begins drifting again.

Back home, all of Jesse’s friends have moved on from him. He rotates between various shelters, occasionally staying at the house of a church woman named Olive, the mother of a high school friend who shelters youths in need. He begins to beg again, in addition to using and selling crystal meth. Jesse’s addiction worsens so much that it terrifies him, and he eventually goes back to Brampton and asks Jerry for help. Jesse sobers up there, but Jerry’s roommates refuse to let Jesse stay longer, so he leaves.

Josh invites Jesse to his wedding, offering to fly him west. Jesse meets half-brother Daniel for the first time since he and Blanche disappeared years ago. Jesse enlists Daniel’s help to shoplift some clothes and shoes to wear. Daniel confesses to Jesse that he and Blanche ran away from Blanche’s second husband, George, because he had a violent temper.

Jesse runs into his grandparents at the wedding; Grandpa walks away when Jesse tries to talk to him, but Grandma slips him $100 and tells him that he looks good. Jesse spends time with his maternal family, who are warm and friendly. He stays at his aunt’s place after the wedding and is shocked to learn that he spoke Michif (a combination of Cree and French spoken by his maternal grandmother, Kokum Nancy) as a child. Blanche asks him to live with her in Saskatoon; Jesse refuses, asserting Toronto is his home, and a hurt Blanche leaves with Daniel.

At a friend’s apartment, Jesse is introduced to crack cocaine for the first time and is instantly hooked.

Part 3, Chapter 48 is a verse chapter describing the birth of a people from a union between a wolf and a fallow deer. The descendants lead a nomadic life, owning nothing and adapting to all conditions. They ride on horseback from the east and litter the “stolen streets” of Canada with their bodies.

As the year 2000 dawns, Jesse is living with his Uncle Ron and brother Jerry. He spends New Year’s Eve at a party, drinking and doing drugs. He heads to Olive’s (a church woman who shelters youths in need) after the party and meets Frank, Olive’s son, who tells him that the new “hang-abouts,” Stefan and Mike, left on a mission a few hours ago.

Jesse goes to Uncle Ron’s to sleep and then heads back to Olive’s to get some weed. Stefan, Mike, and their friend Stan are present. Stefan and Mike claim they had a good night and seemingly warn Stan by saying, “Don’t rat” (213); Stefan runs his thumb across his throat. As they step out to smoke together, Stan comments on the number of police cars in the area, quietly warning Jesse to be careful. Stefan offers Jesse his jersey if he organizes a ride west that night for him and Mike and orders them a pizza beforehand. Jesse agrees, calling a friend from school for the ride, but is instructed not to reveal who the ride is for. He orders pizza and gets Stefan’s jersey and a pizza in return.

Back home, Jesse watches the news, and the murder of a cab driver is reported. Based on the description of the suspects, Jesse realizes Stefan and Mike are responsible, and he vomits in terror. Uncle Ron warns him not to say anything and to burn the jersey; however, Jesse remembers that Olive’s son Frank saw him earlier that day, and he heads to Frank to tell him everything. He asks Frank to be his witness as he is going to call the cops, but Frank closes the door on him.

Jesse calls the police and reports the cab driver’s murder. A dispatch arrives to collect Jesse and his statement, and he tells them everything. He remembers that Stefan owns a big knife and draws it for the police. After giving his statement, Jesse is taken to a holding cell where he falls asleep. When he wakes up, a detective takes him along with a fleet of cars to apprehend Stefan and Mike at the shelter where they were staying; however, they are not there.

Jesse is taken to the Major Crimes Unit building, where he is asked to wait in a comfortable room but denied a phone call for 24 hours. The next evening, he receives news that Stefan and Mike have been caught; they were at Olive’s. The police drive Jesse home, promising to protect his status as an informer. Less than six hours later, he hears rumors that he is a “dead man walking” (227).

Jesse walks to Olive’s to see what happened. There is police tape surrounding the space, and the back window is shattered. Jesse asks a neighborhood child what’s going on, but the child responds hostilely, calling Jesse a “rat.” Former friends start luring Jesse to different places to beat him up. However, Uncle Ron, Jerry, and Leeroy, who has returned home, continue to stand by him.

A couple months later, detectives show up at Uncle Ron’s; Stefan and Mike are not talking, and the murder weapon has still not been found, so Jesse is still a suspect. At the preliminary hearing, the courtroom is filled with Stefan and Mike’s allies. Jesse repeats details again and again, eventually breaking down and admitting that even though he is a criminal in other ways, having stolen and used drugs, it doesn’t make him “someone whose word isn’t good!” (234).

As Jesse leaves the courtroom, he runs into an old classmate, Paul Singh; the murdered cab driver was Paul’s uncle, and he thanks Jesse for calling the police. A few months later, the murder weapon is still missing, and so a deal is made: Mike is sentenced to 10 years for manslaughter, Stefan is imprisoned for life for second-degree murder, and Jesse gets a lifetime of people thinking he is a “rat.”

Jesse’s social network is destroyed by the case; even Olive bans him, and he starts sleeping on park benches. On one occasion, he breaks into Leeroy’s house and realizes he has crossed a line in their friendship; despite Leeroy eventually forgiving him, Jesse decides not to stay.

Distraught, Jesse steals and consumes a bottle of Tylenol tablets, but he panics and heads to the ER. He loses consciousness, and when he comes to, the doctor tells him that his is one of the hardest overdoses to treat; Jesse’s liver could have been permanently destroyed. Jesse is kept under psychiatric observation for 10 days before he is released; while he is at the hospital, only his brothers call.

After Jesse recovers, he gets a job as a produce clerk; however, he eventually quits, as his addictions become unmanageable. He meets a girl named Samantha at a shelter in Brampton, and they spend months partying and couch surfing until they finally decide to get a place together.

Uncle Ron gets Jesse a job building countertops, and despite Jesse frequently absconding from work, he is an efficient worker when he turns up and manages to keep the job for a while. Eventually, he and Samantha lose their apartment, and they begin drifting again. Out of a job, and with no money to buy food or alcohol, Jesse begins stealing from shops in Chinatown. He gets caught by the owner of one of the shops, an old woman who reprimands him and recognizes that he is using drugs. She gives him food anyway, saying someone fed her, too, when she was hungry a long time ago. However, she tells Jesse to not come back.