Portrait of my Other Brother as a Middle Aged Man

At last, a sort of sequel to Portrait of my Other Brother as a Young Man.

The second time someone aimed a gun at my brother, he was lucky. His girlfriend had terrible aim and took out a window instead. That incident always reminds me of the rumours about my grade 8 science teacher who, either in a drunken stupor or a fit of impotent rage, shot his piano with an elephant gun. A few years earlier, my brother had been shot in the leg by an American hunter he was guiding through a northern Ontario forest in search of game.

So, a gunshot wound was added to a list of injuries that included a broken syringe in the palm of his hand, a spine in ruins from years and years of heavy lifting for a rail company, and dozens of bruises from hockey and bar fights. By age 40, his body was scarred and tattooed, weakened from drug use, heavy drinking, and smoking. And yet, at age 40, he became a father for the second time.

Of all the things in my brother's colourful past, it was fatherhood at age 40 that most irritated my father, a man who had four children by the time he was 33. He just could not understand the idea of 'late' fatherhood. "Imagine having a kid at 40! He'll be 60 when the kid is 20. What was he thinking about?" I wondered if it made my brother think about the child he had as a teenager, but never really saw.

For my brother, fatherhood couldn't have come at a better time. He left his criminal past behind, but retained a strong interest in booze and cigarettes. And, although he continues to drive without a license, he has tried to pull his life together. No more jail, writing bad cheques, smashing cars into gas pumps, dropping acid or shooting up. Instead, against the odds, he has custody of his child, even though he looks like a most ill-suited father.

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