Summary
On the third day of Aisha’s visit, she explains over tea with Michael and his mother that she works as a freelance programmer. In the past three months, she has worked in Manila and Austin. When she mentions having traveled to the Trinidadian village Michael’s mother Ruth and her own father are from, Ruth asks to hear about Kampala instead. A closeness forms between the women, and Michael is mostly left out of conversations.
One day Aisha proposes to Michael that they host a gathering at the apartment to pay tribute to her father and to Francis, inviting old friends of his. Michael refuses, saying he can’t have a bunch of strangers in the house. Aisha says Ruth is losing her mind because it’s been ten years and she hasn’t mourned properly: she’s stuck. Michael knows about “complicated grief” that traps a person in loops of memory and makes them disoriented. Michael says he will think about it. The next day, a neighbor boy comes to the door and says Ruth is in the valley not wearing shoes. They find her wading into the creek, which is high with spring snowmelt. She has bright blue flowers gathered in her hands.
The narrative returns to the past, two days after Francis left home. It is so hot that Michael tapes tinfoil to the windows. He watches cartoons. His mother comes home and is enraged about the tinfoil, asking him to consider what others will think of her when they see it. He says other people put up tinfoil on their windows. She is incensed that he lumps her in with “other people.” He is mostly unresponsive. Suddenly she throws a jar of pickles at the wall behind his head.
That evening in the library, Aisha updates Michael on Goose, the girl who was hit by a stray bullet. She says that donor blood was found after a search around the city for donors with her rare blood type. Michael reads in the newspapers about the shooting. There are columns about the trouble with immigrant neighborhoods and language calling for people to be sent “back where they came from,” even though the suspects in the shooting had been raised in the metro Toronto area. He thinks about the time he saw Anton get roughed up by a group of men. Michael had gone up to him after, and Anton’s tears became laughter as he pretended that the beating was like a joke Michael couldn’t understand. Aisha asks if Michael has seen Francis, and suggests he go to Desirea’s, the barbershop, if that’s where he thinks he is staying.
That night Michael walks to the business, at the back side of a mall. He arrives to find the place full of young men in sideways ball caps and with elaborately shaved lines in their haircuts. Jelly, Francis’s friend, is DJing with vinyl records on turntables. Francis comes from the back and Michael tells him about the tinfoil and pickle jar. He takes Michael out in an old beat-up Honda that Francis owns with Jelly. Michael is surprised to learn about the car and that his brother apparently has a license. They buy some basic groceries and then eat at Steak Queen restaurant. Francis orders them each steak and a hamburger. He pays in change and small bills.
While they’re waiting for the food, Francis tells Michael that he’s got to work on how he carries himself, because it affects the way others perceive him. He says Michael is too visibly unsure of himself; that he puts everything out on his face. Francis says that no matter how poor you are, you can style your clothes in a way that lets people know you’re not a nobody. He then says he’s taking Michael to see their dad. Francis says he’s found out he lives in a low-rise building in Scarborough. They get in the car and start driving through the rain. Francis doesn’t know how to lower the convertible top. They reach a man through the buzzer, but he tells them they’ve got the wrong place when Francis says it’s his sons. On the drive back, Francis tells Michael he’s so quiet. Michael says he’s just thinking. Francis asks why he always has to be “such a pussy.”
In Chapter Four, Michael arrives home to find Jelly having tea and snacks with his mother in the living room. Aisha explains she reached out to Jelly through a friend, and didn’t expect him to come over. Jelly has a foam mattress and stuffed backpack with him. Michael is concerned about confusing his fragile mother. Aisha says it was Michael’s mother’s idea to let Jelly crash for a bit because he has nowhere to stay. Sensing Michael’s wariness, Jelly leaves with his backpack, returning two hours later with inexpensive groceries. He cooks like a professional, expertly putting together a Caribbean-style curry dish with Scotch bonnet peppers that make Michael’s eyes water.
Michael goes to work his shift at Easy Buy, having to stay half an hour extra to clean up cola bottles that smash open in the storeroom. His boss, Manny, confronts him about Jelly staying with Michael, as Manny was tipped off by his “spies” in the Park. Manny warns Michael about associating with criminals and degenerates. When Michael gets home, police are there about a noise complaint. The place is full of Jelly’s friends, who are eating his food and listening to old records. Aisha tries to explain but Michael pushes past her and gets his mother up from the couch, where she is looking at photo albums with a woman. Michael brings her to her room. She is unhappy with him for breaking up the gathering, saying that those people were sympathetic and wanted to know more about what happened to Francis. Michael’s narration returns to the past, saying that his brother makes space for him to hang out at Desirea’s following the failed visit to their father. Michael observes the way people posture and play, defining new identities that distinguish them from their immigrant parents. It is a place to develop new language, gestures, and bonds. Rap music is just going mainstream, and Jelly takes his role as the DJ of the shop seriously. He and Francis are always bringing in crates of old records, and Jelly spins them on his Technics 1200 turntables with one headphone held to his ear. Michael learns of Jelly and Francis’s plans to get Jelly recognized by a talent scout at a big hip-hop concert coming to the city.
In the present, Michael looks through the open suitcase of photos of keepsakes that his mother opened to show Jelly’s acquaintances. Aisha comes in and says that Jelly is prepared to leave. Jelly comes in soon after with stain remover to deal with the wine stain someone left on the carpet. In the suitcase they find a flyer for the concert Francis and Jelly organized a decade earlier, advertising Jelly as Djeli. Michael remembers going to it with Aisha, the crowd whipped up with energy as she shouted for the volume to be raised.
Analysis
In Chapter Three, Michael comments on how Aisha steadily ingratiates herself with Ruth, bringing Ruth out of her shell. As the women form a bond, however, Michael feels pushed out as the codependent bond of shared denial loosens. When Aisha proposes—without using the word—what is essentially a memorial for Francis, Michael refuses to let old friends enter the home and further upset the balance.
In this argument with Aisha, who accurately diagnoses Ruth’s mental health issues as a consequence of her unexpressed grief, Michael doubles down on his defense mechanisms of denial and protectiveness rather than risk the vulnerability of exposing the vulnerability of his own grief. Chariandy further develops the theme of mental illness when Michael makes Aisha wait for a final decision on her request and Ruth wanders the neighborhood in a dissociative state, not wearing shoes despite the snow still on the ground.
In Michael’s next recollection of the summer Anton was shot, the theme of discrimination arises when Michael comments on how the newspapers he reads at the library are full of racist, anti-immigrant opinions about sending the people who shot Anton back where they came from, even though the suspects were born and raised in Canada. In this instance of situational irony, the newspaper columnists conveniently elide the facts of the case in order to promote a discriminatory political viewpoint.
Michael also recalls how Francis’s decision to stay away from home increases Ruth’s anger, prompting her to smash a jar of pickles against the wall in frustration. The incident motivates Michael to seek out his brother at Desirea’s, where Michael has never been before. In several instances of situational irony, Michael’s expectations of what his brother’s life is like are undermined by the revelations that Francis has enough money to co-own a car and buy Michael dinner. How Francis is making money is a mystery, however.
Michael is also surprised to learn that Francis has tracked down their father, who pretends not to know who they are when they arrive at his apartment building. In these scenes, Francis’s protectiveness comes up as he frustratedly tries to impart life lessons to his brother about how to appear cooler. While it is clear that Francis is ashamed of Michael’s lack of natural confidence, it is also evident that Francis cares about his brother’s well-being, which Francis sees as inseparable from his social standing. Rather than reject his uncool younger brother, Francis takes Michael under his wing, inviting him to hang out at Desirea’s, where children of immigrants in the neighborhood define new urban identities distinct from the old-world identities of their parents. Beyond the aura of criminality people project onto the barbershop, it is a place for young people to build their community, united by their sense of style and taste in music.
In the present day, Francis’s old best friend Jelly reappears in Michael’s life because of Aisha’s invitation. Michael is angry to see Jelly, who provokes painful memories of Francis, but Jelly is polite, generous, and subdued. Upon finding a flyer in a suitcase of photos and keepsakes, Michael recalls how Jelly once DJed an event to prepare for an audition to perform a big hip-hop concert coming to town. With this setup, Chariandy introduces the scenario in which Francis meets his death.
