My Bros Starlight Tour, January 2, A Cold -35c
July 27, 2025•1,410 words
“The streets were not just a world of predators and prey, they were a world of menaced children fighting to be grown. The fear was there because it had to be. It was the price of the ticket.” - Ta-Nehisi Coates
“We come from a people who knew the meaning of family, of connection, of love. And when the world tried to break that apart, we held on to each other.” - Richard Wagamese
“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me... that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive.” - James Baldwin
“The history of the United States is a history of settler colonialism the founding of a state based on the ideology of white supremacy, the widespread practice of African slavery, and a policy of genocide and land theft.” - Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
“Colonial relations of power do not just target our bodies, they aim to dispossess us of our land, languages, and relationships to each other.” - Glen Sean Coulthard
I remember so clearly as if it was yesterday. I was 12 or 13 years old, just a teenager.
My older brothers, tough as nails and skin as dark as a black leather belt, Lee and David, beat everyone in the pool hall, the billiards of Beverly, there were opponent gang members that they played against and all different types of enemies, including motorcycle gangs. I remember my brothers telling me to act as if you are the toughest mother f***** around and you don't give a f*** if you die, just sit and watch everyone in the place. So I did.
Lee said to me, you're the meanest f****** little 13-year-old in this f****** s******* of a city. Don't be surprised with anything. Don't talk, just watch. And, give us a look if something is going down. We will be ready, and we will protect you, with everything.
I trusted my brothers with my life.
We had a total of $10, 50¢ started a pool table for 30mins.
Then different gang members and older biker gangs began asking if my brothers wanted to have a match again. $5 in the pockets. All we had was $8 to start. I was somewhat worried.
The first game we won, barely, making ourselves as a fluke. And, tougher competition - gangs and bikers wanted to get into higher stakes with more money, Lee and David said all we have is $5 to hold/bet. We continued to play, winning, and losing a total of three games for the night on purpose, so that David and Lee did not look like they were pool sharks.
All of us kids were brought up with pool tables, chessboards, boxing, martial arts, and sports mainly soccer, hockey, football, basketball, and rugby.
In total, we, my brothers and I left with $328 and a bag of grass and brown looking type of cubes called hash. At the time, I wasn't quite sure why they would take grass in a bag, and brown looking cubes called hash instead of money, it didn't make any sense to me, but I didn't question my brothers. I just went along and thought they knew best.
By 11:30 at night, a cold -35c to -45c, we left the Beverly billiards on 118th Ave and started walking east, towards the abbotsfield apartments, our parents home, our home.
By the time we got to 40th street and 118th Ave, a police car stopped in front of us, and two tall bald-headed cops that we usually named, the kojack twins, quickly got out of their vehicle to question us. These two cops were always in the Beverly area for a few years, always harassing young native boys and teenage girls.
Lee went in front of David, David quickly on the sly, passed me $328 and the bag of grass and brown hash. I place it into my underwear in the front of my crotch. I was watching Lee with his hands and arms wide-open, saying to the police officers, "What's going on Bulls? kojaks? we have nothing, we just walking home man. We only two blocks away from home. We have nothing bulls. We got nothing."
Instantly one of the cops punched Lee on the side of the head, and Lee fell to the icy snowy sidewalk. I was angry, I wanted to yell, someone help us!!
As quickly as Lee fell to the ground, the other bald cop kicked Lee in the face as hard as possible with his black shiny boot.
I kept my mouth shut. David looked at me, "go! run home, tell Mom, dad, Kukum and Mushum, the cops have us, they're taking us outside the city, go!!
David's eyes were of fright as if about to be murdered. David's eyes made me move, I ran home, as fast as I could.
I got to the apartment, screaming and yelling at mom and dad! My grandparents were sitting on the couch. My sisters were there in their bedroom.
Everyone came to me at the kitchen table. I emptied my pockets, I explained to them that we went to the Beverly billiards and we played all these different gang members and bikers and we won, and here's the winnings, I emptied my pockets with the $328, the bag of grass and the brown hash.
Mom, dad! the bulls stopped us on 40th Street and 118th Ave and they started beating and kicking Lee in the face, and David said they are taking Lee and him out of the city. My sisters started to scream and cry!
My mother started to scream, No! Not my boys! NO!
My soul hurt.
My dad instantly, began calling native leaders, relatives, gang members, and bikers, he then called the TV studio ctv and said, my sons, teenage boys David and Lee, my sons have been taken out of the city by police, and I have lawyers waiting for my sons safety! You get a hold of the city mayor immediately, and you tell the mayor.
As I was watching and listening to my dad, he said, "my two sons, if they die in the cold, outside of the city, those cops will pay for their deaths. They will have all the natives in the city hunting for those two cops!"
As a family, my grandparents, our mother, my sisters, my younger brother Darcy, and I prayed to God to help Lee and David in my parents bedroom, while our father was talking on the phone at the kitchen table to native leaders from Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, and at the same time, some of the gangs that were at the billiard, came to our apartment to talk to my father.
I can never forget, when I heard my father's voice crackling with such deep hurt for his boys, saying, "my boys being taken out of the city to be murdered, they will pay." My mother and Kukum said, my father's soul is extremely hurt. I watched, as my sisters, younger brother, my mother, and my grandmother cried and wept as if my brothers were murdered by those cops.
By 3am two police officers with dark hair, knocked at our apartment door. My brothers were at the door with them. My father opened the door. All of us were behind our father watching and crying. Lee's face, dried blood completely swollen like he was 300 lbs, and David's eyes and nose were badly swollen from being brutally punched and kicked.
My brothers said to our dad, "dad, please, we're so sorry, Dad" and they began crying because of how our father was worried and hurt.
As a family we all were crying.
My dad didn't say anything to the police officers. He took his two boys, by their hands, into the apartment, and he closed the door, with his leg, while the police officers stood in the apartment hallway, watching an indigenous family closeness, grieve for the teenage boys.
As my father cried while he cleaned his sons faces.
We watched, as he talked to my brothers, he said, "as a family, we will always protect each other, and as a community we will always protect each other."
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