I’d finally seen a painting about the world I lived in.

I didn’t want anyone telling me who they thought I should be.

THE LAST OF THEM BY MICHAEL LOYD GRAY 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 132

I found out on Facebook that my younger brother had died. Mikey was just 40. In the photo Mikey posed with a group of men and women he worked with at a gear factory where my father had also worked for many years. They all wore the same dark-blue overalls, like my father, with their names on a pocket. It made me think of prison inmates, but Mikey looked happy with his tribe.

I had only seen him once in seven years, and that was when our mother died. Only a few words passed between us on the gloomy day of her funeral. I drove home as soon as it was over. No need to linger. No-one to linger with.

Between me and Mikey there weren’t any phone calls or Christmas cards. We might as well have lived on different planets.

Mikey tried to fit into every footstep my father took. But I avoided the footsteps. I didn’t want anybody else setting my direction. I didn’t want anyone telling me who they thought I should be.

A colleague in the art department at college said I wouldn’t get closure until I went to see Mikey’s grave. “When you come back, Jesse, you’ll probably paint something grand, and of course get perspective,” he said.

I mulled over it for weeks. I even started off to drive to the cemetery, but turned around after a few miles.