BROTHER OUR SAVIOR

WASILLA — A single-wide trailer in Reno. No windows. No doors on the rooms. Very little food in the kitchen.

It was Thanksgiving.

That’s what Craig Flanagan saw the first time he met his younger brothers, twins Jason and James Moriarty.

Flanagan, now 25, was 14. He had a different mother than Jason and James, but shared the same father with the twins. Flanagan bounced around as a youth, but put himself in military school at 16 and enlisted in the U.S. Army at 17. But Jason and James spent their first 17 years living a life of poverty, exposed to drugs and crime, violence, verbal and physical abuse.

Things are different now.

One random phone call in April turned Flanagan’s world upside down, and may have changed the lives of Jason and James Moriarty forever.

Thanksgiving will be different this year.

Jason and James have adjusted to life in Wasilla since moving from Reno to live with their brother and his family in April. They’re both good students. They each work at a local restaurant. And they’re talented athletes who helped the Wasilla football team win its first conference title since 1999 and advance to the playoffs for the first time since 2007.

Both are being scouted by college football programs, and the linebackers have an excellent chance to get a college education and play at the next level.

But just a few months ago, the futures of Jason and James were very much in doubt.

Jason and James have stories far different than average teenagers. Fond memories of happy holidays and family gatherings have been replaced by images of a drug-addicted father and abused mother.

Just 14, it didn’t take long for Flanagan to realize who his father was and what his half-brothers were exposed to. Flanagan had lived with his mother, who left his father as soon as she found out she was pregnant.

“She left him because of the way him and his family were,” Flanagan said.

His mother and stepfather were going through a divorce when Flanagan made that trip to the Reno trailer for Thanksgiving to meet his father, Jason and James, and the twins’ mother, Kathy. Flanagan stayed in the Moriarty home for a few months, so he could start school on time, before his mom relocated to the area.

“It opened my eyes. I was definitely sheltered from that lifestyle my entire life,” Flanagan said. “I couldn’t believe it. My mom did a fantastic job keeping me from that. My brothers, they kind of got shafted on that deal.

“Stolen cars, drug deals, the police,” Flanagan continued. “The cursing, the smoking pot. You could just smell it pouring out of a room.”

That’s part of what made that phone call in April so alarming.

“A week before they moved to Alaska, I got a call from Kathy asking for money,” Flanagan said. “They just spent their last $8 on hamburger meat and a gallon of milk. I knew my dad’s track record. I know what druggies do with money.”

So, Flanagan talked to his wife, Angie, and gave the twins a call.

“I made the boys a deal. I will pay for you to live up here. I will pay for you to fly up here, on two conditions — no drugs and you focus on school and school alone,” Flanagan said. “They agreed to it. Within a week I maxed out my credit card and got them up here.”

Flanagan’s mother was able to shelter him from his father until he was a teenager, but Jason and James saw firsthand what most teens only see in movies.

“There was no hiding it,” James said. “He never hid it from us.”

Jason and James said it was mainly verbal abuse toward them, but both said they knew their father physically abused their mother.

“It was more abusive with her, but the verbal abuse was everyone,” Jason said. “Him with his drug abuse had an (effect) on everyone.”

Drugs helped fuel the abuse, they said.

“If he wasn’t happy, nobody else could be happy,” James said.

Both said this has existed their entire life.

The twins remember going to his father’s friend’s house and being left outside, not knowing what was going on inside.

“It was pretty much a junkyard with a little camping trailer,” Jason said. “Stolen cars stripped down. We’d go there and play for a couple hours not knowing what he’s doing in there. We were locked outside that little house.”

Flanagan said most of his relatives on his father’s side of the family are tied up into this lifestyle.

“Our grandpa turned him on to drugs,” Flanagan said of his father.

Flanagan nearly got sucked in, himself.

“The whole reason I got myself into the military is I started hanging out with him more,” Flanagan said. “I was falling under that influence, being the impressionable age of 16. I thought, ‘hey this is my dad, a guy’s supposed to follow in his dad’s footsteps.’”

But Flanagan was scared straight.

“One day we were driving in a stolen car, chasing somebody down the street,” Flanagan said. “(I thought), ‘I got to get out of here.’ I sent myself away and joined the Army at 17. I’ve been gone ever since.”

The twins are taking their own path, paving their way in an opposite direction of what they grew up around. What they have seen in the past drives them to stay far away from drugs and abuse.

“I just looked at it like we can go down that path and become a monster like my dad has with all the drugs and stuff or become something new,” Jason said. “That’s pretty much the way it is with our whole side of our family, or at least our last name.”

Now the twins want absolutely nothing to do with it.

“Seeing kids get into drugs makes me sick,” James said. “After seeing what it does to people, I can’t stand it.”

Jason echoed his brother’s feelings.

“I hate it. I can’t stand being around it. I can’t even stand being around smoking,” Jason said. “I’ve never done a drug in my life, but if I stayed there, I don’t know if I’d gotten an opportunity to go off to college.”

The call from the older brother they barely knew was certainly unexpected. Jason and James both said they were in tears when they got the call from Flanagan.

“He probably couldn’t understand us over the line,” James said.

Not 72 hours after Kathy’s call, Flanagan had the plane tickets purchased and the twins were ready to make the move.

“They’d only met me a handful of times. They put a lot of faith in me to make things right. It meant a lot they were willing to trust me that much,” Flanagan said.

The support of Flanagan’s wife, Angie, was also important.

“She is a saint,” Flanagan said. “I told her my plan and without her even hesitating, she said yes, let’s do it.”

The transition to life in Alaska had its tough moments at first, but the twins have adjusted to their new life.

“At first it was kind of different. We weren’t used to no one arguing or fighting,” Jason said. “Everyone was happy.”

The twins said they mainly kept to themselves during their first few weeks at Wasilla High, the final weeks of their junior year. They had planned to get all of their credits finished and graduate midway through their senior year. But Kent Rilatos, head coach of the Wasilla football team, heard the twins played football in Reno. He invited them to join the team.

They found a home on the football team and steadily made new friends at school. They even changed their schedules so they could graduate with their new class in the spring.

Jason and James also found a place in the Flanagan home, along with Flanagan’s young children, and quickly grew fond of their new family.

The twins finally have a chance to experience the happy holiday in a more typical family atmosphere. They’re also spending an important Thanksgiving with Flanagan, his wife and children. Flanagan — an Army staff sergeant — will be deployed in less than two weeks.

The twins also had a chance to share their 18th birthdays with the Flanagans.

“It was our first birthday away from our parents, and it was the best birthday ever,” Jason said.

Flanagan said he knew it was a big birthday.

“I knew they obviously didn’t get much where they came from. With dad, nothing ever matters,” Flanagan said. “I did as much as I could to make it a good birthday, especially their 18th. I tried to go over the top for them.”

Just getting a gift was a big deal.

“The last one we got was like the seventh grade,” James said.

Both said they’re forever grateful for the sacrifices their brother made to bring them to Alaska.

“Everything he’s done is a blessing,” Jason said.

It didn’t take long for Jason and James to find their spots on the Wasilla varsity football team. Both played significant roles in their team’s success, and each earned All-Railbelt Conference honorable mention honors at linebacker.

Before moving to Alaska, neither thought it would be possible to play college football. But both hope to make it a reality next fall. With the help of their coaches, Jason and James are in contact with college programs.

Jason and James are both excelling academically at Wasilla High. James has always been a good student, but Jason admits his struggles.

“When I passed the last semester, I got a 2.0 right on the dot,” Jason said.

Past struggles were not necessarily related to a lack of intelligence or complete lack of effort. It was a lack of confidence, he said.

“I never felt the courage to do anything when I was back there,” Jason said.

Before Flanagan called, both twins said they sometimes thought there was no way out of their hard life in Reno.

“Sometimes you felt like you were never going to get out of it, you’re going to be stuck in this hole,” Jason said.

But, in less than a year at WHS, Jason has made dramatic improvement, with a 3.75 grade point average on his latest progress report. James had a 4.0 early in the school year and his holding a 3.23 currently.

James said he’d like to study accounting in college. It’s something he’s been interested in throughout high school, he said. Jason hopes to pursue criminal justice.

“It’s something cool to do and it’s completely the opposite of what I’ve been through my whole life,” Jason said.

Leaving Reno was not completely easy. The twins absolutely adore their mother.

“She’s always been there for us. She always sticks up for us. He’d always try to hide abusing her, in the room, but we knew about it,” Jason said.

Both said they love their mother very much. She left Reno right after Jason and James moved to Alaska. Even though a mother and children live in different states, the twins say the important part is they all escaped.

“I think it was great for her,” Jason said. “She hated us leaving. I know she hates it. We’re her baby boys, but this is the best thing for her. She got out of it as much as we did.”

Kathy did have a chance to visit before school started.

“When she came up here she looked awesome,” James said.

Jason and James left friends and family behind, but in favor of a new life. A better life.

“When we turned the corner (in the airport), they were gone. But we looked at each other and smiled,” James said. “It was a big relief.”

Contact Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman sports editor Jeremiah Bartz at sports@frontiersman.com.