| Usually, when a man reminisces on his years as a boy, he sees himself playing with bugs, digging in the dirt, and riding his bicycle, which, at any given moment, depending upon the circumstances conjured up in the little guy’s mind, could be transformed into a magnificent stallion or a turbo-charged motorcycle. When I look back: instead of playing with bugs, I was usually eating them; instead of digging in the dirt, I was being buried in it; and instead of flying down the highway on that turbo-charged hog, I was peddling my little feet as fast and hard as I could in order to get out of the range of my brother’s b.b. gun. My brother Rodney was pretty much the focus of most of my bad dreams growing up. However, I knew that I never had to worry about anyone—other than him, of course—beating me up or he could kill them!
It’s funny how well a person remembers a particular sound or smell. The sounds I remember are kind of like an old episode of Batman—"kick!", "bang!", "pow!", "zap!", "boom!", "mom!" The smells I remember: well, let’s just say a person never forgets the smell of singed hair, methane gas, and the smell of his own dirty underwear stretched over his head from behind. Contrary to all of this, it’s strange how much a certain feeling can be forgotten. Now, I know that I will never forger the felling of anxiety and dizziness as Rodney would sit on top of me with his bony little knees buried into my shoulders while he would cover my nose and mouth until I would almost become faint. He would finally let go, but not because he wanted me to catch my breath; he only uncover my face just so he could spit right into my mouth as I desperately gasped for air. Then, he’d do it again, and then again, and then again, until I would finally give up even the thought of escape. I suppose it just wasn’t fun for him if he couldn’t sense my agony. That feeling still gives me chills, but the feeling that seems to fade, funny enough, is pain—not emotional pain (trust me, that sticks with you), I’m talking about literal, stubbing your toe on a table leg, pain—real bloodshed. I experienced a lot of pain growing up, but it seems really peculiar to me how our brains are made to retain certain feelings except for physical pain—once it’s over, that’s it. I’m not sure if it’s because I became immune to it due to the recurrent painful events or if it has simply faded with time. I think that maybe it’s kind of like the difference between a paper cut and a large incision. That paper cut hurts like nothing else right away, and you can never seem to keep from breaking it open over and over again. The larger, seemingly more drastic cut sort of just feels numb—that is, until you realize what you’ve just done and start seeing blood. It still doesn’t hurt all that bad though, but you know it’s supposed to. I keep wondering if all that pain is going to catch up with me in the same manner. Boy, that would be like the sonic boom of a fighter jet reaching mach two! I mean—I know that there was certainly a lot of pain involved the time Rodney sat me down buck naked on top of a red ant hill just so he could see me dance and have an excuse to spray me with the water hose. And I know that there was a lot of pain involved the time he hit me in the eye with a hatchet as I poked my head into our grandparents’ garage. There was also that time that he got really upset with me and gently placed my nose upon a trailer hitch—just gently enough to keep from causing brain damage. I’m sure I was probably following him around asking him all sorts of questions far too immature for his elite mind; nonetheless, it was a pretty harsh punishment. I came out of that one with a broken nose and a life-long emotional distress from having unevenly sized nostrils, but let me tell you, that trailer hitch never knew what hit it! Oh, and how can I forget the time he shot me in the face? I’m pretty modest, but I’d say that I look pretty darn good all things considered. I can’t remember exactly what it ws that I did to make him so mad(maybe I was wrong about not having brain damage). Anyway, I was ten years old(a few years older than the hatchet and trailer hitch incidents) when this particular event occurred. I guess I should fill you in on the background of this one first since, after all, the background is probably funnier--or more gruesome (however you’re taking all this)—than the actual event. My brother introduced me to the b.b. gun. Whoever thought of this as the perfect gift for a couple of ecstatic kids was a genius (sarcasm definitely stressed). You know, parents start out great. They safeguard every door in the house so the toddler can’t get into anything harmful, they try to keep from buying anything small enough for the little one to choke on, and they’ll go out and buy hand sanitizer and antibacterial soap so the tike won’t get sick, but when he reaches the age of about ten, all that good sense goes out the window. (I suppose they think that all that hand sanitizer has somehow made him completely immune to any kind of danger). What do they do? They go out and buy this machine that sends a little, round projectile screaming through the air fast enough to kill a raging rhinosauras, (ok, probably not a rhino, but definitely a mouse or a small bird; and certainly fast enough to get lodged under human skin and into bone) and they put it into a little boy’s hands. Oh, and I should mention this: the machine becomes more powerful the more times the pump, which compresses more air within the machine, is pumped; so, that means that the more angry the boy gets, the harder, faster, and more times he’ll pump this contraption and go after his prey. I’m sure you’ve already picked up on my brother’s little anger management problem, so I’m sure you can see where this is going. Like I said, I was ten, so he was 13 at that time. This crazy contraption had now become a major part of our lives. We would come home from school before our parents would get home from work, and the war would begin. We were fully loaded and ready for action. This time there was no damsel in distress to rescue, no criminals to put behind bars, "this time", I remember thinking, "it’s all about REVENGE!" He would stand in the bedroom at the end of the hallway, and I would stand in the living room. The rules were always the same—"You stand behind that corner in there, and I’ll stand behind this corner in here. Count to ten, and come out shootin’!" The results were always the same: we’d turn around from the center of the hallway and begin stepping. (t was kind of like one of those old western movies). However, by the time I had counted my steps, he was already in perfect firing position—still standing right in the middle of the hallway waiting for me to turn around. And when I did—POW, right in the chest! Don’t worry, It didn’t take me long to learn to protect myself with concealed armor—usually a piece of cardboard under my shirt. I would like to say that one day one of the shots simply went astray, but the one thing that I have to say about Rodney is that he rarely ever missed his target. For instance, during one of the many long stand-offs, we had both done the stepping, counting, and waiting; however, I knew my brother a little too well, so I knew that, by this time, he wasn’t nervous and shaking behind his wall like I was. Nope, he was standing there like a vulture waiting for something to die in the dessert waiting for his chance. Only this vulture couldn’t wait for the victim to die! As I stood there waiting to meet certain doom, I didn’t realize that the very tip of my thumb had gone beyond the safety of the wall(I mean my "bunker"). The next thing I knew, I was crying and screaming, "I’m gonna kill you with my bare hands!" Of course, that’s when he would proceed to hold me down and spit in my mouth. So, needless to say, it hadn’t been some random shot that had gone astray during battle that had found it’s home buried into the right side of my chin. It was the point blank shot spawned by his rage that lodged that little piece of metal into my face. Now, imagine being ten years old with a brother that could torment you to absolute insanity for the rest of your adolescent life. To some, it would seem like the perfect opportunity to end the madness once and for all when asked rhetorically by the parents, "what happened this time?", but I had been involved in this game far too long for that kind of naïve reasoning. I was a seasoned veteran by this time. So, what did I do? I lied right through my teeth, of course. I knew that if I told the truth he would kill me, and our parents would take our guns away, which they probably should have done anyway. He could see this, and I could see this. So, I lied. It was the lamest excuse in the world, but—it worked. "I…I…I was putting the gun up…i…in the closet a…and it just…went off." My parents weren’t naïve; they just didn’t have any proof. After the trip to the emergency room to dislodge the pellet, which entered into the right side of my chin, and somehow ended up on the left side, and after a short probation, we were back at war! Only, now I had gained the respect of being a wounded P.O.W. hounded for the truth without giving in. You’d think that this kind of heroism would earn a soldier a medal of honor. Well, I never received a medal, but I did earn a few less shots to the rear end, and that was a battle won in my eyes. So, yes, I know that all these things, as well as all of the other things that I’ve left out (probably because I’ve forgotten due to being hit in the head so many times), well, they hurt—an awful lot, but what I remember isn’t really the pain. What I remember most is what I learned from it all, how it made me grow, and how my life is what it is partly because of it. I came out of it with life lessons and a brother that, though it all, I still love and am thankful for; and that’s really peculiar to me—that God makes us that way: to retain memories of the past with all of the emotions and lessons learned, but to leave the pain behind. May 20, 2004 -dj |