The Early Years with my Brother

I should have known my brother Marc would be the biggest pain in my ass when I was 10. You see, there is an 8 years age difference so it was not uncommon for me to watch over my brother when he was younger; my mother would often just have me entertain him while she cooked or cleaned. One day I was laying on the floor while my brother is playing with a plastic cup. Not just any cup, but my Nestle Quick bunny mug which required 6 proof of purchases and shipping and handling to get it... and it was worth every penny. I mean this thing had been around for 5 years and had never even chipped. Even with my brother using it to beat the floor it never seemed to scuff.

So there I am, playing with my brother while he is sitting on my stomach, remember he isn't even 2 yet, and he is banging the cup on anything nearby. He is enjoying the sound it makes so much and he is quiet so I let him. I am actually paying more attention to cartoons than my brother. My mistake, he starts to bang it on other things, the table leg, the chair, my teeth.

That’s right, my teeth, now when this happened for some reason he started crying, it might have been the large amount of blood that came spurting from my mouth, it might be the realization in his infantile mind that he screwed up, but for whatever reason he started wailing away like I had just stabbed him. My mother who was alerted to the fact that something was wrong came into the room at that moment.

She took one look at me covered in my own blood and one look at my brother who was crying. And in that second the tone of my life was set. My mother who had given birth to both of us and loved me supposedly, didn’t spend a second to look at me. Instead she ran over and picked my brother up to make sure he was all right, meanwhile I ran to the sink and gathered the bits of teeth I had left.

As I was cleaning my teeth my mother comes over and asked me what I did to Marc. When I responded “HE HIT ME WITH MY OWN CUP!!!” She responded “Well don’t get any blood on the towels they’re new.”

10 minutes later I’m sitting there with Paper towels pressed against my gums praying that the bleeding will stop while my mom is calling a dentist and there is my brother sitting on the floor. Grinning and playing with my Stuffed Digum banging it against the floor wondering why it’s not making noise.

This son of a bitch knocked out my teeth than smiled about it.

I should have known than the problems he would cause me but a few years later he would prove his worth. See I grew up this weird kind of poor in The Bronx. I mean I went to a catholic school but we still got government cheese. Somehow my family was able to pull scams that allowed us to live beyond our means. We moved several times and at one point we were in a converted garage. As near as we could tell the house had a driveway that pulled into the back yard where there was a 2 car garage for the main house. The owner walled up the garage which became the master bedroom and what would have been the chauffeurs apartment was the 2nd floor (Don’t forget the Bronx used to be a wealthy area and some of the old houses are still around.)

So one year for Christmas my dad got us hand made bunk beds. Hand made was big when I was growing up because it was usually cheaper. Some guy would owe my dad money or a favor but would never be able to pay if off. So instead he had them do him a favor like make him bunk beds for his kids. My dad paid for the wood and we ended up with a set of bunk beds that look like they came from an old Pirate ship. Luckily it was sturdy for me and my brother.

Anyway, my brother had outgrown his baby bed, which was coated in a protective plastic layer in case his pissed himself at night. Before you start snickering he was a little kid and had a fairly good command of his bladder at the time. Hence the reason he was moving into a bunk bed. He must have been around 4 or 5 and he was supposed to be helping me get rid of his mattress but the mattress slipped while bringing it down the stairs, and slid all the way to the front door.

What??? The mattress slides down the stairs? I mean it really just flew down the stairs. Marc and I looked at each other and than at the mattress and a little cartoon light bulb lit up over both our heads. What if we sat on it and slid down the stares. Not being stupid I let my brother test it first, and it worked like a dream. We never had a sled but for a half hour my brother and I slid down the stairs down a 10 foot hall and stopped at the front door. Than I got the idea why don’t we open the front door.

This increased the fun factor by 3.5, a significant number considering all we did was open a door. I mean unless you are walking into trampoline night at the playboy mansion very few times will you open a door and things will be 3 times as fun. See it was winter and we hadn’t had real snow but decided that this was as close to sledding as we were going to get. So now we were sliding out the front door.

My mother being the keen observer that she was (and the fact that it was time for a commercial) found us sitting at the top of the stair ready to take off.

“What are you doing?” she screamed, at the time I couldn’t tell if she was surprised or angry. In my house it was learned early on if you can get mom or dad laughing the punishment will be lessened. The flip side is that if you swung and missed you were going to get a beat down.

My brother not missing a beat simply said ”you want to try?”, and she did! Some how my brother has always been able to get away with things with a grin and a wink. This was the first time I saw it in action.

So now me, my brother and MY MOTHER are taking rides on that mattress. In later years I would be able to manipulate my brother into using his powers for my benefit, but at that moment he proved his worth and that’s the reason I keep him around till this day.