My friend Dan texted me to
ask if I remembered Sid.
I replied, “Of course I
remembered Sid. Why?”
Sid and I were best
friends for the first few years of elementary school. Our brothers
were best buds too, so I had the privilege of seeing him a lot. It
was easier for our parents to have both kids headed to the same
destination. My brother Justin and Sid’s brother David would hunt
small animals while Sid and I would throw dirt clods at one another.
I loved going home at night and lying on my bed, rubbing my scalp to
pull every piece of dirt and sand out of my hair. My mom wouldn’t
understand why there was an arc of dirt on my pillow in the morning.
Guns would usually be
involved when we hung out with our brothers. The BB gun wars would
consist of the younger versus the older. I remember getting shot in
the chest, seeing the copper ball bounce off my camouflage jacket
into the grass. Sid’s brother had shot me, and I fired back. The
bark flaked off the tree with each shot at David. I remember cocking
the Red Rider and not taking my time with aiming. I would just raise
the barrel and fire in his direction. I came so close to taking his
eye out. I wonder what we would have said to our parents had he come
home a Cyclops.
My brother had a more
powerful gray pump-action pellet rifle. Whereas the Red Rider only
pumped once, he could build up the pressure in his gun to give a
stronger shot. I was hunkered down behind a bush hidden from everyone
else. I could see my brother scoping out Sid’s hiding position. I
knew what Sid was thinking, a change in trees would be beneficial
because the one he was behind was smaller and paled in the brush
quality to the thicket of trees 15 feet away. My brother pumped his
gun multiple times while he studied Sid’s movements. Justin said he
would only pump the gun once since everyone else’s weapons wouldn’t
pack the same kind of punch.
Sid wasn’t out of shape,
the same as most kids in the early ‘90s. The Internet was still
years in the future and none of our parents could afford the newest
videogame systems. We were tossed out of the house until sunset. Make
your own fun, they would say, use your imagination. But as Sid tried
to run the 15 feet to his new cover he moved so slowly.
I willed him to move
faster, but Justin had already lined him up.
The
volume of Sid’s screams didn’t match that of the pfft from
Justin’s gun. A momentary truce was called so we could all assess
the damage from this skirmish. Sid was still rolling side to side
when the three of use stood around him. He never would survive a bear
attack, I thought. Tears made clean lines down the side of his face,
revealing the young flesh underneath the filth. He clutched his arm
to his chest, hoping the pressure to the wound would relieve him of
the pain. I didn’t want to see how bad it was. I imagined a clear,
scarlet liquid flowing down his arm in thick trickles.
Justin said sorry with a
smile. David sat on Sid’s chest, preventing his continued rocking.
There was a welt on his arm, but the pellet didn’t break the skin.
“Don’t
be such a fucking pussy,” David slapped Sid upside the head.
That is what Sid and I got
from them. If there wasn’t a mark on our bodies then they didn’t
deserve to get in trouble. Our tears weren’t enough of a reason for
them to be punished.
As we grew we began to
model ourselves after our brothers. They were always laughing and
having a good time. We wanted to have a life full of laughter too. I
used to see my brother talking on the phone for hours. He would walk
around his room, the cord from the yard sale phone dragging behind
him, and tell jokes and learn about people’s lives. He was teaching
himself how to talk to other human beings. I was never able to stay
on the phone for more than five minutes. I would let the silence
swell into awkwardness and have to hang up. I never had many
girlfriends.
Then, as most teens do,
the older brothers started smoking pot and drinking beer. My parents
caught on and our home life deteriorated. My parents were vigilant
about where he was going, whom he was with and what he was doing. He
had to call and check in every hour. They were a police force. He had
a rebellious spirit and never gave them an opportunity to trust him
ever again. Justin was all they had on their minds and I was given
free reign for most of my youth. At this point I regret not taking
advantage of it. My mother smelled my breath once in my teenage
years, and the funny part about it is it was the one time I drank
beer in my high school days. She didn’t even notice, but smelled as
a mere formality, assuming I was only getting candy on Halloween.
I
never wanted to go home, but at the same time I was a homebody so I
never wanted to leave. I was marooned in my room and that became my
haven. I would read and draw comics in the company of no one. I went
through a phase where I’d draw posters for fictional movies I’d
made up. Brothers –
‘One’s a cop. The other’s a criminal. Family’s all that
matters?’ The tagline was always my favorite part to make up, but
I’ve never been very good at thinking of quipping lines.
I would be able to sit on
the far end of the house in the living room and watch movies after
nine in the evening. My parents both went to bed early and Justin was
in his room planning an escape or talking on the phone. I was able to
sit in solitary darkness and let the pictures of John Woo and Michael
Bay wash over me.
One
night I was watching Terminator
2: Judgment Day and
Justin asked if he could join me. He would normally plop down and
start complaining about what I was watching or he’d just grab the
remote and change the channel. If I tried to tell on him he would
punch me in the stomach. I’ve been punched in the stomach many
times because of him, and I would prefer a face shot. When all the
wind is knocked out of you with a diaphragm jab and your body tries
regaining equilibrium, your lungs seem to be unable to retain any
air. It feels like you’re going to suffocate, unable to move
because you’re crippled on the floor.
So when he asked if he
could join me for the movie I was surprised. I wondered if this was a
new, hopefully permanent, side of Justin. We weren’t 20 minutes
into the flick when our dad walked into the room holding a two-liter
Coke bottle that was transformed into a bong. There was a small green
cylinder duct taped to the side, giving access to whatever smoke was
in the chamber.
Justin didn’t finish the
movie. He left with our father and had a sit-down with both our
parents. I finished the movie but wanted to go to bed the whole time.
I just didn’t want to walk by my parents and Justin while going to
my room at the opposite end of the house.
Things like this were
constant; I was caught in the crossfire a few times. One night I woke
up in a sweat from a nightmare; my family had been murdered and I
could only see their lifeless bodies strewn across the floor, blood
soaking into the carpet. I got out of bed and knocked on my parents’
bedroom door. I waited for a moment, my ear to the door in hopes that
I would hear the floor creak with the weight of a newly awakened Mom
or Dad. Instead, I heard the slider on the other end of the house
shut.
I moved towards the
kitchen. A shadowy form moved to the fridge and opened the door. The
light shown from the box revealed that the figure was Justin.
“What
are you doing?” I asked.
“What
are you doing
up?”
I could smell cigarettes
on his clothes and breath. The clock on the oven read 12 a.m. I
figured he did this routine every night—sit at the bottom of the
stairs in the basement waiting for all the televisions to be turned
off and all the doors to be shut, then creep to the far end of the
house to smoke a stolen or bummed cigarette. He wouldn’t have
discriminated which kind; be it a light or a robust or a 100,
Marlboro, Camel or American Spirit, he would have been grateful for
the tobacco and nicotine.
“I
had a bad dream.” That was when we heard the parental footfalls I
was hoping for a moments ago. And then the click of a door opening.
Justin grabbed me by my arm, rushed me to the sliding door, pushed me
through and told me to run. I didn’t think twice. I ran. He was
behind me, but it only took him a few seconds to catch up and run
alongside me. We ran up the street away from what would have been
yelling and disappointment, from looks of anger and sadness. Once we
got a couple blocks away, Justin sat down on the curb and I followed
his cue. He pulled out a half a cigarette and lit it. I pushed the
gravel off the sole of my foot. My pajama pants were too long for my
stubby legs, letting the backs of them get wet from the nighttime
dew.
We didn’t say anything
while we sat on the curb. He blew his smoke skyward and I looked at
the stars. We lived far enough out that the city’s lights wouldn’t
mush the sky into a dark gray. Instead we could see all the
constellations the dome had to offer. After about five minutes Justin
stood up, scrubbing the asphalt with his cigarette butt.
“I
think that should be enough time,” he said.
As we walked back to our
house I noticed how different our neighborhood looked at night. I
wasn’t even out of elementary school, so I hadn’t had the benefit
of late night explorations with friends yet. I was always a few years
behind on what kids my age should have been doing anyway.
When we got home, we
walked around to the back of the dark house. If our mom or dad knew
what had happened, they surely would have locked the slider. That
would mean Justin would have to ring the doorbell and he’d—we’d—be
caught.
The
slider slid open with a whiff.
Justin looked back at me
and nodded his head in victory. He whispered to me to be quiet going
to my room. He let me take the lead into the kitchen.
“Have
a nice walk?” My mom was sitting on the counter, in the dark. Her
legs were crossed at the ankles. Even in the darkness I could feel
the stare of disappointment.
“We—”
he started.
“I
don’t want to hear it. We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”
“I
had a bad dream,” I said.
“I
don’t care. Get to your room.” She was done with us.
I don’t blame her. From
her perspective I was out with him. Living up the life of the rebel
older brother. Moments like these, though, are the reasons I didn’t
want to leave my room. I didn’t want to get caught in the cross
hairs, whether I deserved it or not.
As David and Justin got
older their drug use and drinking got harder. They were teenagers and
set out to prove themselves, wanting to show everyone how “badass”
they were, to do as much partying as a “normal” adult would. Sid
followed in our brothers’ footsteps; he saw them rebel against the
status quo and thought they were cool. He wanted to prove he was just
as hard as they were by getting into hot water with his parents—and
not giving a shit. I could only see the tears in my mother’s eyes
and the voices of both parents as they fought at night about my
friendship with Sid. My father’s deep voice would timber through
the walls into my room. I could never make out the words, but his
voice sounded angry and defensive.
Sid continued to push the
envelope and I opted to become a wallflower; we lost touch through
the years. I started to read more books and watch more movies and
made friends who shared those interest. Sid and my old group of
friends started scheming ways to get booze, meeting each weekend to
lose all recollection of teenage life in a haze of weed and
cigarettes and vodka. I saw Sid at school now and again as we got
older, but once we graduated I never thought that I’d see him
again.
Then in 2006 Justin died
of an overdose.
As I read my letter to my
older brother at his memorial service I saw Sid amongst 600 faces.
Standing room only. I was amazed that a 22-year-old drug addict could
fill a mega-church, more people than the pastor’s mother’s
service a few months earlier. These people must have known something
I didn’t.
I heard stories about how
my brother was an amazing guy, incapable of judging people. It
didn’t
matter if you were a shitty person or a nice person, he would treat
both of you the same. If you stole from him or if you gave him gifts,
he would allow you into his house. Apparently, he loved to laugh and
joke around with people. He got to know—and even hugged—people. I
wanted to believe these stories, but I did not know this side of him.
Makes me wonder what I would’ve thought of him had he treated me
like a friend opposed to his younger, un-hip brother. I just can’t
get away from the look in his eyes when he would judge me, when he
would call me a faggot for
not smoking weed with him. He was the only person who ever tried to
peer pressure me, but I was able to withstand his advances—probably
because of my hatred toward him. A benign, loving big brother is a
wonderful thought, and I’m sure the several hundred faces at the
memorial knew that side of him, but I failed to connect the two.
Sid’s face showed me that he was able to connect the two.
So when Dan asked me if I
remembered Sid my heart sank.
The grapevine had told me
that Sid had served time in prison for armed robbery. That he became
religious and read the Bible regularly. That when he got out of jail,
he was hooked on oxycontin, and his parents were on the verge of
kicking him out. That was a year ago.
It had been a few years
since anyone I knew had died.
Justin was cremated. But I
imagined Sid’s parents would put him in an open casket. They would
have him wear a blue suit. Make the whole outfit monochromatic: a
navy blue button up shirt with a dark blue tie that matched the
jacket. He’d be clean-shaven with only a quarter inch of stubble on
his head. I concluded that he probably wasn’t beaten to death; it
must have been a prescription drug overdose, perhaps passing away in
his sleep. I would probably see a lot of my old friends at the church
for his service. We’d exchange funny memories of Sid. We’d say
goodbye to the corpse and smoke cigarettes outside. I would feel like
a fake because where have I been? I took an introspective lifestyle
in my youth and it became more complex as I grew. They’d embrace me
nevertheless. We’d be a group of friends again. Of course I would
be sad about Sid, but it’s better than my parents or my wife.
My phone beeped again.
“He
just wanted to say ‘Hi,’” Dan finally responded.
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