Sunday, March 30, 2014

from pizza face

I have three brothers and one sister and all of us are divorced save for one brother. I have told this brother on more than one occasion that if he had married any other woman than the one he married that other woman would have kicked his sorry ass out the door a long time ago. He gives me this amazingly annoying smirky smile and I just want to slap him.

But I don't because like my other siblings we grew up taunting and teasing this poor kid until he exploded in a screaming, vindictive rage. Being children in the 60's was not always easy. We overly spoiled baby boomers had too much time on our hands with no video games and precisely three television programs dedicated to our age group. And with a lack of juvenile obesity we turned to other physical extremities to pick on including my brother's large Dumbo ears made more visible by those crew cuts popular for boys at the time. If he didn't have those ears we would have found something else. He made such an easy victim. "He was the middle child afterall," my mother would sigh.


Even my father would join in the fun and once threw a large chunk of styrofoam up in the air behind my brother's back. He turned and saw the thing and started running towards us shouting "there's a giant white owl chasing me!" Another time he ran screaming from the house, "I've swallowed a cherry pit! I've swallowed a cherry pit! I'm going to die!" Too fun, I say holding my sore belly from laughing.

All of us were fighters, eager to leave our mark on each other. My brother still has a visible scar above his left eyebrow, a thin feathery reminder of the ice cube tray (full) I bashed onto his head. I don't know what he did to deserve that but I know that he did.  And then there was a time I was lounging on the couch watching one of those three children's TV programs and he was kneeling in front of me, elbows on an ottoman, big mushy marshmallow butt taking up my space. For some unknown reason I kicked him and I didn't realize how hard until I saw my white-socked foot now resting on the deserted ottoman and the top portion was blood red. I had broken my toe, another reason to get back at him at a later time.

I don't know if age makes us wiser but I do believe it makes us more tolerant. And even though the elephant ears have become more prominent and his hair has receded leaving a salt and pepper fringe we have at long last become friends. We owe each other that. I love you, Mark. From your sister, Pizza face.

4 comments:

MrDaveyGie said...

Yeah, but being the oldest boy I could whip the tar outta the rest of ya's
Big brother Dave :-)

Dan Fallon said...

WAaalllll, Missie. My family OD'd on homicide and suicide. Personal rule: whatever `they' did ... I didn't. Simple rule.

Arizaphale said...

I once hit my sister in the face with my schoolbag. She had braces at the time and they cut up her lips. She deserved it as she was taunting me with untruths like: You never wear your school hat. I can still see her disbelieving face as she touched the blood with her fingers. Hormones have a lot to answer for.

BrightenedBoy said...

My siblings and I fought horribly as children, but I think much of that was stress from the abusive environment we were in. Today I'm quite close with two of them.