Sibling Torture

"Damn dog" I thought to myself as I looked at the broken screen over our family room window.  The damned dog, Beau, a beautiful mix of Keeshond and English Springer Spaniel, sat looking at me, oblivious to my concern.

Beau and I had been tossing a ball and fetching in our front yard when the ball landed close to the basement level family room.  Beau, in his wonderful doggie exuberance, didn't even slow down as he rammed, headfirst, right into the screen covering the window.  The screen frame was now bent, with parts of the screen itself escaping from the aluminum frame.

I couldn't stay mad at Beau.  He was just a big, lovable lug.  Looking at me, then the ball in my hand, then to me, then to the ball, he was clearly waiting for some more throwing.

"No, buddy, that's enough damage for today." I told him as we walked back to the front door.  I wasn't looking forward to telling my dad about this.  He was in a pissy enough mood.

I walked into the foyer of my childhood home, with Beau the Destructor at my heels.  My brother Stuart was lying across the top of the steps.

"Gotta' pay a toll to pass" he tells me.  I walk up the steps grimacing menacingly at him.  "You can only charge toll if you can keep me from passing, butt head".  I stepped right onto his buttocks and continued on.

Stuart "oomphed" as I stepped on him, more theatrics than real pain.  Beau actually stopped for a minute, but following my lead, he jumped right onto my brother's back and continued on.

"Mom," I called, hoping she was home and not my dad. "Mom!"

"Here sweetie" she called from the bedroom.  She was getting dressed, and had on the robe she used while putting on her makeup and doing her hair.

"Mom, Beau busted the screen on the downstairs window."  I tell her, hoping that getting ready to go out tonight will put her in a better state of mind.

"Were you throwing the ball in the front yard again?  How many times have I told you not to do that?  The ball could go out into the street and that would be the end of Beau."  The dog in question looked happily from Mom to me and back again.

"Well, the back yard is full of poop.  I'm not running back there!" There, a good dig at brother Stuart, whose job it was to pooperscoop the yard.

Mom purses her lips and then checks her teeth in the mirror for lipstick.  "I don't need this aggravation right now.  We're getting ready to leave. Are you sure it can't be fixed? It sure would be nice if you get it back together so Dad doesn't have to."

Another sure sign my Dad was grumpy tonight.  His job at a "beltway bandit" engineering firm left him drained, and then he had the wonderful commute home through the infamous DC traffic.

"I'll fix it," I tell her, trying to sound confident, but not feeling that way, "It can't be that bad."

"Good," Mom says, clearly distracted with getting her earrings in, "I don't know what time we'll be home.  This dinner is supposed to have speeches and dancing and what not.  You'll have to feed the boys and probably get them into bed."

"The boys" refers to Stuart, the future toll operator, and Gordon, my littlest brother, who was currently planted downstairs in the family room watching TV.

"Fine," I tell her. As I turn to leave.  Stuart is still at the top of the steps, clearly bored, and clearly not planning to move.  A classic middle child, Stuart enjoyed his troublemaking.

I ruin his fun by stepping right between his shoulder blades on my way downstairs.  This time, I know it hurt.

"Ow, you asshole!  That hurts" he exclaims as I hop from his back to the step and continue down.  Beau, now with no barrier to cross this time, simply follows me.

Smiling, I go downstairs to where my youngest brother sits absorbing reruns of whatever program I had already rejected as lame.  He doesn't even look up as I pass the family room.  I had hours to deal with them without any parental intervention.  How fun.

Dinner proceeds uneventfully, with Stuart hogging most of the food and territorially keeping us away from it.  He eats with his head down practically at the level of his plate, as he shovels the food in.  Gordon, not much of an eater at his best, picks at his plate.

"There's a cool movie on tonight" Gordon announces to us, as I'm grabbing plates and putting them into the sink. "Something about monsters."

This gets my attention.  I LOVE monster movies. "What's it called?" I ask.

"Can't remember...It's on Channel 20 at 8 o'clock" Gordon says matter of factly.  Channel 20 is our lame-o UHF channel for reruns, kids programming and endless commercials for Ginsu knives and Chia Pets.  Gordon is an expert on all things TV.

Stuart is unimpressed by this.  "Monsters?  That's stupid.  There's got to be something better on!"

"Overruled" I say imperiously.  Power is good.  I love being the autocrat. "Let's watch the monster movie."

It's getting dark already, and with a quick glance at the clock, I see it's almost 8. 

"Hey, we better hustle! Stuart, you've got to be done. Get your plate in the sink and take Beau out"  Beau is lying on his side on the floor in the kitchen, dreaming whatever fat, housebound spoiled dogs dream about.  At his name he sits up, looking at me expectantly.

Stuart pushes his plate across the table, precariously close to the edge.  I freak a little and rush to grab it.  Stuart snickers wickedly as he pushes back from the table.  He shoves Gordon as he walks by, eliciting a whimper from his victim, and utters another wicked chuckle.

Beau, forgotten, looks from one of us to the other.

Promptly at 8 o'clock, Captain 20, dressed in a silvery one-piece coverall and Spock ears comes on and announces the special feature, "The Monster of Boggy Creek". Captain 20 hosts the lame-o afternoon kids programming on Channel 20, and we're all familiar with his cheesiness.

"That is the stupidest outfit" Stuart observes, "He doesn't look anything like an alien."

"Not to mention the stupid mustache" Gordon replies.  I hadn't even noticed.  The ridiculous Captain 20 outfit was enhanced by a rough looking mustache.  Egad.  With a Vulcan salute, fingers split in the middle like Mr. Spock on Star Trek, Captain 20 fades, and the movie begins.

What to say about this film?  It's pseudo documentary style, with a man narrating in an almost unintelligible Southern accent.  Through lame, fake "news" footage, the narrator tells us that a Sasquatch like creature has been seen in these parts of Arkansas since before the Civil War.  "Ah," I think, "That explains the accent."

Sober looking sheriff and deputy looking at an outrageously large pair of prints.  Locals giving accounts of seeing this creature wandering through the area at night.

Gordon is taking this all in with aplomb.  He loves TV and the story is, well, kind of interesting.

Stuart sits on the couch, uncharacteristically silent.

Now, the really cheesy part, where they do "reenactments" about encounters with the Bigfoot creature.  Film shot from the creature's point of view, winding through the woods toward a little cabin.  Cut to a man inside, hearing noises outside, but stupidly dismissing them.

Rapt attention in our household.  Gordon is transfixed.  Stuart has shrunk down into the couch.  I'm on the edge of the seat.  This is cheesy, but scary!

The man sits down in the john, newspaper spread on his lap (G rated film after all).  This elicits chuckles from us.  Poop is funny.

Suddenly the window behind the man's head crashes in, startling us, and him.  Hairy hands reach blindly through the windows as the character rushes out of the bathroom, his pants still down his ankles.

The sudden terror of the crashing big paws has left us exhilarated, and the sight of the man running with his drawers around his ankles sends us into giggles of relief.  Bigfoot proceeds to terrorize the cabin, with the poor man inside.  Gordon is enjoying this immensely.  I look over and see that Stuart is not.  In fact, he is white faced, with a pillow mostly covering his face.

"What's a matter, Stuey, scared?" I taunt.

"This is stupid" he says, but the fear is evident in his voice.

"We can turn it off if you're going to cry, big baby." I say.  Gordon joins in, after all, who can pass up an opportunity to tease your bigger, terrible brother?

"Stuey is scared, Stuey is scared" he says, delighted.

"Shut up, monkey face" Stuart retorts, anger replacing the fear, a little.

Gordon wisely shuts up.  Just then Beau barks from upstairs.

"Stuart, did you take Beau out?" I ask.

"No, and I'm not going to either," he says.  One look at him reveals the iron of that decision.  It's dark out and no Bigfoot is going to get him.

"Fine, you queer" I tell him, getting up.  I may not be a good brother, but I know trying to get him to take the dog out is a losing battle.

Beau waits expectantly at the door, nosing the wood, looking at me, looking at the door knob, looking at me.  "OK, buddy, I get the picture" I tell him.

We go outside and Beau quickly does his business, much to my relief and his.  He gets a little distracted by the ball that still lies outside the window he damaged.  He holds the ball in his mouth, waiting for me to come get it.

As I approach, I grab the ball out of his mouth.  Beau waits expectantly.  I see Stuart sitting on the couch below the window.  The TV casts its blue glare on the damaged window screen.  Too good to pass up.

As I watch, another scary scene involving recreated events unfolds on the TV.  Gordon even looks a little scared.  Stuart is all the way down in the couch now, with the pillow over his head.  He's clearly ripe for some sibling torture.

Quietly, I approach the window, Beau ignored for the moment.

Another dark, creature POV scene, as the monster approaches another unsuspecting house.  The timing is perfect.

I reach down past the broken screen and yank the window open, yelling at the top of my lungs as I do so.  With the window open, I throw the ball right at Stuart's head in the family room.

Beau, good fetcher that he is, launches himself right through the window onto the couch and my poor brother.

Now, I had yelled pretty loud, but the shriek from Stuart was unlike anything I've heard then or now.  The yell must have come from another set of bigger lungs with a much greater capacity than the ones he normally used.

Gordon jumps straight up in the air, terrified.

Stuart has jumped up too, knocking poor Beau onto the floor.  The coffee table goes over, CRASH, and Stuart has picked up some incredible velocity.  He runs screaming from the family room faster than I've ever seen him move.

I'm laughing so hard I have to sit down.  Oh, the beauty of it!

I go back inside to assess the damage, just in time to hear Stuart's bedroom door shut, and the characteristic click as it locks.  He will not leave the room or even unlock it until my puzzled parents come home late that night.

It's good to be the big brother.