By: Dustin Correia
Well… OK… Alright, let me just honestly sit and think about my brother, Jonathan, for a minute. “Technically” we’re half-brothers but in all the ways that matter we are full blooded, through and through. Jonathan is exactly two and a half years older than me. Although we “technically” have different dads, we grew up in the same house and were cared for and raised up by my father since he was six months old. I guess his father was too young or too irresponsible to raise a child, so he split shortly after my brother was born. My father always treated us the same. We ate the same food. We got the same presents. We got the same balanced amount of love and discipline. I didn’t even become aware of the fact that I only had half of a brother until I was eight years old. My parents sat us down and told us matter-of-factly; nothing changed.
Although we were treated exactly the same, we were still so obviously different in many ways. Jonathan has got these icy blue eyes that pierce through the canvas of his face; eyes that would make all the pretty girls melt and laugh at stupid jokes that make no sense. My eyes are brown;, in the middle of summer when the sun shines just right, I swear they get a hint of hazel in them. Jonathan’s head is adorned with luscious golden locks of dirty blonde hair whose waves flow effortlessly with the wind and glistens mysteriously with the early morning sun. My hair is brown and comes in super thick and at unnatural speeds; a rebel against authority, it refuses to be managed, handled, molded, or shaped into what “the man” wants it to look like. My brother towers as a giant amongst men at a staggering six feet, four inches and is blessed with a lean build and metabolism that allows him to pile as much garbage and greasy goodness into himself that he possibly can without gaining a pound. My license will tell you that my height is five feet eleven and a half, but I must confess that I stopped growing and plateaued at a cool five foot ten. Oh, and my so-called metabolism is still trying to process a grilled cheese sandwich I had last month.
My brother is a monument to all my innermost unachievable desires, and, at times, I hated him for it. Things that neither he nor I had any control over were constantly shoving a wedge between us. I was jealous of him, and I’m sure he was jealous of me in other areas. I was always considered the smart one and there were times I could see him feel the sting. The intense competitive nature of our brotherhood bond would often go too far and result in things being said that can’t be unsaid or full-fledged bloody brawls right in the front yard for the whole neighborhood to spectate. One time when he was ten and I was eight, we had been bickering all day. My mother grew sick of it and threw us out to the front yard to release all our aggression until one would emerge victorious; we both lost.
My brother and I could never seem to find any common ground. We never chose to hang out with each other if we didn’t have to. We were only together all the time because we lived together. The two and a half years of time and space that separated us always felt more like decades; like a hill that you climb and climb, never getting any closer to the top. It wasn’t until the summer following my freshman year of high school that the significance of our age difference diminished, and I could climb that hill and meet my brother at the top.
A golden sunset paints the sky with the most vibrant array of sky blues and illustrious oranges dancing across white clouds above. I can hear my brother Jonathan in the room down the hall talking on the phone about celebrating the end of the school year. I can hear the excitement in his voice and the weight of endless possibilities saturating his words. My heart begins to quicken, and my mind begins to race in the cunning exploration of how I can go on this adventure.
Jonathan walks into the living room, boldly with purpose, and asks my mother, “Mom, can I go out with Kevin tonight?” An awkward pause follows this question as if he has more to add but has decided to wait and see if the response would even be necessary.
She replies, “Well, what are you guys gonna do?”
As if stepping into the stride previously abandoned, he says, “You know, it’s the beginning of summer and we just want to hang out, get something to eat, maybe see a movie, I don’t know, we haven’t really decided yet.” There was something so deliciously enticing about not knowing where you’re going. A freedom of decision and spontaneity that act as the conduits for truly epic encounters.
I study my mother’s face as she processes the information and I see that my window of opportunity has just been opened. In the fleeting moment of doubt and indecision, no one knowing what the verdict will be, I promptly sit up in my chair as if just tuning in to the program and interject, “Can I go?” This somewhat sneaky tactic is the only way in the world I could see myself getting to go. Another long, awkward pause fills the room. This magical moment has been carefully selected for the simple fact that if my mom allowed “us” to go, my brother may be inclined to just let me go with him as opposed to renegotiating terms so as not to include me. He glares at me but quickly refocuses his energy back to mom. She shifts eye contact from him to me and back to him once more before finally giving “us” permission to go and with no violent objections to the proposal from my brother, I jump up to get dressed and ready to go.
I’m super excited. Even though I think most of his friends are lame, I am still extremely jealous of his ability to make them wherever he goes. No matter how many times we must move and switch schools, he’s always got a new group of friends, that revolves around him. My brother is a backstreet boy.
I get into the front seat of my brothers beat down old Volvo without any idea what possibilities the night may hold. I never got to do stuff like this. I’m already having the night of my life just being in the car. We make our way across town to pick up his friend Kevin, and, I’m not going to lie, there’s a really big part of me that cannot stand this guy. He’s a real douche bag and jumps at every chance to belittle, poke fun at, or just be condescending towards me. I guess he thinks it’s funny because I am just his friend’s little brother, but I’m not light hearted enough to overlook even the slightest of razzings. I decide to swallow my disgust and be cordial.
“What’s up bro, oh shit, your little brothers here. What’s up dude,” he says as he enters the car and proceeds to give my brother a hand slap/slide, followed by a fist bump and then promptly directs his hand towards me.
“Not much,” I reply as I complete the ritualistic handshake, somewhat half-heartedly, and we drive off from his house.
We begin driving around and just as we’re passing by the taco shop next to the school, Kevin leans his head out of the passenger side window and starts screaming at the top of his lungs like a mad man, startling me. He looks back at my brother and says, “Pull over real quick. Let me out. Hold up, I’ll be right back.” He opens the door and takes off running in the opposite direction. Moments later, he comes back out of breath with a questionable looking character on a bicycle. I don’t know what he did with his bike, possibly just hid it behind a bush somewhere, but I scoot over to make room and they both get into the car. We continue on, now following the directions of our shady new acquaintance.
We pull into a poorly lit parking lot, absent of any other cars, and I realize that we have found our way to the local park on High Street. This is the first time I am at a park after dark. We pile out of the Volvo. It’s well after sun down and every glimmering shadow of light from the day before is gone and all that’s left to guide us is the artificial light derived from lamp posts designed to resemble old candle lit lanterns. The same park I have frequented many times before, now has a dark and eerie sense of danger polluting the atmosphere. Although I can feel a creepy chill beginning to climb its way up my back, I sit there trying my hardest to pretend I’m not completely baffled by our reason for being there. I boldly walk at the head of the pack.
As we make our way into the shadowy imitation of nature, we run in to three more people that Kevin and the “bike guy” know, sitting on an abandoned bench in a dark corner. Everyone proceeds to exchange their variety of greetings when I notice the guy with the bike rush off to the restroom, not with the urgency of one needing to vacate his bladder but with a much more mysterious motive. After a few short moments, I convince myself that I need to use the bathroom and begin to make my way towards the grim ambiance of the lone brick building, so I can be nosy. The bike guy sits on the floor of the bathroom, right next to the sinks, under a dingy, dimly lit light bulb that flickers every few seconds. He sits with his back against the wall and a magazine in his lap with what appears to be all the materials required to roll a few cigarettes.
This is where the extent of my naivety runs thin, or rather runs out because at this point I finally know what’s going on. One time, back in the seventh grade, a girl in my computer class gave me a bowl of weed and although I was curious, fear and inexperience consumed me, and I never tried it. That bowl of weed sat in an empty beer mug atop my desk for the better part of a year before being thrown away by my brother. The bike guy stands up and marvels at the masterpieces he’s just created. He’s holding in his hand three perfectly rolled joints, first towards me so I could admire their beauty, then back towards the flickering bulb for final inspection before vacating the unsanitary conditions of the restroom to rejoin the group huddled together outside.
I follow him from the bathroom back to the group. As we emerge, nervous bubbles begin to form and pop in my stomach so that I can taste the acids in my mouth. I’ve never smoked weed and I’m almost one hundred percent sure that my brother hasn’t either. As we return from the bathroom everyone begins to slowly make their way towards us like zombies ready to feast on our brains. The gang instinctively creates a ring of people around the man with the Mary Jane. I end up directly across from him and watch in awe as he lights one joint and passes it to the right and then lights up another and passes it to the left. I look over at my brother to assess the situation and there’s a hint of nervous tension in him as well. This puts me at ease, knowing that we are both experiencing all of this for the first time and it’s a little scary. My brother and I are not even standing next to each other in the circle but I have never felt closer to him.
The first dubie finally reaches me and I am overcome with the desire to showcase my ability to hit it like a champ, an ability I had yet to perform let alone showcase. I hit it good and hard two times and as I begin to bring the little paper wrapped delicacy up to my lips for a third, I am met with multiple voices speaking in unison, as if rehearsed, saying, “Puff, puff, give.” It startles me at first, until I realize they’re just informing me of proper smoking etiquette. I pass it on with haste to the person on my right only to be met by them passing the other one right back to me. Every time one gets around to me, the other one shows up right after and by the time they expire and turn to ash, I am officially baked. Jonathan only hits it a couple times, being the designated driver, but his glossy eyes tell me he feels it.
The gang disperses and falls back into the shadows, vanishing as suddenly as they appeared. Those who rode in the Volvo all return to it. Kevin proceeds to convince the guy with the bike to get us a bottle of vodka before we drop him off. My glossy, bloodshot eyes perfectly reflect my mind’s struggle to process thoughts and respond correctly. As I try to maintain the illusion, Kevin retrieves a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and casually places one between his lips before locking eyes with me and offering me one with a subtle smirk upon his face.
“No way, why would I want to smoke a cigarette, it’s not like they do anything to you.” As soon as the words leave my mouth, I realize how juvenile and naive they are. I have no idea why people smoke cigarettes just like a couple of hours ago I had no idea why people smoke pot. All of a sudden, I am hit with the immeasurable weight of the long list of things I don’t know and panic overtakes me. “Hey, you know what, on second thought let me get one of those,” the words roll delicately off my tongue as if my previous response never happened. He hands me a smoke, and I light it up.
I inhale deeply and after a couple hits I get so lightheaded that I can barely stand up straight. After returning the guy to his bicycle, we start to pass around a fresh bottle of bottom shelf vodka paired with a twenty-ounce sprite to chase it down. The challenge is met with eager excitement and before I know it, the bottle is gone, and I’ve entered a new level of consciousness previously unfathomed by my fragile, young mind. I am faded. Lack of knowledge and experience make it impossible to distinguish exactly what I’m feeling now. I’m floating above my body contemplating the existence of angels, then sink into the sweaty seat thinking to myself that it’s hotter than the pits of hell in here, when it suddenly hits me like a ton of bricks, “I think I’m hungry.”
The words are low and slightly slurred, but the message is received by all and the only question that remains is where to go. Our combined funds take us to the exquisite taste of the Jack in the Box drive thru. We are belligerent talking loudly over one another as we struggle to convey to the voice inside the box that we want twelve tacos, six junior bacon cheeseburgers, two large fries, and three large cokes. As we receive our total and make our way to the window, I am overcome by panic and paranoia at the thought of seeing this person who just took our order. They’re going to know we’re high. This whole situation just seems like too much to bear. My hysteria somehow infects the entire car and everyone is in an uproar which grows the closer we get to the window. Hot, sweaty bodies smashed and writhing together in the backseat is background ambiance for everyone shouting back and forth at each other.
Pulling up, the chaos and anarchy abound. I can’t bear the thought of talking to any human being outside of the people in this car and everyone’s reaction to my fears confirm that my concerns are valid.
I look to my brother and ask him, “What are we gonna do?” as if there is really something to be done. Jonathan’s the soberest one in the car by far.
He looks back at me with a half-cocked smile when, in a rare stroke of sheer brilliance, his face shifts and he looks back at me with the most intense expression, and says, “Play dead.”
Arguments and outrage burst forth at the thought of such a ridiculous suggestion. The bickering magnifies and continues to the very last possible moment. As we roll up to the window, a feverish desperation fills the air and in the performance of a lifetime, everyone goes completely limp. Silence sweeps through car and engulfs the moment and the only sound audible is the heavy, labored breathing of grown men, drunk, pretending to be asleep. Jonathan wraps up the encounter, grabs the food and thanks the lady, before skirting off into night. We eat our food on the way home, unable to quench the laughter.
We drop everyone off and just my brother and I remain.. We sit there exchanging our tales of the night from one another’s perspective, and it feels like we’ve almost become friends, not just brothers, but actual friends. All my life I just wanted to be his equal. For the first time I feel I am.
