A Putz And A Schmuck And A Schlemiel And A Schmedrick
The world around me narrowed in as I circled my opponent. The birds in the fig tree stopped their incessant noises, the worms below my feet stopped moving, and the earth’s rotation slowed a little to give the sun and clouds a chance to watch this gladiatorial fight. He taunted me. I was a sucker for his devices, and he knew it. I raged towards him and threw my full weight into his stomach. He stumbled, but managed to hold onto my torso, and with his massive frame slammed me to the ground. His huge badger-like body was the most unfair advantage, and appropriately, his first reaction in every fight was to take it to the ground. Here he could finish me off easily. He pinned me, made me say uncle. What a dick.
       The fights my brother Ari and I got into ruined our relationship for the better part of fourteen years. We skirmished everyday as two brothers often do, but what set us apart from most normal brotherly rivalries were the epic battles we would have every year.
       Family vacations were the perfect time for such rivalries to flourish. Cooped up in a mini-van for the majority – whether driving down to Los Angeles, through Death Valley, or in a rented van across the rugged terrain of Hawaii – it was commonplace for the family member next to you to take your arm-space or play his music too loud. With nothing to do but enjoy the company of others and no one to do it with than each other, this was the time of year my brother and I could really focus on pissing one another off. I will admit he was often the instigator, but I allowed him to annoy me, and often let it ruin my trip. As vacations became more of a chore than anything else, I could do nothing else than focus on how much of an asshole he was. And with such thoughts pent up, things were always bound to happen.
       My first trip off of this continent was to Hawaii. My mother and father did everything they could to make it a memorable and exemplary trip – my father even put together a picture book when we got back. The first night of the trip, the family decided to dine out at an Italian restaurant. I love Italian food. Back then I considered cheesy goodness worth its weight in visceral damage. That whole day, my brother had been pissing me off. Because my brother was always bigger than me (until I got to high school), my father had implemented a “no-hitting” policy. Ari had adapted to this rule by perfecting the art of the oral assault. His calm and quiet verbal attacks were more powerful than dead arms. Sticks and stones will… yeah right. Once in a while, however, he complemented his words with a few physical reminders of how much bigger than me he was.
       At the restaurant, Ari took the extra effort to sit across from me. I should have known he was up to something. While we waited for the waiter to come and take our order, Ari began nudging my feet so that they couldn’t stretch out.
       “Dad, Ari is annoying me. He won’t let my feet spread out under the table.”
       My dad turned to me, aggravated from a day of dealing with kids, gave me a good stare, turned his head back to his menu, and sighed. Well, great, I thought. I’m going to have to deal with this myself. For the next 15 minutes he didn’t stop, and my frantic attempts to get him to did nothing. I couldn’t continue to play this vicious game of footsie anymore. I got out of my seat, walked over to him, and socked him hard in his arm. After I hit him I realized (sadly) it hadn’t hurt him – he was unfazed, just annoyed that I had actually hit him.
       “Stop it!”
       “Shut up little girl! You’re an idiot! Why don’t you confront me like a man with your words?”
       He raised his fist, and made me flinch really hard.
       “Hahaha, you little girl.”
       My parents were telling us to calm down in the background, but I couldn’t hear them. I was focused on the big asshole right in front of me. Finally, my dad stepped in and sent us both to the car on “timeout.” I stormed out of the restaurant, my head pounding and my insides trembling with rage. That goddamn idiot got away with everything because my father (the discipliner) either didn’t have the balls to punish him or was too stupid to know who deserved punishing. This thought – combined with the fact that at that time in my life he was the epitome of all that was evil – gave me more contempt for my brother at that moment than I had ever had before in my life.
       “Come fight me!”
       Ari glanced at our parents through the restaurant window and then at me. “Fight you? Yeah right.”
       “You piece of shit, fight me! I’ll whoop your fucking ass.”
       He laughed, “Zach, first off, you wouldn’t beat me in a fight, I’m twice your size. Second, calm the fuck down.”
       That night in bed, I didn’t regret my challenge to my brother. I was angry, and fighting him would have been the best release of all my anger. My rational was that I was angrier and hated him more, so I would beat him up. Sure he was big, but he was enjoying himself. I, on the other hand, was angrier than I’d ever been in my life.
       The only time I remember being the antagonist was many many years ago. I was maybe eight, my brother ten. He was taunting me to kick him in the nuts, and I did. That earned me a big juicy timeout, but it was worth it. Then again, another time, Ari kicked me in the mouth in the middle of a car ride, and my tooth almost fell out.
       The fact is, I was always too trusting. I was Charlie Brown to his Lucy. For fourteen years, he baited me. And it was more low-grade torture than open warfare. So when the day came that he sat down with me and attempted to form an actual relationship, I was shocked out of my mind.
       I was sitting in our room (we shared one, which might have contributed to the animosity) at the computer one day when Ari walked in and introduced me to the world of fantasy sports. I was eager to learn about the sporting world beyond the confines of my local television broadcast. Going to an A’s game was the most fun I’d ever had – I couldn’t imagine how fun it could be to manage my own team of A’s players.
       Really, it was that easy. From then on, Ari and I had something to talk about. Sports brought us together. Our entire lives, there had been some huge disconnect, and we really had shared no common interest besides cheese and The Simpsons. Fantasy sports were our messiah. The agony of car rides from then on out was alleviated by hour-long talks about which prospect Billy Beane would draft the next year and what gaps needed to be filled in the Giants’ lineup.
       But this sibling rivalry thing kept on dominating my life. Years later, when my sisters were at the age where their English was coherent and they could formulate sensible sentences, I continued where my brother had left off. A pair of twins, always getting the attention of my parents, Rose and Gabrielle were excruciatingly annoying. Their innocent, cute little faces were better vindicators than their words (coherent, yes, but intelligent no), and that only pissed me off more. Oh the shit they pulled. The shit they still pull…
       One day, I came home after school and started eating some stuff. I was really sick, on antibiotics, and high off of nasal decongestant and spray and saline. Still, my dad sent my to school. When I got home, Gabrielle asked me if I had taken the Sporting Green section of the San Francisco Chronicle, because she needed to write about a sports-related article from a newspaper for her Physical Education class.
       “Zachy, do you have the sports section?”
       “Nope, didn’t take it to school today.”
       I thought that would be the end of the conversation. But no, she kept on asking me, and so did Rose. For some reason they thought I might have conjured some diabolical plan to prevent them from doing their homework that morning, at 7:30, even though I couldn’t have known they would need the article. Nice logic.
       “Zachy, are you sure you didn’t take the sports section?”
       “Really? You’re really asking me again?”
       She gives me a glare.
       “Stop asking me that. I give you the same answer every time. I didn’t take the goddamn sports section!”
       Later that night, I walked into my sisters’ room (they share one too), to ask my dad a question. He was reading them a story before they went to bed. Because there was a torrent of mucus flowing down my throat and into the back reaches of my mouth, I had to spit. So, I aimed my mouth at a trashcan, and hocked a beautiful loogie quite accurately into its apex. Really, there was no residual spit anywhere on the floor.
       Both girls at once turned to me, “EEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!”
       “Zachy! That’s disgusting! Don’t do that in our room!”
       My dad turned at once, gauged the situation, and opened his big, disciplinary, adult mouth, “Go wash it out with soap and water right now!”
“I had to spit! There’s snot all around my mouth. And besides that it’s a trashcan. Trashcans are meant for waste and excrement!”
       “I said go wash it out with soap and water right now!”
       “Are you serious? I spit in a trashcan! And I have to clean it with soap?”
       “Don’t argue with me! Clean it out with soap and water! NOW!”
       “Father… you’re clearly reacting to their goddamn screaming, if this was any other trashcan in the house you wouldn’t make me clean it out with fucking soap and water!”
       I was going to continue to challenge his idiotic logic, when he made the threat. It starts with a repeat of the demand, followed by, “or I’ll take your goddamn cell phone away for a week!”
       I relented, and stuck the trashcan in the bathtub. It was late, and I wanted to go to bed, because I didn’t want to deal with my dad anymore. I started brushing my teeth. I use this really weird organic brand from Trader Joes that my dad buys. So there I was, working away at my gums, kind of ticked off, a little peeved, when Gabrielle summoned the courage to approach me in the bathroom.
       Standing in the doorway, she gave me her puppy dog eyes and asked me one more time, for good measure, “Zachy, I really need the sports section for my homework. Are you sure you don’t have it?”
       “Are you serious Gabrielle?”
       I slammed the door in her face. It was ridiculous. Not only had I answered her with the same answer five times that day, she was 100% responsible for my having to clean out a fucking trash can with soap and water. The gull of that girl was ridiculous. But that wasn’t all.
       As soon as I slammed the door in her face, she started crying. For some reason she was in a glum mood so it was easier for her to break out the tears. I opened the door, curious of the cause for the crying. But it was too late. She had run back to her room, and was now crying to my dad. Rose was even crying.
       “Zachy slammed the door on my hand…”
       My world flashed before my eyes as I recounted that night’s events. Was she setting me up the second she got home? It certainly seemed like it. It was a perfect con. I was screwed. And it was her word against mine. I knew already who that very brave father of mine would believe. There was no way something like this could happen, and yet it had just happened.
       That got me grounded and confiscated a cell phone for a week. Thanks a lot Gabrielle.
       With that, the cycle repeated once again. I spent the week as nasty to my sisters as possible– ignoring them when they walked in the door and when they talked to me. I didn’t let them use my computer or my camera, and I hogged the remote control for our television as often as I could. I tickled them when they didn’t want to be tickled, and said mean things to them when they were already having bad days. They in turn tried to get me in more and more trouble.
       It’s taken my sisters and me a while to repair our shattered relationship, although I admit it still isn’t fully restored. Every once in a while, I’ll give Gabrielle’s shoulder a gentle pat, and her first reaction is to pull away. Rose will make a wrong move and I accuse her of some radical, evil plot. However, we are developing a mutual understanding that these skirmishes aren’t worth their long-term sacrifices. Sure, the pleasure of screwing over your older brother is priceless, but more so overrated, and overplayed. Right?
       I’ll relax a little. She didn’t mean to step on my foot. It was an accident. She didn’t eat the Dreyer’s ice cream bar I was saving in the freezer. She didn’t knock my glass over, and didn’t spill the water once inside it across the floor. And she sure as hell didn’t mean to lose my iPod charger. I’ll forget it all. “No it’s okay, you can use my computer. I’ll just wait until you’re done. Just don’t implicate me for assault/battery please? I really don’t want to be grounded this weekend. And I also need my cell phone this week, thanks.”
       It’s worked out for all of us. We’re doing better on vacations in our dodge caravan. Gabrielle is even making me a friendship bracelet. It’s red and green and orange and yellow. I’m really excited.