Random Memory Theater, Part 2: The Sucker Punch

Understand something right off - my sister and I have a great relationship. I don't think we've had an unkind or angry word to say to each other since about the mid-80s. We have all the same interests, get along great, no issues whatsoever.

That being said...we did used to be kids.

And while my sister is only a year and eight days older than me, that still qualifies her as a "big sister". And big sisters have a time-honored responsibility - and that is to torture and abuse their younger brothers. It's nothing personal. It's just goes with the job.

It was the summer of 1977, which would have made me still nine years old, and my sister, then, ten. It was the summer that Star Wars was conquering the world. The summer that Elvis may or may not have died, depending on whether you believed the news or your crazy Enquirer-reading aunt. And it was the summer when the President Carter economy meant that my family was living in a tiny little trailer parked on the grass in a family friend's front yard, out in the country-living area of Pilot Hill, California. We were the kind of poor that involves dirt. But you tend not to notice or care about that kind of stuff when you're a kid. If you've really nothing else to compare your experience to (we'd really never been middle class, at least not when I was old enough to notice, and I certainly had no well-off friends to measure my family life against), then it's just life as you know it, and you go on being a kid.

Now my memory certainly isn't as great as it used to be, which may be why this particular memory starts in the middle. I have no idea, for example, what started the fight between my sister, Shelley, and I. I have no idea what led to place where the memory begins. But it picks up right at a point where I'm in our little welfare trailer, and I'm crying, and I'm trying to take weak swings at my sister. My sister, the first visual in this memory, is standing in front of and a little ways back from me, laughing, and has her arm outstretched, with her hand planted firmly on my head, easily holding me back from punching range. This was a time when I was still walking, not needing the wheelchair full-time, but my muscles were already weak. So holding me back was not only easy for her, but seemed to be amusing her to no end. Clearly, this was not a fight I was in any way winning.

So I'm swinging with all that I have, to no avail. She has a vice grip on my head, and I'm not getting anywhere close to her. I'm getting more and more frustrated and more weepy in my helplessness, wanting to avenge myself for whatever slight or abuse had led to this (your guess is as good as mine, and for all I know, I could have been the one in the wrong and said or done something to deserve this), but clearly having no chance. This was classic little brother torture, the breaking of the spirit, with the omnipresent taunting laughter to add that extra helping of humiliation. Think of it as kind of the liquid-free waterboarding of youth.

I had not the strength, nor the age, nor the reach, to affect my plight in any way.

But I think we've all heard a story about a guy named David and a bully named Goliath...

I catch something out of the corner of my eye, and it's the sight of our dog, Jake, roaming by outside, oblivious to whatever we're up to and busy looking for some of his own expended feces to eat. There's no moment of clear decision, no hesitation...inspiration just strikes me from nowhere and I go with it.

I stop fighting against her grip, stop crying, and suddenly start laughing hysterically as I look through the screen door. "Look at Jake!" I say, loudly, through my seemingly uncontrollable laughter. All these things are meant to convey one thing - that our dog, outside, is doing something absolutely hilarious, something so delightful and unprecedented that it makes me forget completely about everything else. In reality, Jake is standing there, lazily sniffing at some dying grass and too wiped out from the intense northern California summer heat to feel like moving much at all. But she has no way of verifying that, of course, unless she...

Taking, in order, hook, line and sinker, she forgets her abuse and the amusement it's bringing to her, and her grip on my head falters as she turns her own head toward the door, toward the promise of an even greater laugh on this sweltering summer day.

Bingo.

I don't hesitate once I see my opening. The hand that was pushing me down is slack, and is easily sloughed off. Her attention is completely diverted. I ball my fist, pull back, and swing with everything I have.

Pow.

Let's remember, of course, that we're talking about a guy with skinny little Muscular Dystrophy arms with little in the way of strength in them (plus...I'm nine...). But there's always extra points awarded for the unexpected. I hit my sister right in the mouth.

She jerks back, stunned. She has no idea, for the moment, what's just happened. Her eyes are wide and confused. Her hand goes up to her face, feeling at the (I'm hoping) numbed yet throbbing area of impact. Her fingers slip between her lips. And when she pulls them out? There's a wee bit of blood on them.

Me...Rocky. Her...Mr. T. Crowd...goes wild.

Well, at least she goes wild. Suddenly, the shock wears off, and she's realized what's just gone down. And I'm sure I'm probably just grinning like an idiot beneath my quickly-drying eyes. This is more than just getting a punch in. I've outsmarted her. I've played her like a fool, and she'd fallen for it like a rube. I'm victorious in a way that, like the punch, she'd never seen coming. And all at once, her eyes grow even wider, and nearly turn red with rage as they lock on me.

"I'm bleeding!" I hear her bellow, now completely flummoxed and screaming crazy over this unexplainable turn of the tide, and she starts hammering down on the top of my head (since I've ducked and am leaning over) with the bottoms over her fists, one blow after the next. I don't feel them. I barely hear the words she continues to scream. Because all I'm hearing is my own triumphant laughter. Nothing she could do now could change the reality of what has happened. I've won the day. The tortoise has punked the hare. Frodo has hornswoggled Sauron. And other metaphors as well.

There is another truism of sibling living, and that is that as much as you seem to be against each other most of the time, it is always us versus them when it comes to the grown-ups and staying out of trouble. My memory starts to fade, again, after the jackhammering of my head and my laughter (maybe the jackhammering is the reason for the fading...), but I do recall that quickly after, our argument was forgotten, and my sister's full focus was on laying out the plan for what we'd tell our mother if she noticed any swelling in my sister's lip. It had something to do with her walking into an open door, or something like that. But she, the plan-maker, spun the alibi and made sure I knew my lines, and that no evidence of our epic battle would lead to any grounding or reduction of TV time (because missing the Bionic Woman or Three's Company was an unthinkable punishment). She was good, sure. But not as good, apparently, as her seemingly helpless little brother, who suddenly was no longer the mouse to her paw-batting cat. She would have to think twice, from now on, about whether it was worth exercising her firstborn superiority and God-given hazing rights to amuse herself. In that one moment, I, and our relationship, had changed forever.

Fortunately, we soon grew up, and turned into people, not the wind-up engines of chaos and id called children. My big sister soon became my guardian and bodyguard as we moved further out into the real world of school, friends and other terrors - even though most of the time the humiliation of having a sister-protector seemed worse than whatever she might be trying to protect me from. Being so close in age, we moved in the same circles, had many of the same friends, and kept similar interests as the years went by (please note not to bother us after the presents are open on Christmas Day, as the Star Wars Trilogy viewing will be underway, regardless of the fact that we're now middle-aged). Fights turned to disagreements, disagreements gave way to understanding, understanding to support and empathy. If you're lucky, that's the same pattern your own sibling relationship has followed.

If not, and you've still got issues with an older brother or sister lingering to this day?

I'm just saying...the sucker punch gets the job done. Don't cross it off your list too fast. If you're in your thirties of forties? Then they really won't see it coming...