Fish and Occasional Torture

I lived down south for a year when I was in second grade. Dad was pastor of a little country church. The church was set back about a hundred yards from the two-lane highway that ran through the small town. We lived in a doublewide mobile home behind the church.

Our stay was from summer to summer that school year. It was my first experience with culture shock since I was a northern boy. I enjoyed listening to people speak with a southern accent. I can remember being asked if I was from up north. I said “yes.” They told me they could tell from my accent. Funny, I was sure all the people in town were the ones with the accent.

This was the time when baby sister was not expected until the final summer of our living down there. That summer was more eventful in several ways than the whole year up to that time. My brother the bold one was my constant shadow and baby brother was learning to walk with the bruises on his head from falling against the furniture to show for it. Baby brother was probably seven years old before he took a formal picture without sporting a head wound.

Well, this last summer, Mom and Dad bought us a membership at the public swimming pool where we could go swimming every day and all we had to do was tell the teenager at the desk our membership number. My bold brother and I were allowed to go together without adult supervision to the pool. I was to keep an eye on him, but they had a couple lifeguards on duty at all times, so I didn’t think anything of it.

I was eight years old and my brother was four. He would go back and forth between the warm wading pool and the big pool where I always played. On this day, he had a friend who brought an air mattress to play with in the pool. This friend would let him float on the mattress from time to time.

When this friend was called by his mother to go home, he called to my brother to get off the mattress and give it back. Bold brother didn’t (or wouldn’t) hear him. In desperation, he jumped in the pool and chased after the mattress as it was heading toward me and deeper water. This kid caught the mattress and flipped my brother off into water that was over his head.

I could have sworn my brother sunk like a stone. Instantly my life and my brother’s passed before my eyes including newspaper headlines reading, “Northern Boy Lets Brother Drown!” I reached down into the water in that same instant and lifted my brother up into the air.

He and I both gasped and our eyes met. He was alive!

Alive? He wasn’t even fazed! I hadn’t even set him on the edge of the pool yet when he said, “I saw fish!”

***

Also when we lived down south, we had cousins that lived nearby. At least we got in the car from time to time and visited them on their farm.

There were three cousins: Billy, Debbie and Patrick. Patrick and I mostly hung around with Debbie, the middle child. Patrick was the youngest and was younger than me but older than Bold One.

We didn’t hang around Billy much because he was a teenager and was unpredictable. Sometimes he had a mean streak and other times he would nearly tease us to death. It was hard to tell which mood he was in sometimes and even harder know when he’d switch. He would tease poor Debbie cruelly and regularly.

One day, Patrick and I braved some time with Billy in his room. He would let me look at the model cars he’d put together and Patrick was as much my shadow as Bold One. This time, Patrick had done or said something to tick Billy off and was grabbed and held down on Billy’s bed. I just stood there helplessly.

Billy said something like he was going to kill Patrick this time, and as he held Patrick he said, “Where’s my knife!”

Patrick and I believed him, but before I could do anything, Billy pulled his comb out of his pocket and showed it to me. He had a devilish grin on his face, and I couldn’t help smirking once I caught on to what Billy was going to do.

Billy began sawing his comb on Patrick’s leg without allowing Patrick to see, and Patrick began screaming bloody murder thinking his leg was being cut off.

I was laughing both at how funny it was and with relief that Patrick wasn’t truly going to die. (This time.)

Patrick was sure glad when Billy showed him he was just using the comb on him.

I always wondered how Patrick survived while Billy still lived at home!