Whenever someone told me I was lucky to have a younger brother, I thought they were crazy. They obviously never met anyone like my brother. He was three years younger than I was and in the beginning, we didn't have too much in common. I was boisterous and cheerful, while he was reserved and serious. We re stuck together and most of the time we disliked each other, but when things got really bad, Christ help anyone who got in our way.
Jonathan was born five days before I turned three; my mother called him my early birthday present. When I asked if I could hold the baby, my dad smiled, and gave me a quick lesson in holding newborns, like all adults do when letting a small child hold an even smaller child. I held him perfectly, according to my dad, not too tight, not too loose, perfect. Jonathan looked up at me with his pretty blue eyes and cooed at me. I didn't take my eyes off of him until my mother spoke up from the hospital bed.
I replied, "He's heavy." After that remark, everyone in the room burst out laughing.
"Isn't that somethin'?" said my mother. She always said that when I said something funny.
I was naturally destructive as a young child. However, I was also very tolerant of pain. I would fall on hardwood floors and concrete and get up laughing, burn my hands on ovens and stare at my scars in wonder. Every time I was brought to the hospital for a deep cut or broken bone, my parents would get nervous that they would be arrested for child abuse, or I'd be sent to a foster home. Soon the staff at the hospital knew the three of us on a first name basis.
My brother, on the other hand, was very sensitive. Whenever he got hurt, whether it was by me or not, he always cried. My parents thought that he was a wimp, and then they remembered that they were comparing him to me.
We didn't get along very well. I would always beat him up, and he would always give in so easily. I found it almost addictive, beating him. I would pummel him until he cried, and then I knew it was enough. He got all of the attention I felt I deserved. All he had to do was cry and he had people waiting on him hand and foot. Whenever I cried I was told to shut up, because I was older. I didn't feel guilty about doing it at the time, even when I was punished for it. At times, I even thought it unjust. I hated him. I hated my parents more for protecting him. What right did he have to be coddled?
Then one day, he hit me back. He was about two and I was almost five. He sat watching Barney clutching his favorite stuffed giraffe while my parents were still asleep upstairs. I tried to take it from him, just to make him angry, but he held on. When it came to that giraffe, come hell or high water, he would not let go. After successfully yanking the giraffe from his small hands, he got up, didn't yell, didn't scream. He just punched me in the face. And of course took back his beloved giraffe. My first reaction was, Hey, that little bastard punched me in the face. But as shock gave way to realization, I relaxed and looked at him with respect from then on.
We didn't get close until I was about seven. He still got on my nerves, as always, but he started to develop his own imagination and I found it fascinating. We would play "Pretend" all the time in the room we shared together. He would always surprised me when we played. Neither of us knew what would happen next. What I liked about playing with him was the good guys didn't always beat the bad guys.
I was in my Power Rangers phase at that point, and I didn't like to play with the girls at school they liked to play "House" and "School", and I just didn't enjoy being around a bunch of sissy girls. So I played Power Rangers with the boys, and I loved it. I could kick some bad guy butt and maintain my femininity when I was… the Pink Power Ranger. Jonathon wasn't in school at the time, so when I became the Pink Power Ranger, I would remember our adventures so I could tell him when I got home. He would always listen intently as I told him how I held down the bad guy with my kung fu grip and knocked him out with my pseudo-ninja style or how aliens from outer space almost got us, but I did a triple back flip and uttered a cool quip before kicking them in their guts and throwing them in prison, because that's what you do with alien beings. You see, this is what happens when D&D players breed.
To Be Continued…