Bro/Dave: Remember the Alamo? (...or at least the Striders' reenactment?)
The morning of the twenty third of February hadn't even dawned properly before Dirk "Bro" Strider was up and planning. Sure, it was a gloriously unfortunate school day for his brother, but what was a thing like institutionalized shitty education to Bro? He would provide plenty of education this day, one way or the other.
He'd been preparing for this day for weeks. Months, really. Since last year if he'd be truly honest, but that was a secret between him and Li'l Cal and never to be mentioned where Dave might hear. In his younger brother's eyes, Bro Strider was calm, cool, collected, weird as fuck, and always bizarrely, casually prepared for the most drawn out, complicated things.
By the time the sun had peaked over the hazy horizon, lighting Houston's skyscrapers a soft orange and red, Bro had finished the last of his constructions. Now to place the players. It took him about five minutes to put the bizarrely dressed smuppets into their rehearsed places, and only twenty seconds to place the final speaker into it's hidden spot in Dave's room.
Until show time, it was merely a waiting game.
Dave didn't wake up until six thirty a.m. sharp, but by then it was too late. The disembodied voice of his bro echoed through the room, the reverb horrendously tacky. "In the early hours of the morning on this day, civilians fled before the Mexican Army. The men stationed at the Alamo posted a watch, to keep eyes out for the forces of General Santa Anna as they hastily tried to prepare for a siege."
Dave groaned, as the echoes slowly died away, "Not this shit." He should have known. Bro always did something for the Alamo. Not a year went by that there wasn't some stupid celebration to remember the death of a couple hundred dumb, old, and long dead mostly white guys. He didn't want jack-shit to do with this today. He had a math exam in school today that he had to take. A chair test in band he was going to fail, because he'd been too busy making sick beats on his turntables to practice his stupid flute.
Why did Bro have to be so infuriating?
When he ventured into the kitchen to, hopefully, pour himself an unhealthily large bowl of disgustingly sugary cereal, Bro's voice cut through the silence again. Only this time it was clearly coming from inside his favorite cereal's box.
"By afternoon the great town that would become San Antonio was completely occupied by the Mexican Army. Dave, in this situation, you will be representing the forces of the Alamo: Davie Crockett, Bowie, Travis and the others. I, and a few others will be proportionally representing Santa Anna and his own army.
"I hope you are fully prepared for this beat down, little bro." He said, voice cutting out. Swearing, Dave darted into the little living room, only to catch an eyeful of literally hundreds of smuppets (in highly accurate, crazy detailed period dress) lined up in military squadrons.
And there was, just big enough to obscure the first few rows, a perfectly miniscule model of the Alamo, walls and all, stationed squarely in front of the kitchen. It was literally to scale, down to the little paved gardens he remembered from last summer's trip.
"Shit." Dave muttered, as the first wave of smuppets started their synchronized attempts up little Lego siege ladders to whispered cries of 'Viva, Santa Anna!'
But he moved to defend the pint-sized Alamo anyway. He pushed the little Lego ladders off his white Lego walls, and scoured the veritable sea of smuppets for gold epaulets. Ah, there!
Li'l Cal sat smugly atop the bookcase, dressed smartly in the most accurate copy of Santa Anna's military uniform this side of a million dollar movie budget. Dave squinted at the gross puppet from behind his rounded shades, and quipped, "Is that Santa Anna?"
Li'l Cal nodded, the after-shadow of Bro's guiding hands just barely visible, wide blue eyes unblinkingly manic.
"I thought he would be taller."