Summer, 1968

I Disagree With What You Say, But I Will Defend To The Death Your Right To Tell Such Lies!

While I was growing up, there were days I was amazed my brother lived to adulthood. Not only because of the motorbike accident that pitched him over a Studebaker and into the ICU ward. Nor, later on, the foolish chutzpah of taking his kid sister to the biggest rock festival (and biggest drugfest) on the planet. It was more the little day-to-day things that made my parents pull their hair out, the "is there a brain in your skull?" moments, the dozens of times he broke curfew four, six, twenty-nine hours (that last time Gamma was babysitting and didn't know he was supposed to be back Friday night; if it had been Daddy, he would have been murderized). It was more a snowball effect, one thing piled up on another until the elephant that was the cherry on the sundae.

Elephant?

Yes… elephant.

The summer between Ray's high school graduation and the start of college was a trial for my parents, worse than any Ray would later face in court. He was clearly practicing alibis, working his way up the food chain to see just how much the parents would swallow before the willing suspension of disbelief died. (This was good training for when he had teens of his own. His kids got away with jack.)

"I was studying at the library." (The library closed at 9:00 and was a 15 minute drive. This was at 11:00.) "We went back to Aaron's after the library closed." (Mmmmm… possible. Of course, the fact that my parents didn't know that Aaron was a D+ student who couldn't find the library with a guide map and the legend "library" with a red arrow on it worked in his favor.

"We were in the booth in the back at Denny's, the manager had a heart attack and they called for an ambulance, they were blocking the exit so we couldn't even leave until they took him away." (Three hours late. If they took three hours to transport the guy, he was toast.)

"There was an elephant blocking Buchannan Road."

My father went through the roof. "For god's sake, Raymond! If you're going to lie at least make it a plausible one! Don't insult my intelligence!"

"But—"

"Go to your room!"

Ray's jaw dropped. He was 18, a legal adult, a summer from leaving for college—and he was being sent to his room like a toddler? "Dad, I—"

"Go! Now!"

I sat in the living room, stunned, while Ray stormed upstairs. The stupid fib wasn't the worst of it—he had missed dinner, and he loved Mom's pork chops. It must have been something really important for him to miss dinner.

(Probably a girl.)

With Ray exiled upstairs and listening to the Beatles just loud enough to be disrespectful but not so loud that Dad was willing to trudge upstairs to ream him out for it, Dad flipped the dial to wait for the Movie of the Week. We were just in time for the last bits of the local news.

"—if you've missed the posters and banners, the circus is in town! Yes, it's time for peanuts and popcorn and cotton candy, wild animals and trapeze artists! And, speaking of wild animals, we had quite an afternoon with them! The caravan moving the animal performers to the site out of town had a little accident. Nobody was hurt, no animals were hurt—but commuters had a difficult time to get home for dinner," the newscaster said with a laugh.

Mom and I exchanged uneasy glances. Uh-oh…

The TV screen showed footage of a giraffe loping across the road, then a shot of a bear in a brightly colored ruff sniffing at a station wagon (while the occupants flattened themselves against the doors on the far side). Then—

An elephant.

Smack in the middle of Buchannan Road.

"Eloise was having too much fun to listen to her trainer. She romped around the road—" (Elephants romp?) "—and made drivers very nervous. Allstate would do a double take for a claim reading 'an elephant sat on my car!'"

Dad signed, pushed off the couch and walked upstairs. Minutes later he returned, Ray following behind (and trying hard to not look too smug).

He had it made in the shade. From there on out, any time Mom or Dad would give him the, 'yeah, sure' look, all he had to do was say, "Elephant?" and it flew past the radar.

I said I steal from everyone. This proves I even steal from people I don't particularly like.