My brother Dick was nine years older than I. Because of the age difference, we moved in different circles, and there wasn’t much we did together, at least not until I got older. Here are a couple of unfortunate exceptions, but I’m not mad, bro.
One night when I was about four, he climbed out of his bedroom window, crossed the porch roof and stood outside mine. Maybe the moon was full that night, or there was a streetlight behind him, but he maneuvered his shadow onto my screen and proceeded to lurch about and make what I’ll call “scary monster noises”. I guess he hadn’t thought his prank all the way through, because once the noises woke me and I saw his shadow, I freaked out, and ended up with everybody in the house in my room to see what all the screaming was about. Perhaps predictably, I don’t remember anything else that happened that night.
Somewhere else here I mentioned, without explanation, that “I broke my brother’s radio”. That could have been in revenge for his scaring me that night, but I’m not 100% sure that the two events are connected.
Another evening, I don’t know whether before or after the porch roof incident, my mother and father were in the front room, seated at one corner of the table, my brother’s radio between them. They were leaning in, as people did then, listening to music. I simply walked up and shoved the radio off onto the floor, a wordless and terrible act. I don’t know the reason why, but I certainly knew the reason then.
I was not punished or reprimanded in any way for my act of violence, and heard nothing further about it, which suggests that my parents regarded my breaking the radio as some sort of frontier justice.
Unrelatedly, on another evening my mother sent me to pick up something from the grocery store at the end of the block. My brother sneaked out of the house ahead of me and climbed a low tree overhanging the sidewalk. When I got underneath, he reached down out of the dark to grab my face. Somehow I had sensed him there a few seconds before, so I just swatted his arm away and kept walking.
Years later, I asked him if he remembered the radio incident. I wanted to apologize for destroying his radio, and maybe find out what his actual offense was, if it wasn’t scaring me like that. He didn’t remember his porch roof prank, or even his radio. I guess some people are just not good at holding grudges. I know if it was my radio, I’d sure as hell remember what I did that got it destroyed.
current (2024) Zestimate $532,400. Wow.