BROTHERS

My brother thought it was funny, so i thought it was funny, and thats how our relationship was most of the time. I can't, in all honesty, say that i ever remember laughing with him about something that wouldnt actually be universally considered funny, although if i'm being honest i feel like i have to say i cant really remember anything we did all that well. There are things that i do remember very clearly, as clear as the beachwater in Miami where he pretended to be a shark grabbing my shins, or the time when he and his friends, like a pack of wild velociraptors, crept silently out of the dark backyard, then rushed forward from the blackness onto the porch, where my sister sat with her new boyfriend. There are things you can never forget.
The bully's name was Mike Fowler, and he for a long time was my biggest problem, the final question on a test i hadnt studied for. He was my brothers age, 4 years older, and once 4th grade came the bus stop became our personal warzone.
I was losing terribly.
He was bigger than me, faster than me, taller, stronger and a hell of a lot meaner than me; if i was a killer whale, he was a nuclear submarine; if i was a sorcerer casting evil spells on kids, he was a special ops soldier bursting in with a rocket launcher ... you get the point; the kid was kicking my ass up and down from september all the way through January, and the only reason it stopped is because the kid moved away to California with his family. For awhile I didnt understand why my brother didnt do anything to fat Mikey Fowler once he found out. The best answer he could ever give me was 'thats not very funny'.
I didnt think it was funny either, and so it wasnt, and thats the way our relationship was.
But in the end, i suppose it was the shoes thing that did it for Mikey Fowler, the shoes thing was his fatal flaw, and my brother was simply what finished him off.
I wasnt a bad kid; i was actually the opposite of a bad kid, and there are only two real times in my childhood that i can remember really deserving a good ass whooping. 
The first time would have been at age 11, when i peed in the closet early one morning while 'sleepwalking' (i had actually lied about that- i wasnt sleepwalking, i was just too damn lazy and tired to wait for the bathroom that was occupied by my showering Father). I should have waited, because when my father came into my room that morning to say goodbye to me before he went to work and smelt the horrible, unmistakable scent of fresh, hot piss, he was not very happy. In fact he was furious. Almost as furious as the second time that i remember seriously making a delinquant move; when i punched my sister in the face for pulling down my blanket fort, also age 11. My dad literally chased me through the house, until i proved how much of an amateur trouble maker i was by immediatley heading underneath the kitchen table, assuming that he would just 'give up' or something.
Either way, Mikey Fowler had that special super human power (like most bullies do) to hone in on the especially innocent and weaker kids, and his almost-daily attacks came to a climax when he forced me to remove my shoes and walk the two blocks from the bus stop in our neighborhood back to my house. It was January, three feet of snow on the ground, and obviously when i stepped through the door shoeless and trying not to cry hysterically my brother knew immediatley that something was not right. He asked what happened, and through my sobs only afew words were audible; Mikey ... Fowler ... shoes ... punching .... My brother was not pleased. But he didnt know Mikey Fowler; my brother went to a private school in the North End, a school for 'gifted' kids, kids that didnt bully each other because they were far too bust being overly smart and prosperous. But my brother never ever made me feel stupid, in fact he did everything he could, it seemed like, to make me feel good. 
I remember that day, he filled a tupperware container full of hot water and put my freezing feet in it, and he got me a blanket and told me he'd do my homework for me that day. 
"I have your back." he said, but a few months later the Fowlers moved away to San Diego, and my problem was suddenly solved, my personal battle with the fat bully Mikey Fowler over forever, and in a few years time i had almost completley erased him from my mind, until my brother told me what happened.
I was a senior in high school, and my brother had come home from his senior year at UCLA for another cold Connecticut Christmas, and i had volunteered to pick him up from the airport. My mother got on my back about wanting to go, but i assured her that it would be annoying for her to get up so early, 'how often do you get to sleep in late, its Christmas Eve morning.' So i left the house alone, driving to Bradley International in an eerie pre-dawn glow, the roads suprisingly empty. My brother stood grinning, already outside, and as he slumped into the passenger seat he smiled and clapped his hands. 

"So good to see you," 

"Good flight?" 

"Forget that," he said, lighting a cigarette, rolling the window down. "I have to tell you something, and your head is gonna burst."

"My head's gonna burst?" 

"Mikey Fowler." he said, and deadpanned me. "Do you remember him?" 

"Who?" 

"Mikey Fowler, that fat kid that used to beat the shit out of you; he made you walk home in the snow once?"

"The kid who took my shoes?"

"Yup." my brother leaned and spat out the window. "Yup, him."

"What about him?" I changed lanes as he offered me a drag of the cigarette. 

"I ran into him, at a party. In Los Angeles."

I laughed. "Small world," i said. 

"Yeah no shit, and so guess what i did to him?" 

I turned, the cigarette dangling in my mouth like a limp bungee jumper. I frowned, confused. 
"Wait," i said. "You actually talked to him?" 

"I told you i had your back, do you remember when i said that to you?" my brother grinned. He shifted his large, muscular frame in the seat, reaching back for his cigarette. "Well, i got your back."

"You ... What did you say?" 

"We were talking, and i couldnt place his name. I asked him where he was from and he said New Britain. We kept talking, and then suddenly it hit me; this is the guy that used to beat the shit outta my brother." He paused to light a second cigarette with the glowing stem of the first. "He didnt look very tough; he's just some short, fat kid, one of those douchebag kids who were 110 dollar t shirts, you know?" I kept glancing at him, not having any idea what to expect. My brother smiled. "So i said, hey, i think you might know my little brother. He goes 'aw, who is he who is he i know em all i owned that effin town' and this and that, talking out of his ass. So i told him your name, and, like, his face .... it got all white and shit. It was awesome. I said 'yea man, i might be wrong, but didnt you like, used to beat him up all the time?', and he goes 'oh uh, i dont know, that name isnt too familiar', and i said 'but you just said you owned the effin town. I swear that kids name was Mikey Fowler.'," 

"Oh my god." 

My brother chuckled and tossed his cigarette out the window. 

"Then i said, 'in fact, Mikey, i distinctly remember a day when you made him walk home with no shoes, or socks, in January. In the winter time, man, with snow and ice on the ground and shit'," my brother paused again to laugh. "Dude it gets even better." 

"You didnt do anything to him did you?" 

My brother deadpanned me again, reaching for another cigarette. 
"Yeah i did," he said, the cigarette in his mouth, his lighter in hand. "I made him strip naked, in the middle of the party."
I stared at him, shocked. He sat looking out the window, tapping his fingers against his knee. He nodded a few times to himself and said, "Nobody fucks with my little brother and gets away with it."
Clearly he thought it was funny, and so it was.