Brothers

      If you ever get the chance to be an older brother or I guess an older sister make sure to appreciate the blessing of having someone look up to you and forcing you to be a better person. I wasn't the kind of older brother that used my little brother as fodder for games and experiments. I never used him as a litmus test for my parents, nor did I physically abuse him because I was stronger. In fact, I always volunteered to the the first victim of all of our daily schemes.
     Yes, I was the guniea pig tester for Shawnie Lake. One year during Boy Scouts we were forbidden to walk on the lake, but the older boys and I decided that if I could walk across, then I would be safe for ice hockey. I just couldn't make Charlie go across which would have been a better idea because he was lighter. I was scared he would start crying and the rest of the trip would have been ruined for him and the thought of him falling through and dying gave me the courage to tell the other boys to pick on someone their own size. One of us should be the tester. Of course during my speech,  I had unknowingly volunteered myself. They sent me out with a rope tied to a tree and reenforced by the grip of their winter gloves.
     I wasn't afraid of dying or even falling through the ice. That would have been heroic. I was afraid of  slipping and falling awkwardly and cracking my head because that would never be forgotten and I would have been called a pussy. I took the rope carefuly putting one foot in front of the other and the more solid it seemed, the more daredevilish I became, sliding further and further out. Cheering and more cheering, I began to strut with condence. See there is no bogeyman, it's safe to play.
     Uh oh! The ominous sound of a crack echoed thorugh the woods and back again. My knees buckled. I paused long enough to tie the rope around my waist in a special knot the boy scouts taught us. When I looked back, almost all of my friends were gone except for Charlie and my best friend Tim-o. The cracks in the ice continued to spread slowly and I'm sure now that the other boys took off because the cracks were so loud, the counselors could hear. None of us wanted to get in trouble, but this though was a relief. I wanted to piss in my pants. The counselors would be coming any minute now, I repeated to myself. I walked back towards the woods slowly trying not to look at the ice. One breath that was too large and I might fall through.
     Charlie and Tim-o held the rope tightly urging me to lie down on the ice. Tim-o knew this would help to spread out my weight. I could barely move, but I managed to crouch down, slide and spread. Immediately, they pulled hard and fast. They pulled so hard that my jacket rode up giving my ice burn on my lower back and bruised in my arm pits.
      Finally, an eagle scout arrived to see me sliding on my ass two feet from the edge getting tangles it tree branches and sink through. The lower half of me was submerged. I peddled and peddled my legs and with a pull from all three of them found myself safe on the shore.
     The humiliating part came later when the troop leaders were nervous that I was hypothermic. I don't know about now, but back in those days that meant stripping down naked and being sanwhiched in between two other naked men by a fire under an army blanket. Yes, that story haunted me until I left the town where I grew up.
     Suprisingly, mom and pop didn't have much to say when they heard about the incident. They told Charlie to learn from my mistakes and never to succumb to peer pressure. My father considered it a boyish prank and referred to the hazing he had gone through in the army. Nothing ever phased my mother, except for the threat of death. She was thankful we were both O.K. "Thank god, thank god," she repeated. She was also proud that Charlie and I stick together and thank god for Tim-o because "Tim Odesco, the don't make men like that anymore." Nevermind that Tim was my age. He was much, much bigger, but still we were the same age. A huge pot roast and pecan pie would be the only proper way to thank him. "Why don't you invite Tim over for supper?" And the last words my father spoke about the incident were, "Don't worry. It says nothing about your manhood that you had to lie with two naked men under a blanket. They were giving you heat and saving your life. hat's what soldiers, brothers and scouts do for eachother.
     Nevermind all of the times I saved Tim-o from embarassment or helped him pass a math or a science quiz. Nevermind all of the times he cried behind the school in the schoolyard because he though he was too senstive, his mom called him an oaf and he thought he was dumb. Nevermind that I carried him through the rest of school. Nevermind that I never exposed his weaknesses, but could have an then I would have been Mr. Cool. And I didn't. I didn't do that because what would I have taught Charlie? Tim-o's mom never invited me for pot roast.  
     After I went to college, I don't know what happened to Tim-o and I wasn't really around for Charlie. Oh how I would have liked to teach him how to play guitar or give him all of the answers to my old high school tests or give him money to go out on a date. Something good that he would have never forgotten. But, after awhile I just couldn't go back there. I couldn't.