Our parents believed a halo adorned my brother Brad’s head, and horns protruded from mine. No story had two sides: I was always wrong … which was the case when we fought the Mexican standoff.
For his birthday, Mama gave Brad a pirate outfit, complete with feather-festooned hat, Jolly Roger eye patch, and a long, curving scimitar. Brad jabbed and slashed at me until I could take no more.
“If I had a sword, I’d slice you to slivers,” I said.
“Ho-ho-ho,” he roared lustily, parroting a pirate. “A duel it is ya want, shrimp,” and tossing me a candy doubloon, sneered, “Buy yourself a sword, laddybuck, and prepare to meet the Grim Reaper.”
That did it. Even though younger than I, he was much larger, and knew I detested being called a shrimp … mainly because I was one. I grabbed a rolled-up newspaper, a poor excuse for a sword, but it had heft, which would serve well for swatting instead of jabbing.
In Mexican standoffs, combatants bind one arm to their opponent’s at the wrist, and upon a signal, fight until one assumes room temperature. My knees knocked as the duelers’ seconds tethered my puny limb to my brother’s massive arm. Peering down at me with his un-patched eye, he personified piratical, pillaging, plundering pugnacity.
A cap pistol fired, signaling the deadly duel’s commencement. I barely ducked Brad’s first beheading swoosh. Then he slashed vertically, trying to bisect me, but missed again. Round and round we death-danced, his cronies urging him to serve up fricasseed shrimp.
I concentrated on defense, not offense, but when Captain Hook gigged me in the gullet with his weapon, making my high-pitched voice sound even more girlish, I swatted with all my might, bradding Brad’s nose, making both nostrils erupt like mini-volcanoes. Bleeding like a stuck hog, howling like a hyena, off he ran with me in tow.
“Maaaaaaaaaama – Junior busted my nose!” He wailed, writhing in pain not one-tenth as severe as his histrionics indicated. Grabbing a willow switch, Mama reverted from English to her native Italian, the surest signal someone would soon suffer a severe switching. That someone was tethered to my brother’s arm.
Into the fray she pounced. The three of us danced an awkward, country folks’ lobster quadrille — me fleeing the switch, Mama swatting, Brad cheering.
The worst was yet to come. When Dad got home, Brad’s nose – doubled in size – resembled a hippopotamus snout. Sentenced supper-less to my room, I heard the s-v-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-p of leather belt sliding through trouser loops outside the door. Dad administered thrashing number two.
“Kneel and ask forgiveness for wounding your brother,” he ordered. “Your mother and I are listening.”
I wanted to pray, “Lord, thanks so much for letting me defeat that pantywaist pirate,” but since switch and belt were nearby, I said, “Lord, please forgive me. You know I love Brad and didn’t intend to hurt him.”
Mom and Dad seemed satisfied, but God saw what they didn’t: My fingers were crossed.
Jimmy Reed is an Oxford, Mississippi resident, Ole Miss and Delta State University alumnus, Vietnam Era Army Veteran, former Mississippi Delta cotton farmer and ginner, author, and retired college teacher.
This story is a selection from Jimmy Reed’s latest book, entitled The Jaybird Tales.
Copies, including personalized autographs, can be reserved by notifying the author via email (.(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)).
