A Fork and a Knife

Growing up, my brother Trevor and I were great competitors. We fought, played, and argued all the time. We were boys and were best of friends, living in a neighborhood populated mostly of older people who enjoyed wearing their pants all the way up to the waist and wore sweater vests with the leathery, old-time buttons. When you live in a neighborhood like that, you grow up feeling like some sort of curiosity. Everything smells old, and everyone has a critical remark to share with you. That's how Trevor and I grew up though, and we protected each other from all the old farts out of necessity.

Trevor is older by two years. He'd invent games in which he would innately be the better, but I couldn't do anything about it because I simply wasn't as creative. Other times, we'd simply play some one-on-one games of basketball in our driveway, or play a game of catch out on the street. Trever always seemed to be able to throw harder, and I resented him for it. But baseball was my favorite, and I could never begrudge him for wanting to play a game of catch -- even though it typically meant that I would go to sleep that night with a sore, red palm. I'd plead with him to let-up a bit, but secretly I wanted to show him that I could take all his stuff.

My favorite game though was when we'd sit out on the front porch swing and spin a long yarn about the Wednesdaq. It all started when I asked him if he'd always be my best friend. We were sitting out on the porch, drinking tall glasses of sweet tea that mama poured out for us, relaxing after a long game of "who can throw a stone closest to Old Mr. McGregor without waking him up." I was nine, and I felt it was a valid question to ask him. Summer was winding down to a close, and school was going to be starting up.

He said, "I will be your best friend every single day Sean-- even when we're old men and are begrudging little kids for playing the games that they play."

I thought that was a good idea, and I said as much to him. But I thought that I would push the issue further. "Everyday? Even the days that end in Q?"

"Especially those days. That's when we need each other more than ever. Don't you ever listen to Mrs. McGregor talk about Wednesdaq?"

He knew that I would never ever come close to stinky, old Mrs. McGregor. She smelled like rotten salami -- the kind that made me throw up all over the classroom the year before. I told Trevor as much, and I also said that if mama ever put rotten salami in my lunch again, that I'd probably pack up my things and walk right on out of the house with her big, red suitcase full of my stff. And I most certainly would not forget the fudgsicles in the freezer, because those belonged to me.

"Well her and Mrs. McGregor know that the only way to keep a Wednesdaq away is by keeping some rotten salami under the lettuce in the crisper. It's not her fault that she smells like that sometimes though. Their refrigerator is as old as their creaky old knees, and sometimes it lets out little rotten salami burps."

At that, we went behind the house towards the woods and the creek and began hunting for any Wednesdaqs that could possibly be lurking about. We figured that we'd need to go at least one hundred yards from the house since the refrigerator that mama kept our rotten salami in wasn't as old as the McGregor's refrigerator. The Wednesdaq's sense of smell is pretty good. We were able to reason that the refrigerator's ability to project the smell of rotton salami was proportional to a rate of about one hundred yards per ten years. Later in life, while considering such banal topics as transition amplitudes and ground state energy levels, I would stop to wonder about how that smell evolved over time.

A month later, we were out on the front porch spinning a yarn about the Wednesdaq. By that time, I was finally able to figure out that Trevor made the whole thing up. But when I told mama about it, she just told me that the best thing is to roll with the punches. And then she said something about baking an apple pie for pops because, "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach."

Mama's wont for aphorisms and cliche inspired me to a height of creativity that I had not yet known during my young life. Trevor had a distinct way of putting me on my ass in laughter with a quick one-liner, and I envied him for that in a sort.

That day, I told Trevor that, "the way to a Wednesdaq's heart is through his stomach." I then showed him the knife and fork that I had carried in my pocket all day long and explained to him that if a Wednesdaq ever ate me whole, I'd be ready to eat out his heart.

Trevor must have thought that was the funniest thing he had heard all summer long, because he laughed and laughed until his face had turned red and he couldn't breathe anymore. He was a good older brother and maybe he was humoring me at the time, but I would never begrudge him for that.

A long, running inside joke was what typified our brotherhood.

Befor Trevor left for college, I asked him again if he'd always be my best friend. And of course, he said that he would be my best friend, even on the days that end in "Q" and especially on the days that end in "Q." And with that, we got out a sheet of paper and wrote down the worst of the worst about the Wednesdaqs.

1. If you call his name, he will get angry and will attack you.
2. He's big and hairy and foams at the mouth.
3. He is of no relation to NASDAQ.
4. Tuesdaq is no match for the Wednesdaq.
5. The way to the Wednesdaq's heart is through his stomach. If he eats you whole, wait until you reach his stomach and then stumble around until you find what looks to be a triangular opening. Go through the opening and eat his heart. It will take at least 15 days to finish eating his heart, but you will be rewarded the next time you move your bowels and find a BRAND NEW LEXUS, complete with red ribbon atop the roof. Collect the jade monkey and break it open to find the keys to the Lexus. Drive the Lexus right on out of the Wednesdaq's dead and rotting corpse.
6. When unmasked, the Wednesdaq is unidentifiable. If you find his mask on the ground, be wary of everyone...even your closest of kin...ESPECIALLY your closest of kin.
7. Seek the help of a koala for protection against the Wednesdaq.
8. The Wednesdaq abhors gelato pie but will consume the occassional one-day old whole.
9. He is powerless on "rotten salami and rotton salami alone day."
10. If cornered by the Wednesdaq, yell out the name, "Marilyn Manson" and take to the fetal position -- this is your last hope if caught in such a situation. If Marilyn Manson takes pity on your poor soul, he will emerge from the local sewage treatment plant and fight the Wednesdaq to the death.

The years following slowed the amount of correspondence between us. We went to different schools and had completely different lives. The occassional holidays, breaks, vactions, and getaways brought forays into the competitive world of excessive consumption -- be it food, drink or women. Turns out that nothing quite compares to binging on alcohol and White Castle cheeseburgers. I frequently seemed the lush in comparison to him, but I took solace from having the more attractive (albeit more vapid) girl by my side.

We became consumers in every sense of the word. Sleep was hard to come by. Alcohol was always a weekend away. Independently of each other, we found that life was meant to be lived in excess. Somewhere along the way, life became too short to accept moderation as an acceptable compromise. Girls, friends, and enemies found their way in and out, back and forth through the revolving door that campus life becomes.

The morning when I woke up to a father banging on my door vociferously while his daughter lay inexplicably naked next to me seemed to do little to knock me from the sweet reverie that comes from making life's choices from under a pile of winter coats. I told the story once to Trevor, who found it to be a hoot. Apparently, about the same time, he found himself ducking into and around window wells and tall hedges about campus and his fraternity in order to avoid the albatross of an angry parent that had come into his life.

And that's what our lives managed to become -- strangely and inexplicably independent of each other, a hodgepodge of ill-managed decisions and choices and drunken debauches. He called me up one night, and I traveled across the state to meet up with him. For the first time, we talked and really talked -- all inside jokes put aside for a moment in time. We thought about the Wednesdaq and noticed that it became real in ways that we never imagined solely because we stopped paying attention to it. The Wednesdaq marched incessantly forward and drove us towards old, dusty, and musty, sweater vests with leathery buttons and the smell of rotten salami.

"I think you're right," he said to me.

Months passed, and all of a sudden the time came for mama, pops and I to travel down and watch as Trevor made the solitary march towards commencement. The dark foreboding manifested itself in the heavy grey clouds that filled the sky and in the end of spring wind which gave life to an otherwise dreary exercise. I didn't go alone. I came with the girl that I thought I would marry, and I was anticipating the moment to let Trevor in on my secret.

I gave him a big hug at the end as he stood side by side with another girl dressed in cap and gown. He smiled at me, eyed me standing next to my girl and said, "Thursdaq already?" And we all laughed because in an oddly serendipitous way, we ended up all being in on the same joke.