Holmes

About 30-some-odd years ago, my brother, Dave, and I were a couple of relatively well-adjusted kids whose parents just so happened to be hippies. Now, if you think THAT sentence was a train wreck, try this on for size: In the early 1970s, Dave and I shared a bedroom and would goof off at night, jumping on the beds, telling stories to each other and plotting each others' demise. The only time Mom or Dad would enter into our room would be to clean it or mete out some home-spun corporal punishment. Well, on this particular night, we heard a knock at the door. From beyond, we could hear our mother ask, "Can I come in?" Dave and I looked at each other incredulously, as if we had the option of saying, "Um, no, come back later and bring the Cherry Hi-C with those cocktail napkins with funny jokes we can't understand." Mom entered gently and elegantly, as only Mom could, and sat down between us on Dave's bed. Then she asked us,

"If you could have anything for Christmas, what would you want?" Dave and I looked at each other behind Mom's back, with big eyes, ready to yell, "A puppy!" But, before we could get the words out, she added,

"..besides a puppy."

Well, hell, woman, why don't you just crush ALL our dreams in one evening? Dave and I just sat there like drunken gargoyle statues. Then she hit us with the whammy:

"You're going to have a little brother."

Hold the phone. I had held the mantle of youngest, and thereby through default, cutest kid in the family. I still had a few years of milking this to go. I'm not giving this new punk a free ride on my coattails. Just who the hell does he think he is? I'm sure Mom offered other dollops of motherly wisdom before she left the room, but I don't remember much else about that night. I do, however, remember that my free ride was about to end.

My grandfather, on Mom's side, went overboard buying things for the soon-to-be-newborn critter, with one major glitch - he was dead-set that Mom was having a girl. You see, my grandfather had four grandchildren - all boys, and he desperately wanted a granddaughter since we boys were a dime-a-dozen. My folks were trying to decide on a name, and for the longest time, I was damned sure they were going to name him Jeremiah, which sent visions of bullfrogs and elderly Mennonites through my 7-year-old brain, or Jeremy - later to be immortalized by Pearl Jam in a song of the same name where a kid loses his crackers and guns down his entire classroom. When the dust settled, it WAS a boy, my grandfather was devastated, and his name? Jason. Aside from being an Argonaut, a Robards and a machete-wielding killing machine from the Friday the 13th movies, what was there not to like?

When we brought him home, he just laid there like a bruise-colored lump in the basinet. But, he had that powdery new-baby smell. You know the smell I'm talking about. There he was, so helpless and tiny...and getting all of the attention from others that had rightfully been mine! As much as I wanted to plot his doom, I simply couldn't because even fresh from the hospital packaging, he was damned adorable.

And it didn't get any better for me. I will go on record as saying that my younger brother, Jason, was probably the single cutest kid in the history of this planet. Please, save yourself the trouble and embarrassment of showing me photos of your kids or grandkids. Stop it. Just stop it. I’m telling you the truth here, so take my word for it – Jason was the cutest kid in the world. You wanted to pick him up and squeeze him like he was going to give juice. Squeeze him hard enough and he would. He had the softest, smilingest cheeks, and great big brown cartoon anime eyes that laughed from across the room as you stuffed your paycheck into his piggy bank. And the hair! The curliest, whispiest collection of brown curls – hair that could have stuffed the bucket seats in God’s dune buggy.

As he grew older, Dave’s interests and my interests tended to veer away from Jason and back onto and into our own lives. Heck, we were adolescents and moving into our teens; by law, we were ordered to be self-indulgent and selfish. Playing Candyland and Sorry! with your little brother wasn’t big on the teenage hit parade. We had more important things to do like throwing crabapples at cars, smoking cigarettes and walking the streets at night complaining about how bored we were. I never knew if my little brother looked up to me. I just knew that he was disappointed when I couldn’t play a game with him. Jason always wanted to learn something new from me and show me new things that he learned himself. I had Dave and Dave had me, if you come right down to it. Jason had no one. Sure, he had some friends in the neighborhood, but on a rainy night, or any night, really, he had no one to play with. That always ate at me. I always wanted to tell him I was sorry, and maybe I did once or twice, but I don’t know if I really knew what I was saying. Dave blazed trails for me as far as meeting new people, playing Little League, getting into some light mischief, but Jason had no one to show him the ropes. I always hated myself for not taking the time to be more involved in his life in his grammar school years.

On the flip side, he was as loyal as the came. Any time we needed a goalie for street hockey, we would put Jason in front of the net as Dave, Ray, Scott and I would drill slap shot after slap shot at him while playing 2-on-2. Invariably, we would have to stop a half dozen times while calming Jason down after a shot would zap him in the coconut or knock him in the ding-ding. After promises of candy afterwards, he could be counted on to wipe the streaks of tears into his dirty cheeks and play on. Another time, Dave received a telephone call from his friend, Fred. Yes, Fred. Like a lot of households, at least back then, parents would think it was cute for the younger kids to answer the phone. It was absolute misery for anyone who happened to call, but you just had to bite the bullet. Jason answered the phone in the kitchen while Mom, Dad and I were in the living room watching television. The next thing we heard was,

“David’s not here, you motherf***er”

I froze. Besides being absolutely hilarious, I knew I was only one little brother confession from being grounded for the rest of my life. You know the drill: Younger child says swear word, parents (correctly) assume child learned word from older sibling. Said sibling never sees light of day again. They pulled Jason into the living room and drilled him mercilessly on where he learned THAT word. Divine providence must have smiled upon me that day – either that or Jason saw my face peering beyond that of my parents, looking like Munsch’s “Scream” character before he offered up his friend, Jackie, as a sacrifice to the foul-mouthed alter. They asked him if he was sure, but Jason stood tall, and said he was sure. I knew I owed him one.

Yes, I owed him one, but time and the fact I WAS an older brother tend to distort things, and being that I was an older brother, when entertainment was lacking, I volunteered the services of my younger brother to steer me through those moments of boredom. There were many times when our folks would go out at night, leaving the three of us to our devices. One of our favorite things was to turn off all the lights so the house was pitch black and wait to hear Jason walking into the room calling for us. Then we’d leap out behind him and scare the caca down his leg. Other times, Jason and I would take turns tying each other to a chair in the basement – the unfinished basement, I might add – I would always easily get out of the knots (believe it or not, it’s a talent I’ve always had), but I could tie the most sadistic knots. After helping him out a few times to gain his trust, I would fashion a particularly nasty set of knots and watch him try to get free. When he gave up, I would walk up the stairs, turn off the lights and make sure he heard me locking the basement door. The screams would be deafening.

But, sadly, that wasn’t the worst thing we did to Jason. The worst thing was when Dave and I went into the washroom with an old t-shirt a butcher knife and some ketchup. Jason and I would be in the other part of the basement – maybe making knots, who knows – while Dave was pouring ketchup all over his shirt and the knife. Then Dave called me to the washroom where we engaged in a mock argument, the result of which was Dave screaming and stumbling out of the washroom with “blood” all over his shirt and collapsing at Jason’s feet after which I came bursting out, “bloody” knife held high, looking at Jason and yelling, “You’re NEXT!”

Folks, I’ve never seen someone lose gravity like I saw my little brother at that moment. After some near-aerobic laughter from Dave and I, we finally let Jason in on the joke, but we never scared him again. We figured he’d had enough. I still feel bad about it today, but only after laughing for a little bit first.

Although his name is Jason, I haven’t called him that for over 25 years. To me, he’s always been “Holmes.” It all started in 1978, the first year of desegregation of the public schools in Delaware. We had African-American kids in our schools already, but we were to have a greater percentage of minorities in our population than we ever experienced. It was a learning experience, and one I’m glad I went through, in retrospect. One of the first things I picked up was how every inner-city kid would call each other “Homes” with the same nonchalance white kids would say, “Dude” or “Man” today. Being white and tragically un-hip, I thought they were saying “Holmes." For some reason, it struck me as hilarious. So, one day at the dinner table, I turned to Jason and said, “Hey, Holmes, pass me the gravy.” He laughed and said, “My name’s not Holmes.” I said it was. Then, he hit me off guard. He said, “If I’m Holmes, who are you?” I said he could call me “Hoss,” like that guy from Bonanza. I have no idea why I said “Hoss.” I have never even seen an episode of Bonanza and probably never will. Well, he called me Hoss from then on and I’ve called him “Jason” probably a half-dozen times since then. He’s always been Holmes to me after that.

Time went on, and Jason grew up…and kept growing and growing, until he could pick Frisbees off the neighborhood roofs. He eventually grew to be 700 feet tall. Swear to God.

Along the way to becoming a teenager, then a young adult, then a man, and now to a father in his mid-30s, he’s gone from being the cutest child in the history of the world to the frail and fragile kid just looking for someone to play with to the cynical young adult with a deep, deep creative streak to a man looking for happiness to a father of three who, despite the otherwise normal harsh realities of the world, has found his happiness in his wife and family.

I remember how I would always try to give him advice in his teenage and young adult years. He didn’t want to hear it. Just because I made certain mistakes didn’t mean he was going to make them. I was trying to help him out the best I could, but, I suppose the best thing I could have done was let him make his own mistakes and just be there if he ever needed me. It turns out he did just fine on his own. He’s going to be all right.

Still, not a week goes by that I don’t wish I had played a game of Candyland with him. Maybe, just maybe, I could have learned something from him instead.