This is not so much a story as it is a reminiscence of my brother, Richard. We are now estranged, but I still love him, and when I think of him, I have to smile. Our parents were busy with their own lives, and so, we wound up taking care of one another. I think we were like Hansel and Gretel except without the basket of bread to find our way home. Still, we took very good care of one another. And I think that although we are apart, we are both home.
I am two years older than Richard. I was always tiny (some would say fragile) fair-skinned, blue-eyed, and blond, Richard is very tall with olive skin and brown eyes. In the first grade, my dress size was Toddler 3 and Richard, at age 6 was the size of an 8-year-old. Today, we've both added a bit of gray to our hair. I am 5' 2" and Richard is 6' 5".
When we were 10 and 8 years old, our parents used to visit my aunt and uncle and a couple of their friends once a week to socialize and play poker. A little background information is called for: My father was an only child who always wanted a sister or brother. It was only natural that he should become a dear friend of his brother-in-law, John. Now, try to follow this: John's uncle, who was deceased, left a number of "wonderful" things in his cellar that were discovered after he passed away and my uncle inherited his house and all its contents. Among the "wonderful" things were a nickle-plated revolver, brass knuckles, and a billy club. John's uncle was Boston's chief of police for many years. John's dad was the Boston fire chief.
Whenever my parents went to Uncle John's house in Dorchester on Saturday night, Richard and were each paid a dime to babysit for one other. We were real "chickens" and always begged my parents not to leave us. It never worked, but things turned out OK anyway. My father would give Richard the gun (because he was the boy). I got the Boston City police-issued billy club; it was rubber with a serious lead weight at the end. We were told that the bullets were in my dad's top dresser drawer, but we were not to touch them because they were dangerous. Also, the brass knuckles were too dangerous for us to touch. They were next to the bullets. So, at the beginning of the evening, we were terrified. We used to sit on the couch, fully armed, with our feet on the cushions so that nothing that might be hiding under the couch could grab our ankles.
After about an hour, we got restless and turned on the oven. We always made a cake, and it was always white (not yellow) with pink icing. It was also --without exception-- raw because we took it out of the oven too soon. We did this every time we made a cake. We were just impatient. Richard and I made the cake look "normal" by piling on the icing. We never had more than one slice of the cake, however, because it tasted so awful. Still, making the cake killed the time until my parents came home.
When they arrived around midnight. We were armed and ready.
