I never understood how you put up with your parents. Talk about a chain around your neck. You couldn’t even go the nearby park to hang out with friends because your dad was such an ass. Something we shared, though in different ways, having those brothers for fathers. For you it was worse. Couldn’t talk on the phone, couldn’t stay over at friends, couldn’t go to school dances.
We’d play Doctor and House at family gatherings. I was always the doctor and you the nurse to our patients, our younger sibs. I was the Dad and you were the Mom. We’d sneak through the old, dank basement and see if there were any treasures to find. We’d argue and bicker when sharing was harder. We’d yell at each other, “You aren’t my cousin anymore!” and sulk for five minutes or so then race out the screen door at Ma’s forgetting in an instant whatever slight had come between us.
Later, Dad would load up our bikes and send us to your place for a week every once in a while during summer. We’d ride the trails, our little sisters clinging to us like the Velcro that would someday be invented, until we’d see a chance at losing them and hide out like silent, unbreathing commandos, amid the thick forest, just waiting for them to pass by and give up finding us and ride home. We’d sit in the woods and talk. Maybe take an innocent puff on a cigarette if we could steal one. Feel as though we had gotten away with the biggest con ever until we returned to your house. Freedom. You never got to experience much of it.
Then it was time to teach me The Hustle. We both know how that went.
But time would tell. The very things that strict control was intended to avert became a certainty. The tighter you pulled the more they tried to reel you in. You dropped out of school and got involved with someone who wasn’t so good for you. Eventually, you came to your senses, after having experienced some of life’s harder knocks.
Now, 30 years later, 25 of those married to your guy. Three kids launched successfully, your story belies your upbringing. I bet you can still do The Hustle.
You are me with rougher edges. Same passion, same anger, same feelings of responsibility for the world, same blood. And, you are still my favorite cousin.
calls and destroying anything in your path. You were a terrible judge of horseflesh and picked the most unlikely minions to abet your evil work. You did this all systematically and viciously in order to build your empire—such as it was in our small, small office. It’s too bad you didn’t put all your evil genius into getting and keeping clients. Your evil spells eventually included me. I stood in the way of your desire to displace the King.
