The Ravens Nest

A Story of Two Brothers

It’s no secret that I didn’t want to board that plane to Philadelphia. I wanted desperately to stay in Louisiana back in March.

I was there in my old bedroom in my mom and dad’s house. In the home where I grew up, in a town I was all too eager to leave. In one week, I’d found happiness again. I’d found my center. I felt more grounded than I’d ever been. All those energies were there, same as always. Though the town looked different, it was like I never left. The feel of it was the same. Sure, the population was smaller but there were all these people with those southern and hick accents. Guns in some stores, Liquor in grocery stores. Vapes were cheap and weed-derived products were available in some places. My little town even had a little shop where one could walk in and play D&D for the first time. It might not be pretty but it was beautiful. The food was spicy and flavorful. People would look me in the eye and shake my hand. Ran into only one Karen the entire week. I was hanging with family, reconnecting and one night, my brother and I were driving around in his truck, making passes through the town’s main drag. I was drinking beer and vaping and we were having one of the calmest arguments of our lives. Both of us are big gun guys.

“You pull the trigger,” he said, insisting he was right.

“No no no no no, goddammit,” I would retort, “You squeeze your entire hand. Squeeze. You bury a bunch of the recoil and it makes the control of your shot work best. Target reaquisition isn’t an issue then.

Back and forth we went until I broke down and went for one of Don Johnson’s lines from the movie Harley Davidson & Marlboro Man which is a buddy action movie available on Tubi I highly recommend every single one of you watch.

“Squeeze!” I insisted, “Don’t Pull! It Ain’t Your Dick!”

Only in the south could you possibly hear a conversation like this and actually take part. I wasn’t angry with my brother over this issue. Not in the least. In fact, I remember feeling a real sense of peace. Odd, isn’t it? I have been known to become passionate in my arguments to a fault but this time, I really didn’t care whether I was right or wrong. Didn’t even care what I was taught by my dad or by the rangemasters at the prison’s old shooting range. I knew what I knew but that wasn’t the point. This interaction was just one I wanted to keep going; right, wrong or indifferent. No voices were ever raised. The beer was weak and watery and did fuck all to me but that wasn’t the point.

Goddamn it was good arguing with him again.

We had a hell of a sibling rivalry growing up. I was constantly catching shit from him or he was forever hiding behind Mom for shit he’d start with me and, if that wasn’t enough, I was constantly being punished for things he did. No kidding, it’s the curse of being the oldest. I hated sharing a room with him. I just wanted one of my own. I wanted some space, some privacy. Just a place that I could have my own without him coming in and wrecking the work I put in to keep the joint clean. I could tell you stories upon stories.

There’s one in particular. One that I started. This one, I’m going to admit was completely on me.

One day as very young children, he ran around the house singing at the top of his lungs. I couldn’t hear a damn thing coming from the TV. On this day, the filter between my brain and my mouth decided to pack for a vacation. It didn’t let me know it was going anywhere. Just off it went without my knowledge or consent. Might have checked out Tahiti. I hear it’s a magical place.

“I Wish I Were An Oscar Meyer Wieeeeeneeeeerrrrr!” he sang and I stopped him immediately.

“I have a question,” I said, “How would that improve your status as a wiener?”

…and that’s how the fight started.

No, I’m not kidding, he launched into a full-on brawl that day. I was caught unprepared and took some knuckles to the temple at first. We tangled in the living room, if memory serves and, at the time, he was a biter. Not kidding about that either. It devolved into a wrestling match to keep his teeth from sinking into the flesh of my forearm. I dropped to my back and used my feet to kick him in an arc behind me while I popped up and hauled ass. No way I was letting the little skinny bastard bite me. I wasn’t about to explain that scar later.

Not going to lie to you, I started that. I could have endured the annoyance but I just didn’t want to and now, here he was, thirty years or better, doing it again and I was in the moment, loving every second of it. Now, watching Harley Davidson & Marlboro Man will always carry a memory of the argument over squeeze vs. pull of the trigger in his truck and it puts a smile on my face. They seem unrelated, don’t they? Well, don’t worry, reader, I’m about to tie all of this together.

As worried, fidgety and anxiety-ridden about returning home as I was, it was so much more so now that I was headed back.

I just didn’t want to come back. There are days I regret just not leaving it all behind, staying there, starting over and sending for all my shit later.

Little did I know that the trip back which involved my brother driving me to the airport in Houston would bring back a memory that, until this moment that I write all of this, was just a little inside joke that neither of us ever thought to revisit. We’re talking about our respective lives when my brother goes “…Oh shit…there it is…”

I looked up and went “What?” and saw him pointing. I followed the direction that his outstretched index finger pointed out.

Reader, I kid you not, we both saw it and both of us broke into tears-streaking-your-face-oh-holy-shit-I-have-got-to-piss laughing. On the side of the road…this icon was parked on the shoulder…

Neither of us could hardly believe it. The immediate memory of The Oscar Meyer Incident came up for both of us and we howled in insane laughter all the rest of the way to the airport over it.

There’s really no point to this story. Nothing was ever resolved, nothing was ever “made right” but mostly it’s just about two brothers who could look back on the insane fighting that probably drove most of the adults in our lives into eye-rolling irritation as much as we irritated each other.

Now, in the small hours of this Monday Morning, I still get a smile on my face when I think about that night in his truck as we tooled around our hometown arguing as we always did.

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