Buckler

Morning is not my friend. I spend half the night tossing and turning, shaking and baking with short snatches of fitful slumber, night after night.

My mind races and swirls and shifts from what I've done to what I need to do. Periodically I lapse into short intervals of nightmare-filled unconscious nothingness.

I see daylight through my curtains creeping slowly getting brighter. I look at my clock it's 5 am. I pray to clear my mind and to get a couple of more hours of sleep to no avail.

The Next thing I know two hours of tossing and turning have passed and my five-year-old little brother is taking a flying leap onto my exhausted person. Signaling the start of my day.

I hug and kiss him on his head. Welcoming the attention. I always wanted a little brother and now that he is here I do my best to make his stay on this planet as enjoyable as is humanly possible. Catering to his every need to the best of my ability.

I plant him on his feet and shuck my pajamas and roll them into a ball and hide them under my pillow. I grab my black slacks off of my desk chair and balancing first on one foot then the other I quickly dress, tucking my sport shirt into my trousers, and sit on the edge of the freshly made bed to don my socks.

I follow my brother up the stairs to the kitchen, since my bedroom is the only one downstairs on the main floor while all the others are upstairs. I feel somewhat left out and isolated with this arrangement.

My father has already left for work so it's just my mother by the stove, preparing eggs sunny side up with bacon, rye toast, and orange juice.

My brother climbs into his booster seat and I sit at the foot of the table facing the back window overlooking the back patio and the old cherry tree beyond. The tree is flush with cherries and the leaves are brilliant green.

My mother places a plate of breakfast before me and my brother and the three of us start to pray for thanks for our meal and a successful day to come.

My mother starts her daily lecture about how I should behave around my teachers and especially how I am to avoid interaction with my female counterparts. Girls at this point were just out to get themselves pregnant, ruining any young man's future If they fall for their guiles.

After eating I go to the upstairs main bathroom and wash my hands with warm water and a bar of soap. I splash water on my face and wet my hair, my widows peak quite prominent for a boy of seventeen. I take a towel off the rack and put it over my head and pull it from side to side to dry and stand my hair on end a la David Bowie.

I kiss my mother and brother on the cheek and grab my backpack and head out the back door down to my car.

I have a sparkling brown Mazda RX3 with a creme landough top and decent rubber, despite our pouring motor oil on the road in front of our high school and taking turns revving our engines and dropping our clutches, and burning rubber and oil to create an impressive smoke show.

I pull into the High School Parking lot killing the engine as I roll into my usual parking lot behind the school and at the back of the lot. I can see everyone walking by many yards away and coming near from quite a ways away and I have some privacy gained by the distance from the walkway and the schoolyard.

I lean back and pull a small zip lock bag of skunk weed and rolling papers out of the front of my pants and proceed to roll a joint in the privacy of my motor vehicle. I light up, with the driver's side window slightly cracked, and inhale deeply pulling the smoke deep into my lungs. After two or three drags I put the joint out and return it to my baggy and put the works back down the front of my pants.

The next day is Saturday and the morning routine only changes by my mother keeping my brother David upstairs until 9:30 giving me an extra two and a half hours to shake and bake and fitfully slumber until My little brother launches himself onto my person thus starting my day.

I follow my brother upstairs in my pajamas and after breakfast, we go back downstairs to watch Saturday morning cartoons and Skiffie Theater( that's Sci-Fi theater to the less informed).

I got my tape recorder and we take turns talking into it in weird voices pretending to be Wolfman Jack and other radio and TV personalities.

After a while, my brother turns his attention to voicing Bruce Wayne and eventually Bat Man and telling me that I could be the Buckler because I have glasses. I'm not even allowed to be Robin, but I must be the Buckler because I have the glasses.

Years later after my brother was killed at work a few weeks before Christmas and a month and a half before his 19th birthday, I relished having these goofy tapes to remember him by.