Thanksgiving with My Brother

In three vignettes...

1.  John’s in the kitchen cooking the roux for the macaroni and cheese. He’s just finished explaining the difference between light, blond, and brown. And blackened.

“That’s Cajun,” he says.

He looks out to where Mom, Dad, Grandma, Uncle Jay, and Julie are walking up toward the house.

“They’re headed back.”

“They better get a move on.  It’s a party in here,” I say.

“Yeah, I’m drinking Busch from a can and you’re…”

“…sipping whiskey from a tumbler,” I finish for him. “Yep. It’s Thanksgiving in Mississippi.”


2.  We’re settling in to watch an episode of American Horror Story.  (Right after an episode of NOVA about the theory of the multiverse.)

“Azura Skye? She was on Buffy!” I say, noting a familiar name in the credits. Dad and John look up expectantly.

“Well, in a couple of episodes of season seven,” I say.

“Of course!” Dad laughs.

John studies me. “Two episodes? In the seventh season?”

“Yeah, let me think…episodes 4 and 7. ‘Help’ and ‘Conversations with Dead People,’” I say.

He studies me some more. “It’s like you’re an idiot savant.”


3.  "What's this?" I ask Mom, holding up an unfamiliar book I found on a bookshelf.

"OH!" Mom says.  "Did you not know that your brother was a published poet?"

"OH GOD!" John says from the stove.  "Please don't!  Don't!"

Mom doesn't listen.  She reads aloud a poem that John wrote in the eighth grade.  It's full of words like "putrid" and "carcass" and "occult."  It's about the ultimate battle between good and evil.  Or something.  And - inexplicably - it was chosen for inclusion in an anthology of middle school poetry back in 2000.

By the time Mom finishes, I'm hysterical.

"PUTRID AND INERT?!" I choke out.

"WHY DIDN'T SOMEONE STOP ME?" John screeches.  "WHY DIDN'T SOMEONE TELL ME THAT WASN'T OKAY?!?"