Sibling Mysteries
Randy Potratz shot me.
I don’t know what happened to good old Randy Potratz. I think he still lives upstairs at his Mom’s house, which is its own kind of genius. You’d never have to cook or do laundry or deal with chicks who only want your money. Randy Potratz is 3 years older than me. We built forts in the woods and hid Playboys and cigarette butts in secret holes beneath pieces of innocent looking plywood. He told me there was no such thing as Santa Claus and that my new step dad fucked my Mom, probably often. He was a bastard that way, but he bought the beer when he turned 21. After I sobered up, I never saw him again.
Do you ever Google yourself, Randy Potratz? Dude. Why’d you shoot me?
I was only 10 when Randy Potratz shot me. He pointed his pellet gun at me and I ran around the basement, yelling for him to stop. My brother laughed his fool head off. That part is crucial. Pay attention. This is a mystery.
Randy Potratz swore up and down that he didn’t know the gun was loaded. But that fucker knew. No doubt about it. He just wondered one morning what it would be like to shoot and kill a little boy. That’s the kind of scoundrel he was. He fired. I squealed. He watched eagerly, aching to witness the life flee out of me. But my brother? He just kept laughing his fool head off. When I lifted my shirt, both Randy Potratz and my brother looked genuinely shocked. But still. What was so damn funny, JEFF?!?
(you are no doubt astounded by my survival. the pellet hit a rib and my life was spared. randy potratz lost all his trampoline privileges.)
In one of my favorite Neil Young tunes, he croons “I was thinking about what a friend had said / I was hoping it was a lie”. This is the best kind of arty thing because, no matter how much you think about it, it never runs out of wonder. I mean. What’s the deal, Neil? What’d your friend say? He slept with your wife. Cancer. Likes Impressionism. What?
Siblings are complicated. Who can say completely how we feel about them? We love them. We hate them. We wonder all our lives if they knew the gun was loaded.
*
This post is for my brother Jeff. He turned 40 yesterday and I didn’t even call him because I’m an absentminded idiot. Happy Birthday, Jeff. How’d this happen? We blinked and… how are you 40?
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Reader Comments (25)
I love this...it is perfect and exactly what I would want if I were turning 40.
Dude, if I were your brother, I would be totally pissed that this was all I got for my birthday. Just sayin. Not even a Playboy?
We wonder all our lives if they knew the gun was loaded.
EXACTLY.
i was lying in a burned out basement with the full moon in my eye...
oh dude. this was almost as good as getting high and lying on my college boyfriend's beer-soaked skanky carpet, looking up at the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling.
happy birthday Jeff. :)
I always know the gun is loaded. I'm often ashamed of that, but always glad when it only hits a rib.
I'm glad I'll never turn 40. Or blink.
I loved this too.
i love this comment section almost as much as i love this journal.
Oh how I love your work. My brother will be 38 tomorrow. Still not sure how that happened.
great sibling birthday tribute. I think the most pissed off I've ever been in my life, over and over again, the only person I've ever actually hated with all my heart and wanted dead was my beloved sister. We're both in our forties now and it seems to have subsided --
My brother shot me. He knew it was loaded, and he pulled the trigger anyway. I had to dig the little metal BB out of my palm before my mom got home, because I didn't want him to get in trouble. She never knew.
Happy birthday to your brother.
After the Goldrush is one of my favorite singin'-in-the-shower songs. I'm one of the few people I know who knows all the lyrics. What kind of strange club are we in?
Shade and Sweetwater,
K
Well said!
Jeff laughed at Randy's audacity and stupidity and relief that you weren't killed in the process. And also because he'd wanted to shoot you a thousand times but knew better.
you just never know!
I'm just dropping in to let you know that this weblog entry is being featured on Five Star Friday - http://www.fivestarfriday.com/2009/11/five-star-fridays-edition-80.html
*haha!* I, too, have been shot!
It was Case Tanner, in the @ss, with a BB gun. (if we were playing "CLUE")
Seriously, this guy was sorta like my big brother...he was goofing around with the BB gun and I asked him would it seriously hurt me if he shot me in the butt with the BB gun...hey whatever, I was wearing corduroys! *haha!* When I teasingly wiggled my rump, he pulled the trigger.
OW!! !! !!
and then:
*heeheehee!* *haw haw haw!!*
It didn't break the skin or anything but I had a little red welt...
When I was 13 I was on the phone with the boy. You know, THE boy.
One of his older brothers came in the room & told him to get off the phone.
Next thing I knew, there was screaming.
His older brother had shot him in the leg with a BB gun.
Brothers + weapons = injuries in my experience, having two of my own.
The worst I ever got from a brother was an Air Jordan to the face. But it still stung.
My sisters are younger than me. They used to gang up on me, drag me around by my ears, and load my BB gun with little branches from trees and shoot them at me.
Thanks for the memories, you fucker . . .
;-)
It's been three years since I've been home in time for the mulberries, but when I was a kid we ate them often. We thought it was quaint, and dark, both because of the juice and because we were foragers, not allowed back inside until Later. Once, we remembered the high branches, far in the backyard. There! Look how many. Karie held the rake and I said up, left, and "now!" while she knocked the berries through the air and down into the grass.
The rake's teeth landed in my younger sister's skull. There was a full beat of silence and her wide mouth before she cried. She cried all the way into the kitchen and we followed behind the sound, watching. Karie reminded me that it had been my fault. Why did I hit Kris with the rake? Two years ago I remembered. Liar. Shit.
Time to shoot back.
my dad got shot with a b.b. gun when he was 9. jackass was aiming for his knee. my dad lost his eye. dipshit was not only a douche canoe, but a horrible shot.
be glad you didn't lose your eye, man, but tell your brother you *could* have.
I dated a guy with a BB permanently embedded in lower back. Also a product of lovely sibling playtime. Of course, a BB is a bit different than a pellet! I kill small animals with a pellet gun! I'm glad it hit your rib, and not something more important. And squooshy.
Happy birthday, Jeff! Thanks for not killing one of my favorite bloggers all those years ago!
When I was a kid, a friend and I were playing catch with rocks and he hit me in the forehead. So I can sort of relate...except no one laughed and my friend Tom got a beating from his grandmother. I wish I had had someone there like your brother to laugh at the time. Would have made the memory better than it is. However, I still have a scar on my forehead, so at least I got something out of it.
I only have sisters. But one of them nailed me in the back of the head with a hairdryer once.
"But that fucker knew." I cackled.