Award Tour Vol. 36: I Wouldn't Be Around To Tell You About It

So I'm young... really young (meaning this story takes place years in the past). My younger brother Dee is still in diapers at the time this story occurs. On this particular day he was already upstairs in his crib - presumably asleep. We won't be far behind him. Our parents have told us as much - bedtime is in twenty minutes. We are already dressed in our robes and underneath that, our pajamas with the footies.

What? Act like you didn't have a pair of pajamas with the footies.

Anyway, I have my pajamas on, and Tre has on his - and we are playing with our Batman figurines in the family room. Because he is the older brother he gets to be Batman (again) and I am Robin (despite my protests). Defying the generally accepted canon - our caped crusaders create their own storyline. Ours are not the Batmans and Robins who stand unreasonably close to one another as they take turns partially solving facets of some inane riddle or conundrum. In our alternate universe, the Dynamic Duo has little use for utility belts, never consults the Bat Computer, and shuns the much vaunted Batmobile, choosing instead to fly through the air (on their own power) so that they might better rain down thoughtless and brutal terror on their enemies (as true superheroes should).

I know this might enrage some of the Batman "purists". So be it. We were just doing our part to balance out what was a blaring inequity amongst the membership of the original Justice League (What? Act like you thought Batman, having no super human abilities, had the right to rub shoulders with the other Super Friends. You didn't - you know you didn't. He was a water boy - and you hated him for it. But I digress)

Our mission, or rather Batman's and Robin's mission, started at the edge of the kitchen. As the storyline unfolds, we are required to fly over to the hide out (represented by the desk) and then an all out battle took place over near the canyon (the bar) - allow me to elaborate.

Many years ago, my father had a portable vertical bar in the family room, shaped to look like a large rock fire place. At the the bottom of this faux fireplace was a plastic molding shaped like firewood. There was a light behind it that, when switched on, gave the impression to the observer (or at least it was supposed to) that the fire place was lit. At the top of the bar was a lid that, like the rest of the bar, was cleverly disguised as part of the rock formation - you just had to love the 70's (even if you weren't around for them).

Anyway, inside the bar was what, even by today's standards, had to be considered an impressive stash of alcoholic elixirs, assorted spirits, novelty glasses, and custom accessories. If the family room had a crown jewel (apart from the floor model t.v. that looked as though it had been carved straight out of the trunk of a California RedWood Tree) the bar was it. My father had a right to be proud. Apart from the expensive alcohol, it had taken them years to acquire all those shot glasses, sniffers, tumblers and wine glasses - some of them they acquired when they were on their honey moon.

And now here come Batman and Robin (the new super-power enabled Batman and Robin). You probably have some idea of where this is going.

In the throes of an intense aerial battle near the "canyon" - Batman was struck down and fell to the depths of the canyon (really Tre just lost a grip of his figurine and it fell behind the bar). Tre reasoned that if we had told my parents what had happened, not only would they not get the figurine for us, but they also would have sent us to bed (and on this he was right). He subsequently determined that we could get the figurines ourselves (and on this he was wrong).

We attempted to tilt the bar back only so slightly, with both of us holding it, to get the figurine - but Tre couldn't reach from his side of the bar to grab it while still holding up his end. He postulated (incorrectly) that we might have greater success if he held one end, while I tried to reach in for the figurine - but my arms were just too short. So, in a moment that will live in infamy, we decided to switch positions. Tre who had longer arms tried to reach for the figurine, while I, alone tried to hold the bar up on the opposite end.

This idea represents the final ingredient in this recipe for diaster. Tre's arms were longer but his body was also wider, and so we had the tilt the bar further away from the wall to get to the figurine. It eventually listed over at an angle measured from vertical, that was too great for me to continue to hold it (not even with Tre's help, as he would soon find out - much to his abject horror).

As Tre pushed in to get the figurines, I heard assorted glass objects shift in the bar, and suddenly it became unearthly heavy. "Tre I can't hold it, I can't hold it", I cried as the weight from the bar begin to inch me back. Our failure to account for the low coefficient of friction of footie pajamas on the dry flatweave carpet would prove our undoing. Tre hearing the desperation in my voice, quickly rescued his Batman and tried to help push the bar up - his efforts were futile. His feet begin to give way just as mine had and the bar continued to tip even further from vertical. As he strained to push the bar back up he said something that I will never forget, "come on man, you can do it, push it back up!!!"

???

[Beak]
I would come to learn over my childhood years, that almost everytime we got in trouble it would follow this model. It would begin with Tre forming a great idea to which I would co-sign blindly, it would take a terrible turn when it became obvious he had miscalculated a key variable, and it would end with us, looking for divine intervention to get us out of an all-too-certain fiasco
[unBreak]

In those next few fleeting seconds with Tre's comments still swirling in my head... I had time to think about a few things.

1. If Tre is counting on me to hold this thing up, if he is banking on my strength (which is considerably less than his own at this time) to turn the tide - if he has concluded that he doesn't have the power to lift this thing up but somehow I do - then he is deluded. I'm looking to Tre to exhibit some last minute burst of superhuman strength that will get us out of this - how could I possibly save the day?

2. Soon all that will be left to do is to jump out of the way as this bar falls... because we cannot hold it... and we dare not be caught undearneath it when it hits the ground - should I jump to the right, or backwards towards the sofa?

3. Wow you really can see your life flash before you just before you die.

The bar lists forward a little further, and both Tre have no choice but to jump back to safety - he on the left hand side of the bar, myself on the right hand side. And it came down with a deafening crash - I don't think I've ever heard so much glass breaking simultaneously in my life.
Ordinarily when I and my brothers:

a). Got into trouble
b). Broke something
c). Did something wrong
d). All of the above

we could hear my father's angry footsteps, as he was forced to leave the comfort of his bed (and undoubtedly the best part of the game) to investigate the happenings down stairs- each stride stomping out a warning that Terrible Swift Justice was on the way. We usually had 3 or 4 seconds to wig out knowing that "The Authorities" were on the way and there was no way to escape or hide the evidence - those 3 or 4 seconds were agonizing. Tears would well up in your eyes before he even got downstairs - just thinking about it. This time was different.

This time I didn't even hear any footsteps... my father was just all of a sudden there - and I know he hadn't been before. He was upstairs watching the game as he so often was - but by the time the bar hit the ground - I turned around to look and he was standing there... as though The Enterprise had just beamed him down. At first he glanced quickly to see if we were hurt. Seeing that we were not, his face became ablaze with anger.

Alcohol of every variety seeped out of the now horizontal bar and soaked into the carpet. My father walked over to the edge of the bar and opened the lid whereupon even more liquid rushed out onto the ground carrying with it hundreds of glittering pieces of wet broken glass and shards of what "use to be" cascading onto the floor - oh but we are in trouble now.

My mother quickly grabbed us and escorted us off to the kitchen. She sat us in chairs (deliberately out of view of my father) and said to us in a low but urgent voice that conveyed all the gravity of the life and death situation, "You sit here - and you be quiet. You don't say a word - you don't make a sound - you don't move. I don't even want to hear you breathe. Do you understand?" We both nod as silently as possible. She leaves, returning to the family room to help my father clean up the mess we made.

And per her instructions we didn't make any noise... didn't even move... not even to look at each other. Our chairs didn't squeak, our clothes didn't even rustle. We were deathly quiet. And so were my parents - they didn't say anything to one another. All that could be heard for the next 30 minutes was the sound of broken glass being swept up into a dust pan off of a gin and vodka soaked carpet.

Each time there was a pile great enough to be dumped in the trashcan (which was also in the kitchen) my mother made the delivery herself, being careful to keep us out of view of my father-she made sure there was no direct line of sight (in truth, we would not see our father for the rest of the evening - and if I remember correctly for the next few days. Thankfully I had parents that knew when they could and couldn't punish their children and that evening was one of them - my mom saved us that night).

After the recovery effort, my mother first convinced my father to go upstairs and to finish watching the game. Then, and only then, when he was distracted from the colossal error his sons had just committed, did my mother quitely come to the kitchen and get us and take us to bed - same rules for survival apply: Do not make a sound. And we don't - not even when slipping into bed on oridnarily squeaky mattresses.

Many years later, now we can all laugh about the bar incident. It wasn't funny then - but we can chuckle about it now (since my father doesn't even drink anymore and the bar has since been retired). We never did get punished for crashing it - Thank God - otherwise I wouldn't be around to tell you about it.