Evil Brother And The Bad Dad Saturday's

After reading Cracked Chancla's most recent post I was inspired to write this confession... Chancla was of course inspired something the El Mas Chingon wrote, and so it goes...

My confession is this: I was one of those evil brothers... sometimes.

My sister Jessica was 8 years younger than me, making her the logical object of much torment. Maybe not on the level of torment that EMC or Chancla faced from their brothers, but still, I was no stranger to the role of Big Brother Bully... That's not to say I was that way all the time. I had my good moments as well... But still, it must have been hard to grow up with me as a brother.

I guess my relationship with my sister can be summed up in a picture that my sister still has stashed away somewhere in her room. It's her at 5 or 6 years old. She's sitting on the concrete steps that led to the front door of our old house… She's leaning up against the black rusted railing… Her hair is an absolute train wreck; Unwashed, uncombed, and just in general un-kept... She's wearing a blue dress that was falling apart and barely hanging onto her shoulder. It was the dress she wore to play “tea party” with her dolls while she watched “Little Women” for the 800th time.

She'd wear it everyday if you let her.

The other thing that stands out about the picture is that Jessica is not wearing shoes... So there she sits on the concrete steps, barefoot, dirty, and wearing a gaudy play dress… And a big toothy grin plastered across her face. (She didn’t know enough to know she should have been embarrassed).

Nobody remembers who took the picture, why, or when it was taken.

But Jessica and I don't need any of those facts to know the story... We knew as soon as we discovered the picture that it was a "Bad Dad Saturday."

You see, Saturday's were my Dad's drinking day. Don't get me wrong, he drank on the other days as well but Saturdays were the days he really let loose!

He would down enough beer to kill an average man by mid afternoon. Then he'd make another trip to the liquor store for that dangerous second case.

Sometimes he'd get through that second case; sometimes he'd pass out halfway through. You could never tell. Saturday's were a crap shoot... Sometimes he was fun, "Let's throw the football around!”

Sometimes he was dangerous, "Stay the fuck out of my way!"

Have you ever had a friend that was so crazy that it made you nervous to hang out with him because you never knew what would happen? The kind of person who starts drinking and you just know that this night ends with either a police visit, a fight, or a shooting… Or maybe even all three!

Well that's my Dad. That’s what “Bad Dad Saturday” was all about.

So for whatever reason, no matter how much fighting had gone on between us during the week, I became Jessica’s protector on Saturday's. It didn't matter if she had spilt milk on my baseball cards and I had kidnapped her favorite Barbie the night before...

“Bad Dad Saturday's” erased all of that.

I made it my job to keep her occupied with board games, pillow fights, and Disney Movie's... The lunch menu for “Bad Dad Saturday's” consisted of two items, Cereal or Macaroni and Cheese (the only two things I knew how to make)... If she wanted to wear her old blue dress, then that was fine by me.

I just wanted her to be safe and happy, far out of reach of the Monster we called Dad.

Once my Mom got home, all bets were off and we went back to sibling rivalry.

I'd like to think however that the time we shared on "Bad Day Saturday" is what really counted. Right?

I want to believe that the memory of me on my knees teaching her how to box, far outweighs the times I convinced her there was a monster in her closet... And what about all the times we were watching Aladdin and she fell asleep, using my leg as her pillow? Shouldn't that be worth more than the times I made fun of her big forehead until she cried?

As the years went by our bonding moments became more frequent and the teasing was, for the most part, left behind.

Jessica is in her senior year of High School now... Dad has been pretty much absent over the last few years (which is a good thing).
In that time I've tried to be a something more than a brother but less than a father. I hope I've been successful at it.

Still though, the sibling rivalry occasionally rears its head.

Sometimes I'll give her a pinch on the side when what I really want to do is give her a hug... I’ll tell her she should be reading more books, when what I really want to say is “I’m proud of you.”

I'm pretty sure she knows how I feel about her, how important she is to me... but after reading what Chancla wrote I can't help but think, “maybe I should say the words that go unspoken…”

Maybe I should tell her that I’m proud of her. Maybe I should lose the big brother act sometimes and say tell her “I love you...”

Even if you do have a forehead big enough to land a helicopter on! (j/k)