Brother Dearest

I have an older brother. Sorta.  He's my half-brother.  We consider ourselves full-on brothers.  We don't look much alike.  Anyway, as I tell people, "Long story short: Our dad boned his mom first."

Being eight years older, as a little boy, Evan was a god to me.  He lived with his mother so he'd come to visit one weekend a month and for half a summer and he'd have a little brat aggravating the hell out of him.

Anything Evan did was by far the coolest thing on the planet.  Anything Evan said was by far the smartest or funniest thing anyone said in the history of ever.

When I was six, Pop went on sabbatical to England to finish writing his book on dialectic (don't ask).  So, I went to first grade in England.  Halfway through the year, Evan, then a freshman in high school, came to live with us and did the 2nd half of the year there.  I was in heaven.

Mom recalls the house literally shaking from me running around hassling Evan and us thumping and bumping. Inevitably, being so much younger and smaller, I'd get hurt, or pretend to get hurt and would run crying to her, trying to get him in trouble.  She also recalls the time we were all ready to go somewhere and then Pop realized we were about 15 minutes early so we'd wait and I immediately turned to Evan and said "Great! Wanna fight?!"

Things I adored as a kid:

1. Evan

2. Sugar

3. Toys

4. Gammie

...

67. Mom and Pop.

Anyway, after that half year, we didn't live with each other again, until I was 12.

Evan was 20 then.  He had been off at college.  He dropped out.  He grew his hair long.  He got earrings. He went to a guitar school.  He bought a motorcycle.  He had a girlfriend with really big boobs.  All of that, to a 12 year old, more firmly entrenched Evan as the biggest badass of all time.

(Now, as a 31 year old, while I still kinda think his meltdown was awesome, I find it to be pretty run of the mill)

I was in middle school.  I lived with my brother, the badass.  He had come to live with Pop and me and had entered the local college to get his grades going again so he could transfer back to his original school.  He had a wall of CDs.  In the early 90s, tapes were still dominant, so CDs showed how debonair Evan was.  I was pretty sure he had even actually had sex before.  Thus, more than ever, Evan remained my favoritest person.

Pop was a professor at a military college.  We lived on the campus.  Pop was, and remains to this day, not one to waste a dollar.  If I needed a haircut, he gave me three dollars and sent me to the barbers the cadets went to.

The running joke was this:  A cadet went in to the barbershop and asked Ramey (barber who'd been there for at least forever) for a haircut.  The cadet said, "I want it an inch longer on the right side than on the left.  On the left though, I want you to put three tiers into it and, up top, I want a lightning bolt shaved in."  Ramey looked at the cadet as though he were crazy.  "Cadet," he said, "you know I can't do anything like that."  The cadet replied, "Yes, you can. You did it to me two weeks ago."

That's my way of telling you that I hated getting haircuts. Yay. Great.  I looked like a prisoner/refugee every time I got one.  Middle schoolers are known to be kind and understanding of the misfortunes of others.

I had Evan though.  Evan would save me.

Evan convinced me that there was this awesome new haircut that all the college guys were getting.  I'd be the coolest kid in 7th grade because I'd have a sweet college guy haircut. 

As it was 1992, he was talking about the Mushroom haircut.

(I cringe now)

Best of all, Evan would do it for me so a) it was guaranteed to be perfect and b) I could pocket THREE WHOLE DOLLARS! So what that Evan had never cut hair before?  That didn't faze me in the least.  I hadn't seen him try, but I was fairly certain he could walk on water.

We went in the bathroom.  He wet my hair down and started cutting.  I heard "hmmmm" a lot.  Then I heard "uh oh."  I may have heard an "oops."

I was a trifle concerned.  Evan was super, but then so are brain surgeons and if you ever hear "hmmmmm", "uh oh", and "ooops" from one of them you get worried too.

"Okay, Ajax.  I admit. I didn't get it quite right.  It's a little higher up than the college guys have," my idol calmly explained, "but, it's okay, because none of the other seventh graders will know because none of them will have one."

People hear what they want to hear. That's why I believed him.  He made sure to show me how it looked while my hair was still wet.  He was right.  I didn't know how to tell he'd messed up because I'd never seen a haircut like it before.  From what I could tell I was okay. Also, my badass brother assured me it was okay.

The only problem was that, the next morning when I got dropped off at school, he wasn't there to explain to the other kids (not just 7th graders...pretty much anyone who saw me), how I had a badass college guy haircut (nearly).  They took one look at me and...

...that's the story of how I came to be called "[Penis] Head" for the rest of 7th grade and, therefore, how my brother was no longer my hero.