Mikey Lanbrecht couldn’t throw a crabapple worth a shit in Crabapple Wars.
But one Saturday in November he decided to break every Glaston neighborhood code of honor there was, and when he ran outta crabapples he picked up a rock.
Mikey Lanbrecht apparently wasn’t too bad at throwing rocks, because the rock he threw shattered my orbital bone and left me with a scar that looked like a caterpillar skeleton or something.
When the doctors still thought I’d lose my eye my dad walked over to Lanbrecht’s house, and him and Mr. Lanbrecht wound up brawling in their front yard.
I kept my eye, and I learned a lesson:
Everybody that liked me said my dad won the fight, and everybody who liked Mikey Lanbrecht said his dad won.
My sister was dating Treyllian Carson, who lived next door to the Lanbrechts, and she watched the whole thing. Said it was a tie, just two fat dudes with no business fighting, fighting.
The thing was, my dad hurt his wrist and couldn’t do his job. It was a nonunion shop, so they fired him.
We moved from Glaston to Greydale Heights. Nobody ever wanted to move to Greydale Heights.
I got a job at LykeNew Car Wash and Detailing.
I swore I was gonna save money and pay a crackhead to kill Mikey Lanbrecht, and his Dad, maybe burn down their house.
Maybe I was gonna keep my money and burn down their house myself.
I was working at LykeNew, hand drying, when someone in a Blue BMW said “I like your scar.”
The way I thought about it, it had to be a joke that was meant to be mean right out of someone’s brain.
And I know my face turned 20 shades of purple and I bit my lip to shutup because I couldn’t get fired from LykeNew for telling a customer to fuck off.
Then this voice, this sweet voice said “No, I really mean it. It’s just…I just like it.”
That sweet voice still likes it.
Jillian Kryszewski came back to the car wash two days later. I saw her pull in with not a speck of damn dust on that Beemer her dad bought her for getting straight A’s.
We went out that weekend, got married two summers later.
When Jillian started loving me, it seemed like I didn’t have enough energy to hate the Lanbrechts. I didn’t talk about it much. But I still hated them.
Jillian got an engineering job, and I was bartending.
For my 40th birthday she bought me StarShifter Park, the go kart track, mini golf and arcade I could only afford to go to once a summer when I was in high school.
I love running the Star. I joke with Jillian that I want to build a fenced in yard and have kids throw tennis balls at each other. Call it Crabapple Wars.
A couple times I thought I saw Mikey Lanbrecht, even though I hadn’t seen him in years.
Jillian told me I had to let it go.
I told her it wasn’t about me, or my scar she liked, it was about my dad.
Jillian told me how silly that was, how Mikey didn’t make my dad fight his dad.
She told me to stop guessing who Mikey Lanbrecht was, and look him up.
“He might have kids now,” she said. If he still lives in town,invite him to come, bring his family and be our guest. Put it in the past. For you.”
Looked up Michael Lanbrecht on social media.
Couldn’t find him, but I found a Diane Lanbrecht, living in North Carolina. Her profile photo was her wedding picture. The man in it was Mikey.
With a little more digging I found out that Mikey had been a member of 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines. They’re called Darkhorse.
They suffered the worst casualties of any unit in Afghanistan. Based on the pictures on social media, Michael came home but left his arms on the battlefield.
He was fitted with some of the fanciest, most high tech prosthetics I had ever seen.
I instantly wanted to joke with Michael about throwing crabapples and rocks.
I scrolled down.
Based on Diane’s posts, Michael took his own life in January of 2021.
After Starshifter closed, I took out one of our newest BSR’s onto the track.
They go 0-60 in three seconds. I forget how long I was out there. I’d like to say it was fun. It should have been. It wasn’t.
I came back in and sent a message to Michael’s widow. She called him Michael. After decades of hating a guy I didn’t really know anymore, I owed him calling him Michael too.
I wanted to tell him that the scar he gave me contributed to, not detracted from my life.
Of course it was too late.
So much of life works that way.
As I was locking up, I promised myself I’d do something the next day.
That idea scared me, so I went back inside, went into the utility shed, got some paint and some stencils.
If you come to StarShifter, right behind the desk ,next to the prices, in the red and yellow of the 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines there’s a sign that says All Active and Retired Military 50% Off.
I can’t invite Michael Lanbrecht anywhere anymore.
But if you own a business, I’m inviting you to find some paint and make a sign.
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IN HONOR OF ALL WHO SERVED.
(But you knew that, right?)
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Holy shit, man.
Oh Wow. This piece is so good on so many levels.