Riding a Bike No Handed

Trouble

 

Photo by Tangerine Newt on Unsplash

I guess I could take the blame, sorta.

Erik seemed normal til after he hit his head when I was trying to teach him to ride his Huffy bike no-handed.

There could be other things too.

Eric likes to set stuff on fire.

People asked me why.

Why fire specifically? 

I’m never gonna know unless Erik tells me, and when I ask him he gives me this look, like I ain’t there, or worse, like someone stole his eyeballs, stuck someone else’s eyeballs in his head, and the new eyeballs are staring at a stranger.

When he lit an abandoned garage, that was the first time. 

I swear I didn’t have nothin’ to do with it, but thinking back, it seemed like something you could burn down and someone might even thank you.

An eyesore, or what not.

I was takin’ a piss when Erik started the fire, I swear on my Aunt Linda’s grave, for real.

We were high, just some little shakeweed we got off Scott Watson for fixin’ his mini bike.

Bein’ high made me feel happy, silly. Not like breaking nothin’, or stealin’ nothin’. 

Or burnin’ nothin’.

But like I said, just seemed like it wasn’t nothin’ that didn’t need burnin’ down.

I ran, because no matter what my Dad says, I ain’t stupid, I know settin’ shit on fire is wrong and can get you in trouble.

When I got to the Nebula arcade I put a 10 in the bill changer -never put more than 5 in it in my life- and pumped a bunch of tokens in the Stargate machine, just wantin’ to make it seem like I had been there all afternoon, poppin’ free credits, if someone asked.

No one asked.

After my first game, I asked him why he did it, in a tiny little whisper like when our little sister would say the words she was writin’ in her letter to Santa Claus.

That’s the first time I got the look.

I thought Erik was just high and fuckin’ with me, like he got more THC in his hits than I got in mine. That happens. It does.

I thought he’d wind up laughin’, just tell me he felt like it.

Or something.

I knew if Erik wound up getting caught, I’d get the blame from our parents, because I was two years and one day older.

For a week I was afraid Erik would get caught. Which would mean I got caught, even though I was over by the train tracks, pissin’.

He did another garage when I wasn’t there. I was with Melanie Ooster trying to convince her if we used a rubber she was technically still a virgin because nothin’ touched her but rubber.

This time it got dark while the flames were still going, so everyone nearby saw it.

Melanie’s brother came home talking about it. 

When I got home I asked Erik if he did it. He got that look again. Didn’t say nothin’. Just looked. 

If you asked Erik what his next D&D character was gonna be, he’d talk until you were sorry you asked.

If you asked who had the best burger south of 8 Mile, he’d break it down in detail, four places, including Lino’s, (where he had only gone once) all the way to the freshness of the gotdamn lettuce.

But if you asked him about settin’ stuff on fire, he just got them different eyes.

Then he set a car on fire.

We took a duffel bag full of baseballs and aluminum bats up to Crary Park, we were gonna pitch to each other. 

I was pitchin’ to him, and he knocked one down the right field line, second farthest I ever seen him hit a baseball. It was the last ball, so I had to go retrieve all of ‘em so he could pitch to me.

There was one car in the parking lot. No one else in the park.

Guess if there was no street parking in front of Watts Club Mozambique, people would just park in the lot for the park.

Erik had lighter fluid, and a rag that he had snuck in the duffel bag.

Guess I should have wondered why he was so eager to carry it.

Could I have stopped Erik from doing it?

Maybe.

Did I try?

No.

I was scared. A few abandoned garages? Whatever. But a car? Someone would shoot you over a car.

Is it shameful to run away from your younger brother when he’s doing something that might get him shot?

Yeah, I suppose it is. 

I didn’t think he’d get shot. I just knew… I don’t know what I knew except that I got scared and I ran.

In a way I’m still running.

After the car, I got a job washing dishes at Stromboli’s. 

I honest to Elvis thought if I was working when Erik got caught, that our dad couldn’t blame me.

Erik tried out for the 8th grade cross country team.

I found out after.

It was weird. He always told me everything. And it was extra weird because cross country had already started.

I asked him why, and he said ,“somethin’ to do,” with his normal eyes and normal voice and normal everything.

The coach said he could practice with the team and be on as an alternate, but wouldn’t be allowed to compete unless they had a few injuries. Said he didn’t want to turn away a boy who showed an interest.

Erik told me all that, normal.

Two days later he set fire to the locker room.

And got caught.

I wasn’t at work.

I was on the way to work.

Worked my whole shift, one of the waitresses, Carly, she snuck me a beer after.

I felt pretty good.

Got home.

Just one look, one look on my dad’s face made me want to run.

Erik was in custody.

Somehow the police knew that Erik had something to do with the car too.

They didn’t know I was there, but my dad did.

Honest to Elvis, The Beatles, and The Rolling Stones, I thought the very worst part, the very worst moment of my life, was when my dad threw me into Mom’s cabinet and some of her china broke.

My mom ran and picked up the broken china. She didn’t say a word to me.

I smoked weed in our room that night. I wanted them to catch me and throw me out.

I probably needed stitches but didn’t get any.

Erik had an evaluation.

I went to school. Everyone wanted to know why he did it. They got mad when I told them I didn’t know. 

They kept Erik under supervision for 72 hours.

Then he came home.

I asked him if he thought he turned different the day he fell off his bike trying to ride no handed.

His eyes were a stranger’s again. A mad stranger.

I didn’t even want to sleep in the same room with him anymore.

I got my wish.

Erik snuck out while I was sleeping, kinda high, kinda exhausted.

I woke up and realized he was gone.

Told my parents the minute they woke up so it wouldn’t be my fault.

Erik went out and set a church on fire.

The cops and the FBI showed up at our house. 

Erik set fire to a black church.

When I wasn’t sobbing, I told everyone who asked that he didn’t do it because it was a black church. But he knew. 

It wasn’t the reason. It wasn’t a reason. 

I thought sobbing in front of the FBI was the worst day of my life. Worse than the china, worse than Aunt Linda dying, worse than when Melanie Ooster stopped talking to me because I lied about the virginity thing, worse than twenty other days put together.

The FBI tore the house apart looking for evidence. I heard my mom say they were looking for evidence that my parents made Erik racist. 

I tried to tell the cops, the FBI that he wasn’t. But I couldn’t tell them why he did it. Just that he liked fire or seemed to.

I went back to school.

Everyone hated me. My brother was a freak and a firebug, and a junior Klansman and I must be the same. Even though the news couldn’t say his name because he was a minor, everyone knew that the 13-year-old white male was my brother, the same weirdo who tried to burn down St. Mary’s Elementary, which all of a sudden everyone loved.

A few days later the FBI came to our house again.

Some people from the church came over and prayed with my mom. My mom didn’t really pray, she just cried.

Then one of the FBI guys, a different kind of guy, spoke to me in my room.

He said Erik told him about The Naked Game. It was our biggest secret. 

I almost threw up. 

I cried.

Uncle Tony started playing the Naked Game with us after Aunt Linda died.

We hated it. 

I told my mom and dad I didn’t want to go over there anymore.

But they said we were selfish, and that he was lonely.

Then he got laid off, found a job in Montana, and moved away.

Only Erik and I knew about The Naked Game.

Erik told the FBI.

Now they all knew. 

That, by far, is the worst moment of my life. 

Erik never should have told.

He must still be mad at me for when he fell and hit his head when I was teachin’ him how to ride a bike no handed.

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