The Man with the Golden Brother

The noisy chatter at the bar died down when the overhead music abruptly stopped and the MC walked out on stage. “The results are in,” he said. “I’d like to thank our contestants for the great performances. Takes a lot of courage to get up in front of a crowd that’s been drinking and sing your heart out. Let’s give them all a big hand!” He paused, smiling widely as the crowd followed his command, then continued. “In third place, Sharon!”

Mike watched a young blonde woman squeal and hurry over to the stage, where the MC handed her a t-shirt with the bar’s logo on it. She smiled and laughed as she held up her prize. Mike mentally rolled his eyes. What sad individual thought third place was something to brag about?

“In second place, Mike!” The MC announced.

Mike cringed at the sound of his name. A familiar hand suddenly clapped his shoulder, making him cringe harder. “What are you waiting for? Get up there!” David said.

Mike reluctantly slid off his bar stool and walked over to the MC, who proudly handed him a coupon for a round of five shots as if it was the key to the city. Mike nodded weakly and hurried back to his seat.

“And first place goes to…”

Anybody but David, Mike thought.

“David!” The MC yelled.

The entire bar (except Mike) erupted into applause as David accepted his $100 gift certificate. “David, I think I speak for everyone when I say that was the best rendition of ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ we’ve ever heard,” the MC gushed. How about an encore?” The crowd cheered and clapped in agreement. David, never one to need encouragement, grabbed the mike. The music started up and moments later, the entire crowd was singing along with him. Except for Mike, who ordered the free shots, drank them one by one, then slinked out of the bar unnoticed. The music and merriment followed him to the end of the block before fading into the night.

Rain began to fall. Lightly at first, but in the blink of an eye it started pounding down as though it had a personal vendetta against second place winners. Mike slipped into a nearby bar to wait out the storm, which ended up being three beers long. He stumbled into his apartment shortly before midnight hoping for two things - that there were frozen burritos in the fridge, and that Cindy was in the mood to fool around. He happily discovered the burritos, but when he went looking for his girlfriend, she was nowhere to be found.

As he walked though their apartment calling Cindy’s name, he noticed that other things were missing as well. The blender and toaster oven from the kitchen. Framed photos from the walls. The mountain of skincare products from the bathroom cabinets. With growing anxiety he hurried into the bedroom and threw open the closet and dresser drawers. The only clothes he found in them were his own.

Mike flopped down on the floor like he’d been sucker punched. As soon as he regained the feeling in his arms, he pulled out his phone and fired off an avalanche of texts.

WTF Cindy where r u

Cindy

Cindy ansr mee

WH R RU DONT IGNOR ME!!@

Where MY blendier?????

Finally, one hour and dozens of texts later, Cindy finally responded.

Yes I moved out. We are done. I’m sorry to do it this way but I didn’t want to deal with the drama.

Mike was incredulous. Ru serious?? He texted. 3yrs over like ? No u cum tell me to my face were over!!!

No, you’re drunk, she responded.

Im not.

I know when you’re drunk. You’re not as good at hiding it as you think you are. One of the reasons I left.

Mike could feel red hot anger burning in his cheeks. HIs fingers furiously struck the keys on his phone. RU seeing someone else! Is it DAVE???

He fired off the text and waited, heart pounding as he watched the three dots flickering under it. After what seemed like an eternity, her response finally appeared.

JFC you’re pathetic. Maybe if you stopped obsessing over every little thing your little brother does, you might actually be happy like him. I’m done with you.

That was the last thing Mike remembered before waking up on the couch in his underwear. His clothes, caked in vomit, were waddled up in a ball on a chair. His laptop sat open on the coffee table, surrounded by empty beer cans and burrito wrappers. Unable to locate his phone, Mike used his laptop to look up his texts.

He had continued to text Cindy for hours after her last message, sending the last one at 3:09 a.m. She never responded. The only text he received was from David.

Hey bro, remember I’m competing in the place setting competition at the county fair today. Judging is at eleven. Hope to see you and Cindy there!

The laptop may have ended up a broken mess against the wall had Mike not suddenly noticed that his private browser was open. The one he used when he was looking for certain things that couldn’t be found in polite society. Upon closer inspection, he saw that sometime during his drinking and texting marathon he’d posted a question to the Dark Arts forum that read:

When I was a kid I wished on a shooting star for a little brother and the next day POOF there he was. It was cool at first but then he became the Golden Child and I became the family kick bucket. It’s not supposed to work like that! I want my old life back. Is there a way to un-wish that wish?

A few dozen people had responded. Most only expressed sympathy and complained about their own disappointing experiences with wishing on a star, but one post actually answered Mike’s question. It was from a woman claiming to be a voodoo priestess named Mama Ohm:

Wishes are like bubbles, fragile and easily destroyed with a single sharp poke. In order to undo your wish, you must collect the ingredients listed below. Boil them together in a pot of water until the chicken feet uncurled. Then place a sharp object in the mixture and let it soak for thirteen hours. Poke your wish with this object and it will POP out of existence, leaving no trace and no memory of it behind.

Reading the post triggered a memory that quickly cleared out his brain fog. He got up and walked into the kitchen. It looked like the day after Woodstock. Boxes and jars were opened and tossed aside, and bags of half-melted frozen food littered the counter. On the stove was a pot, and at the bottom of the pot, just underneath the floating uncurled chicken feet, lay a yellow number two pencil with a finely sharpened tip.

Mike heard his phone in the other room notifying him of a text. He hurried out of the kitchen and looked around for the phone, but it wasn’t until the phone chimed again that he saw it was coming from the ball of vomit clothes. He untangled the smelly mess, feeling a twinge of hope that the text was from Cindy, but it was David again.

I forgot the rose petals! Could you pick up two red roses from the florist on your way over? Thanks!

Mike stared at the text for a long moment before responding. Then, he popped a couple of beers and waited. Ten minutes later there was a knock on the front door, and Mike yelled from the couch for them to come in.

The front door could be heard opening and closing, and David walked into the living room with look of grave concern. “Mike, I’m so sorry about you and Cindy. I got here as fast as I could,” he said. “Are you okay?”

Mike let out a heavy sigh. “No, I’m not. I just lost the love of my life.” He took a long drink of beer.

“Come on, Mike, you know that’s not going to help,” David said anxiously.

“You know what would help? If my little brother would sit and have a drink with me,” Mike said, holding out an open beer. David hesitated, no doubt thinking about the competition. “Just one quick drink and we can go.” Mike pressed.

David reluctantly sat down and took the beer. “So…what happened?”

They sat and talked for a few minutes. Or rather, David sat there while Mike went on and on about how much he loved Cindy and how upset he was that his dreams of marriage and family would never come true. He was unable to cry, but managed to choke out a few dry sobs. David ate it up, as expected, but was only taking small sips of his beer. Mike had to take it up a notch. “How about a toast, bro?” He asked, raising his beer. “To all the poor bastards nursing a broken heart.”

“I’ll drink to that,” David said, taking a long pull of his beer.

“And to Cindy,” Mike said. “Despite everything that’s happened, I wish her well.”

“Hear hear!” David said. He took another long drink and put down the bottle. “How about we get going?”

“Just let me hit the head first,” Mike said. He walked into the bathroom, sat down on the toilet without lowering his pants, and started scrolling through his phone. A few minutes later he heard the sound of something tall and heavy hitting the floor. He emerged from the bathroom to see his little brother passed out on the floor. He grabbed his wallet and keys. “Sorry, but this is for your own good,” he said to the unconscious body as he walked out the front door.

Following a quick stop at the florist to grab the roses, Mike was soon standing in front of his brother’s table. To his right, a trio of judges made their way down the line, leaving a trail of broken hopes and dreams in their wake. To his left, the other entrants were trying to keep their anxiety under wraps. It seemed as though Mike was the only one breathing normally and not covered in a veneer of forehead sweat.

The judges arrived at MIke’s table, their badges dangling from their necks with all the prominence of a Nobel prize, wearing expressions that indicated they just consumed a plate of sauerkraut sandwiches and pickle brine. Two women flanked their male colleague, the three of them staring down at Mike’s entry with an unmistakable hunger in their beady eyes.

Mike watched them study every inch of the table, inspecting the placements, angles, color scheme, patterns, and whatever else it was they checked for in these competitions. Finally, the female judge with the sharp cheekbones and pointed chin adjusted her glasses and spoke. “Technically sound. The flatware is in the correct position, as are the glasses,” her nasally voice declared.

The other woman nodded to herself as she inspected the tablecloth with long bony fingers. “The linen is crisp and drapes the table evenly. The napkins are placed on the plate in a bowtie fold. A bold choice. And the color scheme compliments the china pattern.”

Finally it was the man’s turn to speak. “The centerpiece is a bold statement, but the rose petals are most definitely overkill,” he sniffed. The others nodded in agreement, then moved on without another word. Normally such petty criticism would get Mike’s hackles up, but even he was surprised at how well took it. Maybe because he knew he had this competition in the bag. No wonder David was always in a good mood.

Twenty minutes after the judges finished with their last victim, they appeared on the platform ready to pass the final judgement. The woman with the bony fingers, apparently the leader of the group, stepped up to the microphone. “We are ready to announce the winners of the place setting competition.” She said. Once she was satisfied she had everyone’s attention, she continued. “In third place, Sarah Langdon!” Everybody clapped politely as Sarah walked up to the platform and accepted her ribbon.

“In second place, David Bennett!” Everybody clapped again as the judge got out the second place ribbon, but the applause quickly died down and she was still standing there, waiting. “Hello? David?” She asked. “Are you here?”

Mike looked around with the rest of the group until it dawned on him that she was talking to him. He walked over in a daze and accepted his ribbon. He never found out who won first place, because he walked right past his table and kept walking until he was home.

When Mike entered his apartment, David was sitting on the couch, elbows on his knees, head bowed. Mike ignored him and went straight into the kitchen. He looked into the pot, and while the uncurled chicken feet were still floating around, the pencil was gone. He furiously looked around the kitchen, upending everything on the counter and slamming cupboard doors in his search.

“Looking for something?” David asked from the living room.

“No!” Mike yelled defensively. The search turned up nothing. Anger burning in his chest, he stormed out of the kitchen only to stop cold when he saw the pencil in David’s hand.

“What is this?” David asked quietly.

“It’s a pencil, so what?” Mike asked, swallowing hard to push down the lump rising in his throat.

“What about this?” David asked, turning Mike’s open laptop towards him. The Dark Arts message board was still up, and had a few new replies asking him if it had worked.

“What about it? It’s nothing. Cindy had just dumped me, remember? I was drunk and in a bad place and just blowing off steam, that’s all. It’s not like I can actually erase you from existence, right?” He laughed.

“No, you can’t,” David said slowly. He looked Mike in the eye. “But I can.”

Mike blinked. Then he scoffed. “Sure you can. You can do anything can’t you? Well guess what, little brother? You’re nothing without me! Everything you have is because of me! Your life should be mine!”

David let out a humorless laugh of his own. “You really think you’re the one who wished on that star, don’t you?”

Mike froze. “What did you say?”

“I was an only child in an unhappy home. More than anything I wished a big brother I could look up to and he could look out for me. Then one night I wished on a shooting star, and I wished so hard that poof! When I woke up there you were.” David grew quiet, twirling the pencil between his fingers. “I guess deep down I always knew you hated me,” he said softly, “but it’s hard to give up on a wish.”

“You’re nuts!” Mike exclaimed. “What kind of weirdo wishes for a big brother? Who wants somebody bigger, stronger, and smarter than them? No, it makes way more sense to want a little brother who looks up to you and wants to be like you!”

David stood up and looked Mike square in the eye. “There’s only one way to find out, if you have guts.” He said, holding up the pencil between them. “Your movie, big brother.”

*****

The sun began to set over the fairgrounds. A lone young woman walked down endless aisles of exhibits, taking in as much as possible before they were broken down and whisked away until next year. An exceptionally good looking table setting sporting a blue ribbon caught her eye, and she walked over for a closer look. “This is an exquisite table setting,” she told the man standing next to it. “I can’t believe it came in second.”

The man smiled. “To be honest, it surprised me too. But that’s life, isn’t it? Things don’t always turn out like we expect.” The woman smiled and nodded in agreement. “So, are you a big fan of place setting competitions?” He asked.

“I’m a big fan of county fair competitions in general. It allows regular people to show off their under appreciated talents,” the woman replied. “My grandmother used to enter the quilting competition every year, and people absolutely fawned over her work. I think she craved that more than a blue ribbon.” She looked over the table. “I sure wish I had a talent like this.”

“I could give you some pointers if you’d like. Would you like to grab a cider, miss…?”

“Cindy,” the woman laughed, holding out her hand.

“David,” the man said, grasping her hand in his. “Nice to meet you.”