Before I turned 10, back when my family still bore a resemblance to a real one, we all lived under one roof. Although we lived 20 feet from our neighbors on either side, we claimed to live in the country, as there were woods and cow pastures just across the street. This is where I learned to detest cows, but that's another anecdote.
I don't know that my brother and I were any more accident-prone than other boys, but our location in the country kept things interesting. Remember when you were ducking under the electric wire and it snagged inside your lips, applying its jolt to your gums, and you woke up looking at your concerned friends, one of whom was nudging your face with his foot just in case you were still electrified? Remember that? No?
Russ emphasized the blood-spurting spectacular, but I preferred head trauma. Things like jumping off the playhouse deck just to see if it were possible. Things like tripping while sprinting into the house, cracking my forehead on the cement threshold. Things like watching Evil Knievel on tv, then building a rickety ramp out of mason blocks and 2x4s—none of which was actually attached to one another, mind you—and then assaulting this debris pile at 30 mph in a bike that weighed 80 pounds. And things like hanging curtains by stepping on the back of the easy chair, causing it to violently rock into the picture window and catapult me through the glass and into the back yard.
Lying there amongst the shards of broken glass, I knew what was coming next. My mother's unconditional love always manifested through the same sentence.
"Jesus H. Christ. You are the stupidest kid on the face of the earth."
"I'm fine, thanks." I was troubled by what she had just said, though, and by what she had said previously. "So how can Russ and I both be the stupidest? You pretty much have to pick one, don't you?"
"No. You alternate. It's a competition."
It was, actually. We kept track of our stitch-counts. Russ, a decade older, led by triple-digits, but I was gaining and gaining fast. At least until a suspicious band-saw mishap put his mark forever out of reach.
How competitive was it? One time, my mom and I were driving home from the emergency room and she was verbally lopping points off my intelligence while I carefully counted stitches for Guinness. Suddenly, we passed my father and brother on their way to the emergency room. Russ gave me the finger, which was more or less still attached to his hand. Mostly less.
All hail the master. It was like when Karl Malone would approach the scoring title and Jordan would torch someone for 65, just to put the title out of reach. You simply don't outscore Jordan, and you don't outbleed Russ. I might have been the stupidest kid on the face of the earth in spurts, but he held the belt. He was Ali to my Leon Spinks.
Wouldn't life be grand if such seasoning in childhood made for tough adults? If Russ and I hadn't grown up into self-pitying pussies who whine unabashedly every time we get a hangnail or the flu? Alas, we're left with nothing but wistful stories of yesteryear's toughness.
Like this one time...