james would have been 50 years old today. i know it's a bit odd to refer to him as my baby brother, considering that he was 14 years old when i was born, but that's kind of how i grew up thinking of him and therefore that's what sticks. lots of things stick when i look back on the admittedly complicated relationship james and i had. i'm going to share a few of them in this post and hopefully not dissolve into tears when i click "publish." i think (hope?) these will be new to y'all; if not, pretend like they are, mmkay?
cake batter -- the memories i have of my mother are relatively few and i cherish them more than...damn near anything, really. one of them involved her making a cake and me sneaking a taste from the bowl of batter. innocent enough, right? i couldn't wait to lick the spoon or the beaters from the mixer, b/c i was all of 4 or 5 and the concept of patience was lost on me, so i'd dip my finger(s) in the batter. usually i was somehow able to do this without getting busted, which, in hindsight, probably meant that mama was just choosing to overlook the breach.
not this time, though. this time, i'd forgotten that i was in the middle of a massive coloring project when i snuck a taste. i had marker ink all over my fingers and, yes, that ink somehow transferred into the cake batter. did i know this? nope. did i lie when mama asked if i'd put my fingers in the batter? absolutely. did i get called into the kitchen to be confronted with the evidence of my crime, only to be banished to my room to await my punishment? yup.
enter james. he somehow thought that i could convince our dear mother to spare the rod if i apologized. specifically, he thought if i wrote/drew her a letter saying that i was sorry and asking her not to whoop me, i might get off the hook. laughable now, but y'all know i sat right down and wrote my mother a letter anyway. i think it went something like "dear mama, i'm sorry, please don't whoop me, i love you."
yeah, mama whooped me anyway. i don't think james got off scot-free, either. but i love(d) the fact that he tried to help a sister out.
din da da
the first time i heard this song, i was in the kitchen at our old house. james' room was just off the kitchen and he was playing it. i don't know if it was on the radio or if he'd taped it or what, but i have this really vivid memory of looking in the fridge for something and being completely distracted by what i was hearing. again in hindsight, it was probably b/c this song was way different than the gospel that mama and daddy tended to listen to. on the flip side, james (and greg, and sylvester) also introduced me to smooth jazz (shoutout to wnua 95.5), and i'm reasonably sure that the first time i heard digital underground's "freaks of the industry" was on the radio in james' car. the internet says that "freaks of the industry" was released in 1990, so i was in high school by then and therefore not as impressionable as i could have been, i suppose.
space invaders -- when i was at the arcade the other night, i was all set to relive my childhood by playing duck hunt and shooting the shit out of that asshole dog, and i did, and that was fun. but then i saw space invaders, aka one of the first video games i learned how to play, and i got really excited...until i realized it was broken. womp. and yeah, james had an atari and i'd play space invaders and centipede for as long as he'd let me. before the other night, i hadn't played centipede in...god, at least a decade, if not longer. same goes for duck hunt, and yes, i shot at the dog a bazillion times. i hate that dog. i'm pretty sure everyone who's ever played duck hunt hates that dog. that dog can suck it.
to say that i miss having james around would be an understatement. wait. let me rephrase that. to say that i miss being able to call/email/see/talk to james in person would be an understatement. his spirit's still around, kinda like how my parents' spirits are around. there are still certain quasi-distant relatives of mine who have a hard time looking me in my face b/c i remind them so much of james. sorry, y'all. can't really do anything about that. james & i are our mother's children, after all, and we both look like slightly darker versions of her. funny how no one asks how i feel when i look in the mirror sometimes and see james' face or my mother's face.
but this isn't about me. well, it is, kinda, but you know what i mean. it's about remembering my "baby" brother and some of the cool stuff he taught me/introduced me to. it's also about trying not to freak out over the fact that james would've been 50 and i'll be 36 in december and holy crap i am so old and why is time going so fast, etc.
if heaven exists, i hope that today, james gets to eat all of his favorite foods and listen to all of his favorite music while shooting the shit with the angels/spirits of his choosing. i mean, it should be like that every day in heaven as far as i'm concerned, but i don't make the rules. :P
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