PVC Swords

A little more recent. I wrote this last August. It's from a collection of stories I wrote about my childhood and gave to my mom for Christmas. She loved it. :)

 

We lived on top of a hill on O’Dell Court.  Growing up there was quiet and isolated.  Oak trees hid the houses from each other.  It was odd growing up on a court so remote that even the town of Grapevine didn’t have it on their map.  We knew that but it didn’t bother us a lot.  My family knew everybody on the block and they were all nice, even though we didn’t really talk to them much at all.  Rob lived across the street from us.  We moved there before he did but I was far too young to really remember life without him.  That’s why we’ve always introduced ourselves as brothers.  We decided a long time ago that saying that we were friends didn’t make sense anymore.   We’ve lived too much life together to be considered even best friends.

            I have three real brothers.  Brian is 9 years older than me, Jeff is 4 years older, and Kevin is 3 years younger.  Rob falls into the mix just a year older than Jeff.  Nobody would really argue that we were brothers by looking at us.  There is a physical similarity to all of us.  Some share different features but in a way we all look alike.  I remember once meeting some of Kevin’s friends and they said to me that I was Kevin’s brother before I even introduced myself.  They knew this simply by the fact that I looked so much like him.  Jeff has had the same thing happen to him with Kevin.  It was strange to be noticed like that but in a refreshing way.  Growing up was filled with complexities.  Relationships are never simple with brothers.  The feelings for a brother are also strong.  They may not always be happy or loving feelings, but they are always strong and intense.  My relationship with each of my brothers were just that, complex and strong.  Sometimes words weren’t enough to express how intense our feelings were. 

Despite it all, Rob was able to be a glue of our family.  I know that none of us are able to completely understand how Rob has been able to really do it but to this day, over twenty years later, he’s still able to bring out sides of my brothers and me that we never knew we had.  I’ve never had a person in my life able to do the things that he’s been able to do for me.  I think my brothers would agree with me.  Ideas that came from Rob were always somehow a better idea.  If any of us were to suggest the same idea, then some how the idea wouldn’t be as interesting.  There’s always been a child like charm to Rob.  He would always have such a passion for the ideas that he came up with even though they were so strange and ridiculous.

One day none of us were doing anything.  Rob walked into our house.  He didn’t knock or ask to come over.  He would just show up.  He was family after all.  Why should he knock?  My mom established a rule in the house early on that anybody visiting the house should make themselves at home and could eat anything they wanted as long as they made it themselves.  Rob wasn’t afraid to take her up on that offer since his mother wasn’t the best cook around.  He grew tired of burying her food in ketchup so found himself eating at our place often.  During one of those trips to get food Rob came up with, what he thought, was a brilliant idea.

“I have an idea guys,” Rob would say.

We’d respond with, “What’s that?”

“Let’s go to the hardware store and buy some PVC pipe.  Then we can make swords with them.”

Somehow he’d be able to make that sound like a brilliant idea and in no time we found ourselves at the now shut down True Value.  We eventually found the PVC pipe in the store then quickly debated on the perfect size for the swords.

“One inch is too small.  Two inch will be perfect,” we all finally decided on.

“But Rob, a PVC pipe doesn’t look like sword.”

“That’s ok, we’ll cut it in half then it will,” he quickly said like he knew that was his plan all along.

“Oh ok, good idea.”

When we got home, Rob broke us up into two teams.  Jeff and Kevin would stay at our house while Rob and I would run down to his house.  We would then go through and make outfits that we would be battling in.  As soon as Rob and I got to his house he already had plans for us.  The 50 gallon trash bags that we used to pick up the over one acre of dead leaves were quickly grabbed along with grey duct tape.  In a blur Rob had thrown on my trash bags.  They almost really looked like a suit of armor.  We were confident walking back up the hill.  We were ready.  That was until we met our competition in the backyard.  Jeff used to race motorcycles when he was younger and still had all of his outfits.  Kevin fit perfectly in some of Jeff’s older equipment while he could still fit in some of it as well even though he hadn’t raced motorcycles for years.  Rob and I saw the racing goggles on our competition and knew we were in trouble.  To this day I remember the look of Jeff and Kevin with just motorcycle goggles on their heads.  They looked so hilarious.  The seriousness on their faces made it so much funnier.  Like the no named WWF wrestler up against Hulk Hogan, Rob and I knew we were in trouble.  We fought a good fight though.  I don’t remember there ever being a winner declared, although if they went off of looks, then we most definitely lost.

This wasn’t an out of the ordinary thing with Rob.  This was a normal occurrence with him.  We never knew what his next brilliant idea would be.  I never would have thought to do those things or ever would have done them if it weren’t for Rob and his child like charm.  None of the brothers were able to nor wanted to.  We knew no matter how silly or dumb we thought his ideas were, they’d always lead us to having a good time.

Reviews

[Tony]

My favorite stories are those about childhood memories. This was special to me because my background is similar. Your prose is easy to read and quickly engrossing. and inspiring.

[Dave Lounsbury]

Excellent work, your pacing and flow are at a professional level. I really enjoyed this piece.

[Mokey]

Hey! :) Great! This is very nice. I think you missed an opportunity to give your readers a visual of your characters when you mentioned that the brothers all look very much alike. This is a perfect chance to say *what* they look like, and *how* they are alike, specifically. Of course, if this was for your mom, she already knows that information! :) Another thing is that you seem to repeat the same thought over and over in different sentences, all in a row. Check out your paragraphs 2 and 3. Many sentences essentially mean the same thing as the ones before without adding much more information. Also, in this story, it's difficult to determine how old you and Rob are. That's important for the visual sense. Finally, I'd like to see an overall theme to the story, rather than just a slice-of-life. Memoirs are made so much more powerful with a theme, in my opinion. For instance, if you just jot things down as they happened, that's notes. Or a diary. But if you say, I'm going to tell you a story about the man who taught me to be spontaneous, then the memoir feels like a story, and it hits home even more. :)