If you ever meet my
younger brother, Luke, and you look at his face really closely, you can see a
scar on the bridge of his nose. That
scar makes me laugh every time I think of it.
It also makes me thankful that my Dad never became a medical doctor.
Growing up, we
never had the “don’t throw things in the house rule.” I am pretty certain that Mom wanted the rule,
but whenever she’d try to enact it, one of us would throw something at
her. It wasn’t rebellion, a fight
against authority. Our need to throw
things in the house was more of a cultural divide, with my mother as the
gatekeeper of all things civilizing while we—the boys—were the barbarians at the
gate.
We incorporated
throwing into all manner of chores, from laundry to dishes to gardening to
housecleaning. Yep, we had chores. Yep, we did laundry. Yep, we threw dishes. Throughout all the years of throwing things
in the house, we never broke a dish or a lamp.
We would watch whole football games while throwing a football around our
living room. With our eyes on the
television, we’d have to pay attention to the pigskin being whipped at our
heads. We never broke anything. Never.
We had sure hands, both in the throwing department as well as the
catching department.
I thought throwing
things in the house was a universal practice.
The first time I tried to unload the groceries from the car by throwing
one of the bags to Sunday, I almost broke a jar of mayonnaise on her
forehead.
While I’d like to
continue bragging about our perfect throwing record, I must be honest. Luke’s scar represents the truth of my claim,
and it is this: we had a near-perfect
record. Near perfect means that we never
broke anything, if you can forget about that one time.
After two decades
of time passed, the story has gotten a little fuzzy. I can’t remember if I was in the room or if
my older brother was there, but I do remember this: there was a crash of glass and Luke came out
of his bedroom with blood streaming down his face. So much for our perfect record.
We lived in a
pretty destructive household, so a boy with blood streaming down his face
wasn’t too uncommon. I don’t even think Dad
looked up from his newspaper.
Luke said, “Dad, I
think we need to go to the hospital.”
Again, this
statement wasn’t unfamiliar. We went to
the emergency room quite often. I bet we
were one of the few elementary school kids who could give directions to our
house and to the General Hospital there in town. Toward the end of our rambunctious stage, I
believe they had a parking space reserved for the Towles-mobile.
Without looking up,
Dad said, “What’s the matter?”
Luke said, “I cut
myself.”
Then, Dad looked
up. “What happened?”
Here’s where the
fun began. Luke has never been a good
liar. The truth is in his face, so his
thoughts exist right there for all to see.
If he thinks something’s funny during a funeral, he’s laughing. Something makes him mad, he’s scowling. Something stinks, he’s hoping no one thinks
he did it. I must say, his ability to
lie must have been given to me and my older brother, Joe. In fact, compared to Joe, I am a lying
amateur, but that’s another story.
Here’s what Luke
said: “I was putting my football away
and it hit the light fixture and broke it.
The glass cut my nose.”
Here’s what Luke
meant: “I was throwing the football up
in the air in my bedroom and it hit the light fixture and broke it. The glass cut my nose.”
Either way, Dad
didn’t care. He wasn’t so much concerned
about the lie as he was about the bleeding nose in front of him.
“Let’s get you
cleaned up,” he said. After getting most
of the blood stopped, Dad pronounced Luke cured as he placed the sixth band-aid
across Luke’s nose.
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