Kevin Kincaid
English 101-08, Stroud
A Memoir, FD
July 16, 2012
Mark and the Gang As long as I have been alive my brother Mark has been ruining my life. Being the youngest of three boys even life’s lessons are hand-me-downs. It is almost as if Mark made it his personal goal to make every mistake a kid can make growing up, and it was my solemn honor to learn from him and not make them myself or so our parents would have me believe. There were many places just outside the boundaries of what was considered “the neighborhood” I was not allowed to go to with my friends. The reason for this was because in the past often a few years before I could even attempt such a thing as riding my bike to the nature preserve, Mark had done so and either stayed gone way to long or found some other trouble. Just a couple mile from out home there is a nature preserve. Mark and his friend one morning without approval from either our parents went for a jog there. I thought my parents were going to call the Governor and have him active the National Guard to assist in the search for him. Well a couple hours later they came jogging back and then the yelling began. From that moment on since Mark didn’t get permission for his jog I could not go enjoy the nature preserve with you adult supervision or until I myself was an adult. Growing up was full of such “Mark rules” but none so insidious as not being able to have my own car until after I graduated high school. You see Mark was granted that privilege and with his new found freedom school was often the last place you could find him. And because of this freedom he became a father at the age of 18. So you see I could not be allowed to have a car because surely I would follow in Mark’s footsteps. Oh how cruel life is when you are one of the only seniors to ride the bus to school. For a teenage boy privacy is a treasured commodity. And after Mark and his wife split up and he and his two young children moved back in with us. I had just gotten used to having my own room and a little privacy when that was suddenly snatched away from me and I am back to sharing a room with my other brother Mike. Oh how small that house felt with the infusion of 3 more people under the roof. I can remember those bleary eyed morning walks to the kitchen, the crunch of discarded cheerios under my toes. The high pitched squeal of my niece greeting me at the breakfast table “Good morn’n Unky Mike”, still echoes in my ears. Of course my name is Kevin, but Mike was easier to say, and it was grated on me then to be called by my brother’s name. It felt like I wasn’t good enough. I will say this nothing wakes you up in the morning quite like the piercing sensation of finding a toy that was “lost” with your bare feet. The summer I got my first job I learned an important lesson from Marks kids, and that is to keep your money in the bank. I worked at a grocery store and was able to cash my checks right there when I got them and as such I did not need a bank account at least in my mind. I would keep my cash in a little drawer of my mother’s thimble case. Well one day I came home from work and went to retrieve some of my hard earned money and to my horror all of my money was gone. Hot anger filled me and I am sure flames spat from all openings on my head. I accused Mark of stealing the money, but it was his daughter Anna the stepped up and said she got two dollars from the drawer to buy ice cream from the vendor in the truck earlier that day for herself and her little brother. It didn’t make sense to me, I didn’t have two dollars in there all I had was two fifties. Then it dawned on me, Anna was too young and hadn’t learned all about money yet. All she knew was that you had to give somebody green paper to get something you wanted. Embarrassment replaced my anger and I apologized to my brother for the way I had acted. Soon my brother met a new woman and moved out once again returning a little sense of normalcy to my world. But they were close and they still visited often almost as if they hadn’t moved out at all, the only real difference at the time was they didn’t sleep there. Soon his job moved him “up north” and we could only see him on vacations or holidays. No longer could the screech of children be heard at all hours, and I had my own room once more. The fullness of the house was replaced by peacefulness that bordered on loneliness. It wasn’t until his kids were no longer around that I realized how much I had grown to need those crunchy cheerios, and impaled feet. And I didn’t mind so much when they called me by my brother’s name. All I knew was I missed them. It has been many years now since he and his family moved away, and I don’t miss a chance to go up there and stay with him and his family. We spend lots of time laughing about those days and how silly things are now that seemed so big back then. I’m glad now for the “Mark’s lessons” I learned, after having gone and learning some Kevin’s lessons I appreciate those hand-me-downs that I loathed growing up.