When my brother Ras was just a little dumpling, around seven or eight, my parents bought into the American dream and took us all to King’s Dominion, the closest amusement park.
As we raced away with dollar bills stuffed into our pockets, my mother bleated after us: “Watch Ras!” Of course. Our job.
I thought it would be best if my brother stuck to rides like the Cups and Saucers and the Ferris Wheel, and due to his lack of life experience I figured he’d be an easy sell.
But no. I didn’t factor in my brother’s innate love for danger, which had up till then only surfaced once, when he accidentally walked all the way up Carroll avenue to Sligo Church hoping to catch up with my mom after she’d fetched us from school. When we spied him, sniveling under his pageboy cut at the intersection, we dragged him into the car and all three chastised him so thoroughly that I thought he’d wear a bike helmet and shin guards just to go to the bathroom forever more.
He observed the cotton candy smudged babies looping vacantly on the Ferris Wheel, with all the enthusiasm of someone waiting for an elevator, but just as I thought he was about to get in line he spied a group of bigger kids racing toward the Rebel Yell, and off he went. Reason, logic and mild threats were ineffective. He stubbornly ignored me and inched forward with the rest of the lemmings.
Finally we reached the front of the line. My brother, scrawny and screaming, leaped in and excitedly yelled at me to join. I gingerly stepped in next to him, and the “safety” bar descended over our laps and hung there, a good six inches away. No seatbelts, no harness. Just one thin stainless steer bar keeping us from launching into orbit like two curry scented satellites. I ordered my brother to hang on, but at the first apex, the people in the car before us threw their hands up in the air and yelled. My foolish brother followed suit, and as we began the first drop, I saw his sixty pound body start to float off the seat.
“Grab the bar!” I screamed, illustrating by clutching the bar. He pretended not to hear me, waving his toothpick arms around and yelling with the big kids. He continued to rise. Terror pinned me to the seat but with a superhuman effort I managed to lift one leg and throw it over his lap, tethering him to the seat. He didn’t appear to notice and kept waving his arms above his head.
As we sped up and down, I felt my leg starting to go numb, but I feared losing my leg less than I feared facing my parents if I lost my brother.
When we finally stopped, I grabbed my leg and hoisted it off of him. Without a backward glance he leaped off the train and ran to brag to my mother as I limped along behind him. “What’s wrong with your leg?” my mom asked.
This is the part where you expect me to say, “nothing,” and be a silent and brave heroine, but nope! I told the whole story to my family, and everyone was duly impressed. I might have even gotten a cotton candy as a reward, or maybe a little toy. All I know is that my good deed was somehow rewarded, and so this story has a happy ending in more ways than one.
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