The Great Jump Rope Ambush

There was once a great battle won during a Golden Age long past.

An Age when kids played Smear The Queer in front yards in full view of and with the sanction of adults; BB gun fights were routinely held on neighborhood streets in full daylight; children could disappear in the woods for hours without explanation to build forts and dig tiger pits; and we rode bikes until dinner time in far-ranging packs.

Bike helmet in my ‘hood? – instant beatdown

Between the ages of five and thirteen one of my primary interests in life was attacking my older brother – who was four years my senior. Getting in one good shot was well worth a thirty minute beating afterwards and if you don’t understand the psychology of that mindset, you’ve never been a younger brother.

Or an Aggie Football fan.

Most of my attacks were premised in setting ill-conceived snares to incapacitate him; from which I imagined I would then maul him at advantage for an extended length of time. I played Cato to his Inspector Closseau; ambushing and harrying him with a guerilla’s consistency and fervor; visiting depravities on his room and then setting ambushes for his angry reprisal, or more often just standing in the doorway of his room and baiting him by repeatedly informing him in an escalating manner – I’m in your room! In your room! Your room! In it! – and then hoofing it to some staging area I’d created (water bucket poised on half-open door, spiked pit dug in backyard, clutching a croquet mallet poised in laundry hamper) where I hoped he could be decisively brutalized.

Unfortunately, a successfuly waylay generally hinged upon a chain of events so improbable and of such intricate complexity that I should have immediately been placed in special classes for my basic lack of understanding of risk, physics, and basic human psychology.

Care for an example?

Concept: Inside front entrance tile strewn with marbles doused in pantry olive oil creating the most slippery environment outside of Rue McLanahan’s vagina. He will enter and fall, stunned and bleating like a great dumb ox, bewildered as I emerge from my hiding place behind a potted plant, hurling one of Grandma’s afghans to ensnare him. I then lay into him with a mop handle and proffer kicks to his ribs while wearing my ropers. He begs for mercy and asks if I’ll play Stratego with him.

Actual result: The front door opens inwards sweeping all of the marbles placed before it harmlessly and noisily across the tile. Alerted, he begins to scan for me, audibly preparing a loogy to be hocked onto my face. I panic and flush from my hiding place like a wayward quail, my boots slipping on the streaks of olive oil. The Afghan net is turned upon me; my head is bounced off tile like a speed bag; I am forced to swallow three marbles.

Which I saw again later without complications, thanks to the olive oil.

Easier in than out, frankly

Occasionally, a plan came together.

The house was clear that evening: my parents were seeing the movie Splash, going to a Carly Simon concert, or acting out scenes with other couples from the movie The Ice Storm – the details are irrelevant.

My brother was expected home later and I had time to prepare the field to my advantage. First, I pushed a kitchen chair into the hallway so I could unscrew all of the lightbulbs in the front hallway and in his bedroom, embracing darkness. His impotent flicking of the lightswitch would become a gross mockery of terror and indecision as he began to panic at the dark shades enveloping him. There is no light for you.

Darkness is the ocean in which I swim. Thought the eleven year old.

I then tied a jump rope across the entrance to his bedroom door at ankle height. Not just any jump rope: I had rubbed it black with magic markers, the old school ones that made your eyes water from waves of chemical that were actually visible to the eye, like heat rising from pavement in the Texas summer. You shook them like Carmen Miranda so that some internal castanet could activate the ink release. The color took half an hour and made me as high as a Brazilian street urchin.

I put on his Pink Floyd The Wall vinyl to magnify his disorientation. Of course, I’m a kid, it’s pitch dark, I’m alone in the house, and Pink Floyd is wailing at me. I start to freak myself out – I’m thinking about Friday the 13th Part III (the one where Jason kills the horny teenagers) and begin to stare at the long coat hanging on the closet door, no, wait, is that a humpbacked psychopath with a gaffing hook? – so I turn off Pink Floyd. Too much. I don black sweats (why?), sit as patiently as a Zen Buddhist, and watch Manimal.

I hear the front door.

Hi.

Welcome to Hell.

I greet my brother enthusiastically, offering a jibe suggesting that he has likely just returned from enthusiastically buggering a farm animal, but said animal probably didn’t notice because he is an impotent eunuch. I fling an indeterminate object (tennis ball? Dixie cup of Tab Cola?) at him and leg it down the hall to his bedroom where I leap the rope and wait.

He isn’t far behind me and promptly eats shit on the fibrous Al Jolson rig set up at his door. However, I am now trapped inside his room with his concussed frame between me and the exit. And this is when it stinks being a kid: you’re devious tactically, but longer term strategic thinking isn’t a real strength. Operationally speaking, I’m Josh Brolin’s character in No Country For Old Men: several moments of genius and real cunning interspersed with a few fatal mistakes.

Think it through all the way

He recovers nicely and I begin to receive a thorough pummeling – though I can see he is impressed with my effort. This pleases me. Somehow I slip out – Gale Sayers-like – maybe he’s still a little dazed? – and I’m racing down the hall heading to the kitchen, his footfalls behind me. We both know where I’m headed: I beeline for the kitchen knife drawer.

The kitchen knife drawer is a delicate tipping point. If I’m close enough, it’s time for him to head the other way before I can arm myself. If he can get the drop on me before I grab cutlery, there’s a decent chance my head goes in a toilet or I will be dragged up and down the halls until I get a rich array of carpet burns – punishment for having gone to the knife drawer and unneccessarily escalating things. We had an intricate corpus of laws and penalties and, in retrospect, I realized we’d unknowingly grounded most of them in Sharia.

It’s on now

Still, feeling good. Running well. I’m going knife drawer. I’m not even thinking fireplace poker at this point, though there may be value in feinting towards there once I pass the coffee table. Besides, the last time I went fireplace poker, we demolished one of Mom’s plants – specifically the two foot clay pot it sat in – though in our subsequent clean-up and cover-up we successfully convinced her that the plant had never existed.

This isn’t the plant you’re looking for

I’m going to make it. He is right behind me, but now I hear his heels turning on the linoleum as he sprints for his room. I fling open the drawer, secure a knife, wheel, and, seized by Pan – God knows why I did it – I flip it smoothly at his retreating backside. He is twenty feet away and about to round the corner to safety, as I watch the knife spin across the living room in a perfect spinning silver arc, my breath held in regret and awe, watching rapt as the handle of the knife hits him flush in the ass. Bullseye.

He let out a yelp and leapt up awkwardly in a Michael Flatley half-jump; as if the Lord of the Dance had just been bitten by a copperhead in the very depths of his anus. Fantastic. It takes a few seconds more for him to register that it was the handle that hit him and that the only gaping wound is to his pride. He stayed in his room for a half hour before emerging to exact his retribution – just as my parents arrived home, praising Splash for the bonhomie of its world view.

I listened to them prattle on about “that delighful Tom Hanks!”, leaving them blissfully ignorant that a great victory had been won that day.

Parents must be sheltered from such things, I remembered thinking.

Article Tags:

Chemistry, Chicken Soup for The Soul, Culture, Hi!, Infractions, Injuries, Rivalries, Survivor: Austin, Texas, Young Turks

42 Responses

ATXHornsFan said:

March 4th, 2009 at 8:00 pm

A great, great read. After the vomit burps induced by the “visual” of Rue McLanahan’s vagina.
Callkevin said:

March 4th, 2009 at 8:01 pm

You are an absolutely amazing writer. Thank you. Brought back memories of baseball bat vs saw fights, fireplace logs thrown through windows, and the night I hit a guy with his head leaning out the window of a moving car. Ah, youth.
CloseToJumping said:

March 4th, 2009 at 8:06 pm

You are on a roll, sir. I laughed heartily.

I remember thinking many of the same thoughts in regard to my older brother and sister, who had me by 6 and 9 years respectively. Of course, I had a brother 2 years my junior as well, so I at least had a punching bag.

The dreaded middle child has an out that few people outside of middledom really comprehend in childhood – the ability to pit the older siblings against the blissfully obvlivious youngest sibling. I avoided many beatings and enjoyed watching many as a result of that tactic being at the centerpiece of any strategy for familial antagonism.
bighornfan32 said:

March 4th, 2009 at 8:47 pm

“He let out a yelp and leapt up awkwardly in a Michael Flatley half-jump; as if the Lord of the Dance had just been bitten by a copperhead in the very depths of his anus.”

No that, that is funny.
texexinwa said:

March 4th, 2009 at 9:30 pm

Great read. As the youngest of three brothers, it definitely brought back memories. I still recall the time I caught my oldest brother (he was 18 and I was 11) with a solidly clean left hook to the jaw after he annoyed me by being his usual asshole self, we both just stood there for a few seconds momentarily stunned, then he proceeded to beat the living shit out of me. It was definitely worth it.

BTW, night time bottle rocket fights were the best.

Thx
Honna said:

March 4th, 2009 at 9:38 pm

Ah yes, smear the queer. Those were much simpler days.
DBH said:

March 4th, 2009 at 10:30 pm

This explains a lot.
CrazyJoeDavola said:

March 4th, 2009 at 11:53 pm

As an oldest child, I’m comforted by your story.

I now know – for a fact – that my younger siblings were definitely gunning for me, so the depredations I rained down upon them were actually in the service of pre-emption, and not simply being a monstrous authoritarian.

For example, right around the time “The Shining” showed up on cable, I thought it would be funny to get out my dad’s axe and stalk them through the house, shouting “Heeeeeeeere’s Stevie!” at them.

Now, it could be argued that I was a) a sadist and b) utterly bored during one of the millions of stifling summer days in which I was dragooned into babysitting duties, but upon reflection, I know I was just thinking ahead.

By the way, their screams were like Mozart in my ears. If I’d grown up in Manhattan instead of suburban Houston, I might have ended up being the inspiration for Patrick Bateman.

A couple of years later, after a couple of hours of constant needling, my little bro took a poke at me, leading to a MMA-style wrestling match/fistfight that lasted – I’m not kidding – 3 and half hours. I beat the shit out of him, but I definitely gained respect for his stamina. Most hilariously, my parents just went about their business as if we weren’t there.
Parlin Hall said:

March 5th, 2009 at 5:04 am

The Cato reference was very welcome.

Made me want to hide in a cupboard and jump on someone, screaming.
dedfischer said:

March 5th, 2009 at 5:14 am

Funny story. I busted my older sister’s nose one time with the handle to a Radio Flyer wagon, but nothing involving the intricate planning of this well-conceived attack plan.
beowulf said:

March 5th, 2009 at 6:03 am

I laughed. I cried. Great mental imagery.

…..”very depths of his anus.” I’m stealing this for personal professional usage.”
Minnesotahorn said:

March 5th, 2009 at 6:03 am

Funny stuff.

Of course as a member of the First Born Coalition I categorically condemn such actions and beyond the initial reprisal ass kicking support sanctions such as random noogies, indian burns and even the nuclear option: atomic wedgies.
kevwun said:

March 5th, 2009 at 6:09 am

That was awesome.
upgrayedd said:

March 5th, 2009 at 6:34 am

Fantastic read.

I once had to go Jedi on my grandfather after I hit one of the driveway pillars in his car while attempting to smuggle my girlfriend home in the wee hours.

Luckily for me he came down with the flu that night and I was able to persuade him that he had crumpled the rear fender in a state of feverish delirium.
The Turk said:

March 5th, 2009 at 7:14 am

Anybody seen T.O.?
The Turk said:

March 5th, 2009 at 7:18 am

Roy Williams? No, not that one. The disinterested, lazy one that steals paychecks..

Okay! #38, the one from OU..
Vasherized said:

March 5th, 2009 at 7:22 am

The pieces are slowly coming together … great stuff Scipio. Keep it coming.

My older brother’s favorite trick was to rub my face against the carpet just until blood would come to the surface of my skin but not quite that far so my mom couldn’t tell. Hurt like hell but was completely untraceable.

Clever little bastard. Then I grew six inches in the summer of 1992. Game over.
BatesHorn said:

March 5th, 2009 at 7:59 am

I’m an only child, so I was forced to beat myself.

My 7 year old is small and my 5 year old large. The 5 year old regularily sits on his older brother’s head and rubs his ass on his face.
jc25 said:

March 5th, 2009 at 8:09 am

As the oldest, this shit is FUBAR.

Remind me to limit my spawn to one.
Mitch Cumsteen said:

March 5th, 2009 at 8:13 am

God bless the evil genius of Wile E. Coyote. Without him, our sibling attacks would be so uninspired. Things are so screwed up today — my kids watch cartoons where the animals try to help each other instead of kill each other. WTF?
Nero said:

March 5th, 2009 at 8:23 am

I had two older sisters. I couldn’t fight them that much because they weren’t interested in that, although I did clobber one with a flying squirrel jump off of my bunk beds once. The abuse was mostly mental.

However, my sister’s friends did occasionally practice french kissing on me (me being the non-threatening stand-in for whatever richard marx lookalike they were really after), so that was cool.
Nero said:

March 5th, 2009 at 8:27 am

I also took satisfaction in knowing that I got the attention from my dad that they craved but never had. The middle girl was by far my mother’s favorite and never did anything wrong, so oddly it was the oldest child that had the hardest time in my family.
Minnesotahorn said:

March 5th, 2009 at 8:35 am

This piece keeps evoking Jimmy Buffet’s Great Filling Station Holdup for me. Obviously there’s the similar titles but I also think there’s something resonant about the chorus when thinking about consuming or passing marbles.
hot stove steve said:

March 5th, 2009 at 8:57 am

I remember my little bro’s (3.5 years younger) greatest ambush.

While chasing him for retribution that he had deservedly earned, he lured me into our backyard tree fort. Fit of rage that I was in, I didn’t notice he had closed off the main entrance (it was a ladder), yet had left the secondary access rope free to use.

So I raced up the rope to get him in the fort. At the top, as I was swinging from the rope to get my feet onto the floor, the motherfucker jumps out with giant shears and cuts the fucking rope that I’m hanging onto. I dropped two fucking stories flat on my back.

to this day he still gives me shit for it.
The General said:

March 5th, 2009 at 10:11 am

Awesome. I was completely deprived of this. I am the oldest and I had two younger sisters (4 and 12 years younger). I did have a cousin that was 3 years younger, but he was too good a kid to beat.

I found out recently that I lied to him mercilessly. There were things he believed true well into adulthood that were simply fabrications so convincing that he never questioned them.

I am ridiculously proud of my salesmanship.
Vasherized said:

March 5th, 2009 at 11:01 am

Minnesota,

I was surprised by how good of a writer Buffett is given the general banality of the parrothead movement.
Minnesotahorn said:

March 5th, 2009 at 11:20 am

Oh he’s fully capable of the banality you mention, but yeah, overall not a bad writer at all when he wants to be and far more so than you’d think if you’ve only heard Margaritaville and seen a bunch of drunken 50 year olds wearing flamingo hats, milling around outside a music venue.
Lane Kiffin's Ego said:

March 5th, 2009 at 11:28 am

Fucking Brilliant…I feel like I should renew my subscription now…
burnt orange dog said:

March 5th, 2009 at 12:41 pm

Scipio,

I don’t know what you do for a living, but whatever it is, please stop; you should be writing full time. Your stuff is brilliant. Thanks.
Vasherized said:

March 5th, 2009 at 12:51 pm

The connection was already hinted at in the story but it bears fleshing out.

That singular moment of tension where you’re not sure if you’ll escape the prank or be caught and face certain beatdown from Elder Bro was summarily captured in Anton Chighur’s perfectly delivered line from No Country in the gas station showdown:

Call it, friend-o.

You called it and won, Scipio.

That time anyway…
Scarred but not scared said:

March 5th, 2009 at 2:29 pm

Wow, talk about opening old wounds… It’s hard to believe the guys I watch football with now used to try to maim me on a daily basis. Especially the older one. Any outsider observing our behavior would have sworn we were the Three Stooges on crack..
Bartoncreek said:

March 5th, 2009 at 3:05 pm

If your dad was anything like mine, be glad you hit him with the handle. I threw a Bowie knife at my older sister from about 50 feet and managed to hit her with the blade in her back. My dad beat the everliving shit out of me that night. Have to say, I deserved it.

Another time, me and a friend were screwing around with a pocket knife. I managed to cut that main veign in your wrist. The one where you take your pulse. When i cocked my wrist back, blood shot two feet in the air. No joke. It was like a Monty Python skit. This was the night before a major sporting event. My coach did his best to find out why my wrist looked like I had a turniquette on it. I said it was nothing and I was good to go. He just said, “You’re such a dumbass.” I was, sounds like I’m not the only one.
Gate_of_Horn said:

March 5th, 2009 at 4:36 pm

Your writing reminds me of “A Christmas Story” by Truman Capote.
c.c.rider said:

March 5th, 2009 at 5:56 pm

i am a jean shepard fan also
Black out the windows said:

March 5th, 2009 at 6:16 pm

Man, this takes me back.

I grew up the youngest with three older sisters. Knives and biting were my only means of defense, although I cold cocked one sister with a Coke bottle for changing the channel on me…serves her right.

I now have two boys, 5 and 2, and already the war is beginning. The youngest clocked the oldest with a pot when he was 1.5. I am in for deep shit for some time.
Austin180 said:

March 6th, 2009 at 5:17 pm

Scip, you were a mean ass little kid. Is your older brother still alive? If you hadn’t started a sports blog, we would know you from the Abu Gharaib trials. Good thing you started a sports blog. Keep writing.
CTJ's little bro said:

March 6th, 2009 at 7:10 pm

What a prick. Not that I didn’t know that shit was going on but, to see you brag about it here really sticks in my crawl. Now I don’t feel bad at all for telling dad you set the shed on fire. Along with all the other dimes I dropped on you throughout our childhood. BTW, I also witnessed many a beating with unadulterated pleasure and I’m sure to the delight of many posters here.
CloseToJumping said:

March 6th, 2009 at 10:01 pm

You are a fuckhead.
Scipio Tex said:

March 9th, 2009 at 1:59 pm

If that is really ctj’s little bro, this has become one of my favorite threads ever.
Vasherized said:

March 9th, 2009 at 2:20 pm

Holy shit. Please let this continue.
CTJ's little bro said:

March 12th, 2009 at 12:45 pm

It really is CTJ’s little brother and the shed arson is just the tip of the iceberg. Building bombs from childhood chemistry sets, pelting passing cars with rocks(real clever), etc. This guy was a young sociopath in the making. Don’t even ask what he would do with the neighborhood cats.
Scipio Tex said:

March 15th, 2009 at 11:32 am

CTJ’s little bro:

Thank you for sharing some insights into the sociopathic tyrant that is CTJ. You have provided a sketch of a Gacyesque figure who should be monitored by the authorities.

Articles

The Great Jump Rope Ambush

Article Tags:

More from this Barker:

Share This

42 Responses

ATXHornsFan said:

Callkevin said:

CloseToJumping said:

bighornfan32 said:

texexinwa said:

Honna said:

DBH said:

CrazyJoeDavola said:

Parlin Hall said:

dedfischer said:

beowulf said:

Minnesotahorn said:

kevwun said:

upgrayedd said:

The Turk said:

The Turk said:

Vasherized said:

BatesHorn said:

jc25 said:

Mitch Cumsteen said:

Nero said:

Nero said:

Minnesotahorn said:

hot stove steve said:

The General said:

Vasherized said:

Minnesotahorn said:

Lane Kiffin's Ego said:

burnt orange dog said:

Vasherized said:

Scarred but not scared said:

Bartoncreek said:

Gate_of_Horn said:

c.c.rider said:

Black out the windows said:

Austin180 said:

CTJ's little bro said:

CloseToJumping said:

Scipio Tex said:

Vasherized said:

CTJ's little bro said:

Scipio Tex said:

Leave a Reply

Follow Us

Related Articles

Site Tags

Activity

FanTake Topics

Our Other Blogs