Donnie

Oh brother!

I’m asking for your sympathy, Reader.

I deserve it, believe me, because I was forced to grow up in a family of six children in the 1940s and 1950s, and I was the youngest kid, you know, the one they all picked on (my brothers and sisters) or sometimes failed to notice (my parents). Those were the days when stern fathers (and all fathers were stern) took their wayward whelps on a visit to the woodshed to teach them a lesson and used their razor straps to administer the licking. So when we boys of the neighborhood gathered, the latest victim of fatherly solicitude always bragged about the hiding he had got from his pop just yesterday. As we listened breathlessly to the painful details, whack by whack, all of us boys would nod knowingly, having experienced the same thing ourselves – or at least we pretended we had. Fortunately, this never happened to me; my Dad, ahead of his time, shaved with an electric razor.

To tell the truth, I expect your sympathy, kindly Reader, especially after I tell you I grew up in the coal mining town of Linton, Indiana, down in the southwestern part of the Hoosier state. Coal miners were rough, tough, brave, and proud of it. That meant that us kids had to be rough, tough, brave, and proud of it, too. Add to all of this – the tough town, the demanding culture, the customary brutality – the fact that I had five older brothers and sisters, all sadists, all larger than me and seething with jealous resentment toward me, harmless me who, unfortunately, was the bleating lamb of my mother's eye (when she remembered me).

Maybe by now, you'll understand why I am entitled to your sympathy. If not, read on:

The Monster Upstairs

The meanest of all my siblings was my half-brother Don. Eleven years older than me, I worshipped him, admired him, and feared him like a horse leech. Here's a little example of why:

Mom and Dad rarely went out, but when they did it never occurred to them to hire a babysitter. First, that would cost money, and money was scarce in our household. Second, one of the older kids could easily stay home with the little ones. No problem.

The irksome task of babysitting us younger brothers and sisters often fell to the eldest, Donnie. For some reason, my half-sister Joy, who was nearly the same age as Donnie, never seemed to get tapped for the job. Donnie was seventeen, after all, and, it seemed to Mom and Dad, fairly responsible. Of course, Mom and Dad didn't know Donnie the way we did. We knew he was a shadowy evil with a mean spirit, but he hid it well from them.

Donnie had his driver's license and could occasionally wheedle Dad into letting him take the '36 Chevy to use on a date. Being good-looking, personable, a good dancer, and a sharp dresser with black wavy hair, he had no problem attracting girls. But babysitting meant that he couldn't go out that particular night, neither on a date, nor to the Teen Canteen downtown, nor to a movie, nor to the pool hall to play snooker with his buddies. Babysitting was a weighty shackle on his freedom.

So when Dad announced at supper one Wednesday night in the summer of '48 that he and Mom were going to the Ciné Theater to see "The Egg and I" (or was it "The Boy with the Green Hair"), a dark shadow passed over Donnie's face. His neck stiffened, his eyes narrowed, the pupils of his dark eyes became gimlet pinpoints, his mouth a slit.

"Aww, Dad!" he hissed, "I've got a date tonight with Gloria, and I was going to ask you if I could have the car?"

"Too bad,” Dad declared, his faint grin suggesting that his words were less than sincere. Actually, he wasn't the least bit sympathetic. In fact, he took pleasure in saying "No!” It was the legacy of his upbringing in our Scottish cultural tradition, in which pleasure is bad. In this worldview, denying someone pleasure is good, a sort of religious act. Dad took pleasure in denying his kids pleasure.

"You're babysitting,” Dad said, matter-of-factly.

That was final, and Donnie knew it. Dad's final word was never to be questioned.

Rather than waste time protesting, Donnie turned his thoughts to revenge. It didn't take him long to concoct a devilish plan. He knew that Jerry and Nancy, the twins, four years older than me, and red-haired Sandy – two years older, whom we called "Carrot-top" when we wanted to get her goat – had all been to the movie matinee the Saturday before and had seen "The House of Frankenstein". The runt of the litter, me, had gone too, and I had watched the scariest parts while peeking through my fingers or by kneeling on the floor and barely raising my head from behind the seatback in front of me. Anyway, I was five and got in for free, saving Mom and Dad the 20 cents they had to shell out for the others. Besides, I had learned to walk past the ticket taker on bent legs to make myself look shorter.

We were all frightened as a result of seeing that horror movie, and afterward, we spotted the Frankenstein monster behind every tree, even in broad daylight, and repeatedly glimpsed him looking in our windows at night. We were so afraid that we wouldn’t go out on the front porch after it got dark. Donnie quickly spotted the bull's-eye of our vulnerability.

When the screen door slammed behind Mom and Dad as they headed out for the movie, Donnie disappeared into his upstairs room in our big house across from the Northwest Ward School on Second Street. At first, we didn't notice he was gone. He didn't ever play with us anyway – he had more important things to do, like learning how to smoke cigarettes and drink whisky and play 8-Ball at Applegate’s pool parlor, so we hardly missed him at first. As it grew dark outside, the silence in the house gradually became unnerving. Playing at "Old Maid", or "Authors", our initial loud chatter and cries of "JERRY, YOU BENT THE CORNER ON THE OLD MAID!" CHEATER! CHEATER!" gradually dwindled to ordinary talk and then, eventually, to whispers. The quiet in the house became ominous. As we played, and the full moon began rising over the water tower just east of our house, we began looking anxiously around. From the movies, we were well aware that the full moon always brings out the werewolf. Eventually, unnerved by the silence and the disappearance of our babysitter, we rose and tip-toed into the living room. We gathered at the base of the stairs and stood there looking up into the dark. There was no sound from up there and no light. What could Donnie be doing? Perhaps something had got him, and he was up there, dead?

Suddenly a murderous scream rents the air, transfixing us like insects on a pin. Then came maniacal laughter that splashed down the stairs like a waterfall of ice-picks. Frozen in astonishment, it dawned on us: If Donnie is dead, he has been killed by a madman, and the berserk killer is up there above our heads. Right now! "What do we do?!!"

Now came a violent crash and a thunderous thump above, as if something big had fallen. We involuntarily shrank back, grabbing and hugging one another, as if that would protect us. Barely visible in the darkness at the top of the stairs, two feet clad in black galoshes now appeared. We backed into the living room, edging closer to the doorway to the dining room, our escape route, keeping our eyes glued on those huge feet. It never occurred to us to fly through the front door into the night – we already knew what was out there, Frankenstein.

From the top of the stairs came a creaking sound. One of the booted feet was now on the second step from the top! Somewhere above the boot, not visible to us yet because the stairwell ceiling was in the way, was the outline of a torso, but with no visible head and shoulders. A weird light streamed from above the stairwell ceiling. There came a stentorian shout "Kill!” We little ones jumped straight up and then redoubled our hugs, while we stared upwards with big eyes, fascinated. Now came another creak and the next lower step was occupied by a booted foot. "Kill!”Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhh! Kill!” Step by creaking step, ever so slowly, as the thing up there slowly descended toward us, we watched in thrall. Eventually, its head dropped below the stairwell ceiling, and it was a terrifying thing to see. The misshapen face, covered by dreadful white foam, was illuminated by a light coming from the waist of the beast. The oblique light made the eyes look like black holes and the nose like a meat cleaver. As the face moved downwards, groaning, and shouting in a deep voice "Kill!” we watched in fascination, unable to move, imagining that death itself was coming nearer and nearer. But we were rooted to the spot. The monster staggered haltingly down the stairs like some malignant automaton, its arms raised until they pointed out at right angles to the colossal body. Only its hands sagged downwards, like two huge tarantulas jiggling at the ends of horizontal posts. "Kill!" the thing shouted.

I don't know what it was that freed us from the thrall of the approaching monster, but at last one of us bolted for the safety of the well-lighted kitchen in the back of the house. Once one had started, we all joined in the rout, becoming a shrieking tangle of elbows and legs and heads lodged momentarily in the dining room doorway.

In the kitchen, we all gathered at the outside door, like cornered rats, ready to flee into the night. Sure, Frankenstein was out there in the darkness, but for darned certain there was a monster in the living room. We were prepared to dash outside, that being the lesser of the dangers. The girls were whimpering, but Jerry and I kept a stiff upper lip, though our mouths were open – to breathe better. Sandy had the fingers of her left hand between her teeth. Nancy was wide-eyed and gap-jawed. The monster was looming in the kitchen doorway now, filling it with its great bulk, and then it began lurching toward us, dragging one leg ... .

As we cowered and readied ourselves to spring out the door, all of a sudden there was a loud laugh, Donnie's laugh, and there he was, doubled over in mirth before us. Slowly he sank to the floor, cackling, holding his sides. It took a full minute for him to get over his fit of hilarity. All the while, we watched him skeptically, afraid the monster would suddenly reappear, fearing that the monster had turned himself into Donnie just to fool us. But eventually, we saw that it was indeed Donnie. His face had been covered in shaving cream. Still stunned, we watched him take out the flashlight that he had stuck in the waistband of his pants. After washing the shaving cream off his face at the sink and taking off his fishing boots and the black topcoat he had put on backward, he appeared perfectly normal. When he spoke, it was clear he was normal again:

"Get to bed, now!" he ordered, in his usual tyrannical way. "Fun's over."

I couldn't sleep, of course, and neither could the other kids. And so it was that we heard Mom and Dad arrive back from the movie.

"How did you and the kids get along?" Mom asked Donnie.

"Just fine,”  Donnie replied. "They didn't give me any problem at all."

"By the way, Dad,” Donnie says. "Since I babysat the kids, maybe you'll let me have the Chevy tomorrow night?"

"I suppose,” Dad said. "I do appreciate your giving up your evening for your brothers and sisters."