Responsibility

by Jared Nigro

The best part about being a middle child is every lesson your older brother teaches you, you can teach to your younger brother and he’ll think you came up with it on your own.

I try to teach my younger brother how to be a better person than I am, but what ultimately happens is we end up fighting in the front yard on Christmas morning.

These past few years have been hard. He’s a 14-year-old boy, and that’s not an easy age for either gender. Lately, he’s come to me with actual problems that have emotional weight to them. His biggest issue is love. He has a girlfriend he loves, and it’s scary because he’s figuring out the complexity of a serious relationship at a young age. This leads to him feeling overwhelmed, which leads to him calling me saying he’s miserable.

Now, generally, when it comes to being a person, I try to just copy people who seem like they’re doing it right. I remembered what my older brother told me once when I told him I wanted to go to this high school film camp in California (from Pittsburgh — home of the Steelers and a river known for its high density of broken condoms). He told me to run away to LA. So I bought a plane ticket with everyone-else’s-but-mine money, and had the best summer of my life.

“Maybe you should just run away,” I told my younger brother over the phone. I was in my car, so I had him on speaker. I’m a safe driver when it comes to cell phones, but not stop signs.

“Why?”

“Because…” I had no reason. I thought he’d instantly pick up on the romanticism of just running away. But 14-year-olds don’t understand romanticism because they haven’t watched Woody Allen films yet.

“Okay.” He cut me off.

I had a moment of pride. It reminded me of when I was going to the film camp and how I watched the Burbank airport through the windows of the plane, thinking Burbank was exotic.

“I’m running away.” He said very certainly.

“I’m giving you a 48-hour start, and then I’ll tell Mom and Dad you ran away.”

“Sounds good.”

I told him I was proud of his independence and hung up. I walked back to my desk. Sat down. And then almost swallowed my tongue. I had just told my 14-year-old brother to run away from home. He’s not six. He’s not going to go hide behind a mailbox for 20 minutes then go home and eat Skittles. He’s going to get on a bus or hitchhike to Philadelphia. What’s he going to do in Philadelphia? He knows nothing about their culture!

I grabbed my phone, but it had run out of battery. At the time I owned a Blackberry Storm, which is a great phone if you love not being able to reach people on a chunk of plastic that gets so hot it burns your ear.

My imagination — or what was left of it after I spent that afternoon cleaning my bathroom with Clorox — was racing. My younger brother was truly a rebel without a cause, and that leads to motorcycle accidents. I paced around my room wondering what I would tell my parents if he ended up in one of those cults where they drink punch and stab college students at grocery stores.

I started writing a letter to my parents explaining to them how I ruined their youngest and hottest son’s life by telling him to run away. It started off with me telling them that you can love someone even if they’re no longer with you. I realized that sounded like a suicide letter, and decided to go get a coffee instead.

I nervously paced around the Starbucks, just waiting for my phone to charge enough so I could call him back. I looked at the man sitting down at the table. He had an iPhone. That’s a superior device!

I came back to my apartment only to see that my battery had melted a little bit.

All night I paced around.

I finally made it to a Verizon store the next day and had my battery switched out (I should have just bought a new phone, but there was no time. Though, I did have enough time to buy a sweet Reptar-theme phone case).

I called my brother.

No answer.

I almost called home. Then I realized how much pain they’d be in if they knew he ran away. I also realized how much trouble I’d be in for telling him to run away. I needed them to not be mad at me since I wanted to see if they could pay for my internet bill next month.

I didn’t hear anything for two days (?!). (I’m sorry — I wish I had a better explanation for this part of the story.)

By this time my imagination had told me that my younger brother was eaten by a black bear and my parents were killed while looking for his body by a bunch of hunters who got their dark/furry jackets confused with a black bear.

I was face-plant passed out on the ground from nerves when my phone went off. It was a Facebook alert.

Hey jared. Remember when spongebob cried about finding that rock?

From my little brother.

I Facebook chatted him.

Where the hell have you been?! I’ve been looking for you! Why haven’t you called back?!

I told Dad he was retarded after you called me, and now I’m grounded without a phone.

He wasn’t a rebel. He was just a dumb kid who gave up his fight against the man because he was grounded with no phone.

There was this time when he was four and I was 12. We were outside my grandparents house and he said something that really annoyed me, so I pushed his head so hard it would smack off the brick house. I did the same thing right then, but only to my computer monitor. I pretended it was his head. Now my monitor has a blue dot in the center of the screen that won’t go away.

Now anytime my younger brother calls me for advice, I just tell him to call my older brother and hang up. I’ve decided the best part of being a middle child is giving the oldest brother all the responsibility.

Jared Nigro is a writer and performs at the Upright Citizens Brigade theater. He also secretly wants to move to New Orleans and play saxophone with a Rag Time Jazz Band. Follow him on Twitter.

Photo by Tony Campbell, via Shutterstock.