Noah Bylon
I can’t stand this type of movie, so I run out of the theater, gasping for air even though I’ve been breathing completely fine up until now, and actually I’ve been breathing fine my whole life, so I start to wonder what this sudden difficulty could mean, whether it’s the early signs of a disease or a condition or late onset asthma, though I’ve never heard of such a thing as late onset asthma and probably shouldn’t stress out about it, especially because I’ve been told I have a tendency to worry about impossibilities-
In the lobby I notice I don’t have my popcorn, I probably dropped it in my panic, and that popcorn had cost me, if I did the popcorn to hourly wage math right, forty-seven minutes of service work at my job at Noodles Toronto, which is a fast food restaurant that serves maple flavored noodles I hear are pretty good, though I’ve been too scared to try them myself, but that wasted forty-seven minutes of service work is definitely not good-
Neither, I realize as a pit forms in my stomach, is forcing an employee of the theater to pick up after my mess, since you should never have someone clean up a mess you made yourself, so I turn around, ready to walk into the theater again with my eyes closed and ears plugged, since I still can’t stand that type of movie, to find my spilled popcorn, though I now wonder how easy that’ll be with my eyes closed and my ears-
I bump into someone, and recoil, embarrassment forcing my eyes to the carpet, and while I’m explaining how I’ve been told I have a tendency to be inconsiderate, I see the shoes, and the laces, and then the legs, and then the whole person, and realize it’s my older brother, the person I came to the theater with in the first place, and I wonder, half-afraid and half-amazed, at my ability to forget such a crucial detail, and as I begin to relay this to my brother, he grabs me by the shoulder-
I don’t like my brother very much, he doesn’t like to talk, and the last time we were together, I was still in diapers, and while that was older for me than you’re probably thinking, I still wasn’t old enough to get to know him before he left, and my parents told me he was at college and when I asked what college, they gave different answers and when I got older I thought it was weird that he’d been to college for eleven years, and then I found out he was actually in prison, for robbing a bank or drinking and driving or just drinking or killing someone while driving, and I’ve been scared of him since-
My parents forced me to see this movie with him because they say when they’re gone we’ll only have each other and we need to make up for lost time, but they let him pick the movie, and he chose a scary one about a poor lady who gets trapped in a cave and probably gets murdered, there was just no way I could stay, since it was just the worst scenario for me, because I constantly worry about becoming a victim, and I’m seeing a movie about murder with an actual murderer beside me-
He tightens his grip, and for a moment I flinch, I squeeze my eyes shut so tight I see stars and clench my hands tight into a ball, careful not to move even a twitch while I hold in my breath, hoping somehow I’ll turn into a rock and he won’t be able to hurt me or I’ll turn invisible and he won’t be able to find me or he’ll see how pathetic I look and leave me to hunt more worthy prey, but until then, I stand like statue, waiting for the roof to collapse or the whole world to crash down or just a fist to strike, but I’m hoping for just a few insults, and instead none of that comes, there’s a pressure on my chest, and I fear he’s going to tear out my heart or break a few ribs but the pressure doesn’t feel like a punch, it feels more like paper, warm and buttery paper-
I crack open an eye cautiously. He’s holding my popcorn out to me. I blink. With shaking hands, I take it, still not fully understanding what’s happening, and my mind begins to wander, contemplating poisoning or kernel shaped bombs or just normal choking-
The grip lifts, and my brother reassuringly pats my shoulder.
He mumbles, “I’m sorry, Max.”
I blink again, and my posture deflates in released tension.
“I, uh, should have guessed you wouldn’t like it. I, just…”
He looks away for a moment.
“I’m just sorry, not just about the movie. About, not being your brother.”
I hold out my hands dismissively, it’s no fault of his, I’m not a worthy brother, it’s my fault if anything, really he shouldn’t worry about me-
“No. I wasn’t… always on your side.”
He wasn’t, and I still have nightmares about the time when my parents left for some party and my brother had to babysit me, but he wanted to go out, so he locked me in my parent’s closet, which I was deathly afraid of, since my Mom made Dad keep all of his fishing trophies in there, and I was scared the fish would come back to life and I’d have to rush and get water to save them, or they would stay dead and curse me for being kin to their killer, or I would accidentally break one and Dad would find out and kill me, I cried so hard, I ran out of tears-
“Next time, I’ll let you pick the movie, okay, Max?”
In silence, we walked back to the car. Instead of worrying about being murdered or poisoned or trapped in a cave, I let myself worry about what movie we’re going to see next, and whether or not we’ll run out of gas on the way there, and if my brother’s going back to jail…