GOOD IS DUMB or: AN EPIC HERO’S JOURNEY QUEST TO SEE MEL BROOKS’ SPACEBALLS

Mom had to work early that day, so after cartoons and cereal, I asked Mikey if he wanted to play a game.

“What game?” he asked.

“Take the pillows off your bed, I'll get the winter gloves,” I said.

“Oh no,” he said. “Not this game again.”

“Why not?” I said, even though I knew the answer.

“You hit too hard last time.”

It was true, I always beat the crap out of him. I would start off playfully, feeling it out. I'd only go 50% at first and work my way up but eventually something would come over me and I'd get too rough and knock the wind out of him then he'd cry to Mom and I'd get in trouble.

But Mom wasn't home, so I wasn't worried.

“Tell you what,” I said. “Forget the gloves. Let's use oven mitts this time. They're softer.”

I got them from the kitchen drawer and showed him, letting him feel the fabric.

“It's not that much softer,” he said.

“No, yeah it is, but how about this,” I said. “You can use two pillows in your shirt; I'll only use one.”

“I don't know.”

“I'll give you five free punches before I punch back. What about that?”

“Ten,” he said.

“Deal!” I said.

A lot of times we'd have our oldest brother Ryan referee, but he was at work too. So we got dining room chairs and put them on opposite ends of the living room as our corners, with plastic mixing bowls as our spit buckets, and we began.

Oops! It happened again. I got excited, he got knocked down, and his eyes watered as he ran to his room.

It was the middle of July, so by the time I was done dancing around the makeshift ring like I was was Rocky, I felt the sweat on my back, clinging to my shirt. I took it off.

Then I made a martini. That's what we called it when we mixed grape juice and grape pop. Sometimes we did orange juice and orange pop and called it a margarita.

I took my martini and sat in my chair by the open window, because Mom wouldn't let us turn on the air conditioning no matter how hot it got, even though on TV they said it was gonna be the hottest day of the summer.

I could hear the breeze blowing through the curtains as I watched the neighbors mow their lawns, and suddenly I realized how quiet it was in the house.

“Mikey?” I said. No answer.

I set my glass down on the windowsill and walked to his room. His door was partially open, and I peeked through. I knocked, but I guess he didn't hear me, because he didn't say anything. I stood in the doorway and watched him for a bit.

He was laying on his bed, curled up like a baby, crying quietly.

I was about to barge in and tell him to shut up, to knock it off, to stop being a pussy. Then I saw that he had a photo album at the foot of the bed that he must have been looking at, and I started to feel hot all over and like there was a lump in my throat.

It was photos of his birthday last year at The Playground, a warehouse near the high school with in-door sports, including batting cages, a go-kart track, and basketball hoops with adjustable backboards so you could slam the ball even if you were short.

And no one came to the party. We tried to tell him it was because it was summer and so close to fourth of July and everyone was on vacations to Florida and stuff, but he just nodded and said he wanted to go home. The pictures were from when we were waiting for everyone to show up, and then he we got one when he was blowing out the candles on his cake, with just me and him and mom and Ryan. The old guy who owns the place took that picture. Mikey has his arms crossed in it, his baseball hat low over his face.

We didn't do a party for him this birthday because of that, but also because Mom said she didn't have any money for it. But, I thought, maybe she had money for something else.

I just couldn't stand seeing him crying like a bitch, so I went to my room and paced around for awhile, then I decided we both needed to get out and get some fresh air – anything but stay in the house all day.

“Mikey,” I yelled. No answer.

I went back to the living room and put on Ryan's Eazy E album and turned it up.

Nobody move, nobody get hurt

Mikey came out of his room and yelled something I couldn't make out because the music was blasting.

I'm in a bank, and it's a little bit funny

Takin' all you stupid motherfucker's money

He walked over to the stereo and turned the dial down.

“Too loud!” he said.

Stacking up the money and there's more to collect

‘Cause I don't give a fuck, I take traveler's checks

“What do you want to do for your birthday?” I asked, turning the dial down.

He shrugged.

“You're just gonna stay inside and play Mario all day, aren't you?” I said.

He shook his head.

“What then?”

He started walking back to his room.

“I was going to go to the pool if you want to go,” I said.

“I don't care,” he said.

My gat wouldn't fire, the shit wouldn't work so

Yo, y'all know what time it is

“I got some money, I'll buy you a popsicle or something,” I said.

He stood there, thinking about it.

“Fudgesicle,” he said.

“Come on,” I said. “Get your suit on and let's go.”

**

We got our bikes from the garage and rode toward the pool. It was in an area called The Quad: outdoor swimming, basketball courts, baseball field, soccer field. It was only a few blocks from our house.

Next door was the Senior Citizen's Center. That's where Mom worked. I told Mikey we needed to stop so I could talk to her real quick.

We parked the bikes and I had him to wait outside.

“It's hot,” he said.

“Just stay here.”

“Why can't I come with you?”

“Here,” I said, and gave him two quarters I dug from the pocket. “Buy a pop and wait in the shade.”

“Fine,” he said. I walked in as he went towards the vending machines.

Air conditioning. My arms instantly get goosebumps and a freeze hit my lungs as I walked inside and the chill of the freon transformed me. There was a silence too, which I didn't expect.

I walked to the reception desk and asked for my mom. The woman pointed me towards the dining room.

I stopped mid-stride as I saw my Mom feeding one of the seniors, joking with another one, seeming to have eight limbs like an octopus helping everyone out at one table as they ate their lunch. Someone spilled some juice and she was wiping it up before it hit the floor. I had never seen her at work before.

As she threw away the soaked paper towels, she saw me. She looked alarmed, and rushed over.

“What are you doing here?” she said. “Is everything OK?”

I nodded.

“Yeah, everything's OK. I just want to do something nice for Mikey today,” I said.

“Honey, that's sweet of you, but we just can’t this year,” she said.

An old lady in a wheelchair rolled by and poked at me, “Do you work here?”

“No, Marge,” Mom said. “That's my son.”

“What a handsome boy,” she said.

“Thank you,” Mom and I said at the same time.

“I have to get back to work. I'll bring home something special for dinner, OK?”

“OK,” I said.

She kissed me on the forehead.

“Such a good brother,” she said.

I watched her walk off, back to the table, and I walked to the door to leave.

There was an old grandpa man with hairy nips sticking out the side of a white wife beater shirt, struggling with a bag by himself, so I helped him with it and then asked for a tip.

“A tip?” he said, raising an eyebrow. “I've never given a tip here before.”

“Uh, new company policy,” I said.

He shook his head.

“What's the world coming to?” he said, as he fished out a five dollar bill and handed it over.

I walked outside as Mikey was finishing up a can of Tab, trying to act like Marty McFly.

“Let's go swimming,” I said.

**

The Kelly Twins were at the front desk, wearing pink bikini tops with jean shorts and eating American flag colored popsicles. I saw them as I locked up our bikes.

When we walked their way, Lori waved to me and smiled and I suddenly wished my little brother would disappear.

I waved back and said, “What are you guys up to?”

“Nothing,” Tracy said, taking a lick as the red juice slid down her hand.

“I'm sorry,” Lori said, “But you're not allowed in.”

“Why is that?” I said, cocking my head.

“Your money is no good here,” Lori said.

“That's true,” I said. “But we have summer passes, so...”

Tracy rolled her eyes.

“You guys are dumb,” she said to me and Lori.

“My sister is dumb,” Lori said to me. “What's your brother's name?”

“Mikey,” Mikey said.

“Hi,” she said, throwing away her popsicle stick after taking a big bite.

“Are we going?” Tracy asked.

“Can I talk to you a minute?” Lori said to me.

“Sure,” I said. I started to feel funny in my gut. My arms tingled, I started to see grey around the edges of my vision. Lori and I had been flirting all spring semester – we were in reading and math, back to back, and sat next to each other in study hall – and I really liked her.

We went over by the tall bushes on the side of the building and she bit her lip, looked around.

“So listen,” she said. “My older brother got us some Boone's Farm, if you want to come hang out with us today.”

“Oh, cool,” I said. “What flavor?”

She looked a little annoyed. “I don't know, strawberry or whatever. You wanna come?”

“Well, I'm not sure.”

“What's wrong?” she asked.

I looked over at my brother. He was kicking a pebble around, looking at his watch.

“It's my brother's birthday today, so I was kind of, you know – “

“Yeah, you took him to the pool. Now you can come with us.”

I took a deep breath, and was surprised to hear myself say:

“I can't just ditch him like that.”

“So you're not coming?”

“Can I come later?” I asked.

“Whatever. Maybe. Bye then.”

We walked back over to our siblings, and Lori said “Let's go,” in a too-loud voice to Tracy, who shot me a mean look as I felt hot all over my body and watched them walk away, slight sunburns forming on their shoulders above their bikini top ties.

“Ready?” Mikey said, oblivious.

I nodded slowly, and we walked in.

“How old are you today anyway?” I asked Mikey almost in a yell as we set our towels down, the sound of the loud summer crowd enveloping us.

“You really don't know?” he laughed.

“7?” I asked.

“8!” he said. “You turd.”

“How am I supposed to know?”

“You're my brother, that's how!”

“OK,” I said. “Mister Big Time Eight Year Old. Now that you're such a grown-up, I wanna see you go on the high dive.”

I think I saw him gulp.

I was letting him use our cool old Star Wars towel, and when Tommy walked by, he saw it.

“Cool, Star Wars!” he said. “Hey, have you guys seen that new Star Wars spoof movie, Spaceballs?”

“The what?”

“It's like a comedy,” he said. “Like making fun of Star Wars. There's a dog guy instead of Chewbacca!”

“Sounds dumb,” I said.

“Yeah,” Mikey said. “Dumb.”

Brent walked up.

“Nice towel,” he said. “You guys seen Spaceballs yet?”

“We were just talking about that,” Tommy said.

“It's awesome,” Brent said. “So funny.”

“Ludicrous speed!” they said at the same time.

Tommy high-fived his brother.

“Saw it at the Princess last night,” Brent said.

“Cool,” Mikey said.

“I guess,” I said.

They walked off and I looked at Mikey as he watched them go. Tommy and Brent lived across the street; their dad was waiting for them, gave them each concession stand money.

“So what about the high dive?” I asked.

“We haven't seen a movie at the Princess at all this summer,” Mikey said. He was staring off into the distance.

“Wanna do a race?” I asked.

“Nah, I'm OK,” he said. He gave a weak smile.

“You wanna go to see Spaceballs, don't you?” I asked.

“I don't know,” he said. “We just got here.”

“Can I see your newspaper?” I asked some dad next to us in a lounge chair.

“Uh, sure,” he said. “What section?”

“Where ever the movie listings are,” I said.

He shuffled the paper a bit then handed me a section of it.

I looked at the Princess listings. The next showing of Spaceballs was at 3:30.

“When does it play?” Mikey asked.

“In like a half-hour.”

“Are…are you gonna go?” he asked.

“Yeah, that's what I wanna do,” I said. “Tired of the pool. I went yesterday anyway.”

“OK,” he said. He paused, looking at me in the eyes. “I, uh, guess I'll see you at home.”

“Well, you can come if you want to,” I said.

“Yeah?” he said.

“If you hurry, yeah,” I said.

We grabbed all our stuff and got dressed in the locker room, putting our shorts over our swim trunks.

We trotted out to our bikes and Mikey tilted his head sideways as I unlocked them both.

“What's the matter?”

“My front tire is flat,” he said.

I wrapped my lock around the stem of my bike seat and took a look. I pinched the part where the rim meets the rubber and it was flaccid, flimsy.

I don't know if someone let out the air, someone put a hole in it, or if Mikey rode over something sharp and did it himself, but he couldn't ride it like that and we didn't have time to try to fill it with air at the gas station or patch it if we wanted to still catch the movie.

I shook my head and locked his bike back up.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Hop on,” I said, getting on my bike and motioning for him to ride double.

The first part, past the Kroger, the video store, the creek, and the Stop N Go was fine. Then the hill toward uptown started and I had to lift up off my seat to get the leverage to crank my pedals and pretty much immediately we tipped over and tumbled into the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the road.

“When I turn 14, I'm saving up my allowance and buying a moped,” I said to Mikey.

“Just start and I'll jump back on the back,” Mikey said.

“No,” I said. I titled the bike his way. “You ride, I'll run alongside.”

“That's crazy,” he said.

“It's OK, it's what we do in football practice,” I said. “Except the coach is on a golf cart.”

I pushed the handlebars toward his hands, and he got on. I started running alongside him, my feet slapping the top of my flip-flops with a rhythmic sound.

Mikey looked over at me.

“It's like Mike Tyson's Punch-Out,” he said, laughing. I could hear the music in my head: dun dundundun dun dun, dun dundundun dundun...

Except we weren't passing by the Statue of Liberty, we were passing by a construction sight and an old, unused railroad station the roof of which was caving in.

I couldn't laugh, I was concentrating on keeping my shoes on my feet, gripping my toes into the bottoms. Rocks and pebbles and little pieces of glass kept tripping me up but we couldn't stop or we'd be late.

We passed by the UDF across the street from the theater, and I stopped, hands on my knees, breathing heavily.

“I'm gonna get a drink of water,” I said to Mikey. “Stay here.”

“Aren't we gonna be late?” he asked.

“No, we're fine,” I said.

“I'm thirsty, too,” he said.

“Listen,” I said. “I need to you do something while we're in there.”

“What?” he asked.

“Just ask for samples of ice cream.”

“That's it?”

“That's it.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Who cares? You get free ice cream!” I said.

“Fine.”

We walked in. We gulped water from the fountain. Then I gave Mikey a nod and he walked to the ice cream counter while I walked to the candy aisle.

“What can I do for you, honey?” she asked.

“Can I try the cookie dough?” he asked.

“Sure! One scoop or two?” she asked.

“Um, can I try a sample first?”

There was only one person working behind the counter, and she was scooping ice cream for another customer. So I walked past her to the candy aisle and grabbed a king size bag of Twizzlers, stuffed them into my shirt, tucked the shirt in, and walked towards the door.

“Anything I can help you with?” the cashier asked, handing over an ice cream cone to the customer.

A new customer came in, stood behind Mikey.

“I don't know what I want yet,” he said, stepping aside. “You go first.”

As they did, I pulled on Mikey’s shirt. We inched towards the door.

“Sure I can’t help you with something?” she asked, eyes narrowed.

“Nope!” I said, not breaking stride, and walked right out the door.

Mikey and I walked fast across the street, parked and locked the bike outside, and walked in.

The air conditioning wasn't as refreshing as it had been at the senior citizens center, it cooled the drying sweat on my skin and I immediately felt like I was freezing.

I opened my wallet, the velcro strap snapping open. “Two tickets to Spaceballs, please,” I said.

The cashier smiled at me and shook her head.

“How old are you, sweetie?”

“13,” I said.

“Uh huh. And how old are you?” she asked Mikey.

She started to talk but I interrupted him.

“He's 13, too,” I said.

“Are you brothers?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

“So…you're twins?” she asked.

“Yeah, twins,” I said.

She took a deep breath.

“I'm sorry, I can't sell you these tickets, you're too young,” she said, folding her arms.

“What are you talking about?” I said. “A bunch of kids our age have seen it, they were talking about it at the pool today.”

“Yeah, a bunch of kids have seen it, but they come with their parents.”

“Why?”

“There's lots of bad words and adult situations in the movie.”

I looked over at the poster on the wall behind the glass case.

“The movie says it's PG, so you have to let us in.”

“Well, first of all, that's not true – we can refuse to sell tickets to anyone at any time for any reason. And second of all, we've gotten a lot of complaints from parents about the movie being too adult for kids, cuss words and stuff, so that's why we have that policy. I'm sorry.”

I laughed. “I promise you, our mom won't complain to you about it.”

“Still, that's our policy.” She started shuffling papers around her little desk next to the cash register.

I looked over at Mikey. He frowned. I looked back over at the poster. Then I looked back at the cashier.

“Can I talk to you for a second?”

She looked up from her busy work.

“Stay here,” I said to Mikey. He nodded.

She motioned me over to the little hallway next to the bathroom. I could smell the popcorn.

“Look,” I said. “I get it. You don't want to get in trouble or whatever. But today's my brother's birthday and I just wanted to do something nice for him, OK? I promise you – I swear it on her grave – my mom is not going to call you up to complain. She doesn't even know we're at the movies today.”

She was silent for a moment, looking at the ceiling.

“You said it's your brother's birthday today?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“How can that be?”

“What do you mean?”

“Thought you said you were twins,” she said. “Shouldn't it be your birthday too?”

I suddenly felt hot all over. My cheeks burned.

“Yeah,” I said. “His birthday, my birthday, same thing. I always think about it like it's his birthday because, you know, I love him so much.”

She gave me another one of those smiles.

“Do me a favor,” she said. “Get out of here before I get fired, OK?”

Mikey and I took my bike, went in the alley behind the theater, sat down in the gravel, and opened up the bag of Twizzlers. I pulled one out of the bag and offered it to him.

“Happy birthday, PeeWee,” I said.

“I hate when you call me that,” he said, grabbing the candy and taking a bite.

“Sorry,” I said. “Happy birthday, Michael.” I took a Twizzler for myself and gave him the bag.

We sat in silence for a minute. I didn't know what to do. I had this grand plan, and it failed. I felt like a loser, so I can't even imagine what Mikey was feeling.

“What do you want to do now?” I asked.

“Just go home, I guess,” he said.

I nodded, stood up, grabbed the bike by the handles.

Just then, the door near us leading into the theater opened, and a teenage couple walked out.

I looked over at Mikey. He looked over at me. As the couple walked fast by us, Mikey ran to the door and propped it open with his Star Wars towel.

He looked over at me and smiled.

“Let's go see a movie,” he said.

**

We were tired of riding double, so we walked home as the sun came down. We passed by UDF, by the pool, by our elementary school, by Mom's work, by the neighbors finishing up mowing, by a family down the street catching lightning bugs in an old pickle jar, waving to us as we passed by.

The whole way we quoted all the cuss word parts to each other, back and forth:

That is his name, sir. Asshole, Major Asshole!

Keep firing, assholes!

Why didn't anybody tell me my ass was this big?

We're not just doing this for money! We're doing it for a SHIT LOAD of money!

We ain't found shit!

“They called him Yogurt!” he said, doubled over with laughter, and looked at me to make sure I laughed too.

Normally when he did that – and he did it all the time – I would make sure to not laugh, even if I thought what he said was funny. But it was his birthday, so I gave in.

“Ha ha ha,” I said, louder than I normally would have, and I looked over to see him still smiling.

Mom and Ryan were both home when we got back. They surprised us by being home early, by not being mad that we were gone, by immediately wanting to take a family photo, and by having Little Caesar’s (brought home by mom) and by an ice cream cake (brought home by Ryan from his job at Baskin Robbins).

We ate, the flashbulb from the family photo still making little lights in my eyes.

I kept glancing over at Mikey the whole dinner. I couldn't explain the feelings I was having toward him, and he saw me staring.

“What are you looking at?” he said, loud.

“Sorry,” I said.

It was late by the time we finished dinner, and mom tucked Mikey in bed as I threw away the bottles of Faygo red pop and the empty pizza box in the garbage cans in the garage.

I came back up and knocked on his door, looking at the picture he had taped to the front, a photo of him in the local newspaper of him sledding at Pfieffer Park a few month before. We woke up early that morning to find out school was canceled due to a storm, so we walked to the park and started sledding before the sun even came up.

I got mad at Mikey for being the one to get his picture in the paper, and ripped it in half when I saw it. He had taped it back together and put it back on his door, I don't know if it was because he was proud of the picture, or if he was doing it in defiance of me.

He yelled for me to come inside, and I did, staying in the doorway.

He looked like he did that morning when I saw him with the photo album.

“Happy birthday, Pee Wee,” I said.

“Thanks, it was really fun,” he said, smiling.

“Good,” I said. “Great.” I didn't know what else to say. “May the schwartz be with you.”

He laughed.

“May the schwartz be with you,” he said.

I felt weird. My throat felt tight like I couldn’t swallow, my bottom lip was shaking a little, and my heart was beating fast, even though I didn't run or bike or anything. I took a few deep breaths, stole one last look at Mikey as he rolled over in bed. I flicked the light off, and shut the door.

To Joe.