Tony the Tormentor...

While I was growing up, my younger brother Tony terrorized me daily.

In fact, he terrorized my entire family and some of our neighbors. My earliest memories of my brother inflicting his demented sense of humor on people goes back to when he was just seven years old.

Early one morning, just before my mother was to come into our bedroom to wake us up for school, my brother quickly arose and then arranged the bed to look as if he was still sleeping in it. He then slid underneath and patiently awaited the arrival of my mother. I was sleeping soundly in the top bunk and was totally unaware of what my brother was up to, until that is, I heard my mother's voice shrieking in the still hours of the morning.

I was so startled by the noise that I fell out of bed and plummeted to the floor, almost landing right on top of Tony arms as they extended out from underneath the bed. His hands were still tightly grasped around my mother's ankles as she continued to scream. I had really wanted to laugh right along with the evil little troll that I shared a room with, but I felt too bad for my mother at the time.

Ten years down the road, things weren't any better. Tony had developed a habit of sneaking up to me in the morning as I slept, getting up real close to one of my ears, and then yelling "Wake-up" at the top of his voice. I had developed a habit of instinctively swinging one of my arms in his immediate direction as an attempt to inflict upon him with as much pain as possible.

One morning, Tony made his move and then I made mine and I successfully made a good solid contact. Suddenly though, I felt intense pain in my right arm. The pain was excruciating. As I opened my eyes and rolled over, I found Tony standing a few feet back from the bed. His insane laughter echoed throughout the bedroom and from underneath my new motorcycle helmet that he was wearing on his head.

A few months after the helmet incident, I had an opportunity to exact revenge on my brother. I tried not exacting revenge on him very often though because it always meant double the retribution on me sometime later on down the road. But on one particular morning, around 4:00 a.m., the perfect opportunity arose, and I could not deny it.

Tony had volunteered to help me that morning to deliver newspapers. I had a big motor route that covered a lot of miles and it included both houses and apartments. After arriving at an apartment complex and parking in the parking lot, I asked Tony to remain in the car and to continue folding newspapers while I made my deliveries on foot.

After completing my deliveries I made my way back to the car and could hear the stereo blasting away. As I slowly moved closer to the passenger side of the car, I noticed through the partially rolled down window that Tony was totally oblivious to my return. In fact, he was singing along with the music on the radio at the top of his voice. I squatted down and eased myself closer and closer to the window.

Revenge was at hand. My heart was racing. I slowly and cautiously reached through the window and grabbed the top of my brother's head. Tony's high-pitched scream reverberated throughout the still night but then it suddenly stopped. My brother had passed out on the front seat of the car. He wasn't out long though and quickly awakened and began screaming again. As I fell backward onto the parking lot pavement, I had to hold my sides from the pain of the intense laughter that wracked my body.

My revenge had been sweet and I tried to savor it for as long as I could. If Tony hadn't been so afraid of the dark, he would have walked home that morning.

I wish I could say that Tony was broken of his horribly bad habit that summer morning in Florida, but I can't. A few months later he volunteered to assist me once again on the paper route and foolishly I agreed. We arrived at one of the apartment complexes and I began to make my deliveries on foot and as before, Tony remained behind in my car.

As I was making my way across the top floor of a two-story building, I heard the blood-curdling scream of a woman in distress. The hair on the back of my neck went straight up and my heart started racing. I had to do something and so bravely but quite apprehensively I dropped my bundle of newspapers and ran towards the stairwell from which the scream had come.

As I descended the stairs I could hear a woman sobbing. I could also hear the voice of my brother. Apparently, while I had been making my rounds, Tony had taken up a spot right below the stairwell and had placed a grotesque rubber Halloween mask on his face. As he had heard footsteps coming down the stairs and had assumed that it was I, he had suddenly jumped out in front of the stair landing.

And so, there with the mask in his hands, knelt my brother on the ground in front of a very distraught woman. He was profusely apologizing to her and begging her not to call the police. She was mad, she was upset; and the look on my brother's face was priceless. It was only because I knew the woman; and I proceeded to earnestly intercede for my warped little brother, that he did not go to jail that morning.

Did that incident break my brother from tormenting people?

No, not at all, in fact, a few years later, he and I ended up in the same barracks in Coast Guard boot camp and he continued to exact his torture on me there.

And that my friends, is a whole other story.