Saturday afternoon my brother came by and picked me up, and we headed over to Lincoln Tavern to hang with Ronnie for a bit. We sat and drank root beers, and played the bowling video game that hulks next to the side door to the bar - Ty and I did a 3-game series, Vegas-style. I think I won on pin points, but he might've, overall, had the better-dealt cards.
Ronnie remarked that she'd seen my mom recently at some social function, and went on and on about how she goes on and on about how much she misses Tyler, and I shook my head and smiled. It seems to still be hitting her pretty hard that he's gone, even though he's been in Texas for about six months now. I mentioned how I'd tried (valiantly) to suggest coming over to hang out and do things with Mom, but that she'd always been busy. It also occurred to me right then that she no longer bugs me about not calling her as often as she'd like. The slightly nasty thought jumped into my head that perhaps she is too busy missing Tyler. As I drifted through that thought, and slugged back another cold mouthful of root beer, Ronnie laughed and said, "See? Mothers lie! There is always a favorite! Moms always have favorites, and they will tell you no, it's not true, but they do! There's always a favorite."
My head started to hurt. I don't really drink soda anymore, see.
So Ty and I eventually headed out, since we weren't sure, with only Ronnie working the bar, whether she was going to be able to serve lunches. Ty's been hankering for a good gyros place, so I told him about a 24-hour joint on the way back to my apartment. We did drive-through.
Once back at my place, Ty unpacked his latest eBay purchase - a well-loved Nintendo console, and a whole stack of games, including the most-loved game by me - Metroid. We plugged it all into my television, and did the whole (achingly familiar) rigmarole with sliding the carts into the carriage, clicking it in, and turned on the power. Over and over and over. Glitched screens came up 9 times out of 10, but on that tenth try, hoo boy, the memories flooded back in.
Metroid music means a big old Victorian house in Oak Park, with cats and dogs and lovely old furniture, and my friends who thought we were millionaires because we had such a big, lovely-looking house with a turret. Rolling Samus through corridor after corridor infested with strange space 'dactyls and fuzzy crawlers meant my parents were still married, and arguing late into the night, long past our bedtimes. The strange music you get when you get into ... is it Tourian? with all the white blocks and the weird googly-eyed crawlies? -- that is 80's music and the Cold War and being teased at school and writing stories up in my room and using my microscope set to look at flower petals at the highest magnification possible.
Even Mike Tyson's Punchout made me laugh, and made me remember that it was the variety of games that we had that ultimately let me get to know my brother a lot better, they pointed out our strengths and weaknesses. We were able to slyly compliment each other on the stuff we knew we personally could never excel at, and it seemed the path of least resistance (for once) to just go ahead and be nice to each other every now and again.
Eventually, back in the present, Ty said he had to go, so I pulled the teevee back out, unplugged the A/V, and he packed everything back up in towels and a suitcase, and went back out to the suburbs to hang with Mom. "What are you guys doing tonight?" I asked carefully, trying not to sound plaintive or suggestive. He shrugged, "I dunno. Probably go out to dinner or something."
I nodded, hugged him, promised I would be there the next day for the barbecue, and watched him drive off into the brilliant sunshine.
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