My Brother Ricky

    I was eleven years old when my brother, Ricky arrived. At least I think I was. It was a lot of years ago. I can still remember my first glimpse of him. Mama and Daddy had come home and parked the car in the garage. They came in through the door that took them into the den, which was our bedroom, my sister’s and mine. Mama was carrying a baby blue receiving blanket wrapped around a bundle so tiny it looked like there was nothing in it at all. My other brother, Bobby was in the room with us. He had to spend his days in there because he slept in the utility room at night, and they didn’t want him hanging around in there during the day. So we, my sister, Carol, and I had to have him in our room all day. But that’s another story, and I digress.
    So here we all were crowding around Mama to see what’s in the blanket, but she made us wait until she and Daddy got to the living room. Ordinarily, we weren’t allowed in the living room, but this was a special occasion. She sat down and we formed a cluster around her. Slowly, and with the utmost gentleness, she peeled back the flap of the blue flannel. And there he was. I, for one, could not believe how very tiny he was! And CUTE! He was literally too cute to be real. His tiny black face had the biggest brown eyes, and his nose looked huge in that little bitty face. And his ears! They looked huge, too, but that just made him even cuter. I loved him at first sight. But, alas, it was a love that was never meant to be.
    You see, as cute as Ricky looked, he began to show signs of having a rather bad disposition. Mama and Daddy thought it was cute, and at first we did, too. But after a while his vicious temper started getting scary. Everybody else seemed to think it was pretty funny when he first bit Daddy, but I didn’t. He made Daddy bleed! I was too young to understand that sometimes humor can be a little bit sick. All I knew at the time was that I felt awfully uncomfortable when Mama and Daddy would laugh at Ricky when he was being so nasty.
    Then came a day I will never forget if I live a thousand years. For some reason, Mama held Ricky up to Bobby’s face. I guess it was so Bobby could kiss his little brother. Anyway, Ricky was apparently in one of his moods, because the next thing any of us knew, he had bitten off a piece of poor Bobby’s eyebrow! Here was Bobby, with blood dribbling down his face, and Mama and Daddy laughing so hard they were nearly crying. Bobby WAS crying. He was only eight, I think. We didn’t always get along, he and I, but I sure felt sorry for him at that moment! Neither Carol nor I thought it was the least bit funny. But Mama was cuddling and kissing Ricky as though he had invented gold. I don’t know about Carol and Bobby, but that was the end of any fondness I ever really felt for Ricky from that day forth.
    By the way, did I forget to mention that My - Brother - Ricky was a Chihuahua? And the day he came to live with us was the day that we kids lost any status we may have had in that house. From that day forward it was Ricky who ruled the family.
    There had never been a lot of hugging going on in our house, except on Christmas and birthdays. Not between us kids and our parents anyway. Mama and Daddy hugged and kissed all the time, which seemed normal to us. Wasn’t that what parents did, after all? But with the arrival of My - Brother - Ricky there was an awful lot more hugging and kissing going on in our house. Mama was cuddling and kissing Ricky all the time. Sometimes we kids would try to kiss him. He WAS cute, after all. But all we got was bitten in the face. In time we developed some pretty good reflexes from ducking those needle sharp little teeth! We really did try to love him, for Mama’s sake if for no other reason. But boy was it hard. As time went on, Ricky developed a meaner and meaner disposition. And he also became probably the world’s most picky eater. Mama soon figured out that he would eat just about anything, however, if he could just fight for it first. And that meant he had to bite somebody. Mama and Daddy both thought that was just the cutest thing ever. But guess who had to poke a foot at his food to get him to eat it? That’s right, us kids. We pretty much took turns doing it. The routine went something like this: Ricky decided to be difficult about eating some tid-bit or another, and one of us kids was called into the game to poke a foot at his food dish and declare that we were going to “get it”. The toe of the rival’s shoe was chewed amidst much snarling, and then Ricky would contentedly chow down. This soon grew into a several - times - a - day routine. Sometimes it was sort of funny, in a ridiculous sort of way. But as he grew bigger he would as often as not nail a foot right through its slipper.. When we started changing into shoes for our command performances, Mama made us stop. “He can’t hurt you.” she would tell us. A lot she knew! She never put HER foot on the line for Ricky’s nutritional benefit. She wanted to always be the good guy in his dear little eyes. Well, I needn’t tell you that that didn’t further our love for our littlest brother. But as time wore on we, being young and adaptable, got used to the eating drama. We didn’t learn to like it, mind you, but we did get used to it.
But as we grew older, we began to realize that our brother was getting all the hugs and kisses, and we were getting none. I don’t know about Carol and Bobby, because we never discussed it, but I know I felt a little sad about that.
    Something else we began to notice was that Ricky was being fed an awful lot better than we were. While we ate soup and sandwiches, Ricky was eating steak and pork chops and chicken gizzards. Well, ok, maybe we didn't begrudge him the gizzards. Yuck! . Mama even started to wilt lettuce in the same water that she boiled his gizzards in because she somehow discovered that he liked that. Meanwhile we were fed whatever she knew we hated the most. I, for one, especially detested the taste of hot boiled eggs. Well she had this specialty she would feed us: hard boiled eggs on toast. We all hated that with a passion; and guess what we had several mornings a week? It positively made me gag, which would earn me a knuckle job on the back of my head.
    Our lives pretty much went on like that as the years rolled by: we kids being eaten alive by our brother, and Mama loving him more with every act of mayhem he perpetrated. And we hated him more every day. To give our mother her due, however, on the rare occasion when Ricky would actually bite her, she thought that was precious, too. 
    One more reason we had to hate our brother was the fact that when he had to go, we had to take turns walking him outside. I know what you’re thinking: “What’s so bad about that?” Well, suppose I tell you. For some reason we never understood, Carol, who was thirteen at the time of his arrival was the only one that Ricky would allow to buckle his harness onto him when he went out. If anybody else tried they would get their hand eaten off up to the elbow! So, whenever My - Brother - Ricky had to go potty, Carol had to drop whatever she was doing and leash him up. She was dragged out of bed, out of the shower, away from her Latin verbs, from her favorite television show (and we were SO rarely allowed to watch television), from meals; she was a virtual slave to Ricky’s bowels and bladder. As were we all. Carol, even with her on-call position as the keeper of the leash, was required to take her turn at the walking duty also. So, as the escort of the moment waited for Carol to do her thing, he or she was admonished by Mama to “Keep him out awhile.”, and to “Let him snoop.” Which, roughly translated, meant: Stay out there with him until your eyes glaze over; his pleasure is astronomically more important than your comfort or convenience! Hey, sometimes it was cold out there. Or raining. And if we walked him in the rain and tracked any wetness or dirt back in on our feet we’d get whomped! We’d follow that little black troll around the yard for as much as a half an hour at a time, until our eyes DID glaze over, and we hated him more with every stultifying moment. I remember one night in particular, when there was no moon at all. It was blacker than a politician's soul out there, and My - Brother - Ricky was leading me all over the back forty. Our convoluted route took us around and then under the clothes lines, and as he snooped his way past the lines I noticed a couple of the biggest, fattest spiders I ever saw, in a thick web at one end. Later, he snooped his way back around and under the lines again and I suddenly felt something pull at my hair. I reached up and felt something unimaginably sticky on the top of my head. I immediately thought, The spiders! I looked up at the clothes line, and in the wreckage of the huge web I saw one spider. One. I knew I had seen two when we walked past the first time! I lost it. I dropped the leash and began beating on the top of my head and swiping at my hair. And screaming! I guess I must have been doing a lively jig that would have shamed any drunken sailor on any tall ship you can name. I never did find the second spider. For all I know, I might have pounded the poor thing into mush. on my head. I wonder if spider mush makes a good hair conditioner. The strangest things do, you know. Whatever, I never found as much as one hairy leg in my hair.
    It was the little things, like the great spider attack, that served to fan our dislike of our brother. But by the time I reached the ripe old age of seventeen, I had figured out that something was very rotten in the state of Ricky-opolis Somewhere along the line I became aware that the way we kids were being treated was not entirely normal. I nurtured more than my share of teenage angst. I felt very unloved and rebellious. I hated being at home. So much so, in fact, that I began to be willing to do more than my assigned turns at walking My - Brother - Ricky. I was more than willing; I looked forward to the chance to get out of the house. Ricky became my ticket out of there, for however brief a time. I would walk that poor dog until his feet wore down to stumps! I stayed out with him for sometimes an hour at a time. And I don’t think Mama ever got wise. I’m pretty sure she thought I was knuckling under and becoming a good little girl. That was about the time I began to not hate Ricky quite so much anymore. I did a lot of thinking and soul - searching on those long walks in the dark. From talking to other kids in school, I knew that I lived in an unusual family. Today it would be called Dysfunctional. Back then, it was just plain weird! I slowly came to understand that the way Ricky was coddled and catered to by my mother was not his fault. No matter what Mama said, Ricky was just a dog. Dogs don’t know about unfairness. They don’t understand when someone dislikes them, or treats them badly. And all three of us kids were guilty of some form or another of minor abuse. We’d push him, or jerk his leash when nobody was looking. Stuff like that. We weren’t exactly Nazis, but we weren’t very nice to him. What can I say? We didn’t like him; I believe we were jealous of him, whether we’d admit it or not. And who could have blamed us? But at the same time, who could blame poor Ricky for being loved to excess?
    I think I did some real growing up on those walks. I stopped hating My - Brother - Ricky. I never got to where I liked him; after all, he was the worst tempered thing I had ever seen. He’s still the worst tempered thing I’ve ever seen! Of course, he’s long gone from this Earth. Has been for more than thirty years. But after all that time, he still holds the record for the nastiest disposition I ever did see. And I've seen some nasty ones! 
After about another year, I was married. Dumbest thing I ever did, but that’s also another story. Anyway, this marriage produced a daughter whom I named Dianne, and I finally learned what it felt like to truly love and be loved! 
    The marriage didn’t last long, about two years maybe. After another two years of single life I remarried, and this union produced a son, Stephen Jr. We nick-named him Junior Barnes after a character created by Bill Cosby. In time the nick-name was shortened to just plain Barnes, and, sometimes, J.B.
    Once I had left home and married and had children, my relationship with Mama and Daddy improved. And since I no longer had to live with My - Brother - Ricky my dislike for him simmered down to mere indifference.
    In time my two children grew older and began to talk. It never occurred to me to wonder what they should call Ricky. But I soon discovered that Mama had been thinking about it, all right. One fine day , in the course of a perfectly innocent conversation, she announced that she fully expected me to instruct the kids to address that snarling, snapping, leg-humping little beast as Uncle Ricky! I laughed, but she made it clear that she was not joking. Well, as far as I was concerned, that was just going too far. I was now between a rock and the proverbial hard place: I valued my improved relationship with my mother, But I simply could not bring myself to teach two perfectly innocent children to even THINK of a dog as their uncle, for pity’s sake. I tried to get around the dilemma by avoiding the subject all together. After all, the kids didn’t see Ricky very often. I thought I was getting away with something, but I should have known better. Mama was determined that Ricky should have his due: SHE taught Dianne and Barnes to call him Uncle. I was annoyed, but in the privacy of our home the kids found the whole thing to be a jolly good joke. They agreed to call their grandmother’s precious pup Uncle Ricky. They found it to be a hoot. So that problem more or less went away by itself, and I do believe that to this very day Mama is none the wiser. She thinks that both of the kids revered their Uncle Ricky. 
    All of life in this world is made up of circles and cycles. And in the fullness of time, My - Brother - Ricky went to his reward. He was eighteen years old, quite a ripe old age for a dog. My parents were devastated. It was the only time I ever saw my father openly weep. They took him to a pet cemetery on a beautiful mountainside. There was a funeral and everything. I know it sounds ridiculous, but it was actually a very moving event. My heart went out to Mama and Daddy, but especially to Mama. She was so bereaved that her mother, my Nana, came from two states away to be with her and comfort her. During this sad time I actually felt a measure of guilt for my years of hating an innocent little dog. A nasty, innocent little dog, to be sure, but all of a sudden I couldn't hold any of his transgressions against him. None of it was ever his fault. He was carefully taught to be the way he was.
    Not long after Ricky’s passing my mother had it brought to her attention that there was a little female Chihuahua by the name of Mitzi who was being kept in deplorable conditions. She agreed to rescue the poor thing, but when she saw it she was appalled: Mitzi looked just like Ricky! At first it was too much for her to bear, but immediately upon sending Mitzi back she had to have her again. And she got her.
    I don’t think Mama has ever gotten over Ricky, but she was able to make room in her heart not only for Mitzi, but another Chihuahua after Mitzi was gone. And after that a Miniature Pincer. She loved and spoiled each of these little creatures, but none of them developed the kind of temperament that Ricky had. My - Brother - Ricky remains in a class by himself to this day. Dianne is thirty-nine now, and Barnes is thirty-four. No, he never outgrew the nick-name. Dianne has a son, Alex, and once I referred to his great grandmother’s long-deceased little treasure as his great uncle Ricky hoping to perpetuate the silly tradition. He just gave me a look that very clearly said: "Get real!” Kids today!
Dianne still fondly remembers her “Uncle Ricky”. The honorific has stuck, and it is kind of cute in a silly sort of way. Who knows, maybe some day she’ll sit down and write a piece of her own titled “My - Uncle - Ricky”. She can be full of surprises when she wants to. But that’s another story.

                                                               by b.j.carson

                                                               email b.j.carson at froglady@intergate.com