What would be the perfect holiday gift for a brother who taunts you, whenever the opportunity arises? You know he cares about you, but his behavior makes your life miserable.

It is Christmas time again. You call your mother and out of nowhere comes a 
gift idea that is . . .

Picture Perfect

     “It’s alive,” I screamed.

     “What’s alive, Thomas?” Reuben asked.

     “The thing,” I replied.

     “The thing?”

     “Yeah, the thing. It fell out of my book onto my lap and then crawled down the side of the sofa.”

     Reuben rolled out of the plush leather armchair to the right of the sofa. “Which side of the couch?” he inquired.

     “That side.”

     He dragged his tired body passed me to the left side of the sofa and bent down. “Don’t know what you saw, but there’s nothing there.”

     “But it’s got to be there. It crawled across the cushion and over the left arm of the couch.”

     “Well, it must have been a bug of some kind. It’s gone now. So let’s just go to bed.”

     “Ugh, a bug—a slimy insect. I hate bugs. They’re yucky. They terrify me—creep me out.”

     ‘“Hell, you’re not going to die from a stupid little bug crawling over you.”

     “How do you know?”

     “I know little brother. I am wise beyond my nineteen years,” he stated, while laughing right in my face.

     Reuben is my older brother, by one year. He has taken care of me, whether I like it or not. Sometimes he can be a real pain in the ass. But tonight he probably was right. So I grabbed my book, Spiderman’s Revenge, and followed him down the hall to our respective bedrooms.

     He and I share a small two-bedroom house, owned by our parents, on the east side of town. We attend East Armitidge Community College. I’m a Psych major and Reuben, well, he’s still searching. Says he has plenty of time to decide what he wants to be when he grows up. That is, if he ever grows up. 

     The grandfather clock in the hallway struck midnight, the signal telling me I should have been in bed an hour ago, because I needed to be on campus at eight o’clock sharp. So I wiped thoughts of my wonderful big brother out of my mind and got ready for bed.

     After washing up in the bathroom, I went into my bedroom, put on my pajamas, and shuffled over to the bed. As I pulled back the covers, I let out a loud scream. For there, under the blankets, lay a picture of the ugliest insect I’d ever seen. This turn of events pissed me off. I raced out of my room and down the hall to Reuben’s hideaway, yelling at the top of my lungs, “You idiot! You unfeeling, uncaring jerk!”

     I crashed through his door. Reuben stood there with a smirk on his face. “I found your bug little bro. Nice pic, don’t you think?”

     I stood there speechless. Nothing I could think of seemed to say what I wanted to say, so I kept my mouth shut. Back in my room, my stomach churned as I thought, I’ll get him. I’m not going to let him get away with this. He’s such a creep. And with Christmas just a few weeks away, I’ll find the gift to get back at him—the one he will never forget.

     As my head hit the pillow, I drifted off into an uneasy sleep. I dreamt of bugs crawling all over me. I twisted and turned trying to rid my body of them. My only escape was the buzzing of my alarm clock signaling the arrival of a bright sunny winter morning. However, my anger toward Reuben hadn’t diminished one iota.

     I left the house without confronting him, jumped on my bike, and peddled the two short blocks to campus. Chaining the bike to the rack in front of Brambling Hall, I entered the building and headed into my Psych class. The first words out of the prof’s mouth, “Misery loves company.”

     This sounded so right to me. I was miserable and Reuben wasn’t, but I was sure he should be. So how could I pull this off?

     The rest of the day, I couldn’t get my mind to focus on my classes. All I could think of was how I could get back at my brother. So I grabbed my phone from my jacket pocket, as I sat on a bench on campus in front of the Hamilton James Library, and dialed my mother.

     I needed to get information from her about my brother without arousing her curiosity about why I was asking her questions about him. The best way to do this, I believed, was to lie. The phone rang once, twice, three times. I started to hang up, when her melodic voice sung out, “Hello.”

     “Hey Mom, it’s Thomas.”

     “Oh, Tommy, it’s so nice to speak to you.”

     “Mom, I want to ask you some questions about Reuben.”

     “Okay, . . . but what for?”

     “You know he’s been very nice to me. He looks after me.”

     “Yes, I know.”

     “So I’m thinking of getting a few guys and gals together for a party to celebrate his life over the holiday.”

     “Sounds like he died,” she gulped.

     “No, he’s alive and well. This will be my special Christmas gift for him. I need to find something funny about him to both toast and roast him at our get-together. You know like . . .

     “I know just what you need. Come over to the house for dinner and I’ll show you. But don’t bring Reuben. Make up some excuse for coming alone.”

     “Oh, I won’t, and if he asks where I’m going, I’ll just, uh, bend the truth a bit.”

     “Good. I’ll see you for dinner around six.”

     I clicked my phone off and wondered what in the world my mother had in mind. She could be weird at times, so I had no idea what to expect.

     My parents live just six blocks from my house on the other side of campus. So I mounted my bike and headed toward their home. When I arrived, Dad had just pulled into the driveway. He got out of the car as I drove in. I parked and started up the driveway.

     “Hi, Dad,” I shouted out.

     “Hey, Tom, boy,” he replied. What’s up?”

     “Got an invitation for dinner from Mom.”

     “Great, but where’s Reuben?”

     “Uh, he’s busy—going to a friend’s house or something.”       
     “Sorry he couldn’t make it. You know how I love having both of you here together. Reminds me of all our good times we had as you guys grew up. I couldn’t separate the two of you. If I had one, the other always was close by. But that’s fine. Let’s go in.”

     I followed Dad into the house. “Hey, honey, guess what I brought home from work,” Dad yelled to Mom, as she exited the kitchen and approached us.

     She gave Dad a quick kiss and wrapped her arms around me. I struggled to get loose as she planted a kiss on my cheek. “It’s so good to see you, Tommy,” she chanted.

     “You, too, Mom.”

     “Get washed up,” and meet me in the kitchen in ten minutes for dinner,” she commanded.

     I went into the guest bath, as Dad went into the bedroom to get out of his suit and tie. Ten minutes later, we met each other in the hallway and entered the kitchen together.

     There Mom stood holding a huge two-feet by three-feet framed picture of Reuben, dressed in his “birthday suit,” and it wasn’t a baby picture. “I found this stashed away in the attic when Dad and I sorted through stuff this weekend for Goodwill,” she chanted. “I’d never seen it before. It says, ‘Happy Birthday, Sweet Sixteen’ and it’s signed, ‘Love, Leah.’ Do you remember, she was Reuben’s girlfriend at the time?”

     “Sure, I remember. She was a bit odd, but nice. Wanted to be a photographer.”

     “Yeah, you’re right,” Mom said. “That’s probably why she took the picture. And since he wasn’t wearing any clothes, he hid it in the attic, with our other forgotten junk, so it wouldn’t be found.”

     I stared at it. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The picture of Reuben’s scrawny body and skinny legs, at age sixteen, certainly was something he would want to hide from the world. I wanted to laugh, but held it back. This will be the best payback ever—a holiday gift that will leave a lasting impression, I thought.

     Mom looked at me and asked, “Is this what you were looking for?”

     Overwhelmed, I stated, “Yes, it’s ‘Picture Perfect.’” 

Copyright © 2014 Alan Lowe. All rights reserved.