Have you ever been the Center of the Universe? I was once. I was an only child until my brother was born. For the first one and a half years of my life I was the center of attention. Everything I did was cute. Everything I did got all the smiles. Just being me meant that all my needs were being met. Just being me meant that I got all the love.

Then one day, out of the blue, that all ended. My Mom brought home this lump wrapped in a blanket. She laid it on the sofa. Everybody was all paying attention to the lump on the sofa and not to me. The Center of the Universe had somehow moved. I continued to play with my toys in the corner hoping that someone would realize this massive oversight and would again throw the focus of the Universe back on me. I became more and more distressed the longer this didn’t happen. Then my mother came over to me and said that she had a surprise for me. A surprise? Great. This better be a good one to make up for all the distress I was feeling. “A surprise?” I thought. Was it a present? Was it something to entertain me? Was it something to eat?

My mother took me by the hand and walked me over to the sofa. She pealed back the blanket to expose this little doll like person. “This is Jerry, your little brother.” A little brother? What was I suppose to do with a little brother? So far this lump was just another attention getter like me. Why would you want another when you already have one? Didn’t you create the perfect one the first time out? Why would you even want to try and top that?

As I stared at this new addition to my Universe my Mom then added “And you’re his big brother”. A big brother? What was that? Somehow I was supposed to take on this new role called “Big Brother”. Did I apply for this role? No. Did I audition for this role? No. Was there any training that went along with this role? No. Somehow my additional 18 months of experience on this planet over my brother made me qualified for the position. Somehow my additional time on planet Earth now made me the “Responsible One”. Little did I know that being the “Responsible One” also meant “No more fun for you” because, in the absence of adult, from now on, you were the surrogate parent making sure that “Jerry didn’t get into any trouble”.

Before my brother showed up I had my version of an invisible friend. It wasn’t exactly “Calvin and Hobbs”. We had a clock in the kitchen in the shape of a chef with a big chef’s hat and a big black mustache. Whenever I was in the kitchen the chef would talk to me about important things like “what’s for dinner?” and I would talk back. After my brother showed up the chef refused to talk to me anymore. At first I thought that the chef was just as disturbed as I was about the arrival of my brother on the scene. After a while though I started to suspect that the chef had switched allegiances and was now my little brother’s invisible friend but I could never prove that.

A few years pass and I finally settled into my role as “Big Brother”. Besides being the “Big Brother” had its perks. It put me in charge. Every thing I told “my brother” to do “my brother” gladly complied. He looked up to me for guidance because I was the “Responsible One” keeping him out of trouble. To him I was the “The Master of the Universe” and “The Master of the Universe” knows everything and had complete control of your life.

One day we were playing with some toy cars. I told my brother to line them up in a row. For some reason he wasn’t complying. I told him again but all I got was a “I don’t want too”. For the first time, there was rebellion in the ranks. This had never happened before. This required some sort of response. My new position as his Master of the Universe was rapidly breaking down. I told him again but all he did was to get more snotty. This behavior couldn’t be allowed to continue. Action was required on my part. So, I did the only sensible thing I could. I grabbed my brother in a wrestling lock around his head and proceeded to pound the top of his head repeatedly against the wall.

The resultant scream by my brother caused my mother to poke her head out of the kitchen. I thought to myself “Good. Mom’s going to help me punish “Jerry” for not listening to me. Punish him for violating this “Big Brother” arrangement that she helped set up. Instead a look of horror came over her face. “Good”, I again thought, “Mom is just as upset as I am that “Jerry” is not doing what I told him to do. Suddenly, my Mom bolts across the living room at lighting speed. I look up and want to pass off my brother’s head so the punish can continue from a more authoritarian figure. My Mom cocks her hand back. “Good. You take care of back end while I work on the front. Together we’ll teach “Jerry” a lesson”. The hand comes down but to my surprise it completely misses my brother and lands squarely on my backside. This causes me to release my brother from the head lock that I have in him. She picks up my brother and starts to comfort him all the while staring at me as if I was some sort of juvenile delinquent. I was confused and started to cry myself. Doesn’t this “Big Brother” thing allow you to meter out punishment and reward? Why are so bent out of shape? I’m only being what you wanted me to be.

Years later when I entered High School I pretty much lost track of my brother. Even though I had a room right next to him he was still in grade school and I was now in High School. I still was the Big Brother. Whatever I said he had to do. One thing about adolescence though is that there is tremendous physical growth. So, somewhere in the High School years while I wasn’t paying attention my brother got bigger than me. Not just a little bigger but “All-Conference Starting Defensive End” big. So, began the reversal of Karma that had been my advantage. He started to realize that he didn’t have to listen to me any more. He didn’t have to do anything I said any more. In fact, he started bossing me around. Whenever I refused he would use his newly acquired “Conan the Barbarian” physique to bully me. At first, it was little things like muscling me out for the seat behind our Dad in our station wagon. Eventually, it got to the point where he thought it was funny to block me from getting into the bathroom at crucial times.

I can’t tell you how frustrating this got. In my mind I was suppose to be the boss. He was supposed to listen to me. I was the first born. Why didn’t he understand that this was the role that was involuntarily thrush upon me so many years ago? This is the role which I earned by being the “Responsible One”. Needless to say that one day while my brother was putting me into some sort of new debilitating hold he learned at wrestling practice that day, all my frustrations and all my pent up rage came rushing up at once. It kind of surprised me. It was like I had this “Incredible Hulk” inside me and finally the threshold had been finally been crossed to release it. In the loudest primal yell heard since the dawning of man I cried out “I’ve had it with you”. A sudden surge of adrenaline strength freed me from his grip. The next surge knocked him back against the wall. Suddenly there was this look of terror in my brother’s eyes. To him I had become a crazy man. I lunged forward which lead him to jump out of the way and run downstairs. With my new found adrenaline strength I quickly pursued him. He dashed out the front door and ran down toward the end of the block. I wasn’t letting up. At that time we lived in a small town in Illinois that was surrounded by cornfields. My brother headed toward one of these cornfields hoping that he could loose his pursuer like Carry Grant tried to do in Alfred Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest. He knew that it’s easy to get lost in the maze (no pun intended) that is a cornfield. It was early September and the stalks where already 8 to 10 feet tall. What he didn’t bargain on was the years and years of frustration being the “Responsible One” that was fueling my frenzied state. Entering the cornfield I continued to chase him totally oblivious to the dozens and dozens of stalks of corn I was destroying in the process. My brother was determined to escape but I was determined to pulverize him. After about 10 minutes he finally ran out of the cornfield and back toward our house. I was in quick pursuit. He ran around to our backyard and toward the side door to the garage. I was just inches away. As he was about to slam the door shut I stuck out my hand to stop him. My arm went through one of the glass panes in the door shattering glass everywhere. Unknownst to me at the time my arm had suffered several cuts and the blood started to soak into the sweatshirt that I was wearing making me look pretty gruesome. The shattering of the glass in the door didn’t stop me so I opened the door, ran inside and started chasing my brother all through our two story house.

My Mom came up from the basement where she was doing the laundry to see what all the commotion was all about. My brother started to scream “Mommy! Mommy! Danny’s going to kill me.” “You’re damn right I am!” I replied, “It’s time for another head banging!” I continued to chase him but somehow he managed to get behind Mom and cower like a little child. My Mom yells “What the hell is going on here?” She looks me over and sees me covered with sweat, blood, and pieces of corn stalk. Her first reaction was that my brother had beaten me up. (Probably with a bunch of produce.) “Good”, I thought, “Finally, the Universe coming is back into alignment.” But then she sees the terror in my cowering brother’s eyes which triggers memories of the four year old head banging juvenile delinquent and decides to invoke the “fairness doctrine” and tell us both to go to our rooms until my Dad came home from work. We both got grounded for a week but being the eldest I got additional “You’re the big brother. You should know better.”

It can be said that our relationships make us who we are. For good or bad, that was the case with my little brother. If it wasn’t for his sudden appearance so early in my life upsetting my Universe I might have not developed my sense of humor to such a degree that was necessary in order to compensate for my damaged self esteem.

If it wasn’t for my little brother so early on stealing my lime light I might have not felt the need to get that center of attention back by pursuing an interest in acting or stand-up comedy (and even story telling for that).

If it wasn’t for the intense competition I felt with him which a projected onto other thing I might of not of been so driven to climb mountains or run a marathon.

In fact, if it wasn’t for my little brother I’d probably be a well adjusted but boring accountant living in the suburbs of Chicago instead of the creative but neurotic performer you see here today.

I don’t get to see my little brother much these days since I live in California and he lives in Virginia. I did stop by a few summers ago when I was on the East Coast. It’s funny how people never change. They assume that they can push the same buttons and get the same reaction. He tried to bully me but I saw right through him. The “Incredible Hulk” stayed where he was but I did have his desire to grab him in a wrestling head lock and pound his head into the wall but that was mostly just for old time’s sake.