Charles
Edgar Giles, Jr.
If I was willing to play baseball or
football, Charley could be a wonderful older brother. The two of us would
ride our bikes for miles to other farms in the area for pick-up games, and,
though he was always third or fourth in the lineup or he was picked to play
quarterback or the primary running back, I swung ninth and stayed deep, deep,
deep in the outfield or I was the scrawny lineman at the far, far end of the
line. In pick-up games, though, Charley never let me be the last one
chosen, and he always called me to be on his team before it became too
embarrassing. I loved him for that and
hated to let him down, frequently playing against older kids who often knocked
the crap out of me or tramped me into a pulp, and, god forbid, a ball would be
hit to the outfield in my direction. Still, better to be with Charley and
wear the accolades of victory or the scars of defeat than be alone with him on
a Saturday morning in our bedroom and suffer the punishment for turning him
down and being such a wimp.
Charley was good in all sports; he
had a natural affinity for baseball, loved contact sports like football, and
would play basketball by himself for what seemed like hours. I would wonder, watching him, how anyone
could throw a ball at a basket over and over?
And not just that, but with no backstop, he would throw the ball, then
chase it down, throw the ball, then chase it down, again and again and
again. I would stand at the window in
the house and watch him out on the gravel driveway where Daddy had put up a
basketball hoop for him. How could
anyone find satisfaction in that? Or baseball,
Charley had a tree he would hit over and over practicing his swing. Over and over he would hit the tree, over and
over. My sister Allison and I, playing
in the garden, shuddered as the repeated thud against the tree reverberating
through the fields and woods, the house itself seemed to shake with each hit
until Mother would come out and tell him to leave the poor tree alone. Sometimes he would have me to pitch to him,
or tell me to run after his fly balls. I
hated pitching to Charley who invariably would chase me down and beat me up for
throwing stupid balls he couldn’t hit and wasting time searching for balls I
should have caught.
In my defense, I was left-handed and
was given Charley’s old hand-me-down, right-hander’s glove. To throw and catch, I would catch the ball
with the glove in my left hand, toss the glove, and throw it back with my left
hand to Charley. With him watching, rarely
did things go smoothly. Sometimes I
dropped the ball and threw the glove.
Daddy finally bought me a left-handed glove so I wouldn’t get beat up
catching balls with Charley, but that only helped a little as I rarely returned
the ball to the person to whom I was aiming.
Often Charley would be off and running in any one of a number of
different directions to catch my missiles to him, which, in turn, also infuriated
him. Soon he was running at me and I was
running for my life. Daddy didn’t know
how to teach me to bat left-handed, so I learned right-handed. That was okay, as I missed the ball most of
the time anyway.
Charley and Daddy had a lot more in
common, than Daddy did with me, though we shared a love of reading and theater:
plays from community theater to plays on tv, like Peter Pan with Mary Martin, to
musicals on the living room hi-fi, like Oklahoma. I loved Daddy’s enjoyment in watching a
musical, explaining the nuances of a song, telling us a good story, sharing
with us a magical moment on television.
He loved to laugh, and it was something we all shared with him.
Charley, though, shared his enthusiasm
for the Pittsburgh Pirates, for golf and the incredible performance of Arnold
Palmer, and later, Jack Nicholas who suffered in popularity at our house
because he was not from Western Pennsylvania.
Charley and Daddy went to the U.S. Open in Boston one year and left me
at home. Another year they went to the
Indianapolis 500 and, once again, I stayed behind. Sports – the exploits of the players, their stats
in the newspaper, the games broadcast on the radio – was something they shared alone
and was unique to them. I never entered
that world with them, and often found myself watching them from the side, from
the window.
It’s just that, unfortunately, Daddy
wasn’t around much, and it felt like Charley took out his frustration on me. I knew, though, it had to be more than that. If we were watching tv, I would be punched in
the stomach for no reason, or I would be hit in the face with a throw pillow,
or suddenly jumped upon and pummeled. If
I was walking near him, I would be shoved, or tripped, or smacked, or kicked in
the butt. If I was in the pool at the
Country Club, I would be dunked and held down until I was sure I was going to
drown. If we were at the library, he
would hit me over the head with a book, or kick my shin under the table, or
cuffed across the head as he walked by.
There was nowhere I could go get
away from him. I learned always to be
aware of where he was in my presence and would try to put as much distance
between us as possible, to never find myself next to him, to stay further back
when we were walking, to never sit beside him in a restaurant, to never be in
front of him in going to church, to never challenge him by looking at him, or
saying something back he might take as a personal affront. Surely, if he couldn’t punish me when the
infraction occurred, there was always Saturday mornings when we were relegated
back to our bedroom to clean up our room and take the sheets off of our
beds. Punishment waited for me whether I
had done something wrong or not. Charley
was the judge and the dispenser of justice and knew no mercy; and me, being
three years younger, of a slighter build, less competitive in my disposition, I
was guilty as charged.
Holly didn’t take his guff though.
Many a time, when my mother wasn’t around, Charley would start a fight,
challenging her, and they would wrestle on the floor. When they were
younger, Holly invariably ended up on top of him, pinning him down, unless, of
course, he could get me to join him. Holly holding Charley down
infuriated him and led to another match and another and another until, as he
grew older, she no longer could dominate him. Charley never could stand
being the second oldest child in our family, especially to a girl, but his
being three years younger than Holly, really made a difference. Holly who also was involved in sports, worked
on the farm, rode horses and skied actively could and would take him on and had
the disposition to carry it through. She was the oldest and the most
senior of the “four G’s,” and would never give up her leadership to him.
One time, when Holly was babysitting
us, she decided to play a new game with us.
As she often did when she was babysitting, she held court in her bedroom
playing music from her record player while we sat around on her bed. She was the teenager, and usually a lot of
fun – but you never knew, she could be cruel and dangerous too. At one point, Holly came up with the idea of
pressing a wire coat hanger against the light bulb in the blue plastic lamp
next to her bed. She had opened the
hanger and made a strange circle-like configuration with the wire. When it was red-hot she had Charley and me
hold Allison down while she pretended to brand her, bringing the hot wire down
to her nightie, listening to Allison screaming to get away. We knew she would let Allison go, but we
weren’t sure when. That was the scary
part, and when she pulled the hanger back and we let Allison go free, we all
laughed as Allison cried. Next Charley
and Holly were onto me, and soon I was held down by Charley and Allison as,
once again, Holly lowered the vivid, red-hot wire to my chest. This time she had opened my pajama top and
really was going to do it. I knew
her. She could be so mean. I struggled violently against Charley and
Allison’s hold, but with Charley, in particular, there was no getting away from
his grip.
“Do it.” He said to Holly, and, with
his encouragement, she brought the wire down almost to my chest before
pausing.
“Holly, Holly, please,” I screamed
and screamed, “I’ll do anything.
Anything. Don’t. Don’t.
I’ll tell. I’ll tell.”
“Do it, do it, do it!” Charley kept saying over and over, excited
about what the pain would do to me.
“I’ll do it. Let me do it!”
“If I let you up, you are my slave,”
she said ignoring Charley, staring at me.
“You will do anything I ask.
Anything.”
“Yes, yes, anything, Holly,
anything,” I wailed, hating the predicament I was in, knowing Charley wasn’t
going to save me, hoping Holly would not give Charley the hot wire. I could see Allison wanting to let up on her
grip, but she wasn’t going to go against Holly and Charley.
“Okay, let him go,” she said. I absolutely hated this game, and I knew
Allison did too, but we couldn’t leave Holly’s room.
Suddenly Holly was grabbing Charley
and yelling for Allison and me to help her hold him down. Charley was surprised by how quickly Holly
had turned on him, and as he struggled to break her grip, we jumped on his
arms, holding onto him for dear life.
“You have been mean to me for the
last time,” she said to Charley when the hanger was red-hot ready.
Charley was furious and frustrated
that he couldn’t break our grip. With
Holly’s body on him and Allison and I holding down his arms, there was nothing
he could do. But he refused to scream and beg to be let go, like Allison and I
had done. He refused to play the game.
“Will you be my slave?” Holly asked
him as she brought the hot and contorted wire to his face, holding one end with
a towel to keep from burning her fingers.
“Will you be my slave?”
“No, never.” Charley shouted at her,
panting with the exertion of twisting and turning his chest, trying to get up,
trying to get free. “I hate you, and
I’ll kill you if you touch me. Let me
go. Let me go.”
“Charley, tell me.” Holly hissed;
she too was getting angry that he wasn’t playing the game. “Tell me you will do what I say from now on.”
“Never, never,” Charley panted,
twisting his head back and forth, looking at Allison and me, “ I’ll kill you
both if you don’t let me up. I swear,
I’ll kill you all.”
Charley threatening Allison and me
was a significant change in the game. I
knew Allison and I did not wanted to face Charley’s wrath, even if Holly was
with us and often she was not. We
started to let up, but Holly screamed,
“Don’t you let him go!”
She turned to Charley, “This is your
last chance.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” he said,
growling in frustration, turning his attention directly to her. Now it was between the two of them; Holly and
Charley one more time; Allison and I spectators to their endless fights.
“Oh wouldn’t I,” Holly responded.
“Watch me!” she said and pressed the red-hot wire hanger down directly onto his
chest.
Charley screamed and Allison and I
jumped away, shocked that Holly had gone through with it. Charley, screaming in pain, leaped from the
bed and ran out of the room. I ran after
him as he raced up the hallway, crying, holding his pajama top against his
chest. He ran into the bathroom and
slammed the bathroom door, locking it behind him.
“Charley, Charley,” I cried against
the door.
“Charley, are you all right. Are you all right?” Allison was beside me. She was worried too.
We could hear his loud cries in the
bathroom, but he wouldn’t talk to us. I turned
and looked at Allison: what would happen to us now? What would Charley do to us? How would he punish us? Maybe we should tell…”
“Don’t you dare say a word to
Mother,” Holly shouted at us from her doorway, almost like she was reading our
thoughts. “I swear I will brand the both
of you if you say a word.”
It was too much. Charley was going to kill us, and now Holly
was threatening to kill us too. Mother
surely would kill us if she ever found out.
Charley refused to come out of the
bathroom. I could hear him sobbing, as
Allison and I walked away not know what else to do. We went back down the hallway, but didn’t go
into Holly’s room. Not this time. The game was over. I went to my bed and tried to go to
sleep. Later, I heard Charley come in
the room and go over to his bed.
“I am sorry,” I whispered. Charley didn’t say a word, but I could hear
him moaning in pain. “Charley, I am so
sorry.”
It was a horrible night, as he
whimpered for hours in his bed on the other side of our desks, but he never
told on Holly or us, and Mother never knew about the incident. The following Saturday, when Mother sent us
back to our bedroom to change our sheets and straighten our room, Charley
pounded on me, once more, and in screaming in pain, in hollering for Mother to
get him to stop, there was a side of me that was glad.
****
Mother didn’t take Charley’s guff
either, though she had no desire to brand him into submission. Still,
with a metal fly swatter or a plastic waffle ball bat, she would go after him
and get him to listen to her. At times it was crazy, and at times we
would be horrified by their struggles, but she was bound and determined that he
would listen to her, that he would stop beating up on me, and that he would do
the chores she had given him. With our father in Pittsburgh or on the
Pennsylvania Turnpike, Charley felt that her authority could be challenged and
made it clear he was willing to question hers, as well as anyone else’s, all
through his elementary, junior high, and high school years – until he
encountered the ultimate authority, when a judge gave him a choice the summer
after high school: go to jail or join the marines. Of course, that began
Charley’s marine story, which, given we were in the height of the Vietnam War,
was a tale to be told unto itself! But that’s many years later and way
ahead in this story.
****
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