for those about to rock

in honor of jk day (july 5)

my brother didn't remember this little story from our youth when i shared it with him the other day:

i think he and i we were around 12 or 13 and 7 or 8 respectively at the time, and we were in the car on our way either to or from our grandma's house, and i was thumbing through a book of short horror stories that justin had taken out from the library. one story in particular, a retelling of the tale of the golem, caught my eye. at the end of the story, the golem (or maybe it was the nefarious creator) is chasing this poor boy through the woods, and the author goes into detail about how the bastard strikes the child with a thick branch and sends him tumbling in pain, and how he proceeds to manhandle his quarry and saw him in half (yup.). now, that's a pretty heavy depiction of cruelty to try to wrap your 7 or 8 year old mind around -- i'm even guessing that some of the details were lost to repression, which would explain some of the uncertainty in my recap -- and it was made all the more upsetting by the vicarious jump i made into that unfortunate boy's shoes.

pure nightmare fodder.

i must've been visibly distraught as we got closer to the end of our trip, because i think with a little prodding from my bro or my mom, i fessed up to being shaken by the story from justin's little library book.

as i came down the staircase the next morning, justin beckoned me to come into the living room.

"jon, the library called this morning. they had me write in a part of "the golem" that they said was missing from the book. have a look."

i flipped to the end of the story. right underneath the typed text, in blue pen, justin had printed out a short epilogue to "the golem" that explained the events of the story away as a dream of the narrator's. i was skeptical at first, having never heard of a library urgently calling upon a patron to alter a borrowed item, but justin was straight-faced and insistent. plus, my mom corroborated the whole thing, and she would NEVER try to pull a fast one on me.

i was convinced. I was also relieved, unburdened by unsettling imaginings and their ramifications.

i may never know whether my mom put him up to it or not. either way, happy birthday, brother.

posted by jomilkman @ 11:08 AM