When I got home, Al cornered me. He knew me too well. I was devious and had always been. The first words out of his mouth were, "O.K., what's the scoop?" After I filled him in, he looked a lot sadder than I thought he should.
I soon found out why. "She won't call," he griped. "The only girls who seem to want to go out with me are the bimbos who just want to date a guy on the team. That's why I don't go out much. Every time I do, it's like having a conversation with a rock.
They don't have a clue about what's going on in the world unless it's on television or in the movies. Every girl I like won't go out with me because of the reputation I'm saddled with by playing on a team full of idiots."
I was telling him he might be luckier this time when my dad walked in, followed by a wall of water. This house was so solid, we hadn't even noticed it had started raining.
"Shit!" Dad said, "It's coming down in buckets out there!" The windows shook with the thunder then. It was like that in Kentucky in the spring: sunny one second and a monsoon the next.
We lived in tornado alley and were used to it. Dad told me he had placed my bet and hoped I got lucky before he went to change. Al asked me what the old man was talking about, so I told him.
He couldn't believe I would blow the money I had worked all year for on a horse. I knew that he saved the same way I did, but he had a lot more cash. He had worked full-time for the last two summer vacations and saved almost every cent of it.
I also knew some things he didn't, and while I wasn't ready to tell him too much, I could try to convince him. "Come with me," I said. He surprised me by following me to my room.
When I got there, the first thing I did was yell "SHIT!" and run to close the window.
When I turned around, Al said, with a serious look, "At least the smells are gone."
After we quit laughing, I started. "Look, I know this is going to sound strange, but I'm not telling you why I'm betting my money on the Derby until you promise me you will not, now or ever, repeat anything I'm about to tell you."
He said he wouldn't, and I believed him. We may have had our share of problems sometimes, but we were still closer than most twins.
"I can't tell you how I know this, but Dust Commander is going to win by five lengths, UCLA is going to win the NCAA tournament again, and the Colts are going to beat the Cowboys in the Super Bowl 16-13 on a late field goal. I know it's too late to prove I'm right before the Derby because it's only two days away, but this coming Monday at Kent State University in Ohio, four students will be killed by the National Guard during a demonstration.
On the 14th, two more will be shot at Jackson State in Mississippi. Like I said, I know what's going to happen. I'm only eleven, so I can't change things without potentially screwing them up more than I can help, but we can benefit from some of it.
Al looked at me as I related this with a blank expression and was completely silent. I had great respect for him and had always looked up to my brother.
While I might be intelligent, he was more so. He looked at me and said, "I can understand that if you knew everything that was going to happen in the future, you wouldn't want people to know about it because you would disappear pretty fast, but if you want me to help, you're going to have to tell me the truth."
I don't mean the future either; I mean the how. If you don't trust me with the whole story, we're not as tight as I thought we were."
I looked at Al and said, "Look, you would have a very hard time believing me even though you know I hate to lie. You'll want to call the guys with the butterfly nets to take me away."
He said, "I'll believe whatever you tell me. I heard a lot of what happened upstairs today. I thought somebody was getting killed up here! I actually came up and listened at the door to make sure there wasn't.
I don't know the details, and I don't want to, but whatever it was, it wasn't an eleven-year-old losing his cherry. I have to know. Call it scientific curiosity."
I told him the whole story, starting from when I was a teenager and ending at the point we were at now. I knew I shouldn't have, but I trusted him and could use his support.
I thought he would call me crazy. I expected him (if he actually believed me) to come up with ways to get rich.
What I didn't expect was "YOU ASSHOLE! "How could you screw up your life like that?" I told him to keep it down before the folks heard. He did, but not by much.
"You idiot, you had everything going for you, and you blew it! Hell, as smart as you are, you could've had it made, and you pissed it away. I hope I wasn't as stupid as that".
What could I say but "guilty as charged?" I realized that too late when I was fixing things that I knew were crappy designs that I could've done better.
If it's any consolation, I hope the only thing this changes about you is your net worth. You did just fine" (at the time I came back, he had five patents to his name for cancer medications). "I thought you'd mention the pagan thing."
He told me it didn't even occur to him other than to be curious. Our parents tried to take us to church when we were younger.
They were not so subtly told that I didn't seem to "fit in" in Sunday school. I think it was because I asked too many questions about inconsistencies in what they were trying to cram down our impressionable little throats. They didn't have the answers, so they eliminated the questioner.
Al was actually surprised that I followed any religion, figuring I'd be an atheist or agnostic (like him). What did surprise him was the fact that I had actually met Loki.
This was the most difficult thing to accept, but he did. I had a feeling the old gods would soon be gaining a convert.
As he was leaving, he said he'd have to think about all that I'd told him and we'd talk tomorrow. The storm had gotten worse, with lots of lightning.
A particularly large flash lit up the windows, and at almost the exact same instant, we heard a very loud boom. We heard yelling from downstairs and rushed to the source of the noise in the living room.
When we got there, my parents told us they were watching television when the lightning must have hit something close by. A cloud of smoke came from the TV, and it died.
They were wondering if it could be repaired and if they had the cash to even try when Al nudged me and nodded toward the set. "We really need to watch that Saturday," he said. I got the hint, but how do I convince the parents?
I needed moral support, so I dragged Al to the back of the set with me. "I know what's wrong with it, so play along, ok?" At his nod, I asked my dad, "Got a Phillips screwdriver?"
He looked at us and stated that there was no way we were going to open it up and listed every possibility, from electrocution to screwing it up worse.
I told him I'd heard somebody talk about this exact thing happening and just wanted to check and see if it caused the same problem. After I explained that with the set unplugged, it wouldn't be dangerous, he finally relented.
What I didn't tell him was that the person I'd overheard was me telling someone else, and that it would be safe only if I stayed away from the flyback transformer.
I unplugged it, opened it up, and took the cover off the power supply. After removing the fuse and making a show of holding it up to the light, I asked, "Can you pick one of these up tomorrow? This one's blown.
The guy I heard talking about it said the reason they're there is to keep something like lightning from frying the whole thing."