• Once, during a family Christmas party at my grandmother's, all the kids were relegated to the concrete floored basement. At this time, my cousin Brendan and I were so obsessed with the first Pirates of the Caribbean film that had just come out on DVD that we had the entire script memorized. We had forced our siblings away from the random finds underneath our parents' old beds so they could act out the movie with us. We took the casting very seriously and decided that my second oldest brother, Sean, would play Will Turner because he was the romantic one with the puppy dog eyes. Lauren, my girly, youngest known cousin would play Will's love interest, Elizabeth Swann while Adam, my oldest known cousin, would play Admiral James Norrington. Because of my youngest brother Scott's stuttering, he would only play odd parts with little to no dialogue like Gibbs, Pintel, and Cotton. He didn't seem to mind. Brendan, for some strange, unknown reason, cast himself as the least interesting character, Governor Swann.

    Then there were only my oldest brother and I left to be cast. He was fifteen and had what we considered back then to be great height, great intelligence, and a deep, authoritative voice that right then demanded he be Captain Jack Sparrow. But Jack was my favorite character and Stephen didn't fit the part. There was nothing Johnny Depp about him. He just roared of Barbossa, the evil, deceitful, dead captain of the Black Pearl that no one liked. The only reason I shouldn't have played Sparrow was my sex, and I was quick to point that out.

    "A girl just can't play a boy!" Stephen argued. "That'd be like mom wearing the pants in our family."

    This reference was lost on me, so I replied, "Mom does wear pants, you idiot." I leaned my right shoulder against the wall and kicked my right leg out. "Plus, I can change my sex if I want, you can't change the fact that no one likes you."

    Stephen glared at the wall, his mouth twisted downward. "Damn woman," he rumbled.

    "Why don't we just draw a name from a hat?" Adam suggested, ever the logical one.

    Because there wasn't a hat downstairs and it would've required straws to get one of us to go up and risk bothering grandma one too many times, we ended up putting our written names into the least stinky shoe found in my Uncle Wendel's old room. When Scott drew my name from the toe, Lauren and I jumped, shouted, clapped, high-fived, giggled, and made faces behind Barbossa's back.

    Right after, we were called to get dinner and when we all trudged down the stairs, styrofoam plates filled with such things only Christmas calls for in hand, Stephen was in a slightly better mood. Lauren, after putting her half eaten plate on the gray cement block next to the rocking chair that didn't rock, said she wanted to start the show, and so we did.

    Since Stephen's parts were few and far between, he had taken it upon himself to be the director of our play. I should do this, I should do that, I can't act so I should let him be Captain Jack Sparrow, etc. Out of my anger, I whacked him across the head with my meter stick so out of his anger, we skipped more than a few scenes and went straight to the good part; when Jack and Barbossa duel.

    We were careful not to step with bare feet on the shih tzu crap that littered the floor as we dodged, blocked, and parried with our violin and meter sticks. Stephen was hitting my stick too hard and every time the sticks would make contact I would be forced backwards a foot to avoid being hit by my own blade, but I sure as Hell wasn't going to say anything. I was being backed into the rocking chair's corner so Sean and Brendan immediately jumped off of it and out of the way to avoid getting hit. I could hear the whoosh of Stephen's sword as it came at my head and almost didn't block it in time. My fingers were gaining blisters. The rocking chair's seat pressed against my calves. Stephen raised his sword over his head and there was a perfect opening for me to kill him, but Barbossa wasn't supposed to die yet so I had no choice but to duck and somersault forward right into a pile of dog logs.

    "That is so gross!" Lauren exclaimed.

    "No kidding," Sean said.

    "K, Stephen, stop. Go offstage. Scott!" Brendan shouted, "your line!"

    Scott hesitated, but puffed out his chest and gave Sean an evil glare. "I am gonna t-t-teach you the meaning of p-pain."

    Silence.

    "Lauren!" We all said.

    "What?"

    "Now you whack the pirate across the head with a two-by-four and say your line," Brendan ordered.

    Lauren rolled her eyes and tapped Scott on the head. Scott then fell to the ground.

    "Do you like pain? Try wearing a corset."

    "No, you say the first thing before hitting him across the head," I said.

    "You didn't say that before," she argued.

    "Who cares?!" Sean exclaimed. "Let's move on."

    "Whose side is Jack on?" Lauren asked Sean.

    "At the moment? No idea," he monotoned.

    We kept on with our dialogue until I, Jack, shot Stephen, Barbossa, and he didn't die.

    "You're supposed to die here," I told Stephen.

    "Shut up. I get to decide when I ******** die alright? You bossy b***h."

    There was a loud creak coming from somewhere near the top of the stairs and we all caught our breath. Only our 300 pound grandmother could make the floor boards squeak like that.

    "Which little s**t is the potty mouth down there!? Is it you, Adam?! You little s**t!"

    We all looked at Adam and his eyes grew wide. None of us moved. None of us breathed. We could almost feel the vibration of our grandmother's jowls shaking.

    "I know you're down there! So help me God, I'll get Joan to go down there and..."

    We all took a breath as we remembered she couldn't come down the stairs anymore. Her bones were too brittle. I was rhythmically clenching and unclenching my fists around my meter stick. It acted like a stress ball as we all slowly walked backwards, away from those stairs, carefully, soundlessly, and retreated to uncle Wendel's old room.

    "This is all your fault, you know," Stephen whispered to me. "Now we're in s**t. 'Cause of you."

    I looked at him. I felt my jaw click and my face turn red, blood boiling. "As if! I'm not the one who was shouting swear words."

    "I wouldn't have swore if you hadn't been a bossy b***h."

    "Well you should've followed the script and died!" I clutched my meter stick in both fists until I saw my knuckles turn white.

    "It's called improvisation, you dumb-a**. Christ, if you weren't suck a dumb ******** woman-"

    I saw white. I impulsively swung my right arm back, along with half the meter stick and swung it as fast and as hard as I could right into the side of Stephen face. Flecks of red spoiled the pure white screen that had previously blinded me and I opened my eyes to find Stephen on his knees before me, blood gushing from his nose and a cut in his cheek. My eyes went even wider than Adam's had. Lauren's hand covered her mouth and Brendan stood there gawking. Scott was looking at Stephen's blood. Sean and I made eye contact and I couldn't take my eyes away from his amazed, almost smiling irises.

    Stephen wailed, "You ******** crazy b***h!"

    I ran out of that room and up the stairs as fast as I could, past my great aunt Joan in the hall, down to the last door on the left, into the living room, between my father and my uncle John, and into my mother's arms on the couch. How much trouble was I going to get into? Oh, s**t. s**t, s**t, s**t.

    "Sam, calm down. Breathe," my mother said. She almost smelled like the purest form of safety. "What happened?"

    "Stephen, he-" I gulped for air, chest heaving, "I-"

    "Don't listen to what your brother says. You know he's just trying to wind you up. He's like that."

    "Yeah, but-"

    "Just don't give him the satisfaction of responding."

    I was quiet. Was Stephen going to bleed to death if I didn't say anything? I dug my head into my mother's neck. Hopefully not. And if he did it served him right, right?

    "Oh, Sam!" my mother exclaimed. My heart stopped. "You've got poo all over you!"

    I stalled for a moment then raised my head from her shoulder and looked at her.

    "Well go wash that off! You are what you wear, you know."

    I felt like that was the truest thing I'd ever heard.