A Bargain
14 Jun 2021Today’s prompt: “Choose a family story for which you were not present. Choose the narrator of the piece (your mother, your older brother, your great-great-great aunt) and write the event in his or her voice.”
“So this one time, I was down at the skate park, and I did the most gnarly frontside 180 kickflip,” your older brother Doug says.
That’s how most of Doug’s stories begin. That’s how most of them end, too. He’s not much for elaboration.
“Cool,” you say.
“Yeah, it was pretty sick.”
Doug nods stoically for a while. You go back to playing with your phone.
“Did I ever tell you about the time I went from a 360 pop shove it straight into a hardflip?” he asks.
“I’m not sure.”
“It was friggin’ sweet.”
“Is that the one where you touch the edge of the half-pipe with your hands?” you ask.
Your brother stares at you like you’ve just said the dumbest thing ever.
“How’d you get so good at skateboarding, anyway?” you ask.
“Oh, super easy,” he said. “I made a deal with the devil.”
You burst out laughing.
“True story, man. Hand to God.”
“So, what, you’re the Robert Johnson of skateboarding? Sold your soul to the devil for some rad ollies and kickflips?”
“Naw, dawg, I ain’t that dumb. I ain’t gonna sell my soul,” he says.
“Right, right, so what did you sell? Your pog collection? A rare Pokemon?”
“Ten years off your life.”
You laugh again, but it starts to turn into nervous laughter when you see a guilty look instead of a mischievous grin on Doug’s face.
Things are quiet for a while. And then Doug meekly offers, “I didn’t think it’d really work.”
“Ten years? Ten years for some fucking skateboard tricks?”
“Hey.” Doug says. “I’ve won competitions, dude.”
“That is fucked up,” you say. “You shouldn’t get to promise someone else’s life in exchange for what you want.”
“Yeah, well, what do you expect? It’s the devil,” Doug says. “He’s evil.”
“You’re my big brother! Why would you do that to me?”
“Shit, it’s not like I was the only one to do that to you. Our cousins Mari and Jeff were there at the crossroads with me. They wished for stuff too. How do you think Jeff got so rich?”
“On the stock market?”
“Yeah. Making bets that never lost. If you ask me, though, Mari was the worst. She wished to get her Ph.D.”
“Why is that the worst?”
“Dude, Mari was already super smart. She probably would’ve got it anyway.”
“Okay. Yeah. All three of you are super shitty. But why are you not the worst? They each took ten years off my life for something of real value. You took ten years off my life for stupid skateboarding stunts!”
“Oh, you got it all wrong, dude. It wasn’t ten years each. The devil figured a Ph.D. was worth at least 15 years, and the amount of wealth Jeff got was worth 30. Honestly, you should be grateful all I asked for was skateboarding tricks.”