It was rare that I had anything over my brother John. He was four years older and held all the cards. In our relationship power flowed in just one direction, so the few times it ran the other way are as memorable to me as those visits to Santa Claus at Higbee’s downtown store.
One of the most satisfying examples came one afternoon in the spring of 1965, just after I returned home from school. It was snack time and snack time was all about cookies. This was not as simple as sticking your hand in a cookie jar and grazing on whatever tickled your fancy. Mom had definite ideas about how many cookies we were allowed and your allotment depended on the type you selected. We weren’t sure why this was—no one else’s mom had such a complex system of cookie management—or even what its basis was (I think it had something to do with the relative cost of the cookies, or perhaps on the sugar content of each) but to me it came down to this simple rule: the better the cookie, the fewer you got. The lowest on the list in terms of desirability was the Ginger Snap, of which you were allowed as many eight. Ginger Snaps are a poor excuse for a cookie, something my parents snacked on as kids during The Depression, back when people were eating out of garbage cans. No chocolate, no nuts, no crème filling, no sugar sprinkles, hard as plywood when eaten dry, instant mush when dipped in milk. Mom apparently bought them (and foisted them upon us) for nostalgic reasons. I mean, it’s not like they were good for you. Next came Fig Newtons. What can you say about Fig Newtons? A soft, bready coating over a damp brown center, supposedly made of fruit but which brought to my mind pureed bugs, right down to that little crunch that made me think of biting down on ant thoraxes. Only Amy liked Fig Newtons. You were allowed four or five of those. Finally, there was the Oreo. Ah, the Oreo, a thoroughly modern cookie (the other two were turn-of-the-century throwbacks): chocolate wafer, creamy white center (the best part), an industrial strength infusion of sugar. Everybody knew the drill: first you pull apart the chocolate halves, then you ate the creamy filling —you did this by scraping it off with your lower teeth, the way an excavator scoops up topsoil, pulling the cookie across them in a downward motion, then licking off any of the remaining white stuff. The creamy center was so good you were tempted to throw away the left over chocolate halves, but Mom would never have allowed that. We were limited to three Oreos. Have ever tried eating just three Oreos? It only makes you want ten more.
Quality versus quantity, it was a choice we faced every day at snack time. Quantity usually won out—a kid will usually choose more of something he considers so-so over less of something he loves. But just knowing that a bag of Oreos was sitting up there in the cookie cupboard while I was dipping mushy Ginger Snaps in milk took a toll on my emotions. Mixed feelings don’t sit well with a seven-year old.
I don’t know where everyone was when I got home that afternoon. Mom was probably doing laundry in the basement and chances were John and Amy were out playing Kick the Can or Spud or some such game with friends. It appeared I had the kitchen to myself. I waited around for Mom, I even called down to the basement, but apparently she couldn’t hear me over the noise of the washing machine. And so here it was snack time and I was left without a snack. Outrageous. Well, if that’s the way it’s going to be maybe I’ll just serve myself. Maybe I’ll just serve myself…Oreos.
The cookie cupboard was high above the stove. I would need to use a chair. Trouble was, in the kitchen we had a breakfast nook—no chairs, just built-in benches. I would have to drag one in from the dining room. But before I did that I needed to think this through, come up with a plan. If I were caught, either by Mom, who would tell Dad, or John or Amy, who would tell everyone, I would be in big, big trouble. A raid on the snack cupboard was bold, some might say reckless, the kid’s equivalent of Gregory Peck’s daring foray behind enemy lines in “The Guns of Navarone.” If I was going to go through with it I needed to get in and get out of there fast. And I needed to be smart about it: don’t be greedy, take just enough Oreos that Mom won’t know the difference.
Good plan, but first I needed to make sure the coast was clear. I tip-toed to the top of the basement stairs. It sounded like both the washer and dryer were going down there; loud, but not so loud that I couldn’t hear Mom singing a Frank Sinatra tune. She could be down there a while. Then again, she might be about to head upstairs for another load of laundry. Risk, reward. I thought about those Oreos and their creamy white centers, there, just mere feet away. Definitely worth the risk. Now I needed to check on John and Amy. I listened at the bottom of the stairs leading up to their bedrooms. Nothing. If they were up there I would have heard them. Peering through the windows I checked the yards, front and back. No sign of them.
The dining room chairs were heavy, too heavy to lift, they had to be dragged. Dragging a heavy object across the kitchen floor, which was right over the laundry room, was sure to create a lot of noise. But not so much that it couldn’t be drowned out by Frank Sinatra and the washer and dryer. I dragged the chair to the stove and set it against the oven door. I paused to listen. Was that Frank Sinatra? I think so. From the seat of the chair I pulled myself up onto the stove top. To avoid scuffing the white enamel I had removed my shoes, though this increased the risk of slipping and falling. Again, risk versus reward. The last couple of inches were the most treacherous; I had to stand on my tippy-toes to grip the molding that ran along the bottom of the cupboard, then reach up with my other hand and open the cupboard door. It was worth the effort though, for I now found myself eye to eye with a gastronomical treasure trove. The cracker section: Triskets (the workhorse of the Spencer cocktail party), Wheat Thins, Ritz, with that “mock apple pie” recipe on the back (apple pie without apples? Amazing!), Saltines, and then those odd, meat-flavored crackers we so loved: Bacon, Chicken in a Biscuit—all my favorite foods, in a cracker! But wait, focus, focus. The mission was about the sweet stuff, not the savory. No time to gawk, in and out, remember?
I opened the cupboard’s other door and there it was, cookie heaven. Graham Crackers, Golden Fruit Bars (a far preferable alternative to Fig Newtons), Nilla Wafers—wow!—even a box of Cracker Jack! Let’s see, Ginger Snaps—forget that—Lorna Doones, Windmills. But wait, where was my quarry? Where was the focus of my commando raid? Where were the Oreos? No, no, no, we couldn’t be out of them, Mom had been to Heinen’s just the day before. Had she found a new hiding place for them? Were they locked away in a safe somewhere? Take a breath, this is no time to panic.
Then I heard it: the rustle. Or maybe I just felt it: a presence, somewhere behind me. I reeled around so fast I almost lost my balance. There was nothing there though, just the breakfast nook. I steadied myself, held my breath, and listened. Nothing, just the sound of the washer in spin cycle. Then I heard it again, not a rustle this time, more like a crinkle, the kind celophane makes. I lowered myself onto the chair, making not a sound as I stepped down onto the kitchen floor. I approached the breakfast nook in a crouch, not so much walking as sliding my knees across the linoleum. Nothing there that I could see. But then I shifted my angle, moving to the right so I could see under the bench seat on the left. And there he was. John. Lying on his side, staring out at me from the darkness. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust but what I saw surely made them bug out. Clutched in one hand was the Oreo bag, in the other a half eaten Oreo, its vanilla crème freshly rutted by John’s teeth. And there on the floor beside him, the most damning evidence of all, a large pile of cookie halves, the discarded remains of a crème-filled orgy.
Our eyes locked. “If you tell Mom, you’re dead,” he said in as menacing a tone as he could muster while speaking in a whisper.
I weighed the situation. John was right, if I tattled I would most certainly be dead (he had a wicked punch and was not afraid to use it). Also, it was bound to come out that I was in the midst of my own caper when I stumbled upon his. I could claim he’d been the one who put the dining room chair up against the stove and I, an innocent bystander, had merely wandered in. But I was an unconvincing liar and everyone knew it.
I reached a decision.
“MOM!!!”
You need a lot of volume to compete with Frank Sinatra and a washing machine but I managed.
Yes, I got in trouble for the chair propped against the stove. But not nearly as much as John. It was the stack of discarded cookies that really cooked his goose. Nothing incensed Mom quite so much as wastefulness. And, yes, I got the pounding. The Rabbit Punch, a particularly painful bit of torture favored by sixth graders in which the business end of a fist is applied like a jackhammer to the upper arm, was liberally administered. He even broke out the dreaded Indian Sunburn (here the recipient’s forearm is gripped with two hands, which are then twisted in opposite directions, producing serious friction—man, did that smart). This went on for ten days straight (knowing brother, he probably kept a calendar) and John made it clear that if I dared tell Mom and Dad an additional ten days would be tacked onto my sentence.
It was all worth it though. I wore my black and blue marks like a badge of honor. For the first time I, the little brother, had gotten John in big trouble. It tasted sweet, even sweeter than an Oreo cookie.