The Brothers

I watch him, wondering if he even realizes how much I resent him. His short, round body is offensive to my eyes. His blue eyes gaze out vacantly from atop a large bulbous nose and a mustache that would put porn stars to shame. I used to look up to him. I used to try to be like him. But now I stare at him, trying to will him to look at me, to see the anger and hate and hurt in my eyes.

Years ago, he was sent on a job to a construction site, back when Papa M was still running our shop. He was the older brother, so of course he had first dibs on the big assignments. But when he got there, it was chaos. Most of the construction workers had been frightened off by some rampaging ape. My brother, the idiot he was, went nuts when he found out the ape had some girl... what was her name, Pauline?... hostage as the damn thing wreaked havoc on the upper levels of the construction frame. So what does he do? He decides to rescue her by going after the ape! Some of the girders were broken or bent, so he used those to sneak his way up as the gorilla threw down barrels to try and keep him away.

He may be short and fat, but my brother is one hell of a jumper. The barrels were avoided with ease, Pauline was rescued, and the ape was captured and put on the first plane back to the Congo. People that saw the whole thing play out started to call my brother “Jumpman”, like he was some kind of superhero. Rumors spread like wildfire and all of the sudden he was a celebrity. Of course, while he was doing press releases and ribbon cuttings and guest speaking, I was the one keeping our business running. Even when Papa M fell ill and turned the whole thing over to us, it was me running the shop, cleaning out pipes, checking on septic systems, fixing toilets and sinks. My brother? He was out schmoozing with royalty.

God, I still remember the day we went on vacation. He had gotten an invite to come spend time with a princess he had met during his talk show touring circuit. She was a cute little thing, although she liked to wear too much pink and insisted on wearing her damned crown all the time, as if to rub in our faces that she was nobility and somehow better than everyone else. Anyway, we land at the airport and we’re immediately pulled aside for questioning. These jerks in brightly-colored body armor showed up with their bald heads shining like a bunch of cue-balls and tell us we have to go home. Well, my brother freaked out because he wanted to see his “Peach” (that’s what he was calling the princess at this point), jumps on a table and then on top of one of the Troopers. His fat ass killed the man just like that. Turns out their body armor had compression points and all it takes is a bit of force to crush the ribs of whoever is in them.

At this point, all I wanted to do was get out of this place alive. So I got up on the table and jumped on one of the other guys and followed my brother out the door. The whole kingdom was on lockdown. We couldn’t get anywhere by normal means. I was the one who found the exhaust vents and the drainage pipes for us to make our escape. Let me tell you, the shit that was growing in there was insane. I don’t know what they dump down those pipes, but there were giant mushroom things slithering all over the place and venus flytraps grown up like Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors. It was terrifying.

Big Bro did what he does best... squashing things with his fat ass. I took a more practical approach and rigged a device to torch the damn things. There wasn’t much to run it on, but thankfully the kingdom was covered with these flowers that had ridiculously high ethanol content. Found that out by accident when I was running out of fuel and let out a few jets of flame in desperation. The flowers caught fire and were literally glowing.

So there we were, crawling in sewers, making a mad dash through open areas when we could, and trying to locate where the Princess was. Unfortunately, the kingdom had eight castles and they were spread out pretty far from each other. We’d go to all the trouble of sneaking past guards, narrowly avoiding traps, and nearly becoming barbecue more times than I care to recall, just to get to the inner chambers and have some lackey or servant tell us, “The princess is in another castle.” WHERE?! None of them would tell us. We just had to keep searching.

Of course, a major complication arose during our journey. My brother discovered these hallucinogenic mushrooms, red cap with white spots, and he started eating them. He’d start tripping and thinking he was getting taller, and he got even more reckless. Thankfully, he sobered up from them pretty fast, usually when he got hurt bad enough to snap back to reality. But he wouldn’t stop eating them and I constantly had to play babysitter while he was jumping on stuff, smashing into things, and generally just being an obnoxious ass.

So as luck would have it, we found out that the princess was in the eighth castle we checked. Some guy claiming he had a right to the throne was staging a coup which was why the whole kingdom was under martial law. This castle was huge. I honestly don’t know why we didn’t check there first, but then I was just following my older brother’s lead. We broke in and the place was worse than an Indiana Jones adventure. There were traps, pitfalls, spikes, flame jets and that was just the foyer. I’d love to meet the twisted bastard who designed that place just so I could give him a swift kick in the cogliones.

After braving all of that and barely surviving, we found our way to a rope bridge leading to a platform on the other side. The contender for the throne, a huge man with squinty eyes, a shock of reddish hair, eczema, and psoriasis, was waiting for us with a flame thrower. Truth told? I still don’t know why nobody in this kingdom had just shot us and been done with it. I guess guns were outlawed. Anyway, he announced his name was “Bowser Cooper,” told us to just go home and we wouldn’t be hurt. We refused and the bastard started chucking hammers at us! My brother started jumping all over the place, hopped up on one of his “super mushrooms” while I tried to work my way closer to the scaly tyrant.

Would-be King Cooper edged his way further out on the rope bridge, far enough from the platform that I could start developing a plan. I signaled my brother to keep him distracted while I sprinted past the giant brute and slid to a stop on the granite platform. I found an axe, apparently a leftover defense mechanism from a war-torn era, and frantically waved my brother to follow me to the other side. He used the undulation of the rope bridge, caused by all the unusual activity, to leap over Bowser and land neatly on the other side. Frankly, I was astounded he didn’t just go careening down into the courtyard below. Bowser, realizing only too late what had just happened, watched in terror as I cut the supports holding up the bridge with the axe. One last satisfying swing and he was clinging to the bridge for dear life.

As my brother went in to check on his princess, I monitored Bowser’s progress climbing up the bridge. He stood on the other side, swore something about revenge and disappeared into the darkness on the other size. I knew this guy was going to be trouble and that he was never going to give up. I shook my head sadly and followed my brother inside.

Folks, there are some things you just don’t want to see, and your short, fat brother’s lily-white ass doing the horizontal mambo with his lady love is definitely one of them. I cannot unsee what was seen, unhear what was heard. Nauseated and embarrassed, I searched the tower for some means of egress. I found a false stone in one of the walls that triggered a mechanism, opening a passageway in the floor. There, dimly-lit stairs wound their way downward into darkness and, with luck, a way out.

My brother and the princess finished their “business” and eventually came out to talk to me. We decided that helping the princess flee would solve nothing and leave her kingdom in a state of complete political unrest. Her father, King Todstuul II, had recently passed away and turned over ruling authority to her. I’m still not sure about the details surrounding her mother, but everyone insists it’s none of my concern.

Together, we left the castle and made our way carefully to a nearby fortification. From there, the palace guard and lead members of the kingdom’s military returned to heed her orders while the press was called to publicize the event. Now I hate to say it, but I’m really camera shy. I can’t help it, I get really shaky and timid when the lenses are pointed at me. So when my brother and I were called in to do an open interview with a bunch of reporters, I just stood there shaking while my brother did most of the talking. Looking back, that was my greatest mistake.

His so-called heroics became the talk of the world. Everyone wanted to talk to him, memorialize him, sponsor him, and more. Me? I just stayed back in the shadows and let him take all the credit. I don’t know why I did it. I felt like it was too late to amend what was said in the initial interviews. Next thing I know, they’re merchandising him and his adventures, painting me as some cowardly sidekick. They released video games, comics, television shows, and plush toys. Heck, we even had our likenesses all over McDonald’s Happy Meals. In the wake of all this fame, my brother decided to close down our family’s plumbing company and establish a new franchise -- Mario Bros. Plumbing. Yeah, that’s right. He used his first name as the branding of his new endeavor. But guess who still got stuck doing all the work?

Nobody wanted Luigi for the press conferences. Nobody wanted Luigi’s autograph. When people passed me on the street, they didn’t ask how I was, or what I had been up to. No, it was only ever about my older twin, Mario. And what was he doing? He had secured an illegal smuggling operation of his girlfriend’s kingdom’s mushrooms to feed his own addiction and to sell on the black market. He laundered the money through his new Mario Bros. corporation while he got to sit pretty on all the profits. All I had was a moderate apartment in the Bronx and a full-time job managing my brother’s image. Not that I really wanted to be spooning off his drug money, but if I had even a quarter of what he made in endorsements and speaking events, let alone all the royalties from his merchandise... Well, no matter. It all ends now.

“Mario,” I say, gathering my strength.

“Yeah, little brother? What’s up?” he replies, proving the voice of his video game mascot is just some offensive stereotype.

“What would you say if you knew that I have despised you for years, now? What would you do, if you knew that I planned on releasing what really happened in your precious Peach’s kingdom?” I ask, my courage growing with each word.

His eyes grow wide, one of the few times I see them when they’re not dilated from his shrooms. His gloved hand trembles as he raises an arm to point at me. “You wouldn’t dare!”

“Wouldn’t I? What motivation would I have to help you continue this empire of lies? All this fame, all this wealth is based on your testimony of what happened. I’ve held my tongue for years, watching you get all the glory, watching you become so full of yourself you don’t even realize the kinds of things you’re babbling anymore. And now look at you. I didn’t think you could become any fatter, but clearly I was wrong. You’re just a hedonistic pig and I am sick of living in your shadow! I’ve already sent my manuscript to the publisher for approval. Soon everyone will know all about their great hero, ‘Super Mario’,” I state in a voice shaking from the intensity of my feelings.

It’s then that I see his rage mirroring my own. His eyes burning with hatred for me. I know he’s going to do something rash, something we both might regret. I brace myself, throwing down the hat he “required” me to wear as part of our uniform, the L-branded cap that was the symbol of my years of oppression. I take off the ridiculous Mickey Mouse gloves that he’s expected me to wear ever since he became germophobic and toss them down at his feet, balling up my hands into fists.

He lunges at me and I dodge to the side, slipping on his hardwood floors. There’s a brief moment where I’m afraid I’ll lose my balance, but I recover and round on him, preparing for the next attack. He roars, hopping forward and crouching low. I watch in frozen curiosity as his obese body compresses in his elastic flesh and bounces upward. Using the momentum from his lard, Mario leaps into the air. Terror finally mobilizes my body as I realize he intends to crush me! With barely any time to spare, I do the only thing I can think of and somersault forward, rolling under his apparent trajectory and climb to my feet, his body crashing into the floor and causing the wood to splinter. He charges at me again and this time I leap over him, my feet moving rapidly in a running motion. Time seems to slow down as I drift to the floor, finally landing quite some distance from where I was.

In a fit of desperation, I pull one of the so-called “fire flowers” from my pocket (I had been studying them ever since our adventure in Peach’s Kingdom), set it aflame with the butane lighter in my pocket, and hurl it at my brother as I turn around. The ball of fire falls short of its mark, but bounces upward and strikes him on the leg, catching his blue overalls on fire. He panics, trying in vain to bat at the tongues of flame rising upward, but succeeding only in fanning them due to his inability to reach past his large stomach. In a rare moment of pity, I try to help him pat out the blaze, but he kicks me and knocks me to the floor.

His eyes wild with fear and anger, Mario runs toward me, his footsteps like pounding thunder in his condo, his overalls turning white as ash in the fire. His smoke alarm goes off, the sprinklers built into the ceiling spatter us with water and we both lose our traction. As he is about to crash into me, I think, “This is it. I’m done. Game over.” But that’s when the incredible happens. My brother jumps into an impossible mid-air flip and stomps the floor, crushing the wood and supports, and falling into the room below. How he accomplishes this is beyond me, defying everything I know about physics.

I crawl to the edge of the hole and peer downward. There he sits in a bathtub of water in the room below, laughing hysterically. Hesitantly, I call out, “Mario, are you alright?” He looks up at me, flashes me a ridiculous peace-sign with his right hand, and struggles to his feet.

With water still pouring down on me from the sprinklers above, I fight to maintain traction as I walk slowly to the front door on the hardwood floors. As I’m about to reach for the doorknob, the heavy door is bashed in to the sound of “Police! Nobody move!”

It isn’t long before we both find ourselves handcuffed and sitting in the back of a police cruiser on our way to NYPD. I glance at my brother. He is rocking back and forth in the seat, muttering to himself. With a sigh, I look out the window and watch the sights of downtown New York City pass by in a blur. My heart is heavy as I consider the fallout all of this will have, later.

Time goes by. I had given my side of the story candidly to investigators, gave them a copy of my manuscript to sort out additional details. The story spreads like wildfire on television and the internet. I’m exonerated of the charges pressed against me, my brother struggling to fight his own criminal cases with the aid of his corporate lawyers. Mario Bros. Plumbing is liquefied, its assets being used to pay off his legal bills as he stews in jail, awaiting trial. Me? My manuscript is approved after a bit of editing and becomes an instant best-seller. I get phone calls, letters, emails. Everyone wants to talk to Luigi, now. Everyone wants to hear Luigi’s story.

As I sit in the green room waiting to be called on stage to talk with some Late Night host, I meet one of his other special guests, a lovely young lady by the name of Daisy. Turns out she is a princess, a close friend of Peach, and representative of a small island nation called Sarasland. We hit it off. While my heart is heavy over the nature of my rise to fame, I can’t help but smile. For once, I’m shining on my own, with my own star power.