The Word: Hydration

The drill: Each week, I ask my Facebook friends to suggest a word. I then put the suggestions into list form, run a random-number generator and choose the corresponding word from the list. That word serves as the inspiration for a story that includes at least one usage of the word in question. This week's word is contributed by Kate DeWeese. For previous installments of The Word, click here.

Lester always figured I caught all the breaks, being the little brother, and I guess that's why even when we both were in our thirties–sitting around our a backyard table in August, our parents and our wives and our kids all cringing as we fought like children–he felt compelled to lay his bet against me.

It started when Dad looked disapprovingly at my second plate of brisket. "You're carrying an extra tire, aren't you?" he said, loud enough to catch the attention of Kim, who'd been on my ass about it for years.

"Yeah, I guess," I said. "I'm gonna do something about it."

Here came Kim. "When?"

And here's Lester: "Yeah, fatass. When?" The big hypocrite. Nobody was giving him shit about his fourth beer.

"All right," I said. "When's the Cowtown? February?" The adults' eyes grew wide at this mention of the town's annual marathon, and I scurried for cover. "By February, I'll do the 10K. How about that?"

Lester popped the top off his Shiner, and it clinked to the concrete. "Ha!" He tipped the bottle onto his lips and sucked prodigiously from it, and I wondered how he managed to stay alive without hydration.

"Care to put some money on it, smart guy?"

We settled on a wager of a grand, and I could see the worry blasted across Kim's face. One, her birthday was in February. Two, we didn't have a grand.

*****

So, anyway, that's Lester. It's hard to believe he and I crawled out of the same womb, albeit three years apart. I was a reader. He wasn't. I pulled mostly A's in school. He dropped out midway through his junior year. I never had much of a head for business or finance, so I've spent my life being the smartest guy working for the man. Lester, he was a business genius. The guy was continually launching companies—the bus service for bachelor parties and proms was a particular success—and then selling them at a huge profit down the line. An entrepreneur, that's what he was.

I think now that his biggest gripe with me lay in our relationships with the folks. Now, look, I'm sure Mom and Dad fawned over me some; Mom had been told after Lester that another pregnancy would kill her and the baby, so when I showed up, healthy and happy and all, I was the miracle. I'm sure that was tough on Lester. I'm sure that awful name they saddled him with—a gift from Dad's dad—didn't help. But that wasn't much my fault, was it?

I remember one time, Lester was still slogging through high school, and he came home late one night from work. He throws the lights on, and I come barreling out of sleep, cursing him up and down, and he walks over and punches me square in the nose. What is it the kids say now? At that point, it was on like Donkey Kong. Dad came in, wearing a T-shirt and his underwear, squinting through his one blind eye, and separated us. He told us that he'd be cracking heads if he heard another peep.

Lights out, Lester's in his bed and I'm in mine, and I can hear him whispering. "One day. One day they won't be here to protect you. And on that day, I'll be right in front of you. And I will beat the living shit out of you. Count on it."

So, yeah. Do I hate Lester? Hate's a tough word. I sure as hell don't love him.

*****

February came around. I was down about twenty-six pounds, and I'd managed to cover ten kilometers a few times on my daily runs, but I hadn't yet done it under any sort of pressure. Lined up with the pack, looking at Kim and the kids and Mom and Dad, it was a different deal. My heart was kicking like a dog getting his neck scratched.

Then the gunfire echoed, and off I went.

*****

Oh, boy, Lester was hot. Kim wanted to have a celebratory lunch, but I insisted that we drive out to Arlington and collect the money while Mom and Dad were there to corroborate things. The sour bastard had it on him, and he pulled the bills from his wallet like they were nothing, but I could tell from the way his face steamed up that I'd gotten over on him.

"You got lucky," he said. "Doesn't matter. Now that it's over, you'll be back on the doughnut patrol."

*****

I used the money to take Kim to Puerto Vallarta. Every day, I sent Lester a postcard and told him how much I was enjoying his cash. A dick move? Yeah, maybe. So what?

And every evening at dusk, I walked down to the beach alone and set out, striding across the sand. Lester always saw the worst in me. His prerogative. This, too, I would outrun.