Official Home Of BIG Ben Kennedy

My little brother Gabriel had a fear of me that never made sense to me, but was fun to have fun with from time to time. One of the things I would always do to him was say the words, “That did it!”

That was all I had to say, “That did it!” and he would take off running and screaming for our father! Gabriel would always run up and grab Dad’s leg, like little kids do. Only as Gabriel got older, the weight of him would take Dad’s leg out every now and again. I started thinking of it like bowling!

One time at a cookout, I could see Dad talking with some friends with a plate of food in hand when I size up the situation. Dad’s distracted, and Gabriel might just be able to take him down to the ground in front of an actual audience! This is gonna be great! I looked over at Gabriel and yelled, “That did it!” and he took off, full tilt, right into the back of Dad’s leg! Dad never saw it coming, but sadly, he didn’t fall down. I can’t remember if Gabriel got him to drop his plate, but I bet at the very least a hot dog was sacrificed to the Grass Gods.

For the first few years of this, Dad would yell at Gabriel, and I would get away with it. I always wondered if Dad believed that Gabriel had this compulsion to run into him at full speed for no reason. How do you get a kid help for that?

“Doctor, I think there’s something wrong with my son. He keeps running full speed into my leg for no reason. I don’t know why, but he won’t stop. Do you think he’s going special?”

Then, when Gabriel got old enough to articulate why he was running, I was blamed for it every time, whether it was my “That did it!” that did it or not. So in a way, I guess it all balanced itself out.

As for scaring Gabriel all the time, I couldn’t help myself. It was funny to see him take off, nothing but a streak of blonde hair and feet. I guess it also felt neat to have that power over another person, even if he was only 5.

You see, in my everyday life, I was afraid of everyone and was teased and picked on by bullies half my size. So I got a chance to feel intimidating. But also I knew deep down that my teasing of Gabriel had no real lasting effect after he ran away screaming. Dad would yell and then Gabriel would always come right back and continue what he was doing, mostly because my threat never led to any consequence. I never hit him, or threw him in a room and locked it, or tickled him until he peed himself. Gabriel wasn’t afraid of me any other second of the day, and he had no need to be. But if I said, “That did it!” that standalone phrase, that idol threat, it sent him running like he was late for a free ice cream giveaway two towns over.

Maybe he was fearful of me because I was 10 years older than him. Or it could have been that I was his only brother, and things like that are ingrained in DNA. Also, at 15 years old, I had been bigger than our father for about 2 years, making me the biggest person he knew. Scary to a little guy!

Sometimes my intimidation served a useful purpose. For example, if I wanted to sneak a kiss with my girlfriend, a “That did it!” would free us of an audience in an instant.

My favorite “That did it!” moment happened early one Saturday morning when Gabriel was about 5 years old. I had spent the weekend over at Dad’s apartment, and was watching cartoons in the living room, when Gabriel comes walking in carefully carrying a bowl of Fruit Loops. Every step he takes has Fruit Loops rising up to the sides of the bowl, but not going over.

Gabriel is happy with himself, and proud of the job he is doing, and I’ll never forget the look on his face.

Then I thought to myself, “You know, if I said a “That did it!” right here, right now, I bet he’ll throw his bowl of cereal into the air and take off running. Sure I’ll get yelled at, and have to clean it up, but it’ll be worth it.”

I know I’m a bad, bad brother. I don’t know why siblings do these things to each other, but we do.

I then think to myself, “If I do this, I can’t yell it. It was far too early for yelling, and I also thought I had heard my Dad walking around. But would a “That did it!” even work without the yelling? Gabriel might just look at me and say, “Shut up, Ben.” Well, he’s getting close to the coffee table, so it’s now or never. Let’s do this! It’s cereal time!”

“Hey Gabe?”

“Yeah?” he replies while still concentrating on his task at hand.

“That did it.”

Gabriel freezes. He looks at me and back at the bowl. He is still a good five feet from the coffee table and he tries to move quickly while his little eyes shift back and forth from brother to bowl. Finally, he reaches the table and sits the bowl down, not spilling a drop.

“Darn, he made it. Oh well, I tried.” I thought.

That’s when Gabriel takes off!

All you could hear were the sounds of bare feet slapping on hardwood floors and his high pitched screams echoing in the hallway. “Well, so much for the too early for yelling” I thought to myself.

That’s when I hear a crash and things falling, and my father yell out a very loud obscenity.

I have no idea what just happened, I just know that I am afraid to move from the couch in the living room.

“Ben, I ought a beat the hell out of you!”

I’m trying not to laugh as I nervously ask, “What happened?”

“You made him run into me while I was taking going to the bathroom and he made me pee all over the walls!”

I slowly walk down the hallway to the bathroom, and that’s when I find Gabriel on the floor against the open door, frozen in fear, the cup and toothbrushes knocked into the sink, and my father, all 5’ 8” of him, beet red, and angry, in only a pair of gray sweat pants cut off into shorts.

Apparently, my father was using the bathroom with the door open, when Gabriel had ran right into the back of his leg, causing him to urinate a line starting from the wall above the back of the toilet and extending over to his right and onto the tiled walls of the bathtub.

At this point I’m faking remorse, but inside, I’ve just about peed myself, twice.

I remark, “Hey, at least you eventually made it into a drain.”

Dad’s fighting back laughter, his face now even more red, as he grabs me by my shirt, “Now, you’ll have to clean it up.”

Ten minutes later, Gabriel is eating his cereal in the living room, watching cartoons with a smile as Dad stands in the doorway of the bathroom, supervising my cleaning. Every time I laugh, I’m met with a smiling Dad kicking me in the behind.

As I’m applying Comet to the bathroom tiles, I think to myself, “And you thought you would only be cleaning up some Fruit Loops. Man, you didn’t see this one coming.”

You know what? It was still worth it.