Though Vivian Harper, the mother, silently harbored a dark, sinking suspicion that there was something "not right" with her elder son, Wesley, she was reluctant to let such a suspicion rise above anything more than a passing thought. James Harper, the father, had (years earlier) resigned himself to the possibility that "most definately," there was a damn good chance something was wrong with the boy. But, what? Try as he might, James just wasn't able to zero-in on the problem. From time to time, more often while sitting quietly on the sofa near the fireplace reading the Bible, he could be heard mimbling, ligenetics? birth defects? What?! " The younger brother, Marvin, had absolutely no doubt at all - none whatsoever - that his older brother was as crazy as a yellow-eyed, shithouse rat. At every conceivable opportunity he sternly voiced his opinion to his parents, but they just didn't seem to get it. That completely baffled the younger boy; why something so blatantly clear, so obvious (like a hard, green booger stuck to a pane of glass) was evading them. Secretly, however, w-a-y back in a shadowy corner of the brother's mind, crouched the truth...the answer. He was just too awfully afraid to admit it. Yep, sure enough, ol' Marv KNEW the truth. And that awful truth was: it was "Him!" Somehow, he wasn't sure how, Wesley had obtained The Power! The power to twist, block and manipulate Mom and Dad's thought waves. "Mom! Dad!" he shouted, "There's somethin' seriously wrong with that boy - honest!" All to no avail. His pleas fell on deaf ears. He was absolutely, positively convinced that he was forever doomed to the shortsightedness of his beloved parents. Moreover, doomed to suffer the pure evil of Him! Until ... The first significant switch of insight was to be thrown that cast light upon Marvin's prophecy of sibling insanity was when (must have been about 1953) Marv was eight and Him! was nine. James and Vivian returned home late one Wednesday night from a Baptist church service to find their younger son lying motionless on the concrete at the bottom of the back porch steps. He'd been hog-tied, blindfolded, gagged, his Official Roy Rogers'Trail Belt had been looped around his neck and securely cinched through the gold buckle, the cuffs of his Tex Ritter Wranglers had been set afire and were now smoldering pleasantly. And the logo "SWAMP DOG" had been hastily scribbled across his forehead in what appeared to a mixture of red house paint, gray putty and melted chocolate sprinkled with shredded Christmas tree tinsel. Hearing his parents' footsteps approaching, Marv groaned, whimpered, then began to cry. "What in the world happened?! asked James as he leaned down, removed the blindfold, yanked the gag from the child's mouth, loosened the belt from around his throat, swatted vigorously at the smoldering pants cuffs and began untying him. "Did Wesley do this?" "Yeah! the boy whined, gasping frantically for a breath of fresh air. "It was Him!" Marv began to cry. Vivian, who appeared only slightly more surprised that her husband, stooped down, wiped away her son's tears and asked, "Why'd he do it?" "I don't know," whimpered Marv. "Who knows why he does anything? We're playin' cowboys and Injuns. I kept shootin' at him, but he charged right through my hail of bullets yellin 'ya missed me!' He didn't play fair. I'm telling ya, he's evil! "While I was shootin' him, he kept on comin'. Then he grabbed me, tied me up, blindfolded me, gagged me, wrapped my belt around my neck and dragged me from the living room to the back porch. He slammed me down on the floor, straddled me and wrote something on my head. He stood me up, set my pants on fire, pushed me to the top step and said, 'you no good stinkin' redskin! Now I'm gonna make ya pay for all those settlers you and your Injun pals bushwhacked, scalped and murdered at Cutter's Creek!' Then he tumbled me down the steps and walked off." James and Vivian knew, no matter how bizarre the tale sounded, no matter how ridiculous it was, every word was the Gospel Truth. Their younger son, Marvin, possessed neither the insight, ability or imagination to lie. Wesley, on the other hand, seemed to revel in the art of not only "spinning yarns" (his definition of a lie), but fabricating downright, boldface lies simply for his own amusement and entertainment. It wasn't necessary to confront Wesley for his side of the story, however James figured he might as well track him down and, if nothing else, amuse himself by listening to whatever his older son's mind conjured up this time by way of an explanation. "Now James," Vivian cautioned as her husband went to find Wesley, "don't be to hard on him. He just might have a good explanation." "No doubt!" replied James as he struck off in search of the culprit. "Hopefully, he'll come up with something a little more creative this time. That ol' story about Idaho potato farmers working in concert with professional suicide bombers to force him to commit evil deeds against his will is wearing a bit thin." As James rounded the corner vanishing into the inner sanctum of the house in search of his older son, Wesley, Marvin slowly struggled into a sitting position, wiped his forehead, looked at his fingers, whimpered softly that "I'll never get all this stuff off!" Through the whimpering, the sobbing, Marv felt a secret warmth forming in his heart. A slight smile creased the wet glistening corners of his quivering lips as he thought, "Now, at last, they have to see! They have to know! They just have to!" He was convinced that his troubles with his brother were over. There'd surely be (now that they knew) a God-sent fire and brimstone hailstorm of retribution levied against Him! for the jillions of hellish indignities he'd suffered over eight I-o-n-g, hard years at his brother's hands. Self-assured, "pay-back" was a foregone conclusion, Marv quickly bowed his head, entwined trembling fingers beneath a tear-streaked chin and whispered a silent prayer. "Thank'ya J-e-e-e-s-u-s!" Little did he know, the worst was yet to come. [View a related story. ]