The biggest fight of my life took place on a cool autumn morning. I was in fourth grade, my brother Joel was in second. Our bus stop was a few blocks from our house, so after saying goodbye to our mom, each day started with a quarter-mile walk. That morning, a frigid breeze attacked us as we descended Nimitz St., then took a left on Hamilton Ave. I assume Mom had offered us jackets. If only we had listened.

Our family had moved to Eau Claire a few months prior, and it had been a challenging relocation. Joel and I had yet to make many friends. A new house, a new school, and to complicate things even further, there was a new baby in our lives; my youngest brother Bryan had just been born. Joel and I had weathered the moving process together, and I’m sure we helped ease other’s transitions in ways I couldn’t comprehend back then. But the more time we spent with each other, the more the resentment bloomed. By the October morning in question, we were a field of dry grass waiting for a spark, and that spark was delivered on the chill wind.

“It’s really cold,” I said. “But I can barely tell. I can handle the cold.”

A benign proclamation. But then, Joel turned and said something so unbelievably offensive, that, thirty-five years later, it still spikes my blood pressure. While we walked down the side of Hamilton Avenue, he had the gall to reply, “I can handle cold better than you.”

Everyone fights with their siblings. Most of the time, it’s a mental game. Joel would steal my Donatello action figure, so I hid all his G.I. Joes. He wouldn’t give up the joystick even though it was my turn to play X-Wing so I deleted his Legend of Zelda save file. I assume the relational conflict between most siblings dwarfs the physical conflict, but sometimes, the issue at hand is too important, and the emotions run too high. In response to Joel’s brazenly disrespectful comment, I was ready to spill blood and spread carnage across the sidewalk. Things were about to get ugly.

”

Thirty-some years later, Joel and I still haven’t settled who can handle the cold better. I suspect it’s him.

(It's actually me.)

ERIC RASMUSSEN

Never mind that who can handle the cold better is an unknowable fact. Never mind that elementary school kids debating their temperature preferences at 7:30 AM on a Wednesday is as meaningless as arguments get. And never mind that Joel was probably right—he was always more in-shape and physically adept at just about everything. In that moment, there was no way I could ignore his insolence.

I started by correcting him. “No, I can handle it better.” He wouldn’t back down. As we passed Chapel Heights, the shoving started. After topping the small hill and arriving at the corner of Patton Street where our bus picked us up, we escalated to punches. The whole time, I reiterated what I knew deep down in my heart to be true: I could handle the cold better than Joel. With the exact same level of conviction, he insisted his endurance was superior. Neither of us would back down, so the only remaining option was to take each other down. The fight moved to the next phase: both of us on the ground in the boulevard, punching, grabbing, and mashing each other’s heads into the browning grass.

While writing this story, I asked Joel what fights he remembers most from our childhood, and he cited a skirmish that started in the back of the school bus some other morning and only ended after we arrived at school, when the other students exited the bus and the bus driver broke us up. I don’t remember that fight, but I remember the feeling he described. Our conflict was never actually serious. Neither of us were out for blood. Instead, as we grappled, our eyes would meet and we would communicate a “shared knowledge” — our emotions were real, but the violence was a game, and sooner or later we would return to our regular brotherly connection: mutual growth, common struggle, and the deep sense that we would always be there for each other.

Unfortunately, such perspectives are apparent mostly in retrospect, because the morning of the legendary Rumble on Patton Street, I had no intention of letting up. The skirmish probably would have lasted all day, if it weren’t for a stranger who pulled her car to the side of road, got out, and broke up our fight. A few minutes later, the bus arrived, so we boarded and went about our day. Thirty-some years later, Joel and I still haven’t settled who can handle the cold better. I suspect it’s him.

(It’s actually me.)

This story was originally shared at Our Siblings: The Literary Concert Experience, a recent local event organized by Eau Claire Writer-in-Residence Ken Szymanksi.