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Richie is thirteen the first time someone calls him crazy to his face. It isn’t the first time he hears it, the word itself not foreign, but before it had always been in hushed whispers behind his back. He had grown up hearing it from his father in a drunken rage, beating Seth and blaming his crazy fuckin’ brother for their mother leaving. Hears it now from the teachers who don’t appreciate Richie’s inability to pay attention to their endless drone of facts that he understood long before he had ever walked into their classroom and dismissing him as that lunatic they all didn’t want in their class. From the school psychologist who is sure Richie is just a mentally unstable boy, a lost soul, someone who will end up dead long before he ever reached adulthood. From the girls in the hallway who flirt and giggle over Seth, remarking that it is such a shame that he always hangs around his psycho brother when they think he was out of earshot.
Through it all, Richie never confronts them. He isn’t confrontational by nature. He just keeps his head hung low as his brother slings an arm around his shoulder and distracts him from the voices. When that doesn’t work, Seth would just reminds him that it doesn’t matter what other people think. They are the Gecko Brothers, they don’t need anyone else. Richie tries to take Seth’s words to heart--his brother doesn’t lie, especially not to him. They will always have each other. Screw what everyone else thinks, their opinions don’t matter.
It all works until they’re sent to separate schools for the first time. A year old, Seth is sent to the high school without Richie and the stigma that comes with him. Riche is left to endure his last year in the middle school by himself, no friends and not even his brother to keep him sane. Without his brother to tell him to not to listen to what anyone says or, as Richie had always suspected, threatening to beat up anyone who says an unkind word to him, the days are harder. The hushed tones are louder, still said behind his because kids are cruel they are not stupid. They are all just waiting for the day he’ll snap and they don’t want to be his first target.
Seth fares better in his new school, Richie can tell. He sees his brother happier now than he had the year before. He knows that Seth would never admit it, but he knows that he feels relief at Richie not always being around. He’s not known as the brother of the weird kid with too much useless knowledge that doesn’t know when to shut up. He doesn’t have to escort Richie from class to class like a body guard. Richie imagines that it gives Seth the ability to become someone new, someone who does what teenagers in movies do. Smoke cigarettes and talk shit. Make out with girls under the bleachers during gym class. All of the well-used clichés that Richie has seen in the movies him and Eddie stay up late on the weekends watching time and time again, the ones he himself could never connect with.
Richie finds himself watching the clock in class more often now, teachers finding his silence and preoccupation with time more disturbing than his intelligence. He doesn’t care. He spends his days counting down the minutes until he can get out of his seat and rush out of the building. He is always the first one out. Always holding his breath until he can let out the sigh of relief when he sees Seth on the other side of the fence waiting for him just like he promised he would always do when they were split up.
Until one day, Seth isn’t alone anymore.
Richie walks out of the building to see his brother leaning against the fence, some blonde girl attached to his side, his attention devoted to her. He takes his time walking towards his brother and the other kids catch up to him. They bump into him, harshly laughing as he’s pushed this way and that. Seth finally looks up and finds Richie standing directly in front of him, opposite sides of the fence and smirks, shoves his brother playfully and asks him if he’s going to join him on the sidewalk. He makes no mention of the girl right beside him who is unimpressed by the presence of the youngest brother. He nods, doesn’t say anything and walks stiffly towards the pair as they start the walk back to Uncle Eddie’s house.
Eventually, Seth gives Richie information on the girl with them. Her name is Rachel, a sophomore he adds shoving an elbow into his side and quirking his eyebrow as him like Richie has seen guys do in locker rooms. He stays silent, not sure what to say. He knows now is not the time to be himself, he doesn’t want to embarrass Seth. He frowns when Seth tells him that they’re all heading to Eddie’s to hang out, a promised bottle of liquor as bait had gotten Rachel to come along.
The walk home is long and lonely, the girl hangs over Seth as Richie gets shoved behind the pair to walk by himself. He keeps his head down like he does in school, watches the shadow of the pair in front of him as it collides with his steps. He makes sure to step extra hard on the shadow of Rachel’s head whenever he steps with his left foot. He knows his brother isn’t like him, that he would have tons of friends if it wasn’t for him, but he’s never felt abandoned by him until that moment. Until then he is sure Seth would choose him over anyone else.
Once they reach the house, Seth holds the door open for the girl, lets her into the tiny, messy house first. He excuses himself, says he’s going to find the bottle hidden in their shared room, and Richie follows after him. He’s not trying to follow, really, just wants to escape to his room. He’s sure if can adjust the rabbit ears on the television just right he’ll get the channel that plays old movies to show up on the screen. Seth shoves Riche back towards the door, telling him to get out there and to keep Rachel company. Richie tries to fight him but doesn’t hear it, tells him to be social and he obliges the only way he knows how and sits down on the couch opposite from her chair and says nothing.
At first, Rachel asks Richie questions, mostly about Seth, and he answers with the least amount of words possible. He finds the flow of conversation that others get so easily difficult for him. He makes sure he doesn’t make eye contact with her, remembers how often Seth tells him that people just find Richie’s gaze too strong and unblinking and it makes them uncomfortable. He keeps his gaze set on his hands folded in his lap while Seth is still in their bedroom, rummaging through the room for the bottle of Jack they stole from Uncle Eddie months ago.
Awkward silence fills the room moments later, Richie is sure she’s tired of trying to conduct a one-sided conversation. He hears his brother from the other room let out a muffled cry of success minutes later, looks up as he walks into the room with a bottle held high. Richie takes note of the disappointment on his brother’s face when he sees the pair sitting there quiet. It seems Seth is always disappointed with him lately. Seth kicks at Richie’s leg, mentions how it’s impolite to leave a lady to entertain herself. Richie wants to tell him that he’s sure she was having more fun picking at the polish on her nails than she was talking to him, but he keeps it to himself. He doesn’t want to hear Seth tell him to shut up.
Seth plops down next to Richie on the couch, nudging him as he offers the bottle of Jack to him before his date. Richie takes it cautiously, takes a sloppy swig from it that winds up dripping down his chin and holds it back to his brother. Seth smirks, tells him to offer it to the little lady and Richie retracts his arm, wordlessly holds it out to Rachel who takes a swig only after she wipes lip of the bottle with the edge of her shirt. The bottle gets passed back and forth, Richie handing it back to his brother or Rachel without taking a sip. He decides the only thing he likes less than the taste of Jack Daniels is watching Rachel treat the bottle like it’s tainted after he took his sip.
After more than half of the bottle is gone, Seth is in less control than he thinks, and grows louder, more careless with his words. Richie’s stays closed off, acts like Rachel doesn’t exist, and only talks to Seth when the conversation is directed towards him. In a few months, Richie will be in the high school, he has to learn how to socialize, he has to learn how not to be Seth’s weird little brother and he knows this how his brother is trying to get him to learn…but it isn’t working. He knows that if Seth was in his right mind he would take notice of how Richie was trying to make himself smaller, how he tries to his best to fit into the corner of the couch and disappear. He would let him leave, let him hide out in his room with the busted black and white television, but he doesn’t notice. Instead, Seth just keeps laughing and drinking, keeps trying to get Richie to join in. So he sits there in his own personal hell, listens to Seth flirt, listens to Rachel giggle, and tries hard to block it all out.
It isn’t until movies are brought up that Richie begins to pay attention again. Seth tells Rachel that his baby brother is a movie aficionado, that he knows every fact there is to know about them. She rolls her eyes at the older brother’s boasting, continues to talk about some romantic comedy that neither Gecko had seen. Seth barely listens to Rachel speak, urges his brother to say something to show that he’s not some unintelligent mute that scares everyone he comes across. Seth ropes Rachel into it, tells her to ask Richie, because how could he say no to such a beautiful face. Charms her into pretending like she cares about anything Richie has to say. She turns her attention to him, asks him to tell her something she doesn’t know. Big eyes with thick mascara coated eyelashes fluttering at him as Seth motions at him to speak.
So Richie does what he’s asked. He begins to talk about some obscure horror movie he had just seen with Eddie. How it was filmed in the 70s and was so realistic that the makers of the film were taken to court because people thought it was a snuff film, but if they really paid attention they could have seen the impaled lady was still breathing like he had. He tells her that the crew did kill animals though, they wanted realism so they could scare the audience into believing it was a cruel documentary, the type where they deshell turtles and slaughter pigs for fun. He talks for a few minutes, looking at his brother’s girlfriend in that unblinking intense way that he knows he’s not supposed to but can’t help but do when he’s passionate about something. It’s just how he is.
Once he’s done no one say anything and Richie instantly regrets his enthusiasm. He knows that he gets excited about things that others don’t, that he doesn’t understand how to engage in two sided conversations that aren’t between him and Seth, but he tires. It’s not until he looks away that he catches the look of disgust on Rachel’s face from the corner of his eye. Notices that she backs further into the couch and to be as far away from him as she could be in the small living room. He looks down and notices Seth’s hand on his knee, that it had probably been there for a while trying to get him to stop talking. He was just happy that someone was listening that wasn’t his brother or uncle and he had fucked it up.
Rachel’s laughter breaks the silence suddenly. It’s crude and ugly, Richie decides. He gets up t leave, mutters to Seth that it all was a bad idea and he should have just stayed in their room. Seth stumbles up, grabs onto his brother’s arm and stops him. He tells him that Rachel isn’t laughing at him and turns to her for reassurance that but finds none. Richie turns towards the girl, meeting her gaze as she covers her mouth, her eyes turning into cruel condescension. She is laughing at him, she’s not trying to hide it.
Richie’s first instinct is to tell her that it’s not polite. He knows that it makes him sound like an anti-bully PSA they show on rainy days in gym class, but it comes out before he can stop it. He’s mad and hurt, betrayed this his brother brought this girl into their house, the one place he doesn’t have to worry about others treating him like a freak as she’s just sitting there, in the middle of their living room laughing at him. He tightens his hands at his sides, keeps his face still, and is determined to not let it get to him. He hears Seth in the back of mind reminding him that it doesn’t matter what others think, but isn’t oblivious to the fact that he’s standing right beside him completely silent now.
Richie’s still looking at Rachel when she does what no one else has ever done. You really are crazy, she says looking right at him. Her hand’s been removed from her mouth so that he can see the smirk on her face as she speaks, hear the venom in her voice. He feels his stomach clench the words, his lips tighten into a straight line. He nods, admitting defeat, and turns his body stiffly to walk out of the living. Ignores Seth calling out after him. Barely hears Seth telling Rachel she didn’t have to be so rude.
Once inside the safety of his room, Richie reaches for the knob on the television to turn it on and sits on the edge of his bed. With his hands placed on his knees, he sets his gaze on the black and white static on the screen that reminds him of ants chaotically crawling around. He can still hear the sound of Seth and Rachel in the living room but doesn’t want to, so he reaches for the volume, lets the buzzing white noise fill the room and drown everything else out. He loses track of time sitting there, doesn’t even realize its grown dark until Seth walks into the room, slamming the door behind him.
Seth tosses him a bag of chips, their dinner for the night having used the money Uncle Eddie left for the week the first night, and plops down onto his own bed. Staring down at his own bag in his lap, Richie thinks about the word he had been called. The multitude of synonyms others had uttered in his direction. Maybe they weren’t wrong. That many people he couldn’t be wrong, he was sure of that.
Richie whispers his fear to himself, not expecting his brother to hear. He’s used to people not listening. He’s startled when he feels a firm slap to the back of his head and quickly turns to see Seth standing over him with a frustrated look on his face. Seth is still a little bit tipsy but tries to hide it as he pushes Richie over on the bed and sits next to him. He assures him that he’s not crazy, that he’s a little weird, but who isn’t? Besides, when did Richie start to care what anyone thought about him? Richie nods, trying to pretend that his brother’s words are helping him, but they don’t really solve anything. There will always be people who call him crazy, people who shove past him muttering under their breath, others who duck away like he’s contagious. It’s just a fact.
Nodding towards Seth’s bed, Richie tells him that he’s tired and he just wants to go to sleep. Seth gets up slowly, making his way to his bed but doesn’t sit down. Richie can see his brother observing him from the corner of his eye as he lets the bag on his lap fall to the floor and walks around the side of his bed to pull the sheets back. He slips out of his jeans, not bothering to put on pajamas and slips into bed.
Seth says Richie’s name gently, like he’s sobered up in the two minutes since he last spoke. He doesn’t face him, but he knows Seth can tell he’s listening. So with his face to the wall and his back to his brother, Richie listens as Seth gives him the one piece of advice he would always hold with him. You’re not fucking crazy, Richie. Don’t let anyone have the right to tell you what you are. You tell them what you are. So from that point forward he does.
Well into his 20s, whenever anyone tries to dictate what Richie is, he corrects them.
He’s a prodigy.
A scientist.
A tactician.
A lock artist.
He is not crazy.