Lucas the Spellbound follows Cousin Barry back upstairs, where Tinsley is sitting lotus-style on the floor, thumbing through a shoe box of black-and-white photographs. She holds up one from a day camp Barry and Lucas attended when they were single-digits. Observe Barry sporting a spit curl and cocky smile, beginning to look muscular. But who’s that awkward-looking humanoid next to him, crew-cut, chimpanzee-eared, baby-fat-faced, clearly still being groomed by Momma?

Tinsley points at the photograph. “That’s you?”

While it’s easy to recognize the younger version of Barry, the boy beside him looks nothing like what Lucas has become. At six feet two inches, he is the tallest in their nuclear family. More than once, Lucas has been told that he looks like a long-haired Montgomery Clift. (Thank you, daft croupier who oversees the capricious roll of the chromosomal dice.)

Cousin Barry reaches up and noogies the top of Lucas Clift’s head a little harder than necessary. “Yeah, look at the little twerp now.”

Barry can’t resist reminding Lucas of the nerdy kid he used to be. Always, Lucas senses, with a dose of resentment: Why did it have to be him? Why couldn’t it have happened to someone who deserved it?

When Barry turns away to stub out his cigarette in an ashtray, Tinsley raises an eyebrow and tilts her face provocatively. Goose bumps run down Lucas the Perplexed’s arms. Unless he’s completely off his rocker, he’s almost certain he’s been offered an invitation.

The question is, to what?

Back home later, in the den of the house of dashed dreams, my fourteen-year-old brother, Alan, sits cross-legged on the white shag carpet in front of the TV, watching Bozo the Clown. As usual, he’s sitting too close. I give him the sign, and he scooches back without taking his eyes from the screen. Alan is chomping on strands of uncooked spaghetti. The pink bite plate with his false front teeth lies half-hidden in the fibers of shag beside him.

The high from Barry’s may have diminished, but I’ve still got the munchies. “Lemme try?”

Alan extends the blue box of Ronzoni. I pull out a few strands and crunch down. Yuck. Tasteless and nearly impossible to chew. Alan must be starving if he’s willing to eat this. “Mom around?” I ask.

He shakes his head.

“How about I make us something?”

Alan nods. His eyes stay on the boob tube.