ICANT
by Graveyard Greg
Insignificant
Copyright 2014 by Graveyard Greg
Special thanks to Kazushi for the cover art along with Corey and Joshuwain for the edits!
Ever felt insignificant around your own family? Then you know how I feel. At eight feet in height, I'm the shortest member of anyone in my family. When I was born, the doctor responsible for the delivery knew I was going to be small – I weighed in at fifteen pounds, give or a take an ounce, and while I was the largest newborn in the maternity ward, my abnormally small size for my species kept me under observation. I was two feet long—like I said, abnormally small.
Fortunately, I turned out to be a healthy infant, so I was able to be taken home where I had no lack of love from my parents, bless them. In fact, I doubt I would ever have felt insignificant—until three years later, when they were expecting another baby giraffe in the family.
So through no fault of my little brother, I was destined for the trip down Low Self Esteem Street, passenger of one.
Just like me, Raphael "Raffe" Gianoli was the biggest baby in the maternity ward. The only two differences were he weighed over twice as much as I did, and was a foot longer in length. Compared to me, he was just as big as I was at two years old. Of course at the time I didn't care – I was a three year old who thought it was going to be neat being an older brother.
The feeling stayed with me for ten years. Ten years of me being the older, bigger brother, of me giving Raffe the hand-me-down clothes, of me being able to give him piggyback rides – of him looking up to me.
Then puberty came along, and gave Raffe my share.
I had started lifting weights when I turned twelve; Dad was happy to get me a weight bench and some extra plates. Maybe he thought I was going to try out for football, which I did, but the real reason I started working out was I heard bodybuilding could increase your height. My growth had stalled at an embarrassing eight feet in height. Granted, I towered over the non-giraffes, but I noticed that the other giraffes in my grade had started getting their growth spurts too. They were going to loom over everyone soon enough, including me.
Dad even went so far as to convert the garage into a weight room for me, and that’s where I was, doing my workout routine, when Raffe came into the room. At nine he was two feet shorter than me, but was bigger than any of the kids in his class, including the teacher. I knew he’d be bigger than me, barring a miracle, but back then we had no idea just how big he’d get.
“Hey, Gir! Can I watch you?” Raffe had always called me “Gir” (which is short for Grayson, by the way) since he could talk, and the nickname stuck.
“Sure you can, Squirt!” I said, smiling at him. He loved to be near me, and talked about me fondly when I wasn’t around, which made me feel proud. “I’ll even let you get me some weights if you’re feeling up to it.”
This made Raffe’s eyes widen in surprise. “Really? You’d let me do that for you?”
“I sure would, and it’ll be good for you.” I pointed at some of the 25 pound plates. “Why don’t you start by getting me two of those?”
Raffe rushed over to the rack, doing his best to get one but still having to strain a bit as he carried one after the other. “They’re heavy!” he said after he finished his task.
“Yeah,” I said as I put a plate on either end of the bar, “they are.” Raffe was quiet as he watched me work on my bench press; he didn’t even say anything as I put up the weights, but finally spoke when I started to wipe down the bench.
“Gir?” he asked in a quiet voice.
“Yeah, Squirt?”
“Can I…” Raffe had suddenly found the floor really interesting, and his voice grew increasingly quiet. “…can I work out with you?”
His question caught me by surprise, but I recovered quickly. “Sure, I guess, but why?”
Raffe scuffed the floor with the toe of his sneaker before looking up at me. “I want to be as strong as you.”
“You’re not going to have any problem in that area, Squirt.” I tried not to sound bitter, and I think I did a good job in hiding it, because Raffe looked at me with a grin.
“But you’re my big brother; you’ll always be that, so I want to be the best little brother for you!”
I didn’t know what to say at first, so I just walked over to Raffe and pulled him against me in a hug. “You’re already the best little brother for me, Raffe.”
“So can I start working out with you?”
I ruffled his hair, chuckling as his persistence. “Yeah, Squirt, you can. We’ll make you a hulk.” And boy did we… though I’m getting ahead of the story.
Raffe was a good workout partner once he understood things like keeping the proper form while lifting the weights, and how to spot me the right way. I was making faster gains in my weightlifting than him, which increased his adoration of me, but I guess it was the fact that my muscles were getting bigger that really impressed my little brother the most.
“Dude, you’re so big!” Raffe said, watching me flex my arms in front of the mirror. It had been a year since he had started working out with me, and it was true; I had made some decent gains in mass. I was feeling pretty good about it too, but I couldn’t take all the credit for my gains.
“It helps to have a good workout partner,” I said, looking at my little brother. He hadn’t grown too much, but he was a couple of years away from puberty. I knew he’d get those growth spurts soon enough. “You’re looking pretty large yourself Squirt, so let’s see those arms. Flex them for me!”
Raffe pulled down the hem of his shirt, resting the side of his neck on his shoulder. “No. You’ll laugh at me.”
I moved behind him, pushing him gently towards the full length mirror we had in the garage. Raffe tried to resist being moved, but I weighed twice as much as him, so he found himself in front of the mirror. “Come on, Raffe. I won’t laugh.”
“You promise?” He sounded unsure, so I held up my hand with the pinkie finger extended.
“I’ll even pinkie swear, Squirt.”
Raffe reached out with his own pinkie stuck out, and we hooked them together briefly before pulling them away from each other. “Well… okay,” he said as he hesitantly raised his arm to flex them. The muscles were still small, and I made a mental note to work on the triceps exercises as his looked like they needed more development, but he reminded me of me when I started working out. Except he started at eleven, which made me realized an obvious fact.
“You’re going to be really big, Squirt.”
“Really?”
I nodded, fighting back the pang of jealous in the pit of my stomach. “Yeah.”
“But I can’t be bigger than you, you’re my big brother.”
“I’ll always be that, Squirt, but you’re going to be bigger than me.”
Raffe gave me a look as if I told him I had a month to live. “I don’t want to be bigger than you, it’s not right!”
I shrugged, showing a moment of remarkable maturity for someone my age. “Yeah, and don’t forget it’s also not fair for me. I’m going to have to get you to reach for stuff on the top shelf.”
That got a giggle out of Raffe. “And you can get stuff from the ground for me,” he said, which earned him a headlock and a noogie.
“You’re a funny little squirt,” I said as a lightly scraped my knuckles on his head. He struggled to get free, but I was stronger than him back then. He wasn’t going anywhere unless I wanted to let him go.
“Ow! Let me go, that hurts!”
“Don’t be such a wuss,” I said, “I’m barely touching you.” I let him go anyway, since I only wanted to “punish” him for a few seconds.
“You’re lucky you’re older than me,” Raffe said, pouting as he looked
up at me with his eyes while his head was lowered.
“Oh yeah?” I asked, leaning up against the wall, grinning. “Why is that?”
“Little brothers aren’t supposed to beat up their bigger brothers.”
“Then I guess I’m pretty lucky.”
“But bigger brothers can get ice cream for their little brothers.”
I nodded in agreement with Raffe’s wisdom. “Come to think of it, I was just about to get some.” I started walking to the kitchen door, looking over my shoulder at Raffe. “Want a bowl?”
“Yes!”
Later that year Raffe went to summer camp. I didn’t go as I had both a paper route and football tryouts to attend, but my little brother wrote to me and the folks every week and called us at least twice as much. He was having fun, but he made sure to let me know how much he missed both me and our workouts.
“Can’t pump any iron over there, huh?” I asked, delighting in the usage of our new phrase.
“No, and it sucks.”
“What sucks is working out by my lonesome, Squirt.”
“Dad’s not spotting you?”
“I’d ask him, but he’s usually busy doing grownup stuff like work.” It