by J. R. Practix

Accomplice: (n.) a person who helps another person commit a crime.

I have a piercing memory of the word “accomplice.”  In this recollection, I see the crimson cheeks of an angry principal at a high school, huffing at me, insisting that I was a criminal and that I had turned my ten-year-old little brother into an accomplice to my law-breaking.

At the time I believed that he was overwrought, but I was still intimidated by the dramatics.

You see, what happened was that I was supposed to get into the high school to set up some equipment for a performance. When I arrived, the janitor had not showed up. Being sixteen years of age, I patiently waited four minutes and then began to figure out the best way to enter the school without breaking glass or brick.

Someone had told me there was a window down near the back staircase where the boiler room was located which was always open, although it was extremely small and difficult to enter. Fortunately for me, I had brought my little brother who was more than willing to be on an adventure with his cooler older sibling.

I had no trouble finding the window and as promised, it was open. But there was no way in any kind of physical world of my awareness that I would be able to get MY frame through the tiny hole.

On the other hand, my little brother fit perfectly.

Here was the problem: the inside of the room where my little brother would be entering was dark, so it was impossible to determine how FAR it was from the window to the floor beneath. This did not deter me. After all, what good is a ten-year-old brother if not for experimentation?

So I lowered him through the window, holding his hand and reaching down as far as I could to suspend him. He whined up at me, “I still don’t feel the floor…”

My thought was, how much further could it BE? So I yelled back, “Hang on!”

And then I let go of his hand and he dropped.

Now, this younger brother was not a good athlete. He hit the floor hard, fell back and bumped his head on a nearby metal something-or-other. (After all, it was dark. Who could know?) He was dazed but was able to get to his feet, stumble up the stairs and open the door for me to enter.

But I didn’t consider that when the janitor DID arrive, he would be curious about how I entered the school without his key. I attempted a creative lie on the spot, but honestly, needed more time.

So I found myself standing in front of a screaming educator who wanted to impress on me that I was a renegade and a rascal and had involved my brother, making him an accomplice in this hideous crime.

Even though I did not believe it was nearly as serious as the principal insisted, I have since refused to participate in such capers and have never, to my knowledge, made anyone else an accomplice to my misdeeds.

That is, unless you want to count my wife–and the four mischievous sons we conjured.