When grabbing a classic Coca-Cola becomes grabbing some life…

My oldest brother had this crazy powder blue van, as I recall it. The van isn’t even really the direct thing in this memory, and I’m not even sure why the van is even relevant, but it is and it was there.

It was a time where vans were super cool. At the time my cousin, my brother’s “brother-in-arms”, had what I recall to be a kick ass van. I think it had a water bed in it, a sink and, no joke, a playboy bunny shaped window in the back. Not a useful window, but one of those decorative windows that says I don’t even need a damn window, nor do I want one, but I do need this kick ass logo disguised as a window in the upper corner of the back of my van. My brother’s van, not so much, it was powder blue and had a bunch of rust on it, but it was still a van with that sweet sliding side door that said there is a party coming out of this thing when it opens up, or I can easily help you move a sofa. His van was a work in progress.

I recall one time I accidentally put a small dent in the side of it with a golf club and I don’t think he ever noticed, and I know I never told him. Which I appreciate, in retrospect, was a real asshole thing to do, or not do in this case, but I was like 13 years old and likely scared shitless of him.

I remember the van was like a big rig that had this big ass steering wheel that you had to use two hands to turn at times. Anyhow, I remember he picked me up from some dumb ass thing when I was a kid, some practice for some sport I was likely awful at, or from a friend’s house, or swimming at the pool, whatever it was doesn’t ultimately matter. So he picks me up and we’re talking about something, which in and of itself is weird because I always recall him being kind of angry in my presence. Well this time we were talking about something and as part of the conversation the mention of a Coke in that iconic bottle came up.

I don’t know why, or what the context was or what we were even talking about, but the Coca-Cola bottle was definitely embedded in some other discussion. So I remember we had just pulled down the side street that was about a mile from our house and I said something along the lines of, well we should do that sometime, or something like that, and I’m highly confident that I wasn’t referring to the Coke. However, upon hearing me say that he said, “ok, let’s go get one” and he pulled a swift u-turn on the spot, literally like in an instant, using both his hands to turn that big ass steering wheel around at the corner of Cary Jay and Steven and we went to this crazy ass convenient store that was inside of a random nearby apartment building. I remember being surprised because the Coke was not what I was referring to, but I was also like, cool, let’s get a Coke, and my brother was genuinely happy about the whole idea of it. Totally out of the ordinary, and I don’t think I was ever in that crappy apartment building convenient store more than once again in my life, but I think they had the classic Coke bottle Coke, and somehow my brother knew they did. By the way, how the hell did he know they had classic Coke bottle Cokes there?

Crazy enough I don’t remember anything else about it, that moment in that van at the top of our street and the manner in which my brother spontaneously said let’s do it and turned that van around is the moment that sticks in my head. Most importantly, I don’t remember the Coke, shit, we were a Pepsi family anyhow, but I do remember that all of a sudden my brother, who was typically annoyed by my presence and annoyed whenever he needed to pick me up, did this out of the ordinary fucking thing at the drop of a dime. Again, I’m fairly certain I was not referring to getting a Coke. I recall he misunderstood what I was referring to, but when he said, ok, and seeing that big dumb ass, super cool blue van so nimbly turn around I was speechless. I wasn’t going to stop what was transpiring simply because I was misunderstood, and in that moment, despite us not being on the same exact page, I realize now, my brother and I connected. We were two brothers going to get a damn Coke.

Here was my older brother, by 14 years mind you, kind of hanging out with me and then doing something I absolutely did not expect in the moment. I didn’t get to have many memories with my oldest brother, and I really didn’t get to have many great ones, but this was one of them. That’s the firework moment of this memory, and I guess what it means is that every once in a while, and maybe even more often, you should just shock a person you Love and say “OK”, turn that van around and let’s do this fucking spontaneous small thing (it was getting a Coke at a convenient store for shit’s sake), when they were expecting you to absolutely not do anything like what you’re doing, because they just might remember it as being awesome for the rest of their life.