A Star Wars Day Reflection (May 4, 2024)
It's Star Wars Day, and in social media spaces everywhere, you'll see the "May the 4th Be With You" exhortation in grand enthusiasm for at least a few days. The day seemingly approaches full-fledged holiday status every year, and I'm not troll enough to begrudge fans (both the zealous and the mildly interested) their fun. Star Wars Day is also a clear call to remembrance, as people of certain ages share their connections with this behemoth commercial enterprise. Naturally, I think of my connections to this galaxy of the Force, Jedis, and lightsabers.
An early sequence in my memoir, Big Scary Brown Guy, recounts my childhood fascination with Star Wars. Like many Gen Xers, Star Wars loomed like a great pop cultural icon for most of my early years. I assume that nearly everyone around the age of fifty (give or take five years) was either buoyed or tormented by all the Force and Jedi talk as they grew up. The franchise inspired me (mostly). Back then, two films and a historic miss for all time (the Star Wars Christmas Special) comprised the entirety of the Star Wars canon. At my age in the early 80s, toys were the way to extend the storytelling found in films. You imagined scenarios using whatever action figures you happened to have in your possession. Without social media, destined to live my childhood on the sparse flatlands of the western edge of that part of Texas that sticks up so that they call it the Panhandle, I often took these Kenner figures and weaved new adventures for these quite familiar characters.
The other boys in my house, who were actually my uncles by biology, were likely too old to care much for Star Wars. Robert, my mother's youngest brother and just shy of seven years older than me, did not have the same affinity for Star Wars, even if he didn't dislike it. He simply was passionate about other pop cultural phenomena like MTV.
David, Robert's older brother by almost four years, likely cared even less about Star Wars than Robert. By the time of the release of Return of the Jedi in May 1983, David was seventeen, handsome, with a free spirit that had him coming and going out of the house for reasons I couldn't grasp at seven years old. Due to our respective ages and birth order, Robert was destined to be the "brother" who was likelier to pick on me, tease me, mock me, and exude an almost expected nonchalance toward the youngest boy in the house. But for me, Robert would have been the baby boy despite already inhabiting a large and powerful body.
David was the brother I idolized as a youngling. He was cool, with just enough defiance that made him seem like a free agent to me in our household. Mom and Dad (my mother's parents assumed the role of my own parents) gave David much more latitude than the rest of their children. To my young eyes, David was the brother I wanted to emulate. His skin was dark brown like mine. He was a terrific athlete. He had a charming smile and snuck cigarettes whenever he could. He could drive. And he had a sarcastic wit that rarely left him at a loss for words. He was one of the best at "playing the dozens" I ever saw.
For all his endearing traits (to me, at least), David had one major failing. He didn't give two shits about Star Wars. He barely knew the plot, knew only certain characters by pop cultural osmosis, and likely mocked many aspects of it whenever I brought it up. As far as Star Wars went, David was not a kindred spirit. I probably tried hard not to mention it around him.
The lead-up to Return of the Jedi had almost paralyzed me. While I was too young to indulge in the original film's inaugural theatrical release, I was completely there for its sequel, The Empire Strikes Back. Most of my toys and sets revolved around this second film, and I was primed for the final film in this trilogy like a taut piano wire tuned to its breaking point. For the first time, I was desperate to watch a film in its initial theatrical release. Before, I had been taken at the whim of my mother, Irene, when she assumed the temporary role of the parent in my life, but this time, she wasn't often around the house. I knew she could not be relied upon to take me, but as someone famously said, she was my "only hope."
The opening day came and went. In those days, movies stayed in theaters much longer than now, often bringing back wildly successful films. I felt like there was a clock ticking somewhere offscreen, like Hans Zimmer's score in Interstellar. Whenever I mentioned the possibility to Irene (we all lopped off the "I" in her name and called her Rene), she noted that she didn't have time and that I'd have to be patient. Seven-year-olds haven't mastered the art of patience, so this was like telling me on December 26th that I might get what I wanted next Christmas Day. I don't begrudge her this; likely, she couldn't see when she could take me to the movies. As a consolation prize, she bought me the comic book adaptation of Return of the Jedi (I think it was Marvel Comics), and it was like reading the storyboards for the film. I mean, it left nothing out. Thanks to this comic book, I knew everything that would happen in the film before I saw it. That sounds like it spoiled it for me, but it had the opposite effect. I now wanted to see those comic book panels on the silver screen more than ever.
My desperation grew so much that I asked any adult in my orbit if they would take me to this movie. Everyone had a reason why they couldn't. Mom and Dad, who spoke minimal English and thought the science fiction fantasy elements were weird, took hard passes. Tom and Rose, Rene's siblings who were older than David, also turned me down. Rose generally spoiled me whenever she could, and her support of my Star Wars obsession primarily resulted in buying me action figures. She purchased the larger 12-inch tall Kenner figures —Darth Vader, Chewbacca, C-3PO, and a comparably-sized R2-D2 in one memorable sequence. She was like an angel sent with the power to dote on a little Brown boy in the middle of nowhere. But she was unavailable, having moved out of our home by then. I saw her as infrequently as I did Rene.
Specific memories are crystalized in a kind of acrylic that hardens and remains clear for all time. Other memories are like layers of gossamer wound over your eyes, one thin layer after another, almost imperceptibly, until what was once clear is now occluded into a foggy smear. The lead-up to this climax is under so much gauzy material, but then my memory suddenly clarifies to high definition. It has become like that hardened, crystal-clear acrylic, preserving my memory forever. I see it with such perfection that it feels more real than some of the more mundane activities I did yesterday.
I asked David—the guy painfully indifferent to Star Wars—if he would take me to see Return of the Jedi. How pathetic must I have looked? How desperate and forlorn? I told him how no one else would take me.
And to my surprise, he laughed softly—a well-meaning chuckle emanating from his handsome face—and feigned being bothered. He had to make me sweat a little before agreeing to take me. That's what older brothers do to younger brothers.
Before I knew it, I was seated in that theater in Lubbock, Texas, watching a film that I already knew by heart, thanks to the comic book adaptation, instantly transported to another place and time. David sat to my left and watched along with me. He laughed at the right times. I'm not sure how much he knew about what was happening, but he cared more about alleviating my agony than his need to understand. I sat there and watched Luke Skywalker free his friends from Jabba, endure the second of his mentors dying right before his eyes, and face his father a second time that was for all time.
We left the theater, and I peppered David with questions. What did he think? Wasn't Luke's new lightsaber so cool? Was it good that Luke fought Darth Vader but refused to kill him? Did Luke save Darth Vader, or did Darth Vader save Luke?
His answers are not what I remember today; that familiar gauze of memory makes its presence known to me once more. But I have a sense of David's kindness, his efforts to make me feel a little less alone than I often did, as if we had shared something that was ours now and forever.
David had been my only hope, though neither of us had known it. From then on, I would always include him in my pantheon of Star Wars heroes, likely without his knowledge. He was another dashing rogue, determined to stay above the integral pull of good versus evil, ever denying he had any meaningful purpose in any of it.
Star Wars Day takes me to these moments of kindness and sharing—bridging generations and reinforcing the bonds of imagination.
Long live Star Wars Day, and May the 4th be with you!
