Monday, February 21, 2005

The Recalcitrant Brother

It occurs to me that I talk about The Butcher all the time and rarely about my recalcitrant brother. My recalcitrant brother is usually sullen or asleep. But sometimes he'll catch you in rare moments, usually in the middle of the night at the kitchen table or at 5:30 in the morning as you're taking the dog out, and then he's a riot. He's closer to the Butcher than he is to me. Sharing a bedroom and favorite vices will do that, I guess. But we've been through some shit together, the recalcitrant brother and me. There was the Thanksgiving we had with the Ku Klux Klan where the biggest scariest rural Georgian I'd ever seen sat across the table from us and made not-so-quiet comments about how easy it would be to kill a Yankee and hide his body across the state line where no one could find him. And he saved my life, once, I believe. Armed only with a baseball bat and a sense of righteous indignation, he took care of a scary problem for me. Though our bond seems to be forged through life-threatening situations, we also have good times together. The Thanksgiving after the Klan incident, he came to my house. We started drinking when we put the turkey in and kept at it. Most of the afternoon, we had a huge leaf fight in the front yard, that ended with the two of us lying side by side in a pile of leaves out by the street, trying to catch our breath between giggles. He missed dinner because he locked himself in the bathroom and passed out in the tub. I'd have gladly left him there, but it was the only bathroom in the house. After my grandma's funeral, we all went back to her suite at the nursing home to empty it out. And there, in a frame, by her chair was a picture from that day, of the recalcitrant brother and I sprawled out side by side in that pile of leaves.

3 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

For some reason, I have a vivid memory of the afternoon you moved in next door to me in college and your recalcitrant brother was standing slightly behind your dad, just watching all the parents/roommates/roomate neighbors talk and joke. I'm not sure why, but it is still quite vivid. So I thought of that when I was reading this.

SuperGenius

2/22/2005 03:27:00 PM  
Blogger Aunt B said...

Perhaps he was getting ready to moon you or try to make out with you. That seems to be his favorite two things to do to/with my friends.

Granted, we weren't friends yet, so maybe he was just scoping out potential participants.

2/22/2005 04:01:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Well, several hours later when you and I were standing in the hallway talking after I got back from some lame party, making jokes about your very awesome Oscar the Grouch garbage can and the pen with slightly pee colored ink you had for your message board, and we were cracking up and ended up being out in the hall for an hour just because we'd passed each other, that's when I decided we were friends or if we weren't yet we would be eventually.

So, I guess your brother was just a few hours late on the mooning because I'm thinking the age difference would have prevented any making out.

I'm still too tired to make the potatoes - SuperGenius

2/23/2005 10:28:00 AM  

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