Reasons I love my brother

How much do I love my brother? I don't think I always loved my brother, at least not as much as I do these days, but I must be having an amnesiac fit because it feels like I always did. Sometimes he reminds me that we did not get along very well. Usually he says "You were such a bitch in highschool" or something equally eloquent. Mostly, he complains about how I used to scream at him in the car. I once told my counselor that we fought a lot, and she said "Not while driving, right?" "Ohh, noooo, of course not..." We fought horribly whenever I had to drive him places - I would scratch and scream and dig my nails into his shoulders.

Once it was so bad that I pulled into the gas station, stormed out of the car, and just left him. I tried to drag him out of the car in order to make him walk, but those wiry, long limbs of his made him difficult to drag. So I just walked away. I think I went to the library or something. He left the car (running, no less, with all the doors open), and walked along the street. I do not recommend fighting while driving. Your car might get stolen or something.

But it's funny. We have spats sometimes but we get along for the most part, these days. Whenever he arrives back from San Francisco (he usually goes once a summer - he's a die hard Giants fan and I suspect he's a west coast child at heart), we shriek like children. A few days ago, I told him him that I wished he'd stayed in California, and he agreed with me. He tells me that our cousins are much better human beings than myself, and calls me awful names. But now, a few days later, we're getting along famously again. Go figure.

The same thing happened last year, when he came back from San Fran. I screamed at him in the airport (he had forgotten my mother's instructions) and all the way home we argued and called each other names. I confessed that I never felt as cool as my San Franciscan cousins, and he apologized, and finally both of us started bawling. It was a rather surreal moment, and one of the few times I'd seen him cry. However moving it may have been, I do not recommend crying while driving.

I feel like he can be my ally. We commiserate about my father's drinking, and the way he watches television late at night (he falls asleep holding the clicker in a death-grasp and so we have to watch John Wayne movies until one of us can lead him upstairs.) It's nice to know that someone else notices these things. He even said that he would like to go to church with me - if only church weren't at 9 am on a Sunday. We can ally against the anti-Church force that is our mother.

The other day we were watching pre-season football, and he said "You don't like football now, do you?" I said "Why? I guess I do. Whenever my friends and I watch the Eagles play I'm one of the more knowledgable ones and I like that feeling. So sure, I like football. I wouldn't want to be a running back..." He interrupted me. "Damn it." He swears sometimes, in a near drawl, and it's a mixture of sarcasm and laughter.

"What?" "I don't think there's anything left that you hate and I love. You like baseball, you like football, what's left? You don't understaaand, Margaret, I need something that you hate and I love to function as a brother..."

The other day we were listening to his music as he drove me to work. My brother is sorta like Michael Bolton, from Office Space. Sometimes he comes home, and his voice cracks. He says it's because he was singing loudly in the car.

"How's the underground rap going?" I asked. That's how he described his music to me, once.

He sighed. "It's not that underground."

I laughed. "There's always someone more underground, eh?"

2002-08-15, stuff about my brother

before / after

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