My Brother's Logic

At 11:03 AM this morning, I was still sleeping. Last night was another late night--I didn't go to bed until 4:00 AM--and I needed my rest. But at 11:03 I woke up to muffled voices and the sound of someone clomping around outside the house. The outside clomping turned into inside clomping. Then I heard the linen closet, which is right next to my room, creak open.

I got out of my bed and opened my door. I was expecting my brother--who else?--and there he was, his fuzzy head thrust inside the closet.

"What the hell are you doing?" I asked. I'd just spent the whole day with him on Sunday. Seeing him twice in one week seemed improbable. I figured it was possible I was still dreaming.

"Looking for a towel," he said. "Which of these are shitty towels?"

"I don't know," I said. "You better be careful about what you use, though. Dad won't be happy if you use one of his good towels."

"Yeah," he said. He dove further into the closet. Unsatisfied, he turned and headed for the laundry room. He grabbed a bucket and started filling it with hot water.

I was ready to go back to bed, but I realized I still had no idea what my brother was doing at the house. I also had no idea why he was filling a bucket with water like he was about to do some heavy cleaning. So I tried asking again. "Hey," I said. He didn't look up. I raised my voice so it could be heard over the fall of water. "HEY. WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?" I asked.

He spiked back the flow of the water and looked at me like I was stupid not to know. "Washing my car," he said. "Tim's here, too. We're both going to wash our cars."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Wait a minute," I said. "You drove half an hour on your day off to wash your car?"

"Yes," he said. "And you brought your friend to wash his car, too?"

"Yes."

"Why?" I asked.

"Because," he said, "there's a hose here. And a bucket. And a lawn. And stuff." The tone of his voice had duh written all over it.

This definitely wasn't the first conversation I wanted to be having on my Tuesday. I blinked at him. "But why wouldn't you just do it at a car wash? You live around the corner from about twelve," I said.

Now it was his turn to narrow his eyes at me. "I don't have the money," he said.

"Not even for the dollar self-wash places?" I asked.

He sighed but didn't answer.

"Let me get this straight," I said. "Just hang on a second, okay? I want to understand. You don't have any money to wash your car, but you decide to drive half an hour each way to Dad's house so you can use his stuff? You got behind the wheel and burned up gas that costs $3.12 a gallon to do this?"

My brother glared at me. "YES," he said.

"Alright," I said, and I turned on my heel and walked back to my room, shut the door, and climbed back into bed. It shouldn't have surprised me, really. This was the boy who, after drinking himself stupid on Saturday night back at the cabin, woke up the next morning and drove all the way back out to my mother's so he could cut the grass before driving all the way back out here to spend the day with our father. Then, once he got here, he spent considerable time sitting at the kitchen table cutting out decals of naked lady silhouettes he wanted to hang inside his new car. Then, when he ran out of those, he decided to drive to buy more. Because nothing says Happy Father's Day! like a naked lady decal run.

No, I shouldn't have been surprised. After all, my brother was the one who, a month ago, after asking if I'd go with him to visit our grandfather in his rehab facility, told me that I was driving and the only way he was going to drive was if I gave him ten bucks for gas for the fifteen minute drive. The child is protective of his gas and money and driving only when it suits him. So I'm not sure why I even spent those few minutes this morning investigating why my brother found it appropriate to waste time and money driving all the way out here so he could park his car on my father's front lawn and use the hose. I should've just shrugged and gone back to bed when he first told me why he came. It's just more of my brother's busted logic. It's just more of him being strange, being silly, being him.