puppydog tails

a dear friend's kid brother just dropped in to say hello after disappearing into the great american beyond for two years. i say kid brother, though he's 23 now and a strapping, confident youth with a receding hairline and a career choice i don't understand that involves the word neural. we were buddies as children and would routinely gang up on his sister who was easily sqeamed.

i've always enjoyed other people's little brothers and often wished i had one of my own. kid brothers have such an appreciation for the truly gross things of life, i've never found that with any other class of human beings. plus, they fight fair and understand the need to keep from grownups important matters. and i was always genuinely fascinated by little-boy obssessions that other people found boring, like their hotwheels collection, their homemade repertoire of synonyms for various mucus derivatives, their highly coloured descriptions of imaginary classroom fights. i understood where they were coming from, and why they had to run to get anywhere, and how completely they can be devasted by the giggles.

there's a curly-haired boy next door who regularly asks if he can pet my dog. unfortunately little boys are beneath mac's notice. vivek hates school, which i understand. (twenty years later and i still remember how school smelled, like packed fear) and every monday morning you can hear the protests in outer space. little boys know that the grey from school buildings can rub off on you and eventually turn you into one of those people that steps over puddles and measures sugar by the teaspoonful.