They were all sitting around the kitchen table finishing up breakfast, drinking coffee, champagne, smoking a little weed, before getting ready for her graduation. It had been a long haul.
First there had been the Summer of Love, then a couple of years of work along with classes at the JC, followed by two years of travel to most of the states and parts of Europe, two kids plus two marriages, and four more years of university work.
She was almost thirty, but the task was about to be complete. Yes, she did it backwards, but it was now officially accomplished. A Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Studies or Musical Comedy, as she liked to call it, was now hers.
She began scurrying around getting ready, dressing the kids, putting on some make-up, etc. Pretty soon everyone was in the same mode excepting her brother, who at the time was an impressionable sophmore. He just sat there with his feet up on the table feeling pretty cool for having just smoked a joint with his big sister for the first time – casually like it was nothing unusual.
But now everyone was rustling to get out the door while Brother just sat there for the longest time. Suddenly he woke up from his dream state and heard someone say, “Are you ready to go?”
“Oh no! Wait! Just a minute, I want to wash up.” Everyone is waiting at the curb in a small caravan with their engines started as Brother comes bounding down the stairs buttoning his shirt as he comes flying.
We notice little pieces of toilet tissue stuck to various places on his neck and face. He has cut himself shaving and is actually bleeding pretty profusely. His white shirt is threatened by several errant drops. He is out of breath and both wet from having just washed and sweating from the hurrying. Everyone looks at him questioningly.
“I couldn’t find my razor, so I just used the one on the side of the tub,” he explains.
“Oh, you mean the one I use to shave my legs?” Sister asks. Everyone has a good laugh.
The graduation ceremony was long and boring and relatively meaningless as it turned out. But the memory of her brother makes her smile.
Stoned and bleeding,
devoted to the occasion,
with love and folly.
Brother!
(First published 6/16/11)
