“He’s not a toddler,” she laughs.
“Worse. He’s an adult with toddler instincts.”
“Like he’s not potty-trained?”
“Like, hide the matches because he might burn the house down,” I say. “Besides, you’ll be busy on your own, setting the town on fire.”
“True,” she says. “True. I guess we’ll just have to wear fire-retardant clothes at all times.”
Today Leo wants to walk home from Columbia, though it’s at least two and a half miles to my mom’s, and the clouds are drizzling thick, pregnant drops. A plane roars over us, too close, and I jolt, and he does too, but then it coasts past, and we shake our heads and keep going.
“You do that too,” he says. “I don’t know how to get used to it.”
“I think with time.”
“I hate this city,” he says.
“Leo ...” We’ve had this discussion a million times. He has to work, he has a job, he needs to show up and be accountable. College is over; it’s time to embrace real life.
“I know,” he says, batting a hand. “Don’t start in with me. I know, OK? I can’t quit on Merrill before I’ve even started. I get it. I’m a big kid now, time to cut the purse chains.”
We amble in silence for a while after that, then stop in a bar, Westside Tavern, on Amsterdam Avenue.
Leo primarily wants to get drunk, and that sounds like as good a plan as any.
The place is mostly empty. A European soccer game is muted on the TV above the bar, and we pull up stools, then I order two beers, then Leo says: “Also, four shots of tequila.”
“Leo, it’s three o’clock in the afternoon.”
“And your point is?”
I don’t really have a point, so I do both shots and chase it with the beer.
“Maybe I’ll just stay in California,” he says, as he motions to the bartender for two more. I wave to the bartender to stop, to please cut me off, but he shrugs and slides the shot glasses our way. “I can still be a grown-up in California.” But he wants to surf in the mornings and sleep on our couch in the afternoons. He explains this when he’s actually being honest, which we are about two shots away from.
“Don’t you have a graduation party later?” I shift the subject.
“Yeah, and?”
“You’re going to show up wasted?”
“Yeah, and?” He laughs. “God, when did you become Dad?”
He stops laughing abruptly, and both of us reach for the shots, since the alternative is weeping or picking a fight or pounding our fists into the wall, which feels like it would help with the rage, but mostly also seems like it would just fill one form of pain with another. Drinking is the right solution.
“You can’t skip out on your job, Leo,” I say, as the tequila burns the back of my throat, the pulp of the lime fleshy on my tongue.
“Why not? Who gives a fuck?”
“I guess I do?” I say it as a question because it is, and also because I’m drunk, but mostly because I’ve never had to care one way or the other about my brother’s irresponsibility. But now, with my dad gone, it occurs to me that I do.
“Ugh,” he says. “So you’re the new Leo police.”
“Come on, Dad never busted your ass the way he busted mine.”
He snorts. “You were the prodigal son, give me a break. Bust your ass! Like he ever did that a day in your life.”
I pick up the rind of the lime and chew on it. I haven’t eaten anything since breakfast, and I’m newly aware that I’m as hungry as I am inebriated.
