oh, brother

This picture says it all. Taken at the end of the day, as all of us, Me, G~, my sister, her advisor, mom, and my brother, lined up, that camera caught so much more than refracted light.

When I describe the events of this Wednesday, I get collect remarks and eye rollings over my brother's behavior. He went off on a rant in the middle of the commencement ceremonies, spouting off how universities used to have the right idea before they all turned into "liberal think tanks". I tried to make peace. "Even if you are right that doesn't make other people's beliefs wrong, it's in the old testament that there are as many paths to God as human breaths." I meet with immediate rebuke. I hear "Jesus" start coming out of his mouth and just turn to talk with someone on the other side of me about my exciting career in HCI. I'm silently praying that no one overheard him pop his holy lid. I know it all sounds obnoxious, but who are we, really, to judge how he makes sense of the world? Who has divine license to rip the rug of faith out from underneath any of our fellows?

But tonight, I download all of the graduation photos and this last shot of the lot of us lined up simply says it all. M~ and her advisor are ebullient that their 10 years of work together have born proper fruit. My sister is now a doctor of philosophy in transcultural studies (yes, I'm not over bragging). The rest of us are happy, too, although we also look a wee bit eager to head off to dinner. And there, at the end of the line, stands my brother. He's just far enough away from the group as to be standing off on his own. Behind the heads and funny hats I see my sister's hand stretching out to touch his shoulder, straining to include him.

I've only seen him in environments of his own choosing. He is hunting in the woods on his own land or visiting my mother in her home. He goes other places, does other things, but that's not my experience of him. And here he in New York City. I get to see his social tools in action in an environment completely foreign to him. I'm familiar with this world of crowded streets, cross town traffic, suicidal cabbies and cavernous underground subway tunnels. He is not. I already know that some of his social tools are, in fact, weapons. But I never realized how others could just be stunted, malformed and not capable of performing their intended purpose.

On our first cab ride I got to see how people use what they know as a map for comprehending the unfamiliar. Mom spies a name on a building or a truck and assumes it is related to something similar from upstate. Every bit of housing we ride past she asks "is that a housing project?". "Ya, sure" I tell her, thinking that next time I get her to Chicago I'll have to take her past what remains of the Green. Evil me, always trying to shock my mother by dragging her to bad places or introducing her to gay men.

My brother looks at the highway numbers and immediately launches into a detailed explanation of how this must be a highway that runs north south and loops back around. He explains the numbering system and how it signifies east-west-north-south running highways or highways that loop, highways which are branches or tributaries and highways which would have branches coming off of them.

"Nice job, Rain Man!" I joke. But I look at this photo, now, and see that was no joke.

He's bigger, now, and dressed up in a suit. But the person in that photograph who doesn't want to stand too close to the group wears the same expression, carries himself with the same gesture, as the little boy in the photographs of us growing up. I see the same expression as in photos from his first communion or when he had to pose next to his sisters for a group shot in front of one of Dad's cars. Not just the same gesture, same stance, raised chin and clenched fists strikes me. The exact same expression is in his eyes. I see who's really living in there, still; the child.

The day isn't all Jesus arguments. Several times we use Wikipedia my iPhone to settle grammatical or historical disputes. He holds his hand in front of his mouth and leans over to ask me questions he knows seem too simple. He imitates noises that he hears on the street and can determine what mechanism makes them. He forces himself to stay awake through all the many speeches which come straight from the belly of the liberal think tank. When he persistently sings to himself at the dinner table I can tell he must have been under a lot of strain, for him, that day. Sure enough we soon get an outburst. Most painfully, I hear him call himself stupid.

And here I meet my own uncharted territory. "My brother is still little boy" could just be another crazy, poetic theory of mine. Could be another way of mapping some sense out of and plowing some smoothed feelings through the dense forest of memory and anger. Could be there's many more miles to travel in that land. After all, in the photograph, I'm at the opposite end of the group.