Free Ordinary Love and Good Will by Jane Smiley

deserved me enough to ask. And I let the moment pass.
    At eleven-thirty, when I am moving on to the editorial section of the Sunday paper, dreading a little the mishmash of misinformation and strong opinion that I will find there about the Naval Weapons Support Center, Joe comes in and says, “Hey, guess what’s left this time!” He holds out his hand, closed.
    “What?”
    He opens his hand. “Nothing! And we didn’t lose anything, either. Come on out.”
    The sun is hot already, and my sneakers stick a little to the asphalt of the driveway. Michael is filling the tank with gasoline. He stands back, puts down the can, hands the pull cord to Joe, saying, “After you, Oliver.”
    “Be my guest, Stanley.”
    “Age before beauty, Ollie.”
    “Stanley!”
    “Yes, Ollie?”
    “Pull the fucking cord!”
    We laugh. Michael pulls the cord. Noise bursts out of the lawnmower, and Michael gestures toward the handle, shouting, “After you, Oliver!”
    At lunch they are still at it, though by now Michael is the Lone Ranger and Joe is Tonto. I remember this particular dialogue, because they developed it years ago. They switch off roles, and sometimes one of them is Silver, the horse. When they were fourteen and both living with me, they went for two weeks with Michael as Tonto and Joe as Silver, arguing about whether the Lone Ranger was primarily racist or primarily “human-ist.” I put bowls of soup in front of them, and Michael says, in a deep, pompous voice, “Fine soup, ma’am. Back in that box canyon up Cheyenne way, we were reduced to eating our shoes.”
    “Shoe taste good to red man.”
    “Tonto here caught some lizards for our delectation, though.”
    Joe makes a face at me behind his hand. “Lizard taste good to white man. Red man not like tickle going down.”
    “What was that, faithful sidekick?”
    “Was, ‘fuck you,’ Kemosabe.”
    “Why, certainly, my good man.”
    It occurs to me that, with enough repairs, comic routines, and information about sports and music, Michael and Joe might come together in peace.
    Joe gets up for another cup of coffee, and starts rummaging in the refrigerator. In this interim Michael puts down his fork and rubs his face in his hands, yawning. It is easy to forget what he has to recover from. I have already gotten used to his appearance, and other new habits—waggling his head when he means to nod “yes” and stooping because he has spent so much time talking to shortpeople—slide in and out of his manner, reminding but not convincing me to change my expectations of him. I don’t think Joe is even reminded, because Michael is careful to be his old self around his twin. Or maybe Joe brings that out in him. At any rate, he is back to being perky and ironic when Joe sits down again. “Hey, Mom,” Joe says. “Guess what.”
    “What?”
    “Kevin has a new job. He’s actually an administrative assistant to the state Republican central committee. Can you believe it?”
    “I thought he was just working at a temp job researching in the legislative library.”
    “He WAS . He got that through Manpower. But that was a year ago. Now he’s moved up through the ranks.”
    “That’s nice,” I say.
    “Well,” says Joe, “I don’t think it’s NICE . I think it’s weird. And he’s been working at this job for four months and he hasn’t dared to tell me before this. I think it’s base and corrupt.”
    Michael cocks his head and looks at Joe. I say, “Well—”
    “I mean, this is the guy who spray-painted WE ARE VICTORIOUS, U.S. OUT OF VIETNAM, APRIL 23 on the wall of the gymnasium when he was a freshman in high school.”
    “Was that Kevin?”
    “Now you’re the only one who knows besides us.”
    I open my mouth.
    “We didn’t help,” says Michael.
    “But we destroyed the paint cans. God, remember that? They all said, Do not puncture or incinerate. I thought they might explode or something. We wore these gloves so we wouldn’t get our fingerprints on them. He