Fingerprints . . .

Somebody wrote with red nail polish all over the bathroom wall.  Mom tried in vain to coax/coerce a confession from the three usual suspects, once she had us all rounded up.  "Not I!" we cried almost in unison, each time the "who did this?" question was raised . . .

"Alright then," she said, "we'll just have to wait until your father gets home . . ."

Innocent, for once, the wait for me was carefree.  I finished my homework, watched Mickey Mouse (Annette, not Brittany) on Channel 8 and waited for dinner.  Dad came home, we ate, and over dessert, he asked "so, what went on today?"

"Somebody wrote with red nail polish all over the bathroom wall," mom said, "but nobody will own up to it . . ."  And dad replied, "well, after we're done here, we'll have to get out the fingerprint kit.  We'll check the bottle, and the brush handle, and it won't take long at all to find out who the culprit is."

And then, I heard my older brother say, calmly and confidently, the absolutely dumbest words I'd ever heard him utter in my whole entire life.  Words, however, that before the evening was over, would turn out to be only the second dumbest I'd ever hear him say.

"You may find my fingerprints on it," he began, " but that's just circumstantial evidence.  It doesn't mean a thing . . ."

"Is that so?" said dad.  In for a penny, in for a pound, he answered without hesitation, "yeah! That's so!"

After dinner, mom and dad and my brother went upstairs to the bathroom and closed the door.  I tiptoed up and listened outside the door.  And I'll say this for him, he was persistent.  It took almost half an hour to wear him down.  And then I heard him say something even dumber than what he'd said earlier.

When dad finally penetrated his defenses, he didn't cave meekly, but defiantly-- with a sneer in his voice, I heard him proclaim,  "Alright, I did do it!  So What?"

I think of it as "the Slap Heard Round New England!"  Before the echo died down, I was back downstairs sitting on the couch with my nose in a book, acting for all the world like I'd never been anywhere else.  Mom and dad came down, and dad said "you can go to bed now," and I said "Yessir! and off I went.

I had a big brother for over 60 years, from the day I was born until he died in October, 2009.  In all that time, he pretty much didn't say a lot of dumb stuff.  But for sure, he NEVER said anything dumber than what he said about the fingerprints . . .