Dennis elbows him aside. “Watch out, you’re wrecking them. Watch how I do it.”

Jim watches, bored. Dennis’s hands move surely, economically. He gets every brush coppery clean, factory perfect. “I suppose you’ll just let all this go to hell again,” Dennis says bitterly as he finishes, gesturing at the car’s motor.

“No,” Jim protests. But he knows that after years of negligence and ineptitude with his car, there’s nothing he can do now to convince Dennis that he is really interested. It is interesting, of course, in a theoretical way; forces of entropy, resistance to it, a great metaphor for society, etc. But ten seconds after the hood is down the actual physical details fade for Jim, the words turn back into jargon and he’s as ignorant as he was when the lesson started. His memory is retentive, so maybe he truly isn’t interested.

“Have you done anything about getting another job?” Dennis demands.

“Yeah, I’ve been looking.”

Disgust twists Dennis’s features. “You know I’m still making the insurance payments on this car?” he says as he gathers his tools. “Do you remember that?”

“Yeah, I remember!” Jim squirms at this accusation, feeling the shame of it. Still supported by his parents: he can’t even make his own way in the world. He can see Dennis’s contempt and it makes him defensive, then angry. “I appreciate it, but I’ll take them over starting with the next one.” As if Dennis has been keeping him from paying on his own.

The pretense makes Dennis angry too. “You will not,” he snaps. “It’s illegal to be without that insurance, and you can’t afford it. If I gave it to you and you let it lapse and then got in an accident, then I’d be the one ended up paying the bills, wouldn’t I?”

Stung that his father would imagine him capable of that, Jim scowls at the ground. “I wouldn’t let it lapse!”

“I’m not so sure about that.”

Jim turns and walks off across the lawn, circling. He’s ashamed, hurt, furiously angry. There’s nothing he can say. If he starts to cry in front of his father he’ll … “I don’t do things like that! I keep my commitments!” he shouts.

“The hell you do,” Dennis says. “You don’t even support yourself! Isn’t that a commitment? Why don’t you get a job where you can afford all your own expenses? Or why don’t you budget what you make to pay for them? Are you going to tell me you don’t spend any of what you make on entertaining yourself?”

“No!”

“So here you are twenty-seven years old and I’m still paying your bills!”

“I don’t want you paying for them! I’m sick of that!”