my brother , wide-eyed at the mention of an available fortune which might be rapidly retreating , though all he would have desired from the money was the opportunity to purchase innumerable plastic model airplane kits , clambered over the station wagon tailgate and jumped down beside meredith , his thumbs crooked around the belt loops at the front of his jeans in some unconscious homage to a cowboy hercules , though jack was frail , resembling mahatma gandhi with his chest imprisoned in shrunken white t-shirts .