The year was 1992. I was at the bowling alley on Friday night playing with my league. Color Me Badd’s greatest hit “I Wanna Sex You Up” starts playing on the loudspeaker. I turn around and there is my brother, Merrill, doing a strip tease for a lady’s 40th birthday party a few lanes down. My team never let me live it down.
Before Magic Mike, there was Magic Merrill!
This is a tale of two older brothers. As the story above illustrates, my brother Merrill is crazy like me. In his younger years, he worked as a male stripper with the dubious distinction of having stripped in every state in the United States. Yes, even Alaska. (Brrrr….) Like me, he is also an avid sports fan. We do not, however, support the same teams. Merrill cheers for the Yankees and the Dallas Cowboys, two teams I loathe, which means we are constantly going at it during baseball and football seasons. Our only
time of peace is March Madness when we both root for the Carolina Tarheels.
My brother Scott is the eldest and he is as shy as Merrill is…ummm, not shy! I can’t even get a photo of Scott, but as you can imagine, I have plenty of Merrill! Scott served in the Air Force and now works as a respiratory therapist at a hospital in Texas. A wonderful artist and musician (he plays the guitar), he is also a collector of metal lunchboxes, vintage advertisements and superhero figures (which means that he is loving our Matchmaker sales theme this year). He is also the brother mentioned in the famous Christmas necklace story from a previous Mary Monday.
This week, I’m traveling to Texas on business. As a special bonus, I’ll get to see my brothers who now both live in the Lone Star State. We’ll probably drink a few cocktails; I’ll kick their butts at pool; we’ll treasure hunt in a few antique stores; we’ll try not to talk sports; and we’ll laugh about old times. I’m sure this story will come up:
I was having drinks at the bowling alley with some girlfriends who played on a rival league for the local Catholic Church. The first one said, “My brother is a priest. When he walks into a room, everyone calls him ‘Father’. Another friend chirped, “My brother is a bishop. Whenever he walks into a room, people say, ‘Your Grace’.” My third friend added smugly, “Well, my brother is a cardinal in Rome. Whenever he walks into a room, people say, ‘Your Eminence’.”
I sipped my beer in silence. My girlfriends looked at me, the only Baptist in the crowd, as if to say “Well…?” So I replied, “My brother is a gorgeous hard-bodied stripper… Whenever he walks into a room, people say, ‘Oh my God…’.”
