Meet the Keeper

            I spent most of Friday with my big brother. It was an extremely stressful day for reasons that I will not go into here. Fortunately, the largest part of the day was spending time with my big Bro. We did some window shopping, I bought him a book (“Guards! Guards!” by Terry Pratchett if you’re interested), we saw “Fantastic Four”, we even bowled a few games at Lucky Strikes.

            We had lunch together at Friday’s and talked for about an hour or more. I filled him in on my situation and his advice was that I should go “Buck Wild”.

            Um, yeah.

            Now, understand, my brother wrote the book on “Buck Wild”. If they ever made a movie of his life, it would not only be in the Adult section, it would be labeled “Epic Fantasy”. If Penthouse had a letter on it, he’s done it.

            Then there’s me. Not exactly Buck anything. I was never like that, even when I was single. I’m just not that type of guy, which I told him. That’s when he said it. The single most hurtful, truthful, insightful thing he could have said.

            “You’re problem is, you’re a Keeper.”

            That’s it in a nutshell. I don’t go “Buck Wild”, I get married. He was saying that I should go run around and have fun (Which frankly, picturing myself doing this, just seems tacky), but the problem is that I’m not that guy. I’m not the guy the girls want a fling with. I’m the guy they want around to fix things. To lift heavy things for them. To make them feel secure.

            I’m so fucked.

            My “Buck Wild” days are behind me. It’s not the years (My brother is 11 years older than me), it’s the Mileage. I have been, as they say, “Rode Hard and put away Wet”. And not in that fun way. Simply in the “Used up it’s usefulness” way.

            Thank God for Theater. If it wasn’t for that, I really believe that I would just retreat from society altogether, like so many people I know have.

            My curse is that I’m the type of guy girls don’t want to have fun with, I’m the one they want to Marry. You know, when the Fun is over.

            And, I married the wrong woman. My powers wasted.

            I’m like Batman, if his parents had lived. Does that make any sense? I’m a little frazzled tonight.

 

JHO