the tough
The three of us have many things in common… That’s part of what makes us such close brothers and also, at times, the source of much consternation to the others.
However, there’s always been one thing that my two brothers possessed that seemed to have eluded me.
Looking tough/imposing.
I just never had it.
True, Oldest Brother was aided by a surly disposition and Barry Bondsian Chest (that’s 2003 Bonds, not Uerkel-thin 1994 Bonds). When he shaved his head, it was like getting gravy on a KFC Double Down (it’s already too much as it is, the gravy is just pure mean).
Youngest Brother was the beneficiary of extra-recessive genes that boosted him to almost two meters tall (things just sound cooler in metrics… just trust me on this) with a filled out physique to match (how big has he always been? When my family dropped me off at football check-in during my freshman year in college, many coaches and teammates thought my brother was the player and that I was there to help him move in. In fact, a few of them, upon seeing him getting back in the car with my parents, tried to dissuade him from quitting the team. Btw, he was 13 at the time).
This has always left me as the smallest (which lead to some amusement on this blog as we tried to refer to “youngest brother” as “smallest brother” to his chagrin), least intimidating one…
Until now.
I guess part of the reason I grew the beard (to a very small degree) was that I wanted to look tough. Now that I live in the city, as my mother worries, I think about being the target of violence and looking susceptible. One of the things that seemed to become apparent when the beard began to bloom was that it made me look like tougher. People avoided eye contact, they allowed me to get easier access to the bar, they apologized after slight, incidental contact… girls were a little harder to approach (my friends joked that girls weren’t sure if I were going to hit on them or ask for change).
Oh well…
Now that I have my goatee, I feel like I have the best of both worlds! I get smiles and reciprocation from the ladies and I still feel like the toughest guy in the Point (I’m walking around like Mr. T circa 1985).
That’s that…
I swear I’ll stop talking about my facial hair now…
