“How about some baked goods, son?” The nice lady who asked meant well. But she had no idea who my brother Dave was. Baked goods wouldn’t cut it.

“We have Three Stooges posters around here,” he said, pointing to a display of movie memorabilia. “Does the person you’re shopping for like the Three Stooges?”

‘Sure’, I thought. Everybody likes the Three Stooges! But that still wasn’t an appropriate gift. It was just paper.

“Well, honey,” he said, “you don’t have much money there.”

Eighty-nine cents. I had counted it so many times that I could mentally picture the allocation of coins: two quarters, one dime, three nickels, and fourteen cents, two really shiny and new, the rest a darker shade of tarnish.

“We have some games here,” he pointed to a box. “They’re used, but all the parts are there. I checked it myself. What about Risk?”

As politely as I could I dismissed the lady and her attempts to help me. She was very nice. But, I was sure there was something… something big… something meaningful… something that would say ‘You’re the best big brother in the world’ and ‘I miss you terribly now that you’re gone. to the University’.

It was the first Christmas since my older brother, Dave, had moved out of school. Gone are the days when he would come home at the end of the day and ask me, “Hey, Bubba! What did you do today?” Gone are the days when my dad would let me go with him to the service station where my older brother worked to bring him dinner. It was the proudest moment of my week. He would tell my friends, “My older brother works at the Phillips 66 station!”

But, he would come home for Christmas. He had to have a special treat somewhere at Lake Sybelia Elementary School’s White Elephant Sale. Eighty-nine cents wasn’t a lot of money for adults, but it was a lot for me. He had been returning bottles for deposit and picking up around the house to earn every penny.

Every Christmas, Mom would take me to the store and buy me gifts for my brothers and sisters. Hair stuff for girls. Big scream. Underwear and socks for boys. Whatever. Ooh, once in a while a belt. Sure. This year I wanted something more. I wanted to buy my brother Dave a gift with my own money. Something bigger and better than anyone could have imagined.

Then it hits me. Or, should I say, I hit him. I stubbed my toe on it. Big. Heavy. Important. No stinky baked goods. No shit sign. Without table set of blades. It was a bowling ball! A big one of black marble! It was incredible! It looked like a crystal ball. I wondered for a moment if it was. “How much does it cost?” I asked the man slumped behind the table. I was startled when the man got up to consider my question. He was wearing a sweat-stained white tank top. From the way he filled out that shirt, he looked more like a woman than a man to me. But, he was a man, without a doubt. He had more hair in his armpits and coming out of his nose than on the top of his head.

“Dollar,” he huffed, and then collapsed into the metal folding chair, stressing it to the limits of its manufacture.

I took out my change. I counted it one more time, although I was sure of the amount. “Sir. I have eighty-nine cents. Will you…?”

“Dollar boy. I shot 300 with that ball. It means a lot to me,” he stuffed a large muffin into his mouth and muttered something else, but I couldn’t make out.

“Oh, give it to the boy!” a voice sounded from the next booth. “You played a game of 300 my ass…er…I mean…you never pitched a perfect game. Sell the boy the ball. I’ll give you another muffin. Where’s your Christmas spirit?”

“Eighty-nine cents,” she said looking at me, her muffin crumbs between her breasts on her T-shirt. “And another cupcake?” Her eyes went to the sweet lady in the next booth. She nodded. “Deal!” the Scream. “Let it be a banana nut.”

I spilled all my money on the man’s table and picked up the ball. “How are you going to bring that home, son?” asked the kind lady. “I have my bike,” I replied.

He had underestimated the weight of the ball. I couldn’t ride the bike because when the weight shifted into the basket on my handlebars, the momentum of that ball hit me from left to right as I tried to keep my balance. I ended up walking all the way home, with the ball in the basket and the bike strategically braced against my hip. It was a long and tiring walk. But it’s worth it.

Christmas morning. Dave came home from college. There, under the tree, was my gift to him complete with some great wrapping work and a handwritten card that proclaimed, “For Dave, from Darin. I got this for you with my own money!”

Credit to Dave. To all appearances, he treasured that bowling ball more than any other gift he had received. He had never thrown a frame in his life, nor would he. That was not the point. It was a great gift. For an older brother. He understood. He took it to the university and displayed it in his bedroom. He would see it there every time we visited the campus. I bet he still has it somewhere.