Don’t Call Me Chief
by Matt Sullivan
illustration by Dave Dawson
“Sticks and stones may break my bones/ but names will never hurt me.” A childhood retort that compensates with catchiness for what it lacks in truth. For I, Max Solomon, know that whoever thinks names can’t or won’t hurt them is wrong.
Dead wrong.
As I write this from my jail cell, I am all too aware that names can and will hurt.
Sometimes, they just might kill.
Chief. Killer. Sport. Big guy. Pal. Tough guy. Professor. Skipper. The millionaire. And his wife.
Words that, on the surface, may not seem like epithets. Words that are subtle, but deadly, like secondhand smoke. Words of amiable condescension. Words that say, “I recognize you, if you recognize your place – beneath me.”
Words that might drive the wrong guy, at the wrong bar, on the wrong night… over the edge.
First, a little about myself, because I know I’ve got nothing better to do, and, apparently, neither do you. I was a skinny kid with glasses growing up, and this Ethiopia-meets-myopia combo did not serve me well on the Darwinian playgrounds of the Pollard Elementary School. I always dreaded playing hoop when the teams were shirts vs. skins, for I would inevitably be called “E.T.” because the kids said they could actually see my heart beating. They could. Remember that movie, Lucas? To say that hit too close to home is understating the case – it’s as if that Corey Haim vehicle broke into my home and read my sissy diary.
Life as a shortie shouldn’t be so rough. I was (and I use the past tense tentatively) the naive kid who didn’t know he was a year too old to be wearing Underoos (hey, they were fun to wear). I found out the hard way, from the messengers of mean in the gym class locker room. “But you’re wearing Underoos, too; although I fail to recognize the brown and yellow superhero your briefs signify,” I didn’t say, but wanted to.
Still, I managed OK. I developed a formidable outside shot (known in my hood as the Irishman’s Dunk), and was pretty much protected from abuse because of my kinship with two star hoop players, who, true to the geography-based nature of childhood friendship, lived on my street. (If you’re reading this, thanks, Ralph and E.J.) I got contact lenses, though regrettably not before my Uncle Dennis’ wedding pictures (I was an usher). I even filled out a bit, although people still call me skinny, but that’s only because I’m the correct weight for my height and they’re fat.That’s not to say I was without a chip on my shoulder. In fact, it’s fair to say that I had a bag of Ruffles, because I couldn’t have just one.
Which brings us to the present.
What follows is not for the weak, so, unless you can bench-press your own body-weight, stop reading now.
I get to stay, because, well, I’m the one telling the story.
That night started out innocently enough. I was coming out of the confessional at St. Max’s (four Acts of Contrition, six Our Fathers, two Hail Marys, three Bloody Marys), when I decided to pop in on my boy, Rollie Jennings. I am reminded of every detail of that night the way vomit reminds you of a meal. The details didn’t seem like much at the time – a lot like the meal that only becomes a memory when you see the contents spilled out in front of you.
We decided to hit a sports bar in Boston – almost always a bad idea. It wasn’t the type of establishment I’d normally frequent, it was the kind of place where “Brown-Eyed Girl” would play and half the female patrons would exult, “This is my song!” because – get this! – they have brown eyes (you and over 75% of the population, doll). But I was with my crony Rollie and feeling alright, so I decided to elope with hope and make a go of it.
The line outside was rather long, but I didn’t mind, because the weather was mild and it allowed me the opportunity to repeat one of my oft-recycled one-liners. Ostensibly, I was saying it to Rollie, but he knew the game. I said it loud enough so the two cute girls, um, I mean, delectable dames, in front of us could hear it.
“The last time I waited in a line this long, I got on Space Mountain.”
They turned around, smiling. The game’s afoot. (Oh, so you don’t think the line-line was funny? Well, fuck you. The girls, um, dames, thought so.)
Rollie and I were soon chatting up the genetically-gifted young women, and before we even hit coat-check (before we even reached the door!), the chat had elevated to banter.
But there was trouble ahead, and this trouble, as it so often does, came in the form of a thick-necked frat-boy bouncer, whose hobbies probably included date-rape and playing Donkey Kong with empty kegs. A guy who calls himself a bouncer, even if he really only checks I.D.s and the only thing he’s ever “bounced” is a check. A guy that thinks he’s so tough just because he’s got a tight T-shirt with STAFF printed in six-inch high letters on his back.
Well, this guy was giving me a bemused look, as if I wasn’t worthy of the dames’ attentions. He checked the girls’ licenses, and they paused right behind him after paying the $3 cover. They were waiting for Rollie and me! More so, me, because I’m the one that said funny things!
But now it was the bouncer’s turn to check my I.D. (and for all you Freudians, don’t think I’m unaware of the I.D./Id irony. The prison has a library, you know). He peered at my driver’s license for what I thought was an excessive amount of time (because the kids a few people in front of us looked like they were in high school and probably got in presenting baseball cards as their identification), then flipped it back to me and uttered the phrase that blew out my candle of sanity and wished for death.
“Here you go, Chief.”
In front of the dames, no less! I was losing face faster than a leper using Biore pore strips. So I did what I had to do, as a man.
Did I overreact? Maybe. But it was an overreaction based on reflex. Sometimes you kick your doctor in the jaw when he hits you in the knee with that little mallet. Or at least I do.
Let me put it another way. You can’t keep slapping someone in the face and then be shocked and sanctimonious when they punch you back.
Or shoot you.
I should’ve listened to what Mama used to say. She probably still says it; I wouldn’t know, she won’t take my collect phone calls. Mama always said that those who try to act hard-boiled usually end up scrambled. Only back then, I didn’t know what she meant.
Hell, I still don’t know what she meant.
You may think that a tough-talker like me got his inner child aborted with a rusty coat-hanger a long time ago. But at that moment when he called me “Chief,” I regressed back to being that skinny kid with thick glasses.
Only this time, that kid had a loaded .45.
My lawyer tried the whole nerd-ridicule defense, and though I vehemently objected to being called a “nerd” in open court, I relented when I realized it was probably my best shot. But the jury didn’t buy it. Apparently, the Oprahification of America was on the wane, as Springerization was up 25%.
Some say I should’ve gotten the death penalty. I agree.
Guess what the guards on my cell-block call me.
