It is not surprising that, as the first
son of two parents with southern roots, I would end up with the nickname of
'Junebug'. The name is a southern corruption of "junior", which my
being named after my father, is what I am.
I was very comfortable with the name at
home, because it was the only name I had ever
known until I started going to school. I found that after beginning
kindergarten, I was extremely uncomfortable with and embarrassed
by the name outside of home and neighborhood. (Chalk up the ‘why’ of this
embarrassment I felt to the cruelty children in the same less-than-ideal
circumstances often display to one another.)
In fact, I would keep a name secret from
my school friends (and later, college and work) until I was at least twenty-five!
At school, as 'Curtis', I was shy,
withdrawn, and very, very quiet. At home, as 'Junebug', I was a lot more
talkative, hyperactive, and with a non-stop, steady stream jokes (mostly bad)
that my father encouraged by laughing at every single one. These two personas would
not merge for many, many years, only when I was finally comfortable with my
home life and public life both being me, and I was not uncomfortable with
people from those two environments finding out about the other 'me'. My being
comfortable with all of aspects of my own personality was a very important lesson, was one that my uncle
Mac Willie helped me learn.
Because of him, each of us had another personality, one of surprising
dignity, which he foisted on us with quiet force whenever he came to visit.
How did he do this? Mac Willie insisted on
referring to us only by our middle names.
First let me digress: One of my earliest
memories of starting school for the first time (not referring to my hysterical
crying and clinging to the teacher's desk leg) was learning that my real name is actually 'Curtis' and not
'Junebug'. This revelation was something of a personal shock, one with which I
was forced to contend. As I was always terrified at school while being called
'that name', I became withdrawn, and a new personality was invoked whenever it
was used. At home, of course, I was still called 'Junebug', where I was much
more comfortable, so that became an identity separate from the one I had at
school.
Mac Willie called me 'McKinley', my middle
name, and with that name came still another
personality, one that he fostered and moreover, expected. When
Mac Willie came over, the running, jumping around, and giggling had to stop. Shirts
had to be tucked in (even if he had to do it himself), hair had to be combed,
faces clean, and postures erect.
Responses had to come quickly, audibly (no
mumbling!), and spoken correctly, or tickling (exclusively for me, since I was
very ticklish) and shoulder punches (for my brothers) resulted, if you were a
boy, with strong admonishments for the girls. (Mac Willie, actually an
average-sized, spare man of slight but energetic build and dark skin, had also
been known for his extraordinarily strong grip, something that, as
impressionable young boys, amazed my brother and me.)
By treating us in this fashion, and
using only our middle names, Mac Willie gave us a quiet, calming
level of dignity. These strange names
baffled us, so much so that each of us had to run to our quietly amused
parents, always hovering in the background, to ask who 'McKinley', 'George', or
'Howard' was. My father would laugh, get down on one knee at 'kid' level and say,
"That's you, Junebug. McKinley
is your middle name."
Being called by this strange name
‘McKinley’ made me feel
strange in return. Not like silly Junebug, or shy, withdrawn Curtis, but
something else, something somehow more important, more dignified, special
and most of all, more mature. It gave me something I had lacked, the confidence
to express all of the (creative?) voices growing inside me.
After his initial inspection, Mac Willie
would relax, laugh, talk loud, and tell old stories about our parents that had
occurred in a time incomprehensibly before we existed. He
talked (if only a little bit) about his own life, but never his own children. (In
fact, we didn't even know he had any until we were young
adults. Mac Willie did not share the close relationship with his own family
that he did with us.)
The 'middle name' thing continued until we
were all adults, well past the trauma of the 'Hundred Dollars'. (That's another
story.)
By the end of his life, Mac was bitter,
old, and, not surprisingly, abandoned by his own adult children. Oddly, the two
groups of us (his children and my siblings and I) though related, have never
met, not even at his funeral. We were unaware if they knew about
us, and if they did, were they or had they been jealous, resentful, or not. Our
parents never did give us too much detail about Mac's own family, other than
that he had had a falling out with their mother many years previously.
The nursing home he spent his last days in
was on 18th street, not far from the condominium I used to live in
downtown. Every Saturday, I would walk
down there and visit him, and each time it took him quite a while to recognize
me, but he still had that hellishly strong grip. I would take him magazines to
read, which he never touched, and a chess set, but he didn't want to play any
longer. On some Saturdays, my father and brother would accompany me, and in his
dark, depressing room, we would sit with him for a few hours, where we would do
all of the talking. Mac would just stare out of the cloudy window of his small
dark room, a room that smelled of sadness, capitulation, despair. Basically, he’d
just given up on life.
One day, I had to call my folks to tell
them that Mac Willie had passed. (I'd gone down to visit him, and his room was
being cleaned.) The day Mac Willie died was a sad day for all us, but especially
for my brother Nate and me. Mac had a profound influence on us in many, many
ways, especially on me, because Mac and I had had a lot in common. (Mac, who
was ‘bookish’, had encouraged me to read even more than I already did, learn to
play chess, and to study calculus as a pastime.) He also gave me my very first
set of books – the old Time Life Natural
Library and Science Library series.)
He taught me it was okay to blend all my personas in to one, and, more
importantly, that it was OK to be me, and defend myself against
all comers. He also taught me it was okay to be strong, and even loud and
outspoken from time to time!
I think of all my siblings, my brother and
I miss Mac Willie the most.
