Merriton

“I brought him along. Hope you don’t mind.” Tank was at Curly’s door, but he had that Chinese guy with him. What was his name? Olympic skiier? No, Tank told him that was a lie. He was workin’ with Roscoe, though. Every Wednesday, the two of ‘em came to into the Cafe to eat. Oh yeah… he was the guy who thought of naming the cafe. Nice guy. What’s he saying?

“…I just got to get stronger, ’cause I’m gonna have to be a farmer soon. I’ve got plenty of leg strength from the skiing, but I need to build up my arms and chest. Tank says you have weights…”

The little guy was still standing on Curly’s doorstep. Curly recovered and welcomed him in, “Sure, come on in! It’ll be like a party.” Curly looked into his empty house. Angie was still at the cafe, balancing the books. The two of them had decided that it would be helpful to Tank to have a couple days a week with Curly to lift weights. Adding this little guy to mix didn’t hurt things.

Tank led the way to the basement. “They’re down here, Kevin.” Oh yeah, his name is Kevin. Man, who can remember a name like that? He didn’t look like a Kevin. Curly followed the two of them down to his basement. “This is where me and my biceps live.” Tank was acting like he knew everything about weight lifting. How long had it been? The kid’s a pro now. “Have you ever done this before.” Kevin’s face was a dark brown except a ring of yellow around each eye. Raccoon eyes from skiin’ on the mountain every day.

“I had a personal trainer when I was in San Francisco, but that didn’t really work out.” Kevin looked around the unfinished basement walls. The roof was low and Curly always had to watch his head. Whenever he did his squats, he had to make sure that he was positioned between the floor joists. This guy fit under them all and didn’t even notice the low ceiling. He just walked beneath them without a care. “I’m not looking to get big. I don’t need to be big. I just need to be strong.”

Curly loaded a ten pound plate on each side of the bar and got into the spotting position. “Let’s see whatcha got, then.” Thirty-five pounds. Fifteen pounds for the bar and ten pounds on each side. Would this little guy be able to press that? Kevin got on the bench and grasped his hands on the bar. Curly kept his hands under the bar just in case the little guy couldn’t bring it back up. Roscoe would be mighty angry with him if his new ranger came back to him with a black eye. “That’s too light. I don’t know how this works, but when I was at the gym before, they had me on the machines and I set the weight to seventy-five. How does that compare with real weights?” Curly shook his head. Seventy-five pounds? There’s no way that little guy could do seventy-five pounds. Heck, that was just shy of what that guy weighed.

“I don’t think they match. How about if we try fifty-five?” Curly added ten pounds to each side and Kevin tried again. “That’s better, but still not as much as they had me doing back…” He didn’t say it, but Curly could almost hear it. Home. San Francisco is back home. What does that make Merriton? What’s the point of taking that ranger job if he wasn’t gonna stay long enough to call Merriton home?

“Let’s try sixty-five.” Curly took off the plates and replaced them with a twenty-five pound plate on each side. They tried again and Kevin smiled. “That’s more like it.” He started doing his bench presses, resting between the sets. He traded off with Tank, who commented, “I’ve been workin’ out for a while now and I’m only doing sixty-five on my bench presses. You’re strong, Kevin. What were you worried about?” Tank grunted under the weight. Actually, Tank worked up to seventy-five, but maybe he wanted to take it easy this week.

Kevin watched Curly spot Tank. “I don’t know. I thought guys like you could all bench one-fifty or something.” Tank snorted under the weight of his final reps. “Curly can, but he’s been doin’ this all his life.” Curly shook his head. “I only do one-fifteen.” Kevin switched with Tank and started counting out his reps. “It’s just that I feel so powerless here. Doesn’t help that those Emigration kids keep calling me ‘chink.’ I’m just glad none of them have heard of ‘FOB.’ I’d have to pummel them if they started calling me that.” The little guy grunted under the weight and put the bar on the rests, leaving Curly with his hands hanging in the spotting position for no reason.

Kevin swung up and sat on the bench with his forearms resting on his quads. “Jesus, Curly. How come they never bug you? Is it just because you’re big? I’ve never heard them call you anything like they call me a chink. Are they scared you’ll just kill them ’cause you’re so big?”

With just a few sentences, a wave of self-consciousness washed over Curly. It was like he felt like he had suddenly changed from a normal guy to a black guy. He was always conscious of his skin color. He had no shame of being black, but after years of just being Curly, he was suddenly some black guy again. He looked down at his hands and suddenly they were black hands instead of just his hands. He could see himself the way that little Chinese guy could see him. Curly shook his head and tried to answer.

“They used to make fun of me…” He pointed at Kevin, motioning for him to get up so Tank could take his turn. He concentrated on the spotting position while Tank counted out his reps. “Well, THOSE kids never made fun of me, but their older brothers did.” The memory of those years at high school up in Emigration made his stomach turn and he started to realize what that little… no, what Kevin was feeling. Tank asked, “So how did you deal with ‘em? You just pop ‘em? Sometimes I wanna pop ‘em…”

Curly shook his head, “No. I never fought ‘em. My mama told me once that if anyone gave me a nickname that I was supposed ta just nod and say, ‘I like that name. You should call me that from now on.’ So, no matter what stupid name they called me I just said that.” Kevin shook his head, “Even the N-word? You said that if they called you the N-word?” Tank finished his reps and let Curly put the bar back on the rests. “Yeah, but they only called me that once. They just kept tryin’ different nicknames like Black Sambo and a bunch of others that didn’t stick. Then one day I shaved off all my hair and they called me Curly and I said, ‘I like that name. You should call me that from now on.’ But that time, they really did and I’ve been Curly ever since. Sometimes, I wanna grow out my hair, but I just keep shavin’ my head so they’ll keep callin’ me Curly, even though all those guys are long gone.”

Kevin smacked Tank’s shoes and took his place on the bench. Curly kept talking. “Funny thing is, you don’t get to pick your own nickname. They’ve gotta give you one. It’s like we’re all tryin’ to make pets out of each other and we’re not comfortable unless we get to name ‘em.”