Feral Little Savage

Nicknames can be fitting, or not. We knew one guy we nicknamed “Sputz” only because it sounded silly. Saying Sputz nearly makes the spittle come flying out of your mouth. Sputz signified nothing. I think we called him that for a month and a half until we became bored with it.

I have several, all given by others, as you are NOT allowed to nickname yourself. Over the years I've been called, Barroter, FangFace, May, Perfesser, Animal, Ronimal. FangFace was cruel. As my adult teeth came in, the right upper canine came in a bit above and over-hung the others. I did have a singular “fang” that was prominent. It has since relocated to a point where you'd have to really look to notice any unusual positioning of it. But when your a young teen, your peers do and say things that would make a Japanese WW2 POW prison commandant blush. Perhaps the worst nickname I heard, given in typical teen maliciousness, was “The Missing Link” to a kid I barely knew in high school. The poor kid, going through puberty, which doesn't make things better at times, had perhaps, not the most handsome face that a teen boy could have. Flat black hair, thick glasses that distorted his eyes when you looked at them and a mouth that pooched out due some weird jaw genetics. Ok, in a word, he was ugly, but that moniker was mean in my estimation.

What strikes me about Ronimal and Animal was that I was given those two nicknames by people who never knew each other. Add to that, it was decades apart. Hmmm...there must be something there for two groups of people, in very different times, to come up with such similar nicknames.

“Animal” was given to me when I was 15 due to my behavior in gym class. I wasn't then, nor now, any good at sports that had rules, methods or anything else that regulated it. That needs coordination and that I had little of. What sports I did excel in and loved, were any that were a free for all. No rules, no regulations and anything goes. “MurderBall” was one of my favorites. You know this game, divide up a bunch of kids into two teams, throw out 25 basketballs and the object is to hit the other guy with a ball and disqualify him from the game. I was great at it! I loved it! I loved it so much that apparently the look upon my face was of wild abandon. I could rampage across the floor as much as I liked. Most times, I won it. I was the last guy left standing. Why did I like it? I suppose because I could do any damn thing I wanted on that floor. No rules! No laws! When I was “deregulated” I was at my best and the real talent could show forth. If I could get my adrenalin flowing in torrents, God did I enjoy the feeling. I might have made a good Viking raiding a village?

You know, thinking on it, there was a third person who considered me an animal as well, my bitchy neighbor Mrs Crabbitz. Mrs. Crabbitz and my Mom never did get along and they would have bickering, wifey disputes at times. Mrs Crabbitz sneered at my Mom's lack of housekeeping skills and my Mom loudly denounced Crabbitz's self-appointed Queen Bee status of the neighborhood.

I think were were around 13, when Jim and I decided to have our own light saber duel in my driveway using...are you ready?...axes. We two were play fighting but with dangerous tools. That made it more “fun” and thrilling you know. We both weren't trying to cleave one another's skulls open, just make the tools hit, clank and thump and we would parry the weapons off one another. Stupid? Yep. Hair raising? Yep. As we were doing it, Jim hit my axe pretty hard as I was trying to swing, deflecting it right into Mrs Crabbitz's little white fence that separated our driveway from her yard. It bit the fence deep enough where I had to twist and yank on it to pull it off. As I was doing this, guess who's looking through her curtains, Mrs. Crabbitz. Shit...

So...the yelling erupts, getting my Mom to come to the door to bitch back to Crabbitz.

“Oh for God's sake...they're BOYS!” my Mom yelled. God...this could only happen in the past when we kids weren't really chaperoned too well. Today? Axes? Making Evel Knievel ramps for our bikes? BB gun wars with guns that weren't dry fired? Ugh...no fun with supervised play dates with helicopter parents now, is there? Where has all the amusement gone?

Crabbitz in the end says, referring to me and as a final fuck you to my Mom: “He should be LOCKED up in a cage!”

Cages are meant of animals...aren't they?

Now the nickname Ronimal was given to me couple of years ago. This is odd because I'm pretty damn sedate now, being in my 50's, compared to when I was a 15 year old kid. The idea of sitting down appeals to me now at my age. So does wrapping up my knee with an Ace bandage when I feel it needs it. I don't go on sprees too much anymore and yet, I was adorned with the nickname.. Hmm? Perhaps now, I am an animal at heart still? God knows how I betray and telegraph those traits in me that I had so long ago?