When my son was about six or so, after his dad and I had separated, he went to visit his dad's family for a weekend and came back asking me "Why does Nani call my dad 'Butch' and why do the cousins all him 'Uncle Butch'?"
I braced myself to answer. First, I thanked God that he asked me this question without the judge and jury composed of my ex-in-laws who were the Brooklyn-Italian-Lithuanian version of "the Waltons." For some reason, the matriarch (my ex-mother-in-law, who my son fondly calls "Nani") continued to call her brood (five kids!) by all of their infantile nicknames well into their 40s. I realize it's common - but there's something jarring about a 45 year old woman being called "Dodie" and a 55 year old man being called "Butchy." I won't even tell you the other ones. I know - families do it - and mine was dysfunctional and it's probably cute and endearing in some circles - and I can't blame my mother-in-law (although I'd like to) for carrying on the tradition - her cousins were known to her children, afterall, as "Aunt Chubby" (she must have been really popular with the boys!), "Aunt Chicky" (she was very unpopular with the other Aunts, MILF that she was), and one of the Uncles was "Uncle Junior" (because his real name was Alfred and his brother's name was Albert - so they didn't want to get them confused by calling them both "Al.") Needless to say, when my ex-husband and I first saw "The Sopranos" and realized that Tony's favorite Uncle was also named "Uncle Junior" - affectionately called "Uncle Joon" - we looked at each other with a glance that said "Let's pack for Canada now." (But we never did, and the rest is history).
Not to digress - when Dylan (a/k/a "Zimmerman" in the blogosphere) asked me about the nickname, I didn't tell him the truth - that it shocked me when I first heard his dad called "Butch" as well. It was long after we met (when I hired him as an evening word processor because I thought the staff needed some tortured playwrights other than me, the tortured poet posing as an office manager) and just after we started dating. We were really into each other. I remember the evening well; he had invited me to the bowels of New York (before Times Square was the "New" Times Square, when walking to 43rd and 10th was known as "deathwish"). A staged reading of one of his plays was going to take place. I had never been to a staged reading, and was so looking forward to hearing his word read aloud by professional actors. I somehow made it to the 10th floor of a poorly ventilated building to the assigned room where I saw what I thought were two vagrants sleeping outside the door. Turning away because I thought I was in the wrong place, one of them said "Oh - are you here for the reading? It's in there."
My son's father (whose name I'll omit because he'll lawyer up and try to sue me if I don't - or at least send me a 5-page email telling me I exhibited poor taste) was there, busy directing the "actors" (a motley crew, one of whom I swore I saw the night before on "America's Most Wanted") so a college friend of his approached me. "You must be Vicki," he said, "I'm Michael. Butch and I roomed together in college. He's doing really well you know. Did you know that he got an NEA grant last year and didn't tell anyone for six months?"
I was somewhat confused.
"Who is Butch?," I asked.
"The playwright," he said, looking at me like I was nuts.
"Butch?," I said again.
"OH," Michael said, "you probably didn't know that was his nickname. I grew up in the same town he did...that's what we called him...I realize it's kind of something you'd call a ..."
"DON'T SAY IT," I stopped him, "please. I know where this is going."
Since I was already into him - I pushed the nickname out of my mind, and we went on to fall in love, get married, and have a baby.
Of course, the rest is history; we later separated and divorced...there were way too many problems...I won't bore anyone with the details (at least not in this blog).
But in retrospect, I wonder if there was any correlation between the fact that we started spending more and more time with his family after Zimmerman was born...and hearing him called "Butch" by "ReRe" and "Dodie" and the others had any impact on the demise of our relationship...
Ridiculous, I know...but a name by any other rose might not smell as sweet, n'est-ce pas?
"Aunt Chubby", you slay me. LOL
Posted by: Frank Jinglewski | March 08, 2009 at 02:04 PM