Why they call me the Ice Man.

“What is in a nickname?
Would the Fonze, by any other name,
be just as cool?�
-Bill “The Man� Shakespeare.

I’ve never been the kind of guy that has a nickname. I mean I’d like a nickname, but I can’t just go up to my friends and say, “Hey I want a nick-name. So, think one up and get back to me, or I’ll have to just do it myself.� It’d never go over. With good reason I suppose. Nicknames aren’t just something you can just go out and get; you have to earn them somehow. It seems like there are two kinds of guys that earn nicknames. There are the ones like Fonzie that kind of earn a nickname because of an inside joke and yet are still left on the outside. I mean here’s this thirty-something drop out that just cares about his hair and dances like a Prussian and hangs out in the bathroom of the local malt shop. What else could he be but the Fonze you know? His is a life so vacant he is oblivious to just how absurd he appears to those around him. Like there was this guy that used to hang out at the roller skating rink when I was a kid. Everybody called him Lizard. I mean he was in his late twenties maybe older. He had this little mustache you know. And he could roller skate really good like a living legend or something. But, then you like pull back for a second and think about it, and it’s just like what a loser. You know? That’s one kind of nickname. And, I can say I am glad I haven’t earned myself a nickname in that camp. The other general nickname is the one that you earn because you really are cool, not the Fonzie cool you know where you’re trying to be cool. But, the other kind of cool where you really are cool or mellow or just yourself you know and you cha-ching earn a nickname. These are the ones like Hawkeye on Mash. I knew this guy at camp that everybody called Booger. I mean he was cool you know. And, it’s like if you said Booger everybody knew whom you were talking about, but if you called him by his real name, which I think was John, everybody would just be like John who. Then, I guess between the two general types of nicknames there is like a spectrum of nicknames that are neither meta-cool nor cool. I would include among them nick-names of old blues musicians and gangsters, the professional nick-names like Blind Lemon or Mack the Knife or Billy the Kid. Then there’s also the weird world of women’s nicknames. They don’t happen too often and are only seen on the fringes of society—perhaps, in the military or on a sports team or even among the sub-culture-alternative-lifestyle set. These are the nicknames like Jiz or Hot Lips or perhaps Tits. That reminds me of this woman I knew named Wendy but everybody called her Blondie, I guess because of the band or something. But, she’d always say, “Rock Hard Tits Out� instead of “Good-bye�. I mean what are you supposed to say to that? Does a simple “Rock on� suffice? Anyway, the last little subset of nicknames is the non-committal types. These are the ones like Gentle Ben or Big Tom or even Little John. Or, like when you call a guy by his last name. These nicknames still include the person’s name. So, it’s not a totally true to life nickname. But it’s still kind of a nickname. Once, I tried to start a nickname for this guy I knew. His name was Tony, and he was a little fat. Not bad fat, he carried it well. He was a vegan actually, but he pretty much lived off fast food somehow. Anyway, I once tried out the nickname Fat Tony on him, you know from Fat Tony Domico on the Simpsons, but I think it hurt his feelings. The other weird thing about nicknames is there’s either like a whole bunch of people with nicknames in a group or there’s like just one maybe. This is kind of the way I imagine it would be in the military. Like everybody would have a nickname. There’d be Rocco the machine gunner and Red the demolitions guy and like Iggy the radio guy. I think this is also the way it was in some Indian tribes. They’d like get a generic name when they were born or something, and then when they got older they would earn a nickname like Crazy Horse or Sitting Bull or even Geronimo (which is not even an Apache word). The fact this nicknaming process differs with differing cultures raises all sorts of existential questions. When is your name really your name anyhow? Is it once you can say it or know what it means or when someone else says it? Do you have to be able to write or spell it before it’s really yours? What’s really in a name? I don’t know. Take my name for instance. I like my name, Ben. To my ear it sounds round and perhaps slightly rubberized like it could bounce… growing up with the name there were always the quasi-nicknames thrown at it. E.g. Gentle Ben, Benji, Bennie, Ben-Jamm’n, Big Ben… then there’s the diminutives like Ben Gay and Ben Dover. They never loose their appeal. I think my full name comes from the Bible. It translates roughly into either “the boy who hides the petroleum jelly� or “Son of my right hand� depending on the context. There was a time that I didn’t like my name. I don’t know why I didn’t like my name—I was a teenager. I think maybe it was because Ben doesn’t sound literary enough. I wanted a solid, novel-writing name like Ernest or Victor or Walker, you know. I think I realized I was pretty much screwed by my last name. You know how everybody calls novelist by their last names like they met in the locker room before P.E. “Hey, Faulkner pick up the slack. You’ve got six more laps around the gym.� Or “Hemingway! Get your ass over to the dodge ball court, pronto. Kafka and Poe are giving Nabokov the beating of his life.� Us Roberts tend to hide away in illustrations and rules of meetings. We readily acknowledge our last name’s inability to support a novel or sculpture. I mean did Faulkner or Kafka even have a first name? If they didn’t I don’t know what it is. And, Ernest Hemingway, I mean jeez it wasn’t enough that he had two bitch’n names just handed to him the minute he was born, he went and got himself a nickname on top of that… And, “Papa� is just such a cool nickname; it’s so full of confidence and hubris it makes me want to puke. Hear me now Nicknameous! God of nicknames, Lord of unoriginal puns! Truly your majesty is deserving of an altar in a bathroom somewhere. Your might has crushed kingdoms and canceled TV shows. Your wisdom is like the near-sighted serpent that knows shit from shinola with but a flick its tongue. Grant me but one real honest to goodness nickname, and I shall sacrifice something from the thrift store in your honor. Please make it kind of a cool nickname to. My humble suggestions are Lazer, Ice Man, or Hollywood.
Sincerely,
One boringly named person.