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| Image by Amy Bassin |
It
was starting again. His father slammed
the bedroom door so hard Nicholas could feel the vibrations travelling down the
hallway, searching for him. He jumped off the kitchen chair.
Nicholas knew those vibrations. Like lightning, they were
attracted to metal and it didn’t take a genius to know that the new kitchen set
his mother recently bought had chairs with aluminum legs.
After the vibrations wobbled the chair, the yelling
began. His mother Lucille, and his father Charlie, were now locked in their
bedroom.
Nicholas liked living in the city but when the yelling
started, he always wished he was living in the country. It wasn’t the trees or grass or fresh air
Nicholas longed for, it was a house. A big house far enough away from his
neighbors so his parents’ yelling couldn’t be heard. Everyone in the building
could hear their screaming and the next day at school Nicholas would be teased
about it.
No one called Nicholas by his given name, not even his
parents. His father was always asking, “Hey, Nick, how’s it going?” Nicholas would answer, “Things are going
swell and my name’s Nicholas, not Nick.”
That’s when his mother would laugh and say, “Lighten up, Nicky.”
The first time Nicholas realized he hated the name Nick
was one morning at the breakfast table.
Nicholas was busy scooping out raisins with his spoon when his father
burst into the kitchen. He had his hand
on his throat and blood was seeping through his fingers.
Lucille jumped up from the table. “My God, Charlie, what did you do to
yourself?”
“I didn’t do anything!
It’s these cheap razors you buy.
Even when I use a fresh blade, I nick
myself.” Charlie pulled his hand away so
his wife and son could admire his wound.
The sight was so ugly that Nicholas’ cereal stopped tasting sweet, so he
pushed it aside.
“If you stop buying such expensive liquor, I might be
able to spend more on razor blades!” shouted Lucille.
“Since when have you complained about the quality of
booze I bring into this apartment?” Charlie shouted back.
“Since it’s given you the shakes so bad in the morning
you cut your own throat!”
“Ha! You’re the
cut throat in this house!” snapped Charlie.
“How dare you say that to me, especially in front of
Nicky!” cried Lucille. But she need not have worried. Nicholas was already running down the
apartment stairs, heading for school.
As much as Nicholas disliked the name Nick, he hated
Nicky even more. It rhymed with sticky,
tricky, sicky and much worse. More than
once he was the subject of some other hot-shot fifth grader’s rap song.
Hey you little
dicky Nicky,
Clean that fat ass
so sticky
But it might be a
little bit tricky
So buy a dog to
quicky licky
You into not
smelling so icky
But be careful its
teeth don’t give you a hickey
No,
you could keep Nick and Nicky, but Nicholas he liked. It had dignity. It was a name long enough that people had to
make an effort to say it.
Nicholas tip-toed down the hallway as he made his way to
his room. He didn’t want his parents to
hear him. Despite all the loud arguing
coming from their bedroom, he still had to be careful if he didn’t want to be
detected. That’s because a strange thing
happened whenever they started their shouting matches. Whoever was doing the screaming had the
other’s complete attention. The two
voices never overlapped, never collided.
When one parent stopped yelling there’d always be a slight pause before
the other parent started in again.
It was these pauses that were dangerous. As soon as they were aware of their son’s
presence, they’d stop yelling long enough to ask Nicholas to judge which one of
them was in the right. No matter what
Nicholas said it always made things worse.
One night at the dinner table he asked his parents about
their fighting style. “Mom, Dad, how
come when you fight you never scream at the same time?”
His father straightened up in his chair. “It’s because we’re civilized people, Nick.”
His mother placed her spoon by her dish. “And we respect each other, Nicky. Your
father and I respect what the other has to say, so we listen.”
“Oh,” said Nicholas as he dipped his spoon into a cup of chocolate pudding.
New York interdisciplinary artist Amy Bassin and writer Mark Blickley work together on text-based art collaborations and experimental videos. Their work has appeared in many national and international publications as well as two books, Weathered Reports: Trump Surrogate Quotes from the Underground (Moria Books, Chicago) and Dream Streams (Clare Songbird Publishing House, New York). Their videos, Speaking In Bootongue and Widow’s Peek: The Kiss of Death represented the United States in the 2020 year-long world tour of Time Is Love: Universal Feelings: Myths & Conjunctions, organized by the esteemed African curator, Kisito Assangni.
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