No Relation (4 page)

I turned the key in my apartment door forty minutes later and plopped down on the couch. Then I shot back up again as a
tsunami of pain started in my coccyx and then washed over me. My, what a short memory I have. I discovered through trial and error that the least painful position was lying on my stomach. So I did that for a while, after popping twice the recommended dose of Advil.

She was right. Jenn, I mean. Our relationship had been not so much strained, just pallid and pale for the last two years. Whatever spark had kindled the fire early on had become so anemic that the flames petered out before I even noticed. Jenn was right. I probably knew as early as she did, perhaps even earlier. I just couldn’t bring myself to deal with it. It was easier not to. Not better, just easier. I see that now. Many relationships limp along because they’re convenient. And it’s inconvenient to do something about it, and end it. I’m very good at pursuing the path of least resistance. It’s what I’ve always done. But I’m also getting a little better at hindsight. Who knows, perhaps insight might not be far behind.

I managed to get up, put the two pillows from Jenn’s side of the bed on a kitchen chair, and with considerable care lowered myself into a pseudo-sitting position. I stared at the screen some more. Chapter 12. I was unable to find any words that worked. I knew where my story was going. I just had to look at my outline. But the words would not come. It felt like they would never come. I Googled “writer’s block” and enjoyed twenty minutes of depressing reading as I matched symptoms.

Finally, I surrendered, clicked open one of my existing Word files, and spent some time working on a taxonomy system I’ve
been developing to classify the various kinds of people who, for one reason or another, have famous names even though they are not famous themselves. Like me, for instance. It was my shrink’s idea to do the analysis and develop the model. I found it interesting, even fascinating at times. Having thought about this topic for most of my life, I felt as if I’d covered all the bases and had a pretty good handle on the different categories. I just didn’t know anyone else with a famous name to test-drive my system. I couldn’t sit on my tender tailbone any longer so I stripped down, then went to lie face down on our bed, on my bed. I reached for the phone on my night table, dialled, then I waited for the beep.

“Hi, Dr. Scott, it’s Hem. I’m hoping you’ve got some time tomorrow. That would be Thursday. I’m clear all day. Yep, all day. Look, some stuff has happened and, well, we need to talk. Just let me know when, and I’ll be there. Thanks. Bye.”

I hung up. It was only 8:30, but I was exhausted after my big and busy day. I was just drifting off when the phone rang. I assumed it was Dr. Scott. But no, my father’s name appeared in the little liquid crystal caller
ID
screen. No, no, no. No thanks. Not now. Absolutely not. I’d rather head back to the
DMV
, perhaps even with a side trip to the dog pound. Not tonight. Still, it rang. I’d been through enough already. I did not need a conversation with my father to top it all off. I already had a very big pain in my ass, thanks just the same. I just let it ring as I swallowed more Advil. I looked for a while at the empty
side of the bed Jenn had occupied for the last four years. I was feeling sorry for myself, but not really for very long. Then I assume I fell asleep, my ass still throbbing.

You’ve probably figured it out by now. Well done, if you have. And if you haven’t, well, as my former ad agency colleagues might say, “Here’s the big reveal.” My name is Earnest Hemmingway. Yes, it really is. I know, hard to believe, but true. I have absolutely no connection to the famous writer except we happen to have been born in the same city, Chicago. But that’s just a freak coincidence. Beyond that fluke of geography, there is no link. None. No relation. In fact, as I tried to explain to my nemesis at Window 10, my name isn’t even spelled the same way. I am Earnest Hemmingway. That other writer guy is just plain old Ernest Hemingway. I cling to my extra “a” and “m” to set me apart from the literary titan. Stripped of the extra “a” and “m,” his name seems simple and spare to me, like his writing. His name seems almost incomplete, abbreviated, truncated. Conversely, my name is more complex and flowing, like my writing.

It’s been hell living with a famous person’s name, even one that’s
spelled differently. It sounds the same, so to the world it is the same. When I say it’s been hell, don’t misunderstand me. I fully understand that my plight pales when stacked against world hunger, global warming, geopolitical tensions, equality of the sexes, and doping at the Olympics. I like to think I have a sense of perspective, that I can put this into a broader context. Nevertheless, this very personal burden has profoundly affected my life.

My name intrudes daily, with every person I meet. Every one. A laugh. A smirk. A glance tinged with disbelief. A snide remark. Even a well-meaning attempt at humour, without the slightest whiff of malice. It all has weight when it leans on you, day in and day out. There does not exist a line I haven’t heard. Some, very lame: “I loved your books, ha ha.” Others, more sophisticated: “Sorry about your suitcase.” I’ve heard them all. I cannot recall ever meeting someone when my name did not prompt at least some discernible reaction that would never have occurred had Bob been my handle. To make matters worse, and yes matters can be made worse, I want to be a writer, a novelist, in fact. What a cruel hand to be dealt. Sad, isn’t it? Life would be so much easier if my dream were to open a restaurant, or be a dentist, or build my own home by the ocean. I could probably handle that. Instead, because I want to write, I get jokes about shotguns for breakfast.

I truly believe I could handle living with a different famous name that had nothing to do with writing. Basil Rathbone. Richard Nixon. Charles Lindbergh. George Foreman. Bring it on! I’m not saying life would be easy with a different famous
name. Far from it. But I ask you, if you wanted to be a writer, is there a worse name to bear than mine? Come on, try.

F. Scott Fitzgerald? Not bad, but nowhere near Hemingway. Charles Dickens perhaps? Impressive, but still not quite there. These literary greats are inextricably linked to their works.

But the name Ernest Hemingway conjures up something else, something greater. He transcends his books. Simply put …

I know what you’re thinking. Just change it! Change your name! People do it all the time for a host of different reasons.

But it’s my name. I’ve had it all my life. It would be a stretch to say I like my name. In fact, I often loathe it. But it is
my
name.

Then why not use your middle name? you ask.

I don’t have one. Nor did any of the other first-born sons in the Hemmingway clan since the early part of the last century. I always thought it showed a distinct lack of creativity on the part of my great-great-grandparents.

But wait, there’s more. Here’s the kicker. I can’t stand Hemingway’s writing. I really can’t. I hate it. His spare, flat prose never fails to take something inherently interesting, or even exciting – think bull fighting or war – and make it sound, well, spare and flat. To me, the English language is something to celebrate, to explore, to splash around in. My writing, such as it is, is the polar opposite to Hemingway’s, which seems to make bearing his name even more of a burden. He haunts me. I feel him looking over my shoulder criticizing my intricate sentences, my lofty vocabulary, my swirling prose. It feels like he’s in the room with me, or at least in my head. Or perhaps I’m just obsessed, deluded, and deranged. That’s also an option.

I haven’t yet explained just how I came to carry my name. I’m no history buff, but you can’t grow up in this family and not absorb its story, if only by osmosis. My younger sister is a dedicated student of the family’s history. But I know enough to tell the tale.

While it’s rarer today, back toward the end of the nineteenth century, Hemmingway was not an uncommon name. My great-great-grandparents, Theodore and Mary Hemmingway, were Christian missionaries in China in the 1890s. What a tough existence that must have been. Every few years they returned to the west to recover, visit family and friends, and report on their success, or lack of it, in converting the rural farming communities of China to Christianity. They often brought with them strange maladies, parasites, and fevers that would lay them low for a month or two before they felt up to heading east again,
which they always did, eventually. To the extent that they had a home outside of China, it was in Boston.

In the spring of 1895, Theodore and Mary were in London on their way from China back to the United States. Miraculously, this time around, they were in remarkably good health and could really enjoy a few days in one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world, before boarding a ship for the harrowing Atlantic crossing to Boston. One night in March, the young couple was given tickets to a relatively new play that had opened the month before to rave reviews. The famous four-balcony St. James’s Theatre was located near King Street and Duke Street, a short walk from where the couple was staying. They loved the play. They laughed until they cried. They had never seen such wonderful drama in such an extraordinary theatre. It is fair to say, they were entranced by the experience. Clearly the memorable night did not end when the curtain fell, for nine months later, almost to the day, my great-grandfather was born in Boston.

The proud parents were overjoyed. To commemorate that special night they spent in London, the baby was christened Earnest Hemmingway. No middle name.

Have you figured it out yet?

The play they had so enjoyed that night in London was, of course, one of the first performances of Oscar Wilde’s
The Importance of Being Earnest
. If only Wilde had stuck to his original title for the play,
Lady Lancing
, my life, and that of my
father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, might have been entirely different. Damn Oscar Wilde.

Theodore and Mary did more than name a son that December morning in 1895. They unwittingly sowed the seeds of an idiotic family tradition that plagues me to this day. Every first-born son in the three generations that followed was also named Earnest Hemmingway. No middle name. Curse Oscar Wilde.

By the way, Ernest Hemingway – you know, the famous writer guy – well, he wasn’t even born until 1899.

In our family, the original Earnest Hemmingway, born nine months after a night at the theatre, has always been known as EH1. It follows that my grandfather became known as EH2, my father, EH3, and I, yep, EH4. I know it sounds more like a designation on a laser printer cartridge, but there you have it. It’s just so much easier to go with EH4 rather than Earnest Hemmingway the fourth. You understand.

I’m a little hazy on EH1’s childhood. I doubt it’s particularly relevant to this story anyway. But I do know that as a teenager, he worked in the garment trade in Chicago. He was an enterprising lad with an entrepreneur’s creative mind and steely nerves. He came up with an idea to improve a particular garment’s strength and quality. Rather than share it with his employer, he kept it to himself and quit the company. Within days, on the outskirts of Chi-Town in 1916, EH1 started his own fledgling operation, still known today, as it was then, as The Hemmingwear Company. The product? Underwear. Yes,
underwear for men and boys was the only offering. So what was the idea that gave rise to a four-generation family underwear empire? Well, a bit of background first.

In those days, the “ripper,” sometimes called the “yanker,” was a standard schoolyard prank. The waistband of the unwitting victim’s underwear was grasped at the back and yanked upward quickly and forcefully. Invariably, the waistband ripped apart from the rest of the underwear, hence the aptly coined term “ripper.” Across the continent, for many years, the ripper was the tactic of choice for bullies terrorizing their prey. That is, until EH1 changed the game forever.

In his spare time, EH1 developed a new cross-stitching technique that when combined with a wider waistband added considerable strength to the underwear. Throw a stronger but softer fabric into the mix, and EH1 had a winning product on his hands. Men and boys in and around Chicago loved the new product. When the new Hemmingwear underwear caught on, the ripper simply vanished, to be replaced by something arguably just as humiliating and painful, but certainly different. Instead of the waistband pulling apart from the rest of the underwear, EH1’s innovative cross-stitching held fast, wedging the garment upward between the buttocks and dangerously compressing the genitals. This usually resulted in ephemeral sopranos and excruciating pain. In EH1’s honour, the prank was initially known as the “Hemming.” However, much to his relief, a new term eventually supplanted it. It was apparently coined on a military base
somewhere in the southern United States when a new recruit was found hanging by his underwear from a fence post demarcating the munitions range. In considerable pain and in a somewhat higher-pitched voice, he declared it a “wedgie.” The name stuck.

Yes, it’s true. My cross-stitching great-grandfather put the “wedge” in wedgie.

I’m not sure whether the bullies or their victims were pleased with EH1’s innovation, but he called it the relentless march of progress.

To be fair, I’m selling old EH1 short. The new and stronger waistband was only a small part of his business savvy. He determined that the other garment companies were struggling and failing by trying to manufacture far too many different products. The manufacturing efficiencies and economies of scale could never be achieved when so many different undergarments were being produced in relatively small quantities. EH1’s genius was in sticking to a simple yet powerful business strategy: