Spanking Shakespeare
17 Down What’s In A Name? It’s hard to imagine what my parents were thinking when they decided to name me Shakespeare. They were probably drunk, considering the fact that my father is an alcoholic and my mother gets loopy after one glass of wine. I’ve given up asking them about it because neither of them is able to remember anything anymore, and the stories they come up with always leave me feeling like it might not be so bad to dig a hole in the backyard and hide out there until I leave for college next year. That is, if I get into college.
My mom used to tell me that she and my father put the names of history’s greatest writers and artists and musicians into a bowl and decided I would be named for whoever they pulled out. “I was hoping for van Gogh,” she said.
“Didn’t he cut his ear off?” I asked.
“Yes,” my mother said dreamily, stroking the side of my face. “To give to the woman he loved.”
My dad remembers that he and my mom always talked about giving me an “S–H” name to match the “S–H” of our last name, S ...
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