The Origin of My Name
JoeyJoJoJrShabadoo
I wasn't always Joey Jo-Jo. There was a time during adolescence, around age 5 or 6 if I can trust this old memory of mine, when people simply called me Joey. You don't get teased with a name like that. My dad was named Joseph and he was a well-respected member of our little community in Springfield. I was, and still am to be honest, proud to take his name. I was going to be Joey for awhile, then Joe, and finally after I became an adult I'd settle into Joseph. So what happened? Well, my father died when I was still just a child and so my mother, her heart breaking and her voice crackling when she spoke my name, decided to call me Jo-Jo instead. So at home I was Jo-Jo and at school I was just Joe. I wasn't really old enough to be called Joe yet, but after my dad died my teachers decided I had earned a little maturity.
Joe Shabadoo. That was me at age 10. I wouldn't say I was cool or popular. I was a bit of a loner actually. If my mother had let me buy that black leather jacket I had begged her for I would have been even more of a badass. But she didn't and so during the recess at school you could find me leaning coolly against a tree, my Steelers jacket bristling in the September breeze. And then something happened. I had met a girl named Sarah who was the love of my life. Well, not love—I think I was still a bit too young to know what love was. But I liked her a whole lot. I think if we were a few years older I might have even kissed her instead of just punching her arm.
I invited her home to dinner with my family and that was when, my face cringing and turning crimson, my mom called me Jo-Jo. Sarah laughed, then tried to cover it up with a not-so-subtle cough, and then she bit her lower lip, trying with dubious success to stifle the giggles. Dinner was fine after that—lasagna and garlic bread. Typical for my family, but still a meal I always enjoy. I knew something was up, however, when as Sarah turned to go home, she shyly said 'Goodnight' and whispered, almost to herself, 'Jo-Jo', and then winked mischievously.
School was pretty awful the next day as Sarah had told everyone my name and for the rest of the day they jeered me on with the same taunts, making fun of my name: 'There goes Joey Jo-Jo Jr!' I was livid with Sarah and yet I still liked her enough that I, probably foolishly, tried to convince myself that she had not meant for everyone else to make fun of me. Still, we were broken up by the end of recess and, as I leaned with my back against that same old tree, I had never felt more alone.
I grew older and so did my classmates but the ridicule never ended. I begged my mother to home-school me, or even move away to a different school district, but she wasn't having any of it. She kept telling me that I was named after my father and that there was no shame in that. She didn't realize they were making fun of me, and not my dead father though. So the years passed and I grew even more alone, more bitter, more tired. The only place I could find comfort was, cliché as it sounds, at the bottom of a mug of beer.
I met a fellow by the name of Barney while I was making my regular rounds at the local pubs, who really took me under his wing and made me realize that I was more than just a name. So pretty soon Barney, and yes even Moe, were like the family I never had—if you can ignore the drunken brawling and nightly alcohol-induced vomit-comas. Yes, it was a good life. Until a fellow by the name of Homer Simpson came into Moe's and began to ridicule me once more.
I had never even met him! And yet there he was, him and even Moe, making fun of my particular name just as if it were grade school all over again. So I dropped my mug and, crying into my hands, ran out the door and into the night. The next morning I went to the courthouse and plead my case to the judge wherein I was finally allowed to change my name. From now on I would be Max Power.