"Henry, dinner's ready," his mother says. "Henry, sometimes I worry about you. Do those friends of yours drink? Hennie, you know I only want the best for you." She calls him Hennie when she's trying to baby him. He's learned not to listen whenever that name comes up in conversation.
"Henry, you're stupid as shit, there's no way you're getting into Michigan," his brother says. "Give up while you still can, Hen." Jon probably thinks he's making a joke, that his brother won't take it as seriously because that's how boys are. They say words like daggers and pretend they're butter knives.
"Henry, you and I need to talk sometime. A man-to-man talk, you know?" His father ruffles his hair. "Your mother babies you. I don't want to treat you like that, Henry. I saw you at the basketball game yesterday. You didn't score at all. You've got to improve, Henry!"
He feels like he's going to explode some days. Some days he just wants to run away, just tear the door off its hinges and run and run and run until he's out of Detroit for good. Maybe he'd run up to Maine, where the Major is. Maybe he'd join the army and cover himself up with khaki and face paint so nobody would have to know who he was.
But he doesn't run. He grits his teeth and one day he starts writing 'Hank' on his test papers instead of 'Henry.' It's a small victory. He doesn't go home right after school anymore, he straggles on the sidelines of the makeshift games in concrete basketball courts until one day he's in the makeshift team with no questions asked.
"Hey, kid, what's your name?" A tall, wiry senior asks.
"Hank."
"Always thought Hank was kind of a baby name. How the hell'd that come from Henry anyways?"
"I dunno," Hank says. But they call him Hank. Hank the point guard. Hank the newbie. Hank has the heart of a freshie in the body of a junior, somebody says. When it gets too cold for ball Hank runs on the indoor track above the volleyball court. He stays there until the gym closes and the janitor barks at him to scram.
"One of my friends said you played ball with him." Jon walks into his room without knocking. "Said you're pretty good. He said you make everybody call you Hank now. What the hell do you think you're doing, playing with seniors?"
"I like basketball, man. That's all."
When he gets his driving permit, he has to drive Jon's car, a big old Chevy. He finds Jon's pack of cigarettes in the glove compartment that he thinks were hidden well, and has his first smoke in that car. He hacks and wheezes, but he keeps it in his mouth for the whole drive back, with a Blink-182 song playing from the stereo and the Michigan frost fogging up the windows.
His seventeenth birthday card is addressed to 'Henry.' For a moment, he almost thinks he's gotten somebody else's birthday card.
It hits him that he's almost a senior and hasn't done anything with a girl yet. He dates a girl named Mary for about a month. She kisses him on the cheek a lot, and says his freckles are like stars. He says he's got freckles everywhere if she'd like to see and winks. She calls him gross. They break up a few weeks later because in truth, he wasn't sure he really wanted to do anything with a girl. But he tells her it was because she was a stuck-up bitch. It feels kind of nice to watch something crash and burn like that.
College apps start coming up. Give up while you still can, Jon's voice says. Hank doesn't look at any applications. Instead, he looks up the application date for the Long Walk.
It's easy enough. A physical, an essay, and bam, you're in. His parents don't even cry. Jon asks him if he's finally lost his fucking mind. It's remarkable how little of a shit any of them give. He writes 'Hank Olson' on top of his essay, and when the blond fitness coach in the physical asks his name he says 'Hank.'
When the perfect results come back, his parents don't notice. But Jon does. "For once in your life, I guess you did it right, Hank." Jon claps him on the back.
It's only when he's dying that Hank realize that his brother was making fun of him.
Oh, Olson. I love you and your stifled inferiority complex.