Page 78 of Happiness for Beginners

Pretty soon, Windy wasn’t the only one slinging imaginary guns when she talked about—or to—me. Vegas would pass me on his way down to the kitchen, point at me with two finger guns, nod a greeting, and say, “Holdup.” When Caveman caught my eye, he’d point his two fingers at me and say “Pew! Pew!” And Jake, a.k.a. J-Dog—and lately a.k.a. Archer, for some reason I couldn’t fathom—used a finger gun to tip his imaginary ten-gallon hat.

“Why do they call you Archer?” I asked him the last morning before we reached Painted Meadow.

He dropped his shoulders. “Seriously?”

“Seriously,” I said. “Do you, like, shoot bows and arrows?”

He shook his head. “‘Archer’ is my last name. How is it possible you don’t know that?”

That didn’t seem right. “It’s your last name? I thought your last name was—” But then I couldn’t think of anything—because I’d never had any idea what his last name was, or had any interest in finding out.

“Archer,” Jake filled in. “Jacob Samuel Archer.”

“Jacob‘J-Dog’Samuel Archer.”

“Yeah,” he said, with a head shake, “that’s not my best nickname.”

He had others. Of course. “What could be better than J-Dog?”

He looked up. “My dad calls me ‘Doc.’ Then there’s ‘Big J,’ ‘J-Money,’ ‘Jaegermeister,’ ‘Cash,’ ‘Bonkers,’ ‘Ranger,’ ‘Matrix,’ ‘Half-Nelson,’ ‘Club Med,’ ‘Hawk,’ ‘Honey Badger.’”

“People call you Honey Badger?”

“Only very special people.”

“Honey Badger? Seriously?”

“Don’t let the sweet name fool you. The honey badger is utterly vicious.”

“What does Duncan call you?” I asked.

Jake thought about it. “Too many to list. He’s a nickname genius. He’s probably got a hundred.”

“Like?”

“Anything. He’ll call me anything that pops into his head. ‘Crabwalker,’ ‘Soda Can,’ ‘Big Daddy,’ ‘Mighty Max.’ He was the inventor of ‘Naked Jake.’”

“Because you were naked?” I asked. “Or because ‘naked’ kind of rhymes with ‘Jake’?”

“Both.”

“What do you call Duncan?” I asked.

Jake sighed and shook his head. “So many. Never ‘Duncan,’ that’s for sure. ‘Dunk,’ ‘Dunkers,’ ‘Dunkin Donut,’ ‘D-Train,’ ‘D-Bag,’ ‘D-lite,’ ‘Chuck,’ ‘Charles.’”

“Why Charles?”

Jake shrugged. “Because it’s not his name.”

I nodded. “So, basically, any word or non-word in the English language can function as a nickname for any reason at all.”

He nodded, like we were done, but then he added, “We do have a default though.”

“What’s that?”

“Bro.”

That was kind of sweet.

---