It was my friend Meyers who came up with Ocho. He's former military and can't get out of the habit of going by his last name. I think his first name is Grady. Anyway, we were all working a yard, which is what I do by the way, cut grass, weed-eat, trim trees, "landscaping" is just a term used as a way of softening the actual menial tasks, and Meyers says, "Manny, you ain't the same since you lost your fingers. Everytime you give me the 'OK' sign, you shoot me the finger!" Everybody laughed but it was true. Everytime I gestured "OK" it came out "Fuck You". Now I only give the thumbs up.
Meyers says "Your tough now. Quiet. Without those fingers you look like a shop teacher. But bad ass. You need a nickname like 'Fingers Mendez' or "Three Fingers Manny'. But you actually got eight." And here I saw his eyes sparkle, like the divine hand of inspiration waved above him. "We can call you 'Eight-Man'. You can get an eight-ball tattooed on your arm. No one's gonna mess with you, man. No one's gonna mess with Eight-Man, Ocho Mendez." And that's how it happened. From then on, I was Ocho. The whole crew that was there that day ate it up. It just spread like the flu, it spread in the air. Everyone I knew, even old friends, started calling me Ocho. It was as unstoppable as night. Nowadays, I don't even think anybody remembers me as Manny. Thank God "Eight-Man" never caught on.
The only reason I bring all this up is because this is how I got my nickname, Ocho. Ocho means 8 in Spanish. Some people laugh. They think its funny that my nickname is the same as the amount of fingers that I have. Others don't laugh. These people think its cruel to give someone a nickname based on their disability. Like calling a guy with no right arm Lefty or a chick with one leg shorter than the other Eileen. It stopped bothering me a long time ago.
I lost the ring finger and pinky on my right hand in a bar fight seven years ago. I wasn't actually in the fight. I was just drinking the way I always did in those days when a fight broke out between two men that had been mouthing off to each other for most of the night. Everyone was waiting for it to happen.
When the two men finally came to blows the place emptied out like a firedrill and the owner, Franklin, called the police. I was far too drunk to talk to the police, my details of the evening limited to the number of beers I had had and even that was probably inaccurate, so I made a dash toward the exit.
Call it what you will, bad luck, karma, an inevitable occurrence, a slow, subconscious whittling away of the self, but when the two men, brothers I think considering their ferociousness, began wrestling each other to the ground, I was hit from behind and was flung forward into a glass display case with bowling and dart trophies, banners of home teams and a bobblehead figure of Derek Jeter.
I tried to stop myself from crashing into the case but my hand went through the glass. I don’t remember hearing anything except the brothers yelling at each other, something about "the couch", and I don’t remember feeling anything but a fervor to escape.
As I pulled my hand out of the case, bowling trophies falling like pins, yes, I felt a pressure, like my fingers had been bent backward, but I thought they were only broken. I saw blood and then I ran. I ran out the door. I could hear Franklin calling after me, yelling something, but one of the brothers shouts, this time "fucking reject!", drowned him out.
It was December and it was cold and as I ran out I held my hand and felt the blood hot, making the front of my jacket wet, warming my pants. I thought for awhile I had pissed myself. I got to my car and fumbled for the keys. My drunken stupor had been replaced by a panicked stupor. I looked down at my hand to see how bad it was.
When I saw that my ring finger was barely attached my panic turned ino fear. When I didn't see my pinky, I threw up. After that all I remember is the sound of police cars and the way I couldn't stop crying.
