People always wondered how Aman and I came up with our nicknames we gave each other. I’ll tell you the story. It was a hot summer afternoon in 1999? 2000? Maybe even 2001. Not too sure. It was around that period though when we hung out at Williams Coffee Pub in Richmond Hill. We hung out at many coffee joints but Williams was one where we chilled at for the longest. While we were on the patio, Aman picked up his tea - or should I say cup of sugar with a side of tea - and said, let’s walk. He went inside to get a to-go cup for his drink and we took off. Walked around the plaza and to this nearby park that I spent a lot of time at during the late hours of the day. We sat down on a bench. I sparked up a smoke and Aman sat there with one hand pushed up to the side of his face.
That was his thinking pose.
After a short pause in conversation, Aman, stated that we don’t have nicknames for each other. I asked him why did we need them? He said all the best duos had nicknames for each other so we should to. We must’ve fought over different names for more than an hour. The fight even continued when we got back into the car to head to our nightly spot, Johnny’s which was just down the street. As we got to the bar, we stopped talking about it but just like an old married couple, the fight resumed right where it left off as soon as we got back to head home. As he was dropping me off he blurted out. “That’s It! That’s It! You’re a Bitch.” I fondly told him that he was a Slut - which he agreed to, of course. We then just looked at each other and knew that was our names. He the Slut and I was The Bitch.
Over the years, we continued to call each other Bitch and Slut over and over again. In stores, bars, banks, pool halls, inside the subway, dark shady fast food joints in LA, abandoned parts of York Region at 3 in the morning while outside the car waiting to get a lift and sometimes, at the local stripper site.
However, Aman was more than that good friend I would call Slut. As someone once described someone else I knew, Imagine a kids toy where there’s holes all in different shapes and sizes. You’ll need a hammer to pound in the pegs. Got it? Now multiply those holes by a thousand.
That would be Aman’s mind. Full of different sides. Full of odd interests. Witty one-liners. Concern. Ideas. Love. Girls. Family.. Mischievousness. Wise Counsel. Starving animal. Good driver. Dog lover. And even a little bit of an old school Hip Hop head, too.
If you were lucky, You’d be able to see half off what Aman had up there. He didn’t let everyone in and those he did he held very close to his heart. True believer that friends become family and family can also be friends. You’d think someone with as a complex mind as Aman’s would have a long paragraph full of ten syllable words and quotes from renowned Greek philosophers to explain the meaning of life. But No. The Slut kept it simple. Have Fun., That was it and I know we did.
No comments:
Post a Comment