My sister had shown up after we’d finished dinner – jerk chicken, rice and peas, and something called callaloo with pieces of festival. I swear I could eat that every day and never grow sick of it, so much so that I’d asked Gloria for the recipes. It looked complicated, but damn if it wasn’t worth the effort – and were sitting eating Johnnycake. It was Bond who’d let her in and who was the one to catch her when she tripped over her own feet when she saw Gloria’s hair and had then shot a glare at Maude.
We’d all sat down talking and Gloria had filled my family in on where her family was from in Jamaica, the history of Port Royal and how half of it sank into Kingston Harbor in 1692, its links to Captain Morgan (the Captain Morgan and his pirates), and then how Dolf’s family had fled from Germany to America during the first world war, and how his grandfather was named Adolf but changed it to Dolf after Hitler started his reign of terror and fucked upness, so he and his father were named Dolf without the A because of that.
Hearing this, my brothers had started bitching about my parent’s choice of names for us and how they’d have preferred Dolf and Gloria to name us. And thus began the old Crew name conversation.
-“This isn’t fair,” Major had snapped, glaring at Mom and Dad. “They all have kick ass names and we’re stuck with our messed up crap.”
Not realizing that she was opening a door that needed badly to remain locked tight, Gloria had innocently asked, “Where did you get their names from, Katherine?”
Maude had started laughing, and hadn’t stopped when both my parents had glared at her.
“Major got Major because he’s a major pain in the ass,” Ammon had snickered, swallowing a mouthful of beer at the same time Major punched him in the arm.
Ignoring the impending war between her sons, Mom replied, “Well, when I was pregnant, we decided we wanted to merge my grandfather’s name with Paul’s grandfather’s. Mine was named Martin and his was Jordan, so we decided on Major.”
“She just doesn’t want you to know the truth,” Ammon had snickered.
“Oh yeah, and what about your name? Did she have a craving for gammon? Or maybe she really preferred salmon and didn’t want people to call you fishy,” Major growled. “Here fishy, fishy!”
Ammon’s whole body had tensed up through this, and I’d chanced a glance at the Klines to see them all watching it with amusement.
Like her sons weren’t about to get into a smack down versus raw fight, Mom continued, “With Ammon it was a bit more problematic. I’d wanted to name him Ryan, but I had a hard labor with him and after he was born, Paul had gone out and gotten rip-roaring drunk. We’re talking beyond snockered,” she added, glaring at Dad. “Anyway, because I was still recovering, he filled in the forms and couldn’t remember the name we’d chosen, so he looked up at the television and saw the reporter’s name was Ammon.”
Tipping his head back to look at the dark sky, Ammon had muttered, “Fuck my life.”
Throughout all of this, Maude was sitting laughing herself silly as she continued drinking her beer. When she looked up and saw me watching her, she shrugged a shoulder and took another big mouthful from the bottle.
Gloria had been fully invested in this story at this stage, so she ignored my brothers who were trying to silently goad each other into a fight and asked, “What about Katarianne?”
“Dad was probably too drunk to spell catamaran,” Major said sarcastically, and had then given me a small smile of apology.
“That one was on me, too,” Dad sighed. “Katherine wanted Arabella because she said Katy was born looking like a fairy princess – which she was,” he added, winking at me, “and that Arabella was a beautiful name for something so precious and beautiful.”
Focus off of each other, Ammon crossed his arms over his chest and sent my parents a scathing glare. “I notice me and Major didn’t get any comments like that.”
Not even looking contrite, Dad returned, “That’s because you both looked like miniature versions of that Winston Churchill guy.”
Looking at each other in confusion, they had both lifted up a butt cheek to pull their cell phones out and looked the guy up on the internet. When they found a photo, the glares they’d given them that time were almost scary.
“Your retirement home is going to be in a basement,” Major hissed, shutting his phone down.
“And you’ll change your underwear once every two weeks,” Ammon added. “Which’ll be shitty because you’ll only get cabbage water, so your asses will be active.”
If it had just been us I’d have laughed, but because it was in front of Jarrod and his family – who I really liked and wanted to think good things about me – I buried my face in my hands and prayed again for a portal.