At 3:30 AM yesterday morning my brother, Ranger, and his wife, Kim, gave birth to a 7 lb baby boy, thus ending a run of procreation that had shamefully produced only two girls. My brother was, until yesterday morning, the last Hamilton male capable of producing a son to carry on the Hamilton name. He’s basically lived his entire life under threat of the guillotine, constantly pressured and reminded that if he didn’t have a boy the world would collapse into a fiery ball of Hamilton-less rogue powers, none of whom could lead the world to Great Things like a Hamilton with toothless ancestors in the deep South could.
My father’s brother, Doug, an emaciated 55-yr old Jesus look-alike, is fully capable of having children, but it’s been hard over the years to meet a good woman while living at a Kentucky State penitentiary. None of us know for sure whether or not Doug has actually had children, perhaps leagues of little Hamiltons out there that even he isn’t aware of. But if we ever do find any, I’ve got several old drawings Doug has sent from prison over the years, mostly of monstrously proportioned topless women on the backs of motorcycles above the scribbling “Love, Uncle Doug” that I’d be happy to share with a long lost cousin or two or twelve.
My brother and his wife had been struggling for months over what to name the new little addition to our undeniably strange family. I mean, it’s not like someone named “Ranger” could just up and name a son “Bob” or anything, and there’s no way my father would let my brother name The Son something as common or perfectly acceptable as “Charles” or “Henry.” For a while last year Ranger was convinced that they were going to name the child “Strider Aragorn Hamilton” because, naturally, that was the name of a certain Tolkien “Ranger” and what a perfect way to carry on a theme!
I informed him in no uncertain terms that I would not refer to any member of my family as “Strider,” and that if they went ahead with the name I’d be left with no choice but to call him “Viggo.” Thank God they put down the crack pipe and decided on a much more conventional name of “Talon.”
Talon.
I, however, will refer to the child by his WWF character “The Claw Hamilton.” How cool am I that I have a nephew I can call Claw?