Week 5 - "A Pair of Aces"

Ace was not his real name.

When he was in sixth grade and started to notice girls he began to pay more attention to how he dressed and combed his hair. Back then, the style was to carry a long folding wallet that would stick out in the back pocket of a boy's jeans along with a full length comb. Ace spent a good deal of his time that summer trying to decide which pocket he should carry his wallet and comb and he would switch them around from one day the the next and look at his backside in the mirror to determine which pocket of his Levi jeans his comb and wallet look best in.


In mid summer his mother told his father to take him and his older brother up to the "Stag Shoppe" at the mall and get them some back to school clothes. Normally, his mother would buy new clothes for the boys and bring them home but this year they were going to shop for themselves.

It was a small shop that catered to teens and young men. The boys picked out new pants and shirts and tried them on in the fitting rooms. Ace and his brother stood in front of the long mirrors to make sure they looked cool. When you are twelve years-old and have one brother who is thirteen and another who is in college, looking cool is all that matters. Ace found a belt and a wallet that had a matching stripe pattern. Very cool he decided. When they got home he tried everything on all over again in his bedroom just to make sure.  Ace slipped his comb into his back pocket next to his new wallet. He practiced taking his comb out and sliding it back in a few times just to get the motion down smoothly. Then looked at the gold lettering with the word "Ace" printed on the comb.

"Ace." Now that would be a pretty cool nickname.

When he told his brothers to call him Ace from now on they just laughed at him. This only made him more determined to get his new name to stick.

For the rest of the summer he would practice writing the name Ace to see how it looked on paper. He got his best friend Larry to call him Ace but he was the only one. That was a start at least. They would be going to the junior high this year and there were going to be lots of new kids and they would surely call him by his new name.

On the first day of school, Ace put on his new clothes and combed his hair until he was satisfied that it would stay looking cool for the rest of the day. He found his homeroom easily enough. When the teacher called the roll he was determined that he was going to announce his nickname was Ace and then everyone would call him that for the rest of the year. The bell rang and the teacher began going down her list of students.

"Edwin Baker," the teacher called.

Suddenly, a boy who was quite short but very muscular announced "Right here, but everybody calls me Ace."

"Okay Ace," the teacher said and then continued calling the roll.

He knew there could only be one "Ace" in school, so when she called his name he simply said "Here."

Then he scratched out the name "Ace" that he had carefully written on his new, three ringed binder. When he was done he reached into his back pocket, took out his comb and ran it through his hair one more time.