Grayport doesn’t have much to be proud of besides our football team and our general aura of blue-collar toughness, so it’s no surprise that my dad proudly claims that I’m named after Wyatt Earp. The whole thing is made from lumber we’ve recycled from shipwrecks, and our long row of state championship flags flies atop poles that are actually old ship masts. Hell, even our high school football stadium, the jewel of the town, is falling apart. Our beaches, if you want to call them that, aren’t filled with people, but are littered with debris brought in from the storms that constantly rock our coast. Our local economy went to crap eight years ago, and half the stores in town are still boarded up.
Practically every guy in my town is called Hunter or Gunner or Archer, like they were named after what job they’d have if we were surviving in a postapocalyptic shantytown. My dad wanted me to have a tough-sounding name like most of the men who live here in Grayport. Apparently it was a compromise between my parents, back when they actually agreed on stuff. Has a gritty ring to it, right? Much better than my actual name, which is just Wyatt. I’m sure girls would still laugh when I accidentally broke a pencil in my big clumsy paws, but it would be a flirty laugh, like a giggle, and they’d say, “Oh, Thor, your giant hands are so strong…” and I’d reply, “Well, you know what they say about guys with big hands…” and they’d grin and be like, “What “do they say about guys with big hands?” and I’d be like, “Greater risk for cancer” or something equally stupid because I’m so awkward around girls I blow it even in my fantasies. Like, as a Thor, I’d proudly lumber down the hall and cute girls would stop and think, There goes 260 pounds of twisted steel and sex appeal, rather than what they think now, which is probably more like, There goes 260 pounds of cheese cubes and man boobs. Thor is a beefy name and it would’ve fit me well since I’m a pretty beefy dude.
And you know what? As ridiculous as the name sounds, I kind of wish it was mine. I guess I’ll start with how my parents came this close to naming me Thor.
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