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The Ice Breaker

by Damien Roos

April 2011

People called him Roy. Everybody. His brother even. This is why Broy started wearing a nametag over his left breast. It was big and red and said, “Hello, my name is BROY.” Broy liked the nametag because it was polite. He wasn’t polite. He figured that having a polite nametag now meant he wouldn’t have to try.

It worked. Strangers passed him in the street in said “why, hello, BROY.” They did it because the nametag was so polite, and so everybody who saw it felt as though they had to say hello back. It would be rude if they didn’t.

Broy now had an ambassador. He wasn’t polite himself. The nametag broke the ice between Broy and the world. He went on dates. He made new friends. They all called him Broy. Gone were the days where people called him Roy.

He went to visit his brother. When his brother opened the door the nametag

spoke: “Hello, my name is BROY.”

Broy stared down at it, perplexed. He had never heard it speak before. Its voice sounded like Tom Arnold.

“Hiya, Tom,” his brother said, turning back towards the kitchen in his bathrobe.

“My name is not Tom!” Broy hollered.

“Oh, hiya, Roy,” his brother said. “Forgive me, it’s just that your little friend there sounded like Tom Arnold.”

Broy moped home. It began raining. People passed him with umbrellas and leaned over to him, saying “why, hello, BROY.” He was growing weary of them.

“I didn’t know you could talk,” he said to the nametag. The nametag said nothing back.

Broy had no umbrella. The rain battered him. He stopped into a convenience store to wait it out and figured he’d buy a hotdog. When he approached the counter the cashier nodded over to him. He was hip. He had a ring in his nose and spiky black hair. A goatee framed his face perfectly.

“Sup, BRO,” he said.

Broy looked down at his nametag. The “Y” had escaped! The rain had carried it off. Mortified, he dropped his hotdog and ran back outside.

He retraced his every step, yet the red Y was nowhere to be found. He passed people holding newspapers over their heads. They leaned in towards him and said, “Sup, BRO.”

He called for the letter, and those who watched him and his futile search thought that he was asking god, “Why?…Why?…Why?”

It was gone. All of it gone. The friends he had made avoided him. They were embarrassed because they couldn’t pronounce his new name. A new group of people tried to befriend him. They all had goatees that framed their faces perfectly. They all were hip and wore leather pants. They made Broy uncomfortable. They thought that good conversation revolved around shoes. They danced. All of them danced. They danced even when there wasn’t music to dance to. They wanted to befriend Broy so badly. Groups of them surrounded him in the street, shaking their hips and twirling their wife beaters and butterfly knives in the air, saying, “Sup, BRO…”

Everywhere he went.

“Sup, BRO…Sup, BRO…Sup, BRO…”

Broy could take it no longer. He tried drawing another Y on the nametag but as soon as he took the pen away the letter leapt from his breast and scampered off. He squashed it with a hammer and tried again. The same thing happened. He tried peeling off the entire tag, but it had fused to his skin.

“Hello, my name is BRO,” it said to him all of a sudden. It sounded like Tom Berringer.

Broy goddamned it all. He found the nearest steak knife and drove it straight into the nametag. Straight into his heart.

Damien Roos lives in Denver, Colorado, with his wife and tiny dog. He loves pickles.