Transcript: "Two Little Jewish Dicks", a Story By Matthew Dicks

This is a transcript of Matthew Dicks's story, Two Little Jewish Dicks, at a NYC Moth GrandSLAM. You can watch Matthew telling the story here:

It's well after midnight. I'm lying on my bed in a dark room. I'm on the phone, speaking to Alicia. It's one of those endless phone calls you have when you're not quite dating yet, and you can't stand to be apart, but you're not exactly together yet.

I've known Alicia for two years. We're both schoolteachers. Our classrooms are worlds apart. When we met, I was married, and Alicia was engaged to be married. We've shed those former lives, and over the course of two years, we became friends, then close friends, and now we're falling in love.

Two nights before, during one of these endless phone calls, Alicia told me that if we start dating, we're never going to break up. We're going to get married, and we're going to live together forever. In basketball terms, this is known as going strong to the hoop. In dating terms, this is insanity. This is like the worst thing you can do to get a guy like me. You say words like this to me, and I run as fast as I can. But I'm in love with this girl, so when she says these words, I just want to run to her as fast as I can.

It's getting late, and I know we have to end this phone call. We both have to be at work the next morning. When Alicia says to me, "Listen, I have a question to ask you," I know by the tone in her voice that it's going to be important. She says, "When we have kids someday, is it okay that they're Jewish? That we raise them Jewish?"

Now, Alicia's Jewish, and I am a failed Christian who believes in nothing. So, I have no religion to bring to the table at this point. So, you know, it doesn't matter to me. Honestly, if she told me to quit my job tomorrow and deal heroin on the side of the street next to the elementary school, I would say yes. I love this girl so much.

So I say yes to her, but in my heart, I am thinking no. I don't want my kids to be Jewish. If this is a choice—and it sounds like it is—why would we want to do that? Why would we want to subject our children to a lifetime of anti-Semitism and discrimination if we don't have to? Why do we want to permanently place them in a minority? Why do we want to saddle them with joyless holidays with no flying reindeer and no discernible decorations of any kind? And why do we want to attach them to a country that is surrounded by people who want to destroy them? No, I don't want my kids to be Jewish if I have a choice.

But the kids we're talking about are theoretical, and the love I have already is real. So, I say yes.

Three days later, Alicia's getting into her car in the parking lot when she reaches out, grabs me by the coat, pulls me to her face, and kisses me for the first time. And we are off.

Two months later, we're living together. In December of that year, on the top of the steps in Grand Central Station, her favorite space in the world, I drop to one knee and ask her to marry me. She doesn't say yes; she just cries. And it is a fairy tale. It is perfect and smooth and wonderful.

The only sticking point, the only struggle we have, is with Alicia's last name. She wants to hyphenate, but her last name is Green, and my last name is Dix. Green Dix does not work. She could just keep her name Green, but she wants us to have the same name. So she decides to take Dix.

I know it's a hard decision. It's not an easy name to live with. It's not as hard as Harold, who goes by Harry Dix. It's not as hard as my grandmother, who named those two poor boys, Early Dix. But Matthew Dix was hard, you know?

But I also know that my name taught me where to punch someone in the face to hurt them the most and when to run from a fight. It taught me to make fun of myself before someone else could. I got my sense of humor that way. And when my life was at its worst—when I was homeless, when I was in jail, when I was without hope of any kind—I know that name helped give me the strength to keep going on.

So she takes my name. As hard as I know it's going to be.

Three years later, that theoretical child is born. Her name is Clara. A little while later, Charlie comes, and they both take my name. They have no choice, so they become Dix.

One day, we're in the car, driving through the Berkshires, going to see Alicia's in-laws. The kids are in the back asleep. Clara's facing forward, and Charlie's facing back. The car is quiet. We're listening to Simon and Garfunkel when, out of the blue, Clara says to me, "I wish I hadn't taken your last name. I wish I was still Green."

I ask her why, and she tells me she's worried about the kids. She's worried that they're going to be bullied and teased. It's the hardest thing she has ever said to me, and I'm not really sure why it hurts me so much. Because if she had kept her name Green when we got married, I wouldn't have cared. But she's taken my name, and it means something to me today.

It is something I'm proud of. It's something I've made into something good in my mind. It is on college diplomas that I never thought I would earn. It is on the cover of books I never thought I would publish. And it is the thing that I share with her and my kids.

I know it's not easy, but it is the struggle that has made me who I am today. And in that instant, suddenly everything changes. My heart fills with joy because I am right back on that phone call when she asks me to raise the kids Jewish. My heart is screaming no, and suddenly my heart is screaming yes.

I now understand that the Judaism my kids have is going to be the same thing as my last name. It's going to be a struggle, but that struggle is a good thing. I think about her, my family, and my Jewish friends. I think about how strong they are and how they are unstoppable people because of the struggle they've had and the things they've had to face—unbearable holidays with bitter herbs, the ten plagues. They are incredible people because of what they've endured.

I look in the rearview mirror on this little street in the Berkshires and I see these two kids behind me. And for the first time in my life, I am ecstatic that they are Jewish. They're going to have this struggle, but they're going to come out in the end stronger than we can imagine—stronger than me and Alicia will ever be.

They are our kids. They are two little Jewish Dixs, and they are going to conquer the world.

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