Over ten years ago I met a man on a supermarket night crew who ended up having quite a history. He is gone now, and I intend to write a novella about his life up to the point when we met. His nickname had been Shoey, and he had lived a tragic life, being the last living member of the family he was born into. A month after he began working with us, his old identity as Shoey was soon exchanged for a moniker denoting great age and wisdom.

We were working with four other guys, one of whom was a young black man. The grocery manager was a virulent racist who, when he saw a black family come down the aisle, would shout, “The grape Koolade is in Aisle Fifteen!”

The rest of the crew were idiots. Shoey and I, however, were discussing the Marshal Plan in Post WWII Europe, and the Era of Reconstruction in the Post Civil War South, so Thomas, asked us for some advice.

His dilemma was that his gay uncle had been a transvestite for years and had been disowned by the family. Thomas wanted to go visit his uncle in the hospital where he was recovering from his final sex change operation. If he did this, however, he risked familial ostracism.

I shrugged my shoulders and said something about doing what the hell you want and to hell with those who don’t like it.

Shoey, on the other hand, went into a lengthy soul searching exercise that would have won him the Bleeding Heart Award on Oprah. Thomas felt so blessed and cared for by this show of compassion wrapped in solid advice that he gave Shoey a big hug, to which the grocery manager—who claimed to have sex with adopted stray cats—groaned, “Get a room!”

Thomas thanked me as well, and then Shoey put one fatherly arm around the tall young man’s shoulder and said, “Thomas, could I ask you one favor?”

“Sure, anything, Shoey.”

“Yesterday I had this ten dollar whore over to my place and she scraped my cock with her dentures. I threw her out in the alley and told her not to come back. When your uncle is all healed up, do you think I could have his phone number?”

Thomas was dumfounded, eyes bugging out, mouth open wide. “Seriously, man—is you serious?!”

“Absolutely, brother!”

“Then you sick! That’s my uncle!”

“No he’s not. He’s your aunt now. I’ll be your uncle!”

“Oh, yeah, Uncle Nasty!”

As the men in the aisle roared their approval the grocery manager took it upon himself to utter a solemn oath to mark the ascension of Uncle Nasty into our pantheon of two-bit deities. “One less dick in the world, and Uncle Nasty to guide us to the Christ Child’s manger—cock, cock!”

Thomas staggered out of the aisle in disgust. But after he recovered he did compliment Uncle Nasty on the best practical joke he had ever suffered.

We miss you, Uncle Nasty.