Chris Carlisle

As I write this, there is a man in my house who goes by the name ‘Big’ Tony.

No, he wasn’t here to break my kneecaps, expressing his boss’s deepest regrets for my inability to pay my gambling debts on time (I’m good for it, just gimme another week, trust me).  The ‘Big’ Tony I was dealing with was a respectable private contractor and not a “respectable” private contractor, if you catch my drift.  He installed carpet.

When we purchased the carpet from the respectable carpet salesman a few weeks back he informed us that ‘Big’ Tony would be in touch to schedule the installation.  Between the time of learning about the existence of ‘Big’ Tony and the eventual presence of his bigness in my domicile, my imagination had plenty of time to extrapolate just how big ‘Big’ Tony could be.

I didn’t think he would be grossly overweight; otherwise he’d be known as ‘Fat’ Tony.  Then again, you probably wouldn’t call him ‘Fat’ Tony to his face unless you had a running start. Or some stairs between you.

In my life, I have known of only one person who had a nickname containing the term ‘fat’. His nickname was, I kid you not, ‘Fatter than Hell.’  Fatter than Hell was a high school classmate of a friend in college, and even though he swore that his friend’s nickname was in fact Fatter than Hell and that everyone back home indeed referred to him as Fatter than Hell, no one believed him.  That is, until his mother came to visit on parents weekend, hugged her son, said hello to his friends, and then said in a very matter of fact fashion that Fatter than Hell’s mom said hello.

To this day, it is still one of the top five moments in my life.

Carpet installation can be very physical work, so a guy built with the proportions of the laughing Buddha statue at a Chinese restaurant probably couldn‘t install 40 yards of stain resistant shag without having a coronary.  So there’s no way ‘Big’ Tony could be mistaken for ‘Fat’ Tony.  In my mind the ‘Big’ Tony who would single-handedly install the carpet in my house would be a massive hulk of a man, built like a defensive lineman or power forward, with meaty forearms, a thick neck, and a back wide enough to use as a single lane bridge.

When the day of his arrival finally came, needless to say I was a little disappointed. I’ve seen bigger Tonys; in fact I’ve seen bigger Steves.  I’ve even seen bigger Tonys who didn’t feel the need to call themselves ‘Big’ Tony.

The man before me, whom I dubbed as ‘Not-so-big Big’ Tony was bigger than me, that much is true.  But he was still a far cry from the man mountain I expected to have to turn sideways to fit his broad chest through the front door. He had a thick southern accent that probably helped add to the mystique of ‘Big’ Tony. The same way a Canadian accent can make someone seem friendly or a French accent can make someone seem snooty, a thick drawl or perhaps even a Brooklyn accent can make a Tony appear to be much bigger than he is, I suppose.

Perhaps having the nickname ‘Big’ Tony lent some credibility to his carpet installing capabilities. Men in the business of manual labor are known to take up some sort of descriptor to assess their physical prowess. Besides ‘Big’ Tony, there is another carpet purveyor in town who goes by the name ‘Big’ Bob. There’s a muffler shop in town called ‘Big’ Al’s. I’ve also heard of businesses whose proprietors were known as ‘Big’ Ernie, ‘Big’ Tom, and ‘Big’ John. Oh, and don’t forget Big Boy (though he doesn’t work in manual labor, having a portly restaurant mascot says much about the caloric content of the food).

There are certain jobs where being known as ‘Big’ Tony probably would be more of a hindrance. If you were rushed to the hospital with stomach pains you probably don’t want to hear the attending surgeon say “Hi I’m ‘Big’ Tony, and I’ll be performing your emergency appendectomy today.” It sounds more threatening than comforting.

You also hardly ever see a woman named thusly. You never see Big Judy’s Tire & Muffler or Big Rachel’s Hair Salon. It’s not like there aren’t any big Ednas or big Rachels, I guess they choose not to draw attention to their size or use it for branding purposes.

In the end ‘Not-so-big Big’ Tony did successfully install the carpet, but not in the mythical, tall tale fashion one would expect from the man they call ‘Big’ Tony.  It was like finding out that Hercules cleaned the Augean stables using a Swiffer.

Despite his lack of mythological greatness, ‘Not-so-big Big’ Tony did manage to get the carpet replaced all by himself, and was quite pleasant in the process to boot.  Perhaps they should call him ‘Pleasant’ Tony instead.

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