My longest and best friend, Bengi, and I met behind the counter of a McDonald’s restaurant in Milford, Massachusetts, in the spring of 1987.
For a moment, he didn’t like me, and I didn’t like him, but then we became fast friends after bonding over Saturday morning cartoons. We’ve been side by side ever since.
By the fall of 1989, we moved into a townhouse together in Attleboro, Massachusetts, alongside a friend named Tom (who would eventually move back home after losing his job and making us want to kill him over the pet mice he failed to keep properly caged). We affectionately referred to our place as The Heavy Metal Playhouse.
We lived together for almost four years until Bengi moved to Connecticut after graduating from college and landing a job at Travelers Insurance, and I became homeless while awaiting trial for a crime I did not commit.
Eventually, I found my way to Connecticut as well.
We launched our DJ company in 1997 while I was still in college and managing a McDonald’s restaurant full time.
Not the best time to start a business, but is there ever an ideal time to do something great?
We spent 25 years together as wedding DJs, working more than 500 weddings and a bunch of reunions, anniversary parties, and the like. It was because of the DJ company that I became ordained online as a minister and continue to officiate weddings and serve as a substitute minister today.
Though the DJ business — Jam Packed Dance Floor DJs — still technically operates today, it’s been more than two years since I worked a wedding, and I may never DJ a wedding again.
Still, we remain the best of friends.
Back in 1989, shortly after moving in together, Bengi and I spent about half an hour in our Attleboro kitchen one night debating a very important topic:
Should we be referred to collectively as “Matty and Bengi” or “Bengi and Matty?”
“Matty” is a nickname Bengi gave me, and many of my friends, and especially people who have known me the longest, still use it today.
Come to think of it:
I don’t think Elysha has ever called me Matty.
Bengi and I discussed the merits of each name combination for some time, listing the pros and cons.
Alphabetical?
Order by age?
Rotate the order monthly to ensure fairness?
Many other combinations.
Eventually, we decided that “Matty and Bengi” made more sense. The ending sounds of the word “and” and the beginning sounds of “Matty” were too similar and seemed to run into each other when spoken aloud, creating a verbal smudge.
The hard consonant opening in Bengi served as a break from the “and” and thus prevented this smudging of words.
Needless to say, I was pleased since my name was to come first, but neither of us argued on our own behalf but instead on behalf of the best pairing.
So we became Matty and Bengi, a word combination used quite frequently as we hosted raucous parties in those glory years of the Heavy Metal Playhouse and met many new people.
Years later, when we launched our DJ company, that name combination went back into heavy rotation with our clients and continues to be used quite often today when talking about the two of us in collective terms.
Oftentimes, when I hear our names spoken in that familiar combination, I am transported back into that kitchen in Attleboro with its plastic, floral chairs, scuffed linoleum floors, and the cupboards with our names affixed to the doors. I can see that kitchen and the adjoining rooms with incredible clarity, and simply by transporting myself back to that time and place, I can clearly remember the thoughts and feelings from that time:
A young man, still a teenager, making his way on his own for the first time, absent a safety net of any kind, a little sad that he had no future and his dreams would never come true.
It was also exciting, terrifying, dreadfully uncertain, remarkably freeing, a little crazy, and oftentimes bewildering.
It was one of the best times of my life.
I remember that moment so well:
Two teenage boys, just out of high school, living on their own, wondering how they would find next month’s rent, making important decisions about their names that would echo more than three decades into the future.
You never know what you’ll remember if you give yourself the chance to look back from seemingly small moments that still echo today.
