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My Secret Life of Shame With the Last Name 'Fuks'
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Memoir

My Secret Life of Shame With the Last Name 'Fuks'

Going through my childhood with a last name nearly identical to the mother of all curse words was utter torture. But only after my family changed it did the regrets really begin.

Allan Fuks
Jul 11, 2017
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Illustrations by Vinnie Neuberg

I was a serious child born to serious people.

In gym class at P.S. 100 – a school situated in one of the roughest areas of the South Bronx in New York City – two fellow fourth graders are taking turns smacking the back of my head while I attempt to complete our required 60 sit-ups.

This is far from the first time something like this has happened to me. By then I’d been physically abused on two coasts. I complain to the gym teacher.

Instead of punishing the delinquents, he imparts an aphorism: “Saddle a kid with a name like Fuks, in this neighborhood, and you’ll either break him or force him to develop one hell of a sense of humor.”

“What’s a sense of humor?” I ask.

He shakes his head in pity and walks away.

“Papa, the kids are bullying me because of our last name,” I tell my father, who’s of Russian descent, and Jewish, at home later that day.

“Why? Fuks is a good name. You should be proud!”

“Yeah, but everybody calls me ‘Fucks.’”

“Correct them. Tell them it’s pr…

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