Dear Boy
By Julius Olofsson
January 15, 2023
January 15, 2023
I was eight the first time my parents changed my name. I was sitting in my room, and there was a knock on the door. Mom and Dad came in. They looked excited like they used to look back then.
Mom sat on the edge of the bed and said:
“Dad and I have been talking,” Dad nodded in the background, legitimizing what she was saying, “and we have come to the conclusion that you should have a new name.”
I felt my stomach in a way I’d never felt before.
My name was Peter, after all. Sometimes “Pete.”
“Funny, huh?”
“But why?” I tried in such a brittle voice that it might have been more of a whisper--
quietly uttering it to myself, seeing how the words disintegrated before they reached my parents.
“So now you’re Andy!”
Then there was nothing more to it.
They hugged me and left.
This was apparently a happy moment.
We ate homemade pizza—more like hot sandwiches, really.
I got a soda.
When I went to school on Monday, my teacher called me “Andy,” and the class snickered. Still, nobody said anything. I never liked Andy. There was no way to make a nickname out of it, as it already sounded like one.
I’ve wondered why my parents never called me by my old name. Not once did they slip up. Never “Pete,” just “Andy,” and I was stuck with that for several years.
When I was about to start fourth grade, the first day before I left for school, a similar scene played out. But at a kitchen table.
Eggs, even though it wasn’t a weekend.
Juice.
They were trying to do something “a little extra” and “spruce it up,” as Mom said.
“Dad and I have come up with something,” said Mom, with Dad nodding in the background—keen eyes and strained smiles.
“It’s getting so popular with older names you know. So we thought you’d be Albert now.”
“But that’s an old man’s name, isn’t it?” I said with a question mark woven into every word, but Dad just asked if I wanted more juice, which I did.
At roll call, the teacher read from the class list, which already said, “Albert.” And I said “yes.”
Albert could become “Al.” Something I made sure it was. Fast. I didn’t want to be Albert. Once again, my parents never slipped up. Neither did anyone else. School went well. Despite confusion. My “S’s” were backwards, which the teacher brought up during a meeting with my parents.
“It’s not a big deal, but important to straighten out,” and I asked what “straighten out” meant in the car home.
During the summer vacation, I stayed awake several nights in the transition between fourth and fifth grade.
I was even more confused somehow, even though I was older.
In adulthood and as a parent myself, you understand how remarkably adaptable children are. But only up to a point. Year by year, that ability fades. It withers, and we crave stagnation—the safe.
One night in September, after I started fifth grade, Mom and Dad told me they wouldn’t live together anymore. They were “done with this now,” as Dad so dryly put it. I was presented with a plan. How they would each get an apartment with barely a hundred yards “door to door,” and I would spend time with both parents and weeks could apparently be defined as “odd” and “even,” and with “very few exceptions,” I would live said weeks with either Mom or Dad, plus my new name was now Jonathan. That last thing they threw in, like an unwanted bonus, and they got up and left before I realized what had happened.
Jonathan could become “Jon.”
As “Jon” I was silent.
Quieter than Andy and Al.
Fewer friends. More spare time. I could go home by myself now, eat Nutella straight from the jar, and get a few identity-free hours alone before whoever I was staying with came home, and I needed to be someone again. When I couldn’t fall asleep in the evenings, I’d lie down and pretended to be asleep when Mom or Dad came in, closing my eyes with soft, deep, quiet breaths until they closed the door so I could have a few more minutes.
During this period, I gently asked other children if their names were always the same, only to receive laughter and some unwarranted punches on my arm as a response.
I made lists of who had nicknames. And which ones who were “just” Angelica and not “Angie.”
One day at home, I skimmed old textbooks and papers—wanting to read my old names—my parents had crossed them out with a black marker. I changed it and wrote my, then current, name instead.
In eighth grade, my life was divided once again.
One morning Dad was stressed, and that “damn alarm clock” apparently wasn’t working, so he called for me—yelling, “Steve.”
I could only assume that “Steve” was me.
A few days later, my Mom called me “Kevin,” without keen eyes or smiles.
It just was.
And I had become two—odd weeks I was Steve and even weeks I was Kevin.
I tried to get Kevin to be “Kev,” but it didn’t take.
My teachers kept saying the right thing - Steve one week, Kevin the next. Never wrong. Never that anyone else was confused. Just me, trying to be two different people. Kevin was enthusiastic, so I was enthusiastic. Steve was a little dumber.
School kept going with other kids asking others out on dates, going to parties and getting drunk.
Kevin and Steve never seemed to find their way there to those parties.
Years later, when I graduated, my parents pulled me aside during the celebration and said I was an adult now and that I “needed a grown-up name, like Kenneth.”
But I said no, and they looked at me.
Said nothing.
Dad drank champagne out of his plastic glass.
Mom nodded somehow with tears of acceptance in her eyes.
Shortly afterward, I moved out and spent a few years as Pete again.
Until I chose a name of my own, something that was me and mine.
Mom sat on the edge of the bed and said:
“Dad and I have been talking,” Dad nodded in the background, legitimizing what she was saying, “and we have come to the conclusion that you should have a new name.”
I felt my stomach in a way I’d never felt before.
My name was Peter, after all. Sometimes “Pete.”
“Funny, huh?”
“But why?” I tried in such a brittle voice that it might have been more of a whisper--
quietly uttering it to myself, seeing how the words disintegrated before they reached my parents.
“So now you’re Andy!”
Then there was nothing more to it.
They hugged me and left.
This was apparently a happy moment.
We ate homemade pizza—more like hot sandwiches, really.
I got a soda.
When I went to school on Monday, my teacher called me “Andy,” and the class snickered. Still, nobody said anything. I never liked Andy. There was no way to make a nickname out of it, as it already sounded like one.
I’ve wondered why my parents never called me by my old name. Not once did they slip up. Never “Pete,” just “Andy,” and I was stuck with that for several years.
When I was about to start fourth grade, the first day before I left for school, a similar scene played out. But at a kitchen table.
Eggs, even though it wasn’t a weekend.
Juice.
They were trying to do something “a little extra” and “spruce it up,” as Mom said.
“Dad and I have come up with something,” said Mom, with Dad nodding in the background—keen eyes and strained smiles.
“It’s getting so popular with older names you know. So we thought you’d be Albert now.”
“But that’s an old man’s name, isn’t it?” I said with a question mark woven into every word, but Dad just asked if I wanted more juice, which I did.
At roll call, the teacher read from the class list, which already said, “Albert.” And I said “yes.”
Albert could become “Al.” Something I made sure it was. Fast. I didn’t want to be Albert. Once again, my parents never slipped up. Neither did anyone else. School went well. Despite confusion. My “S’s” were backwards, which the teacher brought up during a meeting with my parents.
“It’s not a big deal, but important to straighten out,” and I asked what “straighten out” meant in the car home.
During the summer vacation, I stayed awake several nights in the transition between fourth and fifth grade.
I was even more confused somehow, even though I was older.
In adulthood and as a parent myself, you understand how remarkably adaptable children are. But only up to a point. Year by year, that ability fades. It withers, and we crave stagnation—the safe.
One night in September, after I started fifth grade, Mom and Dad told me they wouldn’t live together anymore. They were “done with this now,” as Dad so dryly put it. I was presented with a plan. How they would each get an apartment with barely a hundred yards “door to door,” and I would spend time with both parents and weeks could apparently be defined as “odd” and “even,” and with “very few exceptions,” I would live said weeks with either Mom or Dad, plus my new name was now Jonathan. That last thing they threw in, like an unwanted bonus, and they got up and left before I realized what had happened.
Jonathan could become “Jon.”
As “Jon” I was silent.
Quieter than Andy and Al.
Fewer friends. More spare time. I could go home by myself now, eat Nutella straight from the jar, and get a few identity-free hours alone before whoever I was staying with came home, and I needed to be someone again. When I couldn’t fall asleep in the evenings, I’d lie down and pretended to be asleep when Mom or Dad came in, closing my eyes with soft, deep, quiet breaths until they closed the door so I could have a few more minutes.
During this period, I gently asked other children if their names were always the same, only to receive laughter and some unwarranted punches on my arm as a response.
I made lists of who had nicknames. And which ones who were “just” Angelica and not “Angie.”
One day at home, I skimmed old textbooks and papers—wanting to read my old names—my parents had crossed them out with a black marker. I changed it and wrote my, then current, name instead.
In eighth grade, my life was divided once again.
One morning Dad was stressed, and that “damn alarm clock” apparently wasn’t working, so he called for me—yelling, “Steve.”
I could only assume that “Steve” was me.
A few days later, my Mom called me “Kevin,” without keen eyes or smiles.
It just was.
And I had become two—odd weeks I was Steve and even weeks I was Kevin.
I tried to get Kevin to be “Kev,” but it didn’t take.
My teachers kept saying the right thing - Steve one week, Kevin the next. Never wrong. Never that anyone else was confused. Just me, trying to be two different people. Kevin was enthusiastic, so I was enthusiastic. Steve was a little dumber.
School kept going with other kids asking others out on dates, going to parties and getting drunk.
Kevin and Steve never seemed to find their way there to those parties.
Years later, when I graduated, my parents pulled me aside during the celebration and said I was an adult now and that I “needed a grown-up name, like Kenneth.”
But I said no, and they looked at me.
Said nothing.
Dad drank champagne out of his plastic glass.
Mom nodded somehow with tears of acceptance in her eyes.
Shortly afterward, I moved out and spent a few years as Pete again.
Until I chose a name of my own, something that was me and mine.
Born in Sweden, Julius works as a narrative designer in video games and writes anything from flash fiction and books to games and screenplays. He’s been longlisted in The Bath Short Story Award, The Bath Flash Fiction Award and The Aurora Prize for Writing. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in JAKE, Trash to Treasure Lit, Roi Fainéant Press, The Airgonaut, Sage Cigarettes and Lavender Bones Magazine. He’s found on Twitter: @PaperBlurt