A name? Sorry, Deputy, but that’s not an easy question.
He called me Teddy. If he was in a good mood, it might be T-Dog. If he was being sarcastic, I got called Terrible Ted. If he was pissed off about something, which was often, he had more colorful labels for me—Dipshit, Asshole, Dufus, Dumbass, or other derogatory monikers. Lots of times, he didn’t bother with a name at all and just called me “boy” or even “Hey, you.”
It wasn’t just me. He did things like that to everyone.
I replied no matter what he called me because not answering resulted in beatings. The name didn’t matter when his fists flew.
But now, I’m away from him. My name matters. It matters a lot. I don’t want to be Teddy anymore, the name he gave me, because it’s not really my name.
Every kid got a new name on their first day.
Sometimes, when that door to the cellar opened and we cowered, praying, not me. Please don’t pick me, he wasn’t there to call one of us upstairs. Instead, he would shove some new kid down that flight of steps, watch him tumble head over heels, and then shout, “This is Joey. Welcome him to our family.” Or Chad or Mike or Steve or Dave or whatever.
Joey would be bruised, beaten, bleeding, and worse. And he would be crying for Mommy and Daddy, telling us over and over his name wasn’t Joey.
We comforted him and told him it would be okay. It wouldn’t, but it would have done no good to tell him that.
And we would tell him to get used to being called Joey. Get used to it real quick. We didn’t want the man to overhear the new kid’s protest, rip that door open, and storm down the steps to teach the kid a lesson about living in his brand-new home. Not that we cared much about the new kid, but those things tended to get out of hand. We didn’t want to be collateral damage.
Besides, beatings would happen soon enough, so there was no need for Joey to rush things.
He gave us new names because, he said, old names reminded us of old things. Our pasts. Our friends. Our families. Things that were gone and never coming back. The past didn’t belong to us anymore, so no good could come from remembering it. We each got a new name suitable for our new home with a new family and new friends.
The sooner Joey figured that out and accepted his fate, the easier things would be, for him and for the rest of us. So we called him Joey. Loudly. We wanted him to know we understood the rule and embraced the names he had given us.
Some kids accepted it quickly. Some were slower. I don’t know how long it took me. I can’t remember my first day. I’ve been Teddy forever.
Sometimes, when we thought he couldn’t hear, we rebelled in our own little way. The upstairs door closed, the lock snapped shut, darkness descended on us, and we couldn’t hear him stomping around upstairs. Then—and only then—some of us, the braver ones, rolled out past names and told stories about past lives. A little bit of resistance, even though it was done quietly and hidden from him, freed our imprisoned souls.
Kevin did that. He was my best friend, the boy closest to my age, and we both had been there for a long time. The new kids, the Joeys, came and went, but Kevin and I remained. We huddled together for warmth and whispered tales of our previous lives. He told me about his old friends and the games they used to play. He spun tales about his family and told funny stories about his brother and the stupid things they used to do. Sitting shoulder to shoulder, swapping fables about past lives, kept us sane.
As much as we hated the suffering a new person faced, we also rejoiced that a newbie livened things up because their stories were new. We would coax them into whispering all about their previous life—family, friends, siblings. The new stories enlivened our little world for a while, but once we tired of them, we resorted to retelling ours again and again.
For those who never returned from a final trip upstairs, we honored their memory by sharing their stories and weaving them into our own. Sometimes, we told it as their story, and sometimes, we told it as our own. We didn’t mean to lie, but our histories became so intertwined that it became difficult to remember whose past was whose. Our personal histories grew foggy with the mingling of fact and fiction.
We made up nicknames for each other too. We called one kid Digger because he was convinced he could tunnel out of the cellar, though he never made it past the stone walls. Another went by Mad Dog because he yelled at one kid for trying to eat more than his fair share of our meager rations. We had a Twinkletoes because, weak from hunger, he fainted and busted his lip on the stone floor. Bucky earned his nickname after the man upstairs said he was bucking his rules, though he didn’t learn of the new name until he regained consciousness. Someone was Spidermonkey because he had long arms and legs on a skinny body. I remember a kid called Biscuit, though I can’t remember why.
So, Deputy, what’s my name is a tough question. In the telling and retelling of our stories, in the myth-making and bullshitting, in all of the years of living in that hellhole, I’ve heard many names.
I wade through them one by one and discard them. I reach back through my memories to an ancient time, a time I can remember only through a haze. The day before the day I arrived. Back in history when life was lived outside, happy and away from the awful place. Back to when the warm sun shined on my face and I had a family who loved me and cared for me and wanted the best for me.
I reach back through my memories for that warm embrace, for a real name, not a made-up one. Not one given to forget, but one given to remember. I open my mouth, my voice cracks, and I say words I haven’t uttered in a very long time.
“Jaxon. With an X.”