David Zeigler, the photographer, is familiar to NESTER readers who enjoy his photos in the Artists category. Less familiar is David the writer. He has written mysteries, short stories, and essays. In this post David writes a short piece about which he asked me, “Where do ideas like this come from?” and said “The creative process is really mysterious.” David’s ever roving mind considers the question,”What’s in a person’s name?” in this selection, BEING CALLED PETER by Peter Brent, a pseudonym.
BEING CALLED PETER By Peter Brent
I was called Peter (after my father) when we lived in England and I was about five years old. We lived in England because my father knew too much. That was the reason they couldn’t fire him. If they fired him, then he could write a book.
“The last thing they wanted was for Peter to write a book,” mother would tell everyone, lowering her voice.
In the English school there were pluses and minuses being called “Peter.”
On the minus side was the fact that “peter” was what the British kids called the thing that you pee out of.
On the plus side was the fact that there were two other kids in the class also called “Peter” so it was an advantage sometimes, to be confused with the other Peters.
Then, when I was about ten years old, father was transferred to Spain. I should have been enrolled in school as “Pedro” but mother thought that was too plebian, whatever that means, so she told the principal my name was “Percy.”
There were no other “Percys” in the class, which made me happy.
So I was Percy for three years.
Next, father was assigned to Kansas City, and I resumed being called Peter, although there, too, the other kids would snigger when I told them my name. (Oddly, to me, at least, kids called “Pete” were not singled out for ridicule.)
Then, if I remember correctly, mother became very excited about something called “numerology.” According to the rules of numerology it was very unlucky to have five letters in your name, so what to do?
I suggested that I, too, could go by “Pete” but mother protested that is was too déclassé, whatever that meant.
So one day I had to tell the teacher that my name had been changed to “Arnold” overnight.
The teacher shrugged his eyebrows and changed the seating chart, but among the other kids my change of name set off an explosion of name-changing. At least half the other kids assumed new names that they used at school. The girls argued among themselves who was to become “Charlotte.” (A thin girl with long blonde hair that reached down to her waist won out.) The boys argued over who could claim the rename of “Rocky.” (Nobody, but nobody was called Rocky in England.) A boy with crooked teeth and big fists was allowed to be “Rocky.”
Mother became disillusioned about numerology at about the same time we moved to Santa Fe so, entering a Catholic high school, I resumed being “Peter.”
I tried to become “Carter” but my parents claimed that to be called that, I had to follow it with the Roman numeral III, and nobody in my family, ever, had numbers after their name.
“Why on Earth would you want to be called “Carter?” mother asked.
Other than it sounded authoritarian to my young ears, I had no good reason to want to be known as “Carter,” so that was settled.
Once again I resumed being “Peter.” It was easy to remember since the church was known as Saints Peter and Paul.
Eventually enrolled in high school, I conspired to go by “Peter” at home, while answering to “Errol” at school.
Errol Flynn!
Nobody else was using that name, and it had a slight hint of aristocracy, which seemed to go down well with certain nubile classmates. At home I had seen enough Errol Flynn movies to hanker toward “Errol.”
Before I knew it I was sitting in the bleachers with the other college graduates listening to famous locals telling us we were going to become famous.
So there I was, more or less named “Errol”: a college graduate looking for a job. (Or at least a situation in which I received a steady, adequate income, such as a toy boy.)
1A pseudonym
