My son puts on a bad guy hat and a bad guy shirt. His bad guy shoes make big bad echoes in the empty house.
I am a bad guy, he tells me.
I will pretend to be afraid, I say, but my son says no, I am a real bad guy and you must be real afraid. I let fear wear me like a coat that fits too tight around the middle.
What is your name? I ask the bad guy who was my son, fear plucking the fiddle strings of my vocal cords. I don’t have a name, the bad guy says. I was so bad, they took it away and gave it to a good boy.
I had a name before the bad guy was born that I was desperate to trade. I set up a stand with a big sign: FREE NAME. But when you say something is free, people hear “no value.” Every month I would hope to wake up with a silence where my name had been, but every month it was still there.
Finally, a doctor was called in, and with one expert tug, he pulled out my name. For a time I was nameless. All my movements felt light, even as my body heavied, pulling me earthward.
Now a tired bad guy curls in my lap and says my new name over and over. He solidifies the syllables, etches them in the air between us. When I ask if he is still a bad guy, he fills the hollow of my shoulder with my new name. He says will not be a bad guy any more. Not until tomorrow.