Call Me Crazy

Plain Jane Fred

Call me Fred. Everyone else tries not to, but I can tell that you will manage it. It is not the name I would have given myself, but it is mine. If I had a say in the matter, I would have been an Adele or a Jane, something girlish and good. Something that is not masculine and strong. If I had a say. As it is, call me Alfred, the name given me by my father and many fathers before him.

The matter was decided long before I was born or even a distant possibility. It was decided when my father first heard that he was the umpteenth of a long line of Alfreds. He knew then that any child of his would have “Alfred” in its name. Any child. Almost twenty-five years later he was wheeling my mother into the hospital, already imagining the birth certificate laid out perfectly, a beautiful “umpteenth plus one” written out behind the child’s first name. The fine, fat baby boy was second in his thoughts, not yet quite able to win over my father’s love. There was no doubt in either of their minds though, that a small, virile Alfred the umpteenth and counting was to be delivered to their doorstep that night. Not that they had taken the tests. They just knew.

So it was that when the doctor pulled me cawing like a misshapen bird from my mother’s womb, she began to cry. My father, however, was untouchable, beaming happily on the scene, rushing to take me from the nurse when offered. His evening went exactly as planned, a lovely little “-a” tacked on to the name that had ever been his and became mine. As if somehow that made me a girl, that “a” defining me even more than the name “Alfred” defined my father. Because I am. A girl.


Flying High
Call me tomorrow. I am not there yet, but I will be. You’ll see. I’ll meet you there. For now, though, help me because I am trying to remember and it just won’t come. I used to believe in something, but there is nothing inside me anymore. I know that it was something stellar, something to fuel rocket ships off of. It could take me to the moon, but now I am sadly earth bound and all my ideas have fizzled out like helium from a balloon. That is what my head is now I suppose, a balloon that wants to roll right off and away, now that I cannot remember what it was that held me up. Age does that to you.

I am not so old though, only a few years past my first, maybe twenty. I am the sprightly youth and there are many things that I can recollect. If you’re quiet, I’ll tell them to you. At least, I thought I might. Maybe it was a bad idea to begin with.

Now, call me crazy, but I used to believe that it all meant something good and spectacular. I imagined that I meant something significant and appreciable, like an exclamation point attached to an eloquent voice. Now I know I am just the exclamation point. I used to see myself in the kitchen with a spatula and some eggs or at a café drinking iced tea with my crackers. I might have been that person once – you know the type – but not anymore. Now I am just a balloon. About. To. POP!