Once upon a time, there was a boy named Kelly. Kelly did not choose his name, and for the first several years of his life, Kelly spent his nights lying in bed wondering what it would be like if only was Jack or Fred instead. When anyone laughed at his unorthodox nomenclature, Kelly filled with deep shame and resentment. Unfortunately, Kelly had no outlet to direct his sorrow and rage, no place to throw the blame: his parents died the night he was born in a tragic maternity ward shooting, and Kelly was left with only a birth certificate to his name and the blanket wrapped around him. Partly out of pity, but mostly because he was a blue-eyed, white baby, a loving family of normal-named people quickly adopted him. Ted and Sue Plain had difficulty conceiving, and already endured one painful miscarriage too many, so when they met the boy with the girly name, they knew they were in the presence of a kindred spirit.
Kelly had many playmates, and became quite popular with the ladies as a child, due to his sensitive nature and slightly remarkable name. He began referring to himself as “Kell”, which impressed the other boys, as the nickname “Kell the Killer” flowed easily out of their developing vocal chords. Kelly did not share this name with his parents, because he felt they would tell him to embrace his name, and make it part of him, rather than let it consume him and colour his world. He didn’t think these thoughts in such metaphorical words, but he was intelligent enough to grasp the general idea of owning one’s name. Girls on the playground preferred “Kell the Bell” to “Kell the Killer” because they chose to point out one of Kelly’s true talents; while he was unpracticed in the art of homicide, Kelly had impeccable pitch, and a voice that made castratos’ voices crack. He was praised from kindergarten on that puberty would do nothing good for him, and would make a man out of a perfect angel.
Kelly appreciated positive attention, particularly from the adults he still considered all-knowing beings of the universe, but the acceptance he sought after the most was from his best friend, Jared. Jared was exactly like Kelly: attractive, intelligent, and popular with the ladies, but instead of having a cherubic voice, Jared had a boys’ name. Kelly often fantasized trading places with Jared for a day, living with a name that matched what was between his legs more than what came from his windpipes. Again, though, Kelly kept this fantasy secret from his parents. He decided from his early years that all issues he had with his name would be his burden alone: after all, what did Theodore and Susan know? They hadn’t named him, they didn’t know his parents’ motivation for naming him such, but as parents, they still somehow had the authority to dictate what he should and should not like about himself. Kelly shared all the news of his days at school with his parents, but any mention of Kell evaded them.
At the beginning of the second grade, Kelly began to sign his quizzes and assignments as “Kell”, in hopes that eventually his teacher would catch his drift, and change his attendance sheet to “Kell Plain”. Then he would no longer have to endure the embarrassment of facing confused substitute teachers. His opportunity to make a change came in the form of one Mrs. Hatcher, an attractive young woman filling in for his teacher on a warm spring day. Being the first substitute teacher Kelly had ever faced, he was unaware of substitute teachers’ uncanny ability to make a complete mockery of any name more complex than Ben Johnson or Kate Newman. And while Mrs. Hatcher’s unusually plump lips had no trouble in enunciating the “puh” in “Plain”, Kelly had no idea of the duel into which he was about to be thrown.
Kelly raised his hand to his name, just as he had done for the past year and a half, but unlike his regular teachers that were well accustomed to his gender, Mrs. Hatcher had taught seven year-olds before, and was more skeptical of their identities. She had entire classes raise their hand to the first name called, the last name called, every other name, and in an especially clever sixth grade class, the students only raised their hand if the name contained an even number of letters. So when she saw Kelly raise his hand instead of the pigtailed, bespectacled plain Jane next to him, Mrs. Hatcher smiled. Her voice took a suddenly soft tone, but she meant business, and she hoped to instill a fearful respect in these children that would cause bed-wettings for weeks to come. Kelly resisted, though, and insisted that he indeed did belong to the name “Kelly Plain”. This was his place in line, and he had all the appropriate documents to move past Line B, right up to the registration desk. Mrs. Hatcher then prepared her counterattack; no one made it past Line B on their first try, unless they knew verbatim the entire contents of the three informational pamphlets she provided at the door. Kelly had indeed spent hours rehearsing the contents of those pamphlets, though, so he was ready to face the registration desk. The entire class fell silent as the two threw their bureaucratic assaults mercilessly. In the end, Kelly reached into his desk, and retrieved his ace in the hole: four pieces of photo identification. Mrs. Hatcher face nearly dropped off her face as she scanned each piece. It went beyond any prank she had ever seen: each was government-issued, accompanied by a signed letter from appropriate Department Chairs proving the authenticity of the document, and assuring its bearer in fact went by that name. Mrs. Hatcher ran from the room in tears, mortified that she had lost after months of training. Hundreds of students fell to her superior inquisitions, and here a boy named Kelly had bested her. The audience broke into a roar of approving laughter, and Kelly was made a hero. The next day, when his teacher resumed lessons as usual, Kelly smiled as his teacher called for Kell Plain.
Kelly faced several more opponents in the administrative process of having his preferred name recognized, each more brutish and callous than the last, but with each fight came another victory, always in favour of Kell. By the time Kelly reached the sixth grade, he felt a physical difference the moment he stepped onto school property. Kelly checked his “y” at the sidewalk outside the front doors, and only picked it up at the end of the day when Sue’s car pulled up. When friends phoned his house, Kelly learned to use call display to keep his parents from picking up the phone and handing it over to “Kell”. Kelly knew he had gone past the point of no return in excluding his parents from his school life; they would know the lovely young Kelly they adopted, as Kell began killing all those who threatened to add a “y”.
In the seventh grade, the bell stopped ringing. An unexplained technical difficulty forced Kelly’s school to adopt a buzzer to signal the beginning and end of class, much to the students’ chagrin. Kelly also began his journey into manhood, and all the girls that had once reveled in his talent now complained that there really were no bells anymore at their school. Kelly began relying less on Jared, and noticed that their friendship wasn’t as strong as Kelly remembered: with puberty came urges, and with urges came girlfriends. Jared told Kelly before class one day of his first french kiss with a girl, and Kelly nearly snapped his pencil. There was also coincidentally a substitute teaching the lesson, and when he came across the name Kell, he demanded to know the exact origin of the name. It seemed vaguely familiar to the clueless man, but when Kelly said in a dismissing tone that he was unsure himself, the substitute opened the question to the class.
Usually, wars between substitutes and Kelly were private affairs, but today this man decided to involuntarily enlist the help of Kelly’s entire alliance. Two boys snickered at the question, and Kelly knew this wasn’t going to be an easy win. Morale quickly depleting, Kelly realized he needed to either think quickly or act drastically. Kelly’s pubescent mind was much more primed to follow the latter plan, and before another snicker was heard, Kelly jumped on his desk and dropped his pants. Every girl he thought was cute now saw everything Kelly had to offer, and if it wasn’t for a well-aimed tennis ball to the head, he may have spent enough time on the desk to show the ladies what he had to offer when he was excited to offer it. The class did not erupt as Kelly had hoped, but instead fell even more silent. He knew he had won, though; the substitute was speechless. No matter what kind of humiliation Kelly would have to endure over the next forty-eight hours from his peers, he knew it would be better than facing the letter at the end of his birth name.
That evening, when his parents asked why they had received a phone call about an inappropriate disturbance from the principal, Kelly faced a dilemma. He wasn’t a very skillful liar, and of the three cover stories he had run over in his mind all day, none seemed particularly plausible. The remains of a roast chicken sat on the table between Kelly and his parents, so he decided to tell the story vicariously. He pointed the chicken, and asked if his parents would be comfortable with referring to chickens as chickeens from that point on. Ted and Sue laughed apprehensively, unsure of where their son’s story was headed, but they agreed that chickeen was a respectable name for a chicken. Kelly immediately changed his tone to stamp out their casualness: this was a serious matter, and by agreeing to call a chicken by a different name had intense social repercussions, not to mention repercussions for the mental well-being of the chicken itself. Suppose it never liked being called a chicken, and every time it was called chicken, it wished desperately that someone would extend the “e” sound for just a fraction of a second. Every time that vowel was cut short felt the chicken cut short. Ted and Sue’s concern resurfaced, and they asked Kelly in what way he felt like the chicken. Kelly sighed, and asked to be Kell.
The Plains had never given much thought to their names: their parents were named relatively common names themselves, and to Ted and Sue, a name was just a label that helped people recognize with whom they were speaking. To have one’s name be misaligned with one’s opinion of what a name ought to be was beyond the couple entirely, but after a lengthy discussion before bed, they realized that Kelly was not Kelly: he was a crocodile that everyone had been calling an alligator. The next morning, when Ted went into Kell’s room to wake him up, Kell was ready to defend himself. He was surprised, then, when his dad acted unlike all the substitute teachers. He didn’t fight Kell; he just hugged him. Kell considered crying, but decided that Kell wouldn’t cry for such an impractical reason anymore. While before he used his adapted name to escape and feel free, Kell now had to make this name truly his own. He had different wars to fight, and different opponents to face, although he now had a much larger base of alliances. When Kell arrived at school, he did not have to change himself in any way, but his body was unsure of how to handle itself now that his preferred identity was his dominant one. When he asked Jared for a damage report from his spectacle, Kell winced at the mention of his name. Kell was the end goal of his military campaigns, but how did he now use his universally accepted power? Who was left to face down?
Word count: 2,034
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