ABSURDIST FICTION - SHORT STORY

________________

How & Why I Became

Kingsley Kingsley-Kingsley

WRITTEN BY

Gregory Miller Troy

 MY TRANFORMATION BEGINS IN
ORGASMICA, THE ORIGINAL SIN EATERY

This is how my singular miracle came about:
       It just happened to be seriously cold that afternoon, and I decided to head over to Orgasmica, the Original Sin Eatery, my most favorite restaurant in all of Greenwich Village, and réchauffer mes tripes with an excellent quality cognac: Martell XO Extra Old, if that was possible.
       While sitting at the bar, I met a gentleman who would inevitably change my life forever. Initially our small talk focused on the usual: where we worked, what we did, why we totally loathed our bosses. But when this fellow offered me his business card, I nearly fell to the floor.
       After reading his name, I looked back to him. “I’m envious. What an amazing name!”
       “Thank you.”
       “Should I pronounce your full name as Tootoowong or should I include short pauses, such as Too Too Wong or Tootoo Wong?”
       “Your first pronunciation is perfectly correct.”
       “May I ask you a personal question?”
       “Feel free.”
       “Is Tootoowong your original birth name?”
       “No. My parents named me James John Smith, but even as a child I hated being identified with such names. The whole thing just makes me shudder.”
       I was enormously excited by what Tootoowong told me. “I feel the same way. My name is Robert Michael Johnson—three names I’ve always hated. They exist everywhere.” My eyes became inquisitive. “So how did you go about changing your birth names?”
       “Anyone can change their name. Women do it all the time through marriage, but actors, spies, and transvestites commonly change their names as well.” He paused to accept a dry martini from the bartender. “I drove up to Albany, where the Personal Name Change Department is located, although you’ll have to find the exact address on your own. It’s located in a two-story red brick building not far from the New York State capitol building.”
       Such information made me feel as if I was on top of the world. One day soon Robert Michael Johnson would finally become Kingsley.
       Nothing more, just Kingsley.

________________

Over the next few weeks I did my research and decided to carry out my name change.
       I fully understood that the change would affect other things as well: my credit cards, phone number, medical records, employment (my boss wouldn’t be happy at all), my girlfriend. In fact, I would have to inform a huge number of people.

       But I was prepared to take on the challenges.
       I mean, married women went through this process all the time. What did I have to fear?
       On a Monday morning I called my office and, in a phony hoarse voice, told Melinda Boss, my immediate boss, that I had a terrible cold and had to take the day off. She agreed without argument.
       Following Tootoowong’s instructions, I drove up to Albany and quickly found the two-story red brick building located not far from the New York State capitol building. Above the building’s main entrance door was a sign:

 Personal Name Change Department
A New York State Government Service

        I parked my car—amazingly, there were no cars in the lot, and this government service did not charge a parking fee—and walked through the front doors and into in a large lobby area. Suspended from the ceiling were three signs. It was the third one I was looking for. 

Official Name Change Only

       To my right was a frosted-glass door on which the following was printed:

Official Name Change

        Yes. That was exactly the service I was looking for. I walked to the door, grasped the doorknob, and pulled. But when it opened, I began to feel a little funny—not fall-down-funny, but more like that kind of funny you feel when you’re doing something you shouldn’t be doing.
       To be honest, I was a little nervous. I didn’t know why.
       The door squeaked just a little when I opened it, but I could easily deal with that. What I didn’t expect was the overwhelming smell of salty popcorn. It was like standing near the concession counter in a movie theatre while corn popped in a hot kettle. Even odder, I could find no evidence of popcorn anywhere in that office area.
       I shook my head and focused on why I was there.
       I approached the very long service counter and almost laughed. I was the only one standing at it. On the other side of the counter was only one clerk, a youngish woman seated somewhat behind her metal office desk. Her foot was propped up on an open drawer, and she was filing her pinkie toe.
       She was so focused on her toe nails, she didn’t seem to notice me. If my boss, Melinda Boss, ever found me filing my toenails, pinky toe included, she’d take me into the back room and fire me.
       The youngish woman was wearing a rectangular nametag around her neck that said:

Samantha Clerk

        I frowned in confusion. Why was an employee allowed to work on her toes during office time? And was Samantha working as a clerk at Official Name Change or was her real name Samantha Clerk?
       “Excuse me, ma’am.” When she didn’t respond or even look up at me, I tried again. Then again. “Excuse me, ma’am.”
       I don’t know how it’s physically possible, but Samantha Clerk acknowledged me with only one of her eyes.
       “Yes?” she sharply asked.
       I cleared my voice. “Do you work here?”
       That eye became even sharper.
        “What did you mean by that?” Samantha Clerk harshly asked.
       “I’m not trying to be offensive or anything.” My voice betrayed my nervousness. “I just need someone to help me.”
       “With what?”
       “Changing my full name.”
       With sincere reluctance Samantha Clerk raised herself from her toe filing position and reached across her desk for an Official Change Your Name Application form. She groaned, lifted herself from her desk, and hopped—her bare right foot hovering off the ground—over to me to slap the official form down on the counter.
       Nodding towards the forms, she said, “This is the official application form. Fill it out.”
       “Thank you,” I felt obliged to say to her.
       “But there is a warning.”
       “Meaning?”
       “You must thoroughly fill in all of the questions asked on that particular form or—“
       “Or?”
       “—we will simply exterminate it.”
       I suddenly felt like I was living in Hiroshima when the nuclear bomb exploded.
       I nodded my head several times, consenting to her demands. “I fully understand, ma’am.”
       I reached into my tweed jacket’s inside pocket for a pen, but I found nothing. That struck me as odd because I always kept a pen in that pocket. I checked my pants. Nothing. I looked on the counter. Still nothing.
       Samantha Clerk who was now back at her desk, awkwardly propping up her foot to resume her filing duties.
       I swallowed my fear. “Excuse me, ma’am.”
       Samantha Clerk did not look up at me. Not even the one eye. “What now?”
       “Well, um—”
       “Yes?”
       “—apparently I didn’t bring a pen and there doesn’t seem to be one here.”
       “We rarely provide pens.”
       “But I need a pen in order to thoroughly fill out the official Personal Name Change Application form.”
       “Maybe, but…”
       “Yes?”
       “Well, we’ve been told to be very cautious about answering such requests.”
       “I don’t understand, ma’am.”
       Samantha Clerk groaned once again and then set her one eye on me. “My immediate manager.” She nodded to a nearby office. On the door a plaque read: Mr. P. Manager. “He told me the PNCP’s fiscal budget has been severely reduced and that we should be cautious in providing our clients with pens or things associated with pens.”
       I frowned. “How would providing pens to your clients affect your department’s budget?”
       “Because a high percentage of clients walk away with one of our pens.”
       “Maybe that’s true, ma’am, but I’m not a thief.” I pointed to myself.
       “Everyone says that,” mocked Samantha Clerk.
       “But really, ma’am, I’m not a thief!”
       “So you say.”
       Realizing I was going nowhere, I decided to attack Samantha Clerk from a different angle.
       “A few seconds ago you distinctly told me that you might ‘cautiously’ provide a pen if so needed. Since it’s obvious I don’t have a pen, then the provided circumstances will oblige you to–even ‘cautiously’–provide me with a pen.”
       Samantha Clerk’s face twisted in agonizing thoughtful pain. Then her eyes, both them, swiftly turned to the large bowl of pens located on top of her desk. She grunted.
       She turned one of her eyes to me and grunted again.
       With considerable reluctance, Samantha Clerk selected one pen from the bowl. She then slowly raised herself from her office chair and slowly hopped—her bare right foot still held aloft (and I decided Samantha Clerk probably has a fetish for socks and other toe-related garments)—her way to the counter before literally slapping the cheap pen on the counter.
       “Here’s a pen that you can briefly use.” Samantha’s eyes (both them) narrowed into suspicious slants. “But I’ll be keeping an eye on that same pen until you dutifully return it to me.”
       With pen firmly in hand, I quickly filled out all of the questions required, although I must admit I had a little problem with the last request. What it demanded—as we know everything a government requests is always a demand—was for me to provide at least “three or more names” I wanted as a full name. The problem was all I wanted to be known as was one name: Kingsley.
       What I did was draw, cleverly I thought, a circle around Requested First Name Change, then another circle around Requested Second Name and finally around Requested Surname (there was also an additional request for Other Additional Name But Not Absolutely Required but I could easily nix that away), and with an artist’s dramatic skill, I drew a line up to the top of the form and in parentheses wrote: (Please note: I only wish to be officially known as Kingsley. Nothing more, just Kingsley.)
       Once I filled out the required Personal Name Change Application form, I looked over at Samantha Clerk and was happy to see she had slipped on a dainty pink sock and shoe and was now madly filing one of her fingers—the index one.
       Somewhat hesitant, I cleared my throat. “I’ve completed the Personal Name Change Application form, ma’am.”
       Samantha Clerk turned one of her eyes on me, then reluctantly both. She raised herself from her desk as if it required every ounce of strength to do so and made her way to me. She accepted my completed Personal Name Change Application form.
       That’s when it happened.
       It really did.
       As I suspected, part of Samantha Clerk’s job functions was to thoroughly read through the submitted Personal Name Change Application form. Which she did. But when she reached my parenthetical note, her eyes rotated at enormous speed and she became what could only be described as hysterical.
       She whipped around to the manager’s office and shouted, “Mr. Manager!”
       A very slim man sped from the office. He was also wearing a nametag around his neck:

Mr. P. Manager
Manager

       His nervous eyes darted from Samantha Clerk to me then back to Samantha Clerk. “What’s going on here, if I may ask?”
       Samantha Clerk turned one of her eyes to me and the other affixed to her boss. “It’s him!”
       “Him what?”
       She pointed at me. “He wants to change his name.”
       With a hint of mockery, her manager said, “Well, yes, that’s what we do here.”
       “But—”
       “But what?”
       “—he only wants to use one name to officially identify himself.”
       “That’s highly illegal, Samantha Clerk.”
       Now in defensive mode, Samantha Clerk placed her hands on her hips. “I know that, Mr. Manager.”
      “Have you also informed our client that it’s highly illegal for him to do something like that?”
       Samantha Clerk squeezed her hips even more. “I think that’s your responsibility as a manager.”
       Mr. Manager mumbled as he turned his increasingly angry eyes on me. “Are you aware that it’s highly illegal for you to request such things?”
       I quickly shook my head. “No.”
       He snapped his fingers, and Samantha Clerk immediately provided him with my somewhat questionable Personal Name Change Application form. He scanned it over. Like Samantha Clerk, when his eyes reached my parenthetical note, he became hysterical.
       “You simply cannot do that!”
       “What do you mean?”
       “Listen—”
       “Obviously I am.”
       “It’s quite legal to change one or all of your names, but in the end you’ve got to have at least three or more credible names.”
       “Mr. Manager,” I said, offering him the most pleasant smile I could muster. “I just want to eliminate all of my current names and be known as one name: Kingsley. That’s it. Kingsley.”
       Mr. Manager was nodding furiously. “And that’s the highly illegal part!”
       “But why, Mr. Manager?”
       He opened his mouth to answer, but nothing came out. Finally he shrugged. “That’s the way it is this given second.”
       “Let me see if I’ve got this straight, Mr. Manager.”
       Mr. Manager glanced at his watch, as if signaling to me that he was doing me a big favor in allowing me to continue. “Well, okay, go ahead. Quickly, please.”
       “If someone walks in here and properly fills out a Personal Name Change Application form in the hopes of changing their name―”
       He swirled his right hand at me. “Faster, faster.”
       “―then this is legal?”
       “Yes, of course—but conditionally,” he added.
       “But if that same applicant has decided to reduce his full name to just one, then this is―”
       “Highly illegal,” Mr. Manger curtly interrupted me as he looked at his wristwatch a second time.
       “But a fellow I know came to this office and legally changed his name from James John Smith to Tootoowong. That’s the absolute truth.”
       “Based on what you’ve just told me, that’s perfectly fine. Legally, he has the right to change his name to Too Too Wong.”
       “No, sir, not Too Too Wong, but rather the singular Tootoowong.”
       Mr. Manager shook his head. “Perhaps it was possible in the past, but today every citizen must have at least three given names.”
       Samantha Clerk, who had returned to her desk, was now applying tangerine-colored polish to her right thumbnail. One stroke, two strokes, three strokes. Done. “Our government has, by choice, made it constitutionally clear that each citizen must be identified by at least three recognizable names—and hopefully more,” she said. “No exceptions.” Index fingernail: one stroke, two strokes, three strokes. Done.
       Mr. Manager looked back to me. “Samantha Clerk pretty well sums it up.” With subdued sarcasm, he added a quick “sir.”
       That’s when it occurred to me.
       I pulled my Personal Name Change Application form from Mr. Manager’s hand and, using my borrowed state-owned pen, nixed everything I had previously written. I then wrote the following under each of the required name spaces:

 Requested First Name Change:
Kingsley
Requested Second Name Change:
Kingsley-
Requested Surname Change:
Kingsley
Other Requested Name Changes:
(Not absolutely required)

        Once completed, I handed my revised Personal Name Change Application form back to Mr. Manager. who—after reading it from beginning to end—slowly looked up at me, a concerned look on his face.
       I nodded toward my submitted form. “Would this be acceptable, Mr. Manager?”
       Mr. Manager shook his head several times. “I simply don’t know.”
       “But, Mr. Manager…”
       “Yes?”
       “You are the manager of this government service, so you should really know whether this is acceptable.” I pointed at the Personal Name Change Application form still in his hand.
        Mr. Manager’s eyes, like those of Samantha Clerk before him, rotated at an enormous speed, then came to an abrupt stop. That's when he madly rushed into his office and contacted by phone an equal or even a higher position than he.
       So I waited.
       And waited.
       And waited even more.
       My waiting finally came to an end when a confident-looking Mr. Manager exited his office, smilingly slightly as he walked towards me.
       “So what happened?” I nervously asked.
       “I spoke to Dakota Chief.”
       “Who?”
       “Dakota Chief.”
       “And that is…?”
       “My top chief.”
       I nodded.
       “Both Dakota Chief and I have come to the firm (or not firm) decision that the Personal Name Change Department will allow you to submit your application and, given your particular case, we will forward it to our Official Names Jury. In the meantime, we will grant you the privilege of using your preferred names, in this particular case: Kingsley Kingsley-Kingsley.”
       “When will I know of the Official Name Jury’s final decision, Mr. Manager?”
       Mr. Manager winked good-naturedly. “This is a New York State Government Department office, Mr. Kingsley Kingsley-Kingsley, and all Temporary Acceptances are approved.”
       Ten thousand celebratory firecrackers went off in my mind, and my smile was the size of the universe itself.
       I’d never bowed to anyone before, but I gave both Mr. Manager and Samantha Clerk a little one at that moment. Samantha Clerk then gave me a bonafide copy of my official Personal Name Change Application form.
       As I was humbly stepping backwards, heading towards the door, Samantha Clerk screamed at me. “Pen!”
       I looked down at my right hand and, sure enough, I was holding the government property, like a thief absconding with it.
       “Mr. Kingsley Kingsley-Kingsley,” Samantha Clerk nearly shrieked. “You are walking out of this government office while still in the possession of government property.”
         Mr. Manager scowled. “Remember, Mr. Kingsley Kingsley-Kingsley: What the government has given you, it can always take back.”
       I raced back to the counter and gently placed the Personal Name Change Department’s official pen on the black-colored Formica.
       “I’m truly sorry,” I humbly apologized to both Samantha Clerk and Mr. Manager. “I’m not a thief.”
       Samantha Clerk grunted.
       I raced out of the government office faster than a .50-caliber bullet.
       Three weeks later I received by mail notification that the Official Names Jury had unanimously agreed that I was now legally known as Kingsley Kingsley-Kingsley.
       I was one very happy man.

________________

Several years later I happened to be passing by Orgasmica, the Original Sin Eatery. I dug into my dirty pockets to see if I had enough cash—they had bankrupted me a year ago and forced me to cut up all my credit cards. I scraped together just enough cash for one glass of very cheap cognac (certainly nothing like Martell XO Extra Old!).
       While sitting at the bar and enjoying a short bit of emotional relief, I glanced to my right and found Tootoowong himself sitting on a bar stool not far from me.
       “Tootoowong!”
       He looked more than a little confused. “Pardon?”
       “It’s you. Tootoowong.”
       “Who?”
       “Tootoowong.”
       After a moment of studying my face, he finally seemed to remember me. “You’re that fellow who wanted to be known as...?”
       “Kingsley.”
       “That’s right. Kingsley. How did it go for you?”
       “I followed your advice and drove up to Albany, where I found that same red brick building. I managed to get my name changed, but almost didn’t because of a serious problem.”
       “What sort of problem?”
       “They wouldn’t allow me to have just one name. I had to have at least three.” I sighed.    “And that’s how I unfortunately got to be known legally as Kingsley Kingsley-Kingsley.” I sighed again and shook my head. “Everything after that went terribly wrong.”
       Tootoowong cocked his head, patiently waiting to hear my story.
       “When my fiancée Brittany Snag, of the extremely wealthy Snag-DuPont family, found out that I had changed my name to Kingsley Kingsley-Kingsley, her face drained of color. I never heard from her again. Then both my parents went into shock—especially my dad. He kicked me out of the family house, muttering ‘He’s always been a bit of a nut, that one.’ And even my dentist, Dr. Edwin Moolah, while diligently drilling a hole in one of my back teeth, suggested I might be suffering from multiple personalities—most possibly three. To make matters worse, Melinda Boss, my boss, fired me when she learned that I was now to be known as Kingsley Kingsley-Kingsley, claiming no one would trust someone with such a nonsensical name. I quickly realized there was no point in mailing out my curriculum vitae. Once a potential employer read my name, into the nearest garbage can my CV would go. So let’s just say my entire life fell apart, and I ended up living on the street.” I took a long drink of my cognac. “So how did it go for you? I mean, you being Tootoowong?”
       “I think I was much luckier than you, and I apologize if I’ve steered you wrong in any way.”
       I sipped the last of my cognac, the cheap stuff. “I own my own life rudder, Tootoowong.”
       “Well, I married into a very wealthy family, so it didn’t matter a damn if I legally changed my name to Mr. Pig Shit or not. They were really that wealthy. Moreover, and most importantly, about a year ago I received a letter from the Personal Name Change Department who demanded—these silly little government jerks are always demanding things—that new regulations required me to provide them with at least two additional names. I wasn’t against doing that anyway. To be honest, I was already growing a little tired of always being called Tootoowong. So, I reclaimed my birth names, but kept Tootoowong as my first name. I am now legally known as Tootoowong James John Smith.” He shrugged, a smile peeking from the corner of his lips. “It works well for me now. When I want to be simply Tootoowong, that’s who I am, but when my wife introduces me to someone as significant as the British Duke of Cornwall, she can always introduce me as Mr. James John Smith.”
       After a few moments of silence, both of us lost in our thoughts, Tootoowong spoke up again. “Do you know how you’re going to deal with your current bad luck?”
       I tried to find a response to answer, but I simply could not find the words. Not even one.

________________

Later that night, I searched for a quiet sleeping spot in the shadow of a tall Greenwich Village office building. It was a humid July night, so I didn’t need much. Just somewhere to roll up in the fetal position and drift off into a far more enjoyable dream world. Still, even in my dreams, I kept wondering about Tootoowong’s question. How would I deal with my current bad luck? One observant dream gave me the answer: look into my past and conform accordingly.  

Ethics of this Story
Always appreciate and obey your
parents’ decisions. No excuses ever.
And always marry into a very rich family.

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How & Why I Became

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