Each memory was brought to life before me and within me. I could not avoid them. Neither could I rationalize, explain away. I could only re-experience with total cognizance, unprotected by pretense. Self-delusion was impossible, truth exposed in this blinding light. Nothing as I thought it had been. Nothing as I hoped it had been. Only as it had been. – Richard Matheson
A single identity is too stressful. But if you can spread the pain, calm the fright by sharing it with others….
You have probably never had this experience, but when one of your personalities disappears, there’s a sense of absence. Suppose it’s your favorite personality, your favorite you? Serious loss.
Others step in. Grandpa. Housekeeper. Dog trainer. Walker. Happy house hubby. All good. Neighbor, senior citizen, not so much. Your roles are not who you are but what you do.
Some argue you are what you do.
Remember Barker Ajax proclaimed at every opportunity – and there were many – do be do be do.
Barker Ajax. Let me go back.. He actually had something of a childhood. Wolf cub in Scouts seemed a signal. Late 1950s.
Remember him watching from the shadows of a camp fire, like some wild puppy apart from the others.
Locked in an ice box atop a mountain on the Czechoslovakian border, Airman First Class Wolf Gwamba earned a Letter of Commendation from the Director of National Security Agency (DIRNSA). Late 1960s.
Like Bluto Blutarski, I was in charge of assigning nicknames. “Doc” attacked a vending machine and lost, necessitating an emergency visit to the infirmary. “Dip” was Dennis Paul Little, or DPL, pronounced ‘dipple,’ so, of course, abbreviated.
“Bones” was six-feet tall and one-thirty-five. “Matt”, last name Dillon. “Worm” was never happy about it, but he was a good sport. Almost forgot about “Ron.” He was ginger-headed, with hair once described as Red On the Noodle like the dick of a poodle.
Needed something studly for myself. Wolf, my secret code name since the fourth grade. Gwamba sounded cool and nobody recognized a South American term for bat guano,
Decades pass. A New York Times article, December 27, 1987. Pirmin Zurbriggen, an Austrian athlete whose idea of a fun time was flying down a icy mountain on a pair of waxed wooden slats, was given a nickname. The appellation recalled a remark by an Austrian racer named Helmut Hoeflehner, who once said Zurbriggen was a type in his country called ”a wild dog.” According to Austrian folklore, a dog that returns to the wild, fleeing memories of captivity, is fiercer than the wolves who have never known docile domesticity. That’s what it said.
His nickname became mine – Wild Dog.
Shortly thereafter. Barker Ajax. Made the name up, inspired by a dog, definitely feral spirit. Barker Ajax was a nom a la rue, a protagonist’s name to disguise the unalibied. If your hero does something dicey, you want to leave a little wiggle room.
A few years later, the tall, lanky stranger came to me as a quiet whisper. Introduced himself as Barker Ajax and I finally felt sane.