Sound. It. Out.

My name is Shawna. Shawna Lea. A little bumpkin, I know. But it’s what I got. What was given. If I’m not mistaken, I think my Grandmama – my Mam, gave me that name. She saw it in a book somewhere and thought it was beautiful and exotic or something. I suppose if you live in Llano, Texas, in 1970 –population 3,000 – it is. For most of my life, it was butchered. Shanna, Shannon, Sh.....you name it, anything and everything, with the exception of SHAWNA. I have a distinct memory of the DMV, the day I got my driver’s license – and the grown ass man who came to get me for my test could not get it. He just couldn’t. He sh’d around for 20 seconds until at last, I said ‘SHAWNA. It’s SHAWNA’. There may not have ever actually been one single time that my name was called out aloud correctly in the entire 20th century. Ever. This has improved exponentially, though, in today’s world of more international living. We do lots of life with much more difficult names than mine. But in 1970s and 1980s Texas, Shawna was about as exotic as it got. I may as well have been from Bangladesh. As far as Casey and Brandon and Susan could tell. It was much simpler to just stick with Shannon. It’s ok, I’ve surely been called worse.

The How Bad Can I Fuck Up Her Name clencher came in 1982, 7th grade, Dobie Jr. High. Cherry Gosden. My Art Teacher. Notice I remember her name. I can still see her with her long Crystal Gayle hair, parted right down the middle, in standard Crystal Gayle fashion. She was slightly butchy, more like a Science teacher really. Or a gym coach. Not very artsy whatsoever. She sported one of those gym coach scowls too. Nothing even remotely whimsical or quirky about Cherry Gosden. Extremely un-artsy, her. I will tell you what else she wasn’t. She wasn’t an English teacher. By the time 7th grade rolled around, I was pretty accustomed to the hack job my name inevitably took, when spoken aloud. But Cherry took the proverbial cake. On day one, she hem-hawed around, sh’d for the standard 20 seconds and then finally settled on SHWANA. All. Year. Long. Every damn day this woman called me Shwana. It matters not how many times she was corrected. Shwana was the best she could do. For the love of all the holy things, woman! Sound. It. Out. I survived her damn near illiteracy though. The 7th grade came and went, I made my clay ashtray, and ended the year the same way I started it in Cherry Gosden’s Art class – as Shwana. Honestly, Shwana was the least of my problems. It’s the last name that truly gives us our place in the world.

I’ve found myself mulling over this question a lot lately - what’s in a name? Come to find out, to discover, really – UNCOVER, actually – a whole damn lot is in a name. Way more than I ever realized. Whether or not Cherry Gosden could get it, I was born Shawna Lea. In 1970, San Antonio, Texas. My mother was 19 years old. Single and two months shy of turning 20. I heard that often through the years – that she was almost 20 when I was born. I guess it sounded less teenage mothery to her or something. Nonetheless, she was a kid, unwed and pregnant with the child of a 27 year old married musician. A 27 year old musician with 4 kids under his belt already and according to my mother, a pill habit to boot. Specifically, speed – or at least that’s what she called it. You know, the souped up prescription diet pills. Dennis Nalley was a ramblin’ man – as musicians often are. Slightly criminal – just the shady kind, nothing violent, to my knowledge. Standard low-level con – hot checks and such. He was a cheater, a grifter, an opportunist and a remarkably gifted guitarist and song writer. Just an okay singer, but goodness, that sorry ass cad could write the songs and pick the guitar.

Speaking of the name question, Dennis Nalley himself, had many. I’m not sure, but I feel like that may be standard for amateur con men. He said it was because he preferred his “stage name” of Buddy Andrews better. Who knows? Buddy, Dennis, Carl – I've heard people call him all of them. By the time I finally met him in 1993, he was Buddy. I will refer to him as Dennis, because that’s the name I was always told was my father’s. Dennis left little old Llano and the famous Rambling Rose – where he led the house band, sometime before I was born, I believe. From what I heard, the hot checks caught up to him and he went in search of a bit more anonymity elsewhere. I also heard he asked my mother to come with him. No clue how that was going to work. Sister wives, maybe? What on earth do you do with your 20 year old mistress, her bastard child, a slew of arrest warrants and your PREGNANT wife and kids? Ballsy he was, that’s for sure. Needless to say, my mother stayed in the dead end known as rural Texas and my Mam took over. Dennis Carl Buddy Andrews Nalley would not be seen again for 23 years.

Even with so many paternal names to choose from, my mother (or likely my grandmother) gave me hers at birth. Barclay. Shawna Lea Barclay. It’s on my social security card and my original birth certificate – the one with the father’s name left blank. It’s like I was Jesus or something. I was Shawna Barclay until I was 3 years old. Then came Hawkins. That’s the first name I remember. My mother married Johnny Hawkins sometime around 1973, I guess. He had been chasing her for some time and who was she to turn down a man willing to marry a woman with a bastard kid? And a plumber too! That’s basically royalty in small-town Texas. Now, I know bastard sounds harsh by today’s standards. Heinous, actually. But, I heard it often when I was a child. My great-grandmother, my great-aunt, and others used it fairly indiscriminately. People were wild and just insanely fucking ignorant back then, apparently. I mean, please just call me Shwana. To be fair, it wasn’t yelled at me or anything – more like a not so quiet whisper. Enough so, I specifically remember asking my Mam what it meant. She told me the truth – the literal definition. I was told lots of truths and heard many stories that probably weren’t the best idea to serve to a 5 year old bastard child, who thought she had a Daddy named Johnny. I think they ultimately served me well though. I’ve been an adult since I was basically 4 years old because of it. Pretty thick skin, I developed. I learned early on to be a just- let- it-slide- off -you kind of girl. No medals or anything are due whatsoever though. I didn’t adult too well in the other areas. But, I learned to roll with all that Dad, weird family, supremely dysfunctional shit like a champ.

Next name up is Johnston. That came in August of 1977. It took root on one late night in late 76 or early 77, not sure which – but it was first grade for me. I know well, because Mrs. Jones had just separated me from the rest of the class. I was relegated to a desk right beside her because I had too much to say to everyone else. The woes of a Gemini and Enneagram 7, I suppose. Anyhow, I was asleep in my little bed in the brand-new house that my Daddy, Johnny, had built for us. It was a school night, probably not that late – but late for a little gal. My mother came in and woke me up, told me that we were leaving to go to my Mam and Pap’s, and we just rolled out of there. We didn’t go far – my grandparents lived a mere 1⁄4 mile down the road, like the small-town people do. What I remember most of that night is walking through the living room and Johnny was sitting on the couch, crying. The next part has been seared into my heart for 47 years – he looked at us and pleaded “Sheryl, please don’t take her”. He was crying, I was crying – although I wasn’t really sure why, but I knew that something was changing in my world, in that very instant. His pleas didn’t work. We kept right on trucking. Sheryl did Sheryl and that’s what she wanted. Sheryl always did Sheryl.

What I couldn’t have known at this point, was that my mother already had my next name lined up. It wasn’t too many nights later that I was sitting in the back seat with my Mam and my mama, going to the Dairy King for ice cream. Dairy Queen had just made its Llano debut, but the Dairy King was still the old faithful. After we picked up our cones, my mother turned around and said “Shawna, how would you like it if Gary became your daddy now?” Gary was her boss, the assistant manager at the JRB Grocery Store. I had seen him many times before and he was nice enough. He was married and had a daughter a few years younger than me. His wife’s name was Brownie and that was fascinating to me – the food human moniker. I can’t remember exactly what month that was, but what was to be was already in place. Shortly thereafter, they were wed in New Mexico, brought me back a Barbie doll and voila – I became Shawna Johnston. I started 2nd grade in Llano for just a few weeks – Mrs. Seaborn’s class. Looking back, I often wonder if people thought that was weird – a kid goes their entire little life as one person and then comes back the next school year as someone else. Of course, what they all knew was that neither one of those names was genuinely mine anyways. They all knew I was the bastard kid born to the pill popping, musical thief. But my mother made it sound simple. She handed me my Barbie and stated so nonchalantly “Gary is your Daddy now and you are Shawna Johnston now”. And she is who I would be from that day on. Until it became more complicated. It’s bizarre to think that back then, one could just take their kid to a school and tell the people in charge “this is their name”. Nowadays, anything we do requires a whole damn CIA report. Not in the 70s. We were chameleons, man. Free living.

There’s a picture of me, sitting on my grandparent’s sidewalk, pink shorts, Holly Hobbie halter top, barefoot and brown skinned – holding my New Mexico newlywed Barbie doll. I was smiling, showing my brand new, big front teeth. When I see that picture, it does a little something to me. I don’t remember the exact moment, but sometime during their wedding trip, while I was staying with my Mam and Pap, I brought up to my Mam that I didn’t really want to be Shawna Johnston. I had already been Shawna Hawkins. Why did I have to have a new daddy? Why did I need a new name? She, in her standard fashion, gave me the truth. I remember her words, her precise words, “Shawna, neither Johnny nor Gary are your father. Your father is a man named Dennis Nalley”. I was 7 years old. Back to the too many truths at a much too early age. I didn’t get it fully, but bastard was starting to make a little bit more sense to me now.

The low-key, quiet bastard was planted in me early on. It was almost like one of those memories, just right there on the edge of your consciousness, but you can’t quite put your finger on it. I could instinctively tell that bastard wasn’t a term of endearment, but also didn’t fully understand it, even after I was explained the definition. Even after I knew I was one. It lingered most of my life, like a needy, toxic ex. I was illegitimate. What a sick fucking word to ever use for a human, never mind a human child. Some loser gets another loser (or winner – whichever) pregnant and the child born of that is the one labeled illegitimate. What a bunch of patriarchal bullshit. Patriarchal bullshit aside, let me tell you, it lives there –in that little mind, that fresh open heart, it becomes deeply embedded into the very soul. Then it claws itself right on out. It just kind of lies there dormant, spurring on some other ugly hang-up or relationship choice or deep insecurity – just nibbling away, insidiously. But don’t you worry, the bastard will certainly make a real true grand debut at some point. Perhaps at 30 or 40, or in my case, 50 – but it will definitely come down that golden elevator of your life, in standard con man fashion. Because that is what it is, of course. Bastard is a con-man. A substandard human term, created by substandard, knuckle-dragging, religious-order-clinging mortals. It is one of the biggest lies ever told. And yet, it wields big ass, real life power that contributes to big ass, real life consequences and big ass, real life pain.

SO. What’s in a name? For some, name brings pride and tradition and family legacy. It’s the trophy that gets passed down from generation to generation, requiring a Jr or a II or a III. It is the thing that many must hold onto, because it is their very identity. They cling to it like a life preserver. See Kennedy. Or Hilton. The list goes on. For others, it is the broken link. That which literally disconnects, a source of untether. It is the reason that some don’t pursue a family tree – because why? Who really actually is the family of the bastard? Even when they eventually know all that family – does it matter? Even when they have another father or family step in as substitute – does it matter? The genes of the subs are not a branch of the bastard’s family tree. The bond that so many are given through DNA and name simply does not exist for the bastards. In this way, a name matters. It is the knowing. The certainty of who exactly our cells are made from. It is constancy. Unless it’s not. It is also, just a name. Some letters strung together and attached to a soul, for the sake of mere language. No matter how many times Cherry Gosden called me Shwana, I was always Shawna. I could change my name tomorrow and yet, I am still just who I am. Just a soul, in a body, attached to some language and comprised of 53 years of the people and places and names and experiences that grew me and broke me and many times, loved me well. One thing I am not, is illegitimate. Nor is anyone. I don’t care what Websters says. Websters cannot force us to pay for the sins of our mothers or our great-aunts or our scammy sperm donors. There is much in a name, but not wholeness. No, not that. Language will never make one whole. Not me, not you, not the Hiltons or the Kennedys. Shawna Lea Barclay Hawkins Johnston are just the words attached to the cells that comprise the works and the imprint of that mystery that arrived on June 2, 1970. Nothing more, really.

There will always be days that I doubt that statement. There will always be many moments and reminders of the disconnect that I inherited from other folks’ choices. But I will always be incredibly legitimate. Forever and ever amen legitimate. And Cherry Gosden will always get my middle finger.

Signing off,

Shawna Shwana Lea Barclay Hawkins Johnston