Girl with no name

Walking to work in my lady clothes, I feel a little crazy inside. Who am I? I wonder. What is this? I love the lady clothes, but they feel like drag.

When you get a job, don’t you kind of become a different person? A little bit? That’s one of the things I worry about.

When I meet Mr. Pistol at work–Mr. Pistol is a businessman–he seems different from the Mr. Pistol I know from home. And it’s hot, actually! He’ll come striding towards me, slim and capable, half of his attention clearly on something else, and I’m all, Damn, baby, you fine. He’s like an entirely different person!

Anyway! About my job.

I have been installed as governess to three orphans who live in a drafty mansion under the care of a materially generous but physically absent great uncle. [Some identifying details have been changed.] Picture a whole fleet of uniformed servants, photographs of dead people on the walls, bad-dream wallpaper. You know: the usual! My charges Gracie and Saucy and Baby are adorable brown-eyed moppets, hungry for love and instruction. That’s where old Pistol comes in! Rev up that Jesus complex, flip on those rescue fantasies, and watch the crazy hijinx that ensues!

Gracie and Saucy, 7 and 6 respectively, remember me from the orphanage days, during which I was known as Ms. Whip.

Baby, 4, was just a mewling infant back then. And anyway, there is no way he can pronounce my surname, between all those syllables and blends, which is precisely the sort of thing he has trouble with. (Poor Baby has what the establishment refers to as “issues.”) So he calls me Pistol.

At first, it was hard for him to remember. “What’s she’s name?” Baby said, pointing at me.

“Pistol,” Gracie said, and smiled at him maternally.

“Pistol,” Baby repeated. “She’s name Pistol.”

“My name is Pistol,” I said. “You got it.”

Then Saucy piped up. “You can call her Pistol,” she said, “but her real name is Ms. Whip.”

Gracie, who is wise beyond her years, raised her eyebrows and smiled mysteriously, as if to say they were both right–or both wrong, if you want to look at it that way. As if to call into question the very notion of yours truly having a real name.

So I guess she answered my question. Sort of.

by Pistol Whip | 17 October 2007 | orphans, cute | Comments