How difficult is it to check if you have a bald spot in the middle of your hair? Sure, you can have a feel around and try to identify some missing hair on the top of your head, but to do a visual test is difficult.

Prufrock was doing just that as we home in on his life. He had learnt that by using only the bathroom mirror it was impossible to do the visual check, as you had to drop your eyes down to enable the mirror to pick up the location of the potential hair void. And if you turned around to show the mirror the area in question, your eyes would be facing the wrong way to see anything.

Now manipulating two small mirrors – one at the back of his head and one in front of him – Prufrock ingeniously (his view) confirmed the murmurs, then mutters: “How his hair is growing thin!”

He sat back dejected. This just added to his funk. Was it mid-life crisis? Was it the onset of depression?

Slumped in the chair he tried to psychoanalyse his feelings. His childhood was rather nondescript. Nothing really there to help explain it, he thought. However, he did feel he had to live in his father’s footsteps – at least, his name. See his father – originally named ‘John Brown’ – had searched for his own identity. May be the malady is hereditary, Prufrock mused.

Father had fallen in love with T.S. Eliot (the famous American poet, long before deceased). He then had some Eliot-driven epiphany involving leaving mother, and him doing several degrees in literature (majoring in the poetry of Eliot) and becoming an Associate Professor of Eliot (sorry, Literature specialising in Eliot) at some obscure overseas university.

Father was so smitten with Eliot that he’d long ago changed his name by deed poll to ‘J. Alfred Prufrock’ – a character in an Eliot poem who was searching for himself. And to make matters worse, just prior to father’s departure, and through some weakened state of mind (e.g. wild sex, drunken stupor), mother had supported the naming of the newly-born child as ‘J. Alfred Prufrock Jnr’.

Mmm, my name could be a factor in my malcontent, the younger Prufrock pondered.

And this given name had been a cross to bear. With literally no father (albeit having a literary father), Prufrock discarded the ‘Jnr’ as soon as he could by deed poll. He had heard that ‘Alfred’ was a relatively common second name (this author’s middle name is Alfred), and not wanting to expand the ‘J.’ (which had to be ‘John’ as per his father’s former name), he thought he would replace ‘Alfred’ with the exotic ‘Rodolfo’ to spice up his image through the juxtaposition of Spanish with Anglo-Saxon words. It might attract some woman (Julio and Enrique Iglesias were big attractions to English-speaking ladies!).

To make matters worse, in his country the use of the nickname was rife. Like a pagan ritual, all males would receive at least one ‘other’ name (some that could not be repeated in this story) in their youth. However, most nicknames were reasonably unimaginative e.g. Daniel = ‘Danno’, Johnson = ‘Johnno’, Smith = ‘Smithy’. There were some more lateral thinkers though, and Prufrock was affectionately dubbed by one: ‘The Skirt’ – derived from the latter syllable of his surname. The name stuck and introductions to ladies went like this: ‘I’m Danno, this is Johnno, this is Smithy and over there is The Skirt’ (he wished they’d call him ‘Rodolfo’). This didn’t help his woman-chasing cause.

So here he was in his thirties, living at home with mother, with a weird-sounding name, an effeminate nickname and without a woman (or even a date). He felt he was going nowhere, like he was wedged in a vice between his past (youth) and his future (old age – ‘shall I wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled?’). Thirties was supposed to be fun according to the ‘Friends’ show on TV. Sometimes he wished he would be a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floors of silent seas (oops, was that a quote from Eliot?).

It was now time for him to act – for decisions, visions and revisions. Break out of the melancholy. He made a list of improvements:

1. I will be assertive in using my new (real) name; no, it is not ‘The Skirt’, it is ‘Rodolfo’ ladies.
2. I will get a bachelor pad. Goodbye, mother.
3. I will forget my past. Goodbye, father
4. I will get a hair transplant.

But how to actually woo a woman? He had had numerous opportunities – nightclubs, bars; he’d tried them all but to no avail. The result was nil. They didn’t care about a flash name or full head (almost) of hair. They seemed preoccupied. In the room the women come and go talking of Michelangelo (another Eliot-ism, well they talked about something, but not him).

So, he tried online dating. He had posted his profile using a grainy photograph (not too much detail – woman can air brush theirs), highlighted his saucy name in bold and tried to lift his unremarkable past through some imaginative description. And he did get one email reply. Excited he replied. I’ll text you, she said. Sure, he said.

She: OMG u Rodolfo?

He: certainly, Rodolfo is my name. What are you doing?

She: JC

He: what?

She: YSAN

He: what are you saying?

She: 4COL

He: For Col, I’m not Col!

She: LOL @ u

He: LOL oh, you mean Lots of Love. Do you love me already?

She: WTF Go Away!

That love-text didn’t seem to work out. He stood up, emboldened.

            5.  I will get a text word dictionary.

© Neil Dufty