Jason Livermore wondered how his family had acquired its last name, its family name. 

His research into the matter had found a place by that name in California, in the United States.  Some sort of wine country.  He wondered whether it had been named after a long forgotten relative.  Evidently the name was derived from old English, “Leuuremer”, or some such thing and it was old before the Conqueror invaded in 1066.  Perhaps there’d been a Leuuremer fighting against him at the Battle of Hastings, on the losing side unfortunately.  Evidently the name had been important in the area near the ancient Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk.  But still, that did not explain the meaning of “livermore”, although it may have had something to do with lakes and reeds, rather than with “liver”“.  Jason hoped that was the case.

At least in his case, “liver” was not among those things he enjoyed ingesting, although he was, of course, happy that his own liver apparently functioned well.  No liver spots, at least not yet, and he had a fine digestion without problems, even when he partook a bit too much of food or drink.

When he broke his family name into two components, “liver” and “more”, he wondered at what “Livermore” implied in a modern sense, and wondering that, for some reason, put him in mind of ravens, ravens of the type quoted by Edgar Allen Poe.  He recalled that goose livers were a delicacy, one to which he did not subscribe despising liver as a comestible in all its variants, and wondered whether or not the livers of ravens were all that different from those of geese.

He’d sometimes thought of changing his family name.  His given name was fine, he liked it.  But then again, he also liked the sound of the combination of Jason and Livermore, if not its implication.  It sounded aristocratic to him and he did, in fact, perceive of himself as something of an aristocrat, if only for onomatopoeic reasons.  Reasons that may not have made sense to anyone else but which, to him, resonated.

He had no children, nor a wife for that matter.  But he might, someday.  And he sometimes wondered if his lack of success in serious amatory adventures might not have something to do with his last name.  Perhaps “Mrs. Livermore” was not quite as palatable a sobriquet as most women whom he might desire would enjoy porting.  And he was a bit picky, not just any woman would do.  Unfortunately for him, perhaps none that he might pick would reciprocate, or at least, had reciprocated to date, at least not for long.

Jason wondered how his own father had dealt with the issue.  After all, he’d had a wife, Jason’s mother, at least for a while, at least long enough to beget him and to sort of raise him for a while.  He wondered whether or not it might prove wise to raise the issue with her during one of their infrequent visits together.  For some reason, she’d settled in Budapest, alone, after the demise of her marriage to his father when Jason had just turned thirteen.  It had been off to boarding schools then, albeit not prestigious boarding schools, or not all that prestigious, but adequate if a bit lonely as neither his father nor his mother visited him there with any frequency, and he’d all too frequently spent holidays during those formative years pretty much alone, well, with the exception of faculty and staff, and other sort of discarded students, none of whom ever really became friends, at least not real friends, more like polite, superficial acquaintances with whom he had to interact.

But his mother had not changed her name when his father had divorced her so, apparently, the name was not the determinant factor in the failure of their marriage.

He’d no siblings, or aunts or uncles or, of course, cousins.  Just pater and mater and him, each living alone in their own spheres, rarely interacting and, since he’d turned thirteen, never interacting concurrently.  He lived in London and his father in Paris, well there and in Geneva, and in Rome, and sometimes in Madrid.  Not that he was wealthy and had homes in each of those cities, but he tended to move quite a bit, all too frequently having to do with creditors, or unhappy investors, and every once in a while, with furious husbands.  Jason did not take after his father though, or for that matter his mother.

Jason was just Jason; Jason Livermore.

Perhaps he’d get a raven as a pet.  He’d never had a pet and ravens were, he understood, reputed to sometimes acquire the gift of tongues.  It would be interesting to have something, if not someone, with whom to talk.  Something perhaps, on some occasion, to quote.
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© Guillermo Calvo Mahé; Manizales, 2023; all rights reserved.  Please feel free to share with appropriate attribution.

Guillermo (“Bill”) Calvo Mahé (a sometime poet) is a writer, political commentator and academic currently residing in the Republic of Colombia (although he has primarily lived in the United States of America of which he is also a citizen).  Until 2017 he chaired the political science, government and international relations programs at the Universidad Autónoma de Manizales.  He is currently the publisher of the Inannite Review, available at Substack.com.  He has academic degrees in political science (the Citadel), law (St. John’s University), international legal studies (New York University) and translation and linguistic studies (the University of Florida’s Center for Latin American Studies).  However, he is also fascinated by mythology, religion, physics, astronomy and mathematics, especially with matters related to quanta and cosmogony.  He can be contacted at guillermo.calvo.mahe@gmail.com and much of his writing is available through his blog at https://guillermocalvo.com/.