Name Change: the Making of a Vampire Hunter

Shit Happens

William Magnum hadn't always been William Magnum. Goodman used to be his last name. Like his name, he had changed too, but the past still clung to him like mucous on his skin.

"I can't imagine you before you hunted vampires," said Roland Walker.

"I did exist," said William Magnum—Magnum as most people called him. His thoughts drifted to his mother, Stella, a dark haired, Southern beauty. Another life, he thought. The past hurts.

Magnum began to tell Roland how he got the name Magnum.

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William Goodman grew up in the town Moravia, North Carolina, a tobacco town where Dixon Tobacco was based. "Moravia, where the past is never far behind" greeted people as they drove into the town. Carved in yellow against a red wood background, the sign spoke more of the past than the future.

"I need to get to the factory early today," said Big Bill, William's father, William Sr.

"That's fine," said Stella. Stella reached for a black and gold coffee mug William made her a few years ago when he was a kid. Black and gold for the local university brought from the eastern part of North Carolina to Moravia. The university was paid for by tobacco money like so many other things in the area.

At 15, William didn't feel like a child anymore, but not everyone shared his view. In fact, many didn't.

"J.W.'s been on my ass lately," said Big Bill. "I don't get what his deal is." Big Bill didn't get along well with J.W. Dixon, III, the scion of the J.W. Dixon Tobacco Company, started by his grandfather.

"He's always on everyone's ass," said Stella. She pursed her lips, tired of hearing about Big Bill's discontent with J.W. She didn't tell him J.W. had called a few times when Big Bill had been at work. Each time he invited her to the Dixon mansion, and she turned him down each time.

Big Bill stormed out, irked with the lack of sympathy. "I will see you later tonight," he grumbled. "Later tonight" usually meant late at night or in a few days as Big Bill often stopped for a few beers at the Donkey Bar, so named for the Donkey line of Dixon cigarettes, which everyone seemed to smoke.

"Don't hurry back," Stella said. Big Bill didn't hear her, but William did. His mother's lack of interest in his father made William sad. Maybe the two had always been distant and he hadn't noticed it, but it seemed worse lately.

William normally walked to school as Moravia High School sat on the hill overlooking Dixon Park about a mile from his house. One mile in the other direction was the Dixon Mansion in all its unknowable glory.

William wasn't aware that J.W. invited his mother to visit at the mansion. If he had, he wouldn't have been surprised. Even in his young age he knew how the world worked, and it wasn't always pretty. He'd seen the way men looked at his mother. And she liked it. This bothered William.

The Dixon Mansion, a stately white mansion next to Moravia University, had hosted Presidents, movie stars and other dignitaries.

William was about to leave when the phone rang. His mother picked up.

"Big Bill will find out. And we can't have that. I can't come over, " Stella said into the phone her voice hushed. William still heard her, but Stella had no idea her overheard her.

William knew why J.W. wanted her to visit. It was the same reason other men always grinned at his mother, told him his mother was pretty and why men acted like a fool around Stella.