If you know Wink Dale’s parents were hippies, then you know the story. You can picture them, spread out on a dozen or more oversized throw-pillows, in front of the television set in their tiny apartment, giggling at the gameshow host’s name, making their dare.

And you know that Jeannie had missed her last two periods, and though Jeff didn’t have this information yet, maybe he had a weird feeling because she’d been laying off everything, saying no to the pot, the wine, the mushrooms, and the hash he just scored. A big, beautiful shit-chunk that he’d been smoking alone, cooking it with the hot knives, and sometimes toasting a little booger-chunk under the pinkish handblown glass vase.

Jeannie wouldn’t touch it. She wasn’t interested in it. Just the same, she munched junkfood with Jeff after he was done smoking.

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They knew it would be a boy. They both talked to Jeannie’s fat stomach. “Wink,” they’d say. “Wink in there? Wink at Home? Wink in his womb? Knock, knock”

Thinking Wink till no other name would fit. They tried others out for short periods of time. Like Richard, Thomas, Gerald, Stephen. They looked to historical figures for names and came close to settling once or twice. But this was at a time when deep research into the private lives of public figures was revealing many great men to be womanizers, slave owners egoists and worse.

Their friends were having babies with names like Joshua, Nathan, Corey. New kinds of names, different from the names their mothers and fathers had given to them.

Wink wasn’t really such an odd name. There were odder names. Chip. Biff. Junior. Bob.

They sealed the dare one night when Jeff was really high. Jeannie was

about eight months along. Though Jeff was particularly conscious about exhaling away from Jeannie, who sat across the room, maybe a nice little cloud landed on Jeannie. Maybe she picked up a little contact high.

It was weird. That gameshow came on every night after they’d eaten their supper.

“Ladies and gentlemen. The host of our show, Wink Martindale.”

Jeff and Jeannie’s last name was Dale. It was perfect. His middle name would be easy. They couldn’t stop giggling.

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Wink Martin Dale was born on July 21, 1974, to Jeff and Jeannie Dale of Ampersand, Massachusetts. He weighed seven pounds eight ounces. Had ten fingers. Ten toes. His father’s stoner eyes. His mother’s quiet but expressive mouth.

It wasn’t a big issue, the name. Everyone accepted it. Sure, some of the relatives squawked. They didn’t see the humor. Jeff and Jeannie were funny kids, kooky in more ways than one. But the fact remained. The boy’s name was Wink. And, he’d grow up in time and be a man named Wink.

He could be whoever he wanted to be. Names didn’t matter in America anymore. If he went into business or became a lawyer or a doctor, he could go by W. Martin Dale. His associates/clients/patients would assume the W stood for William or Walter or Whatever..

What was more important was Wink himself. The name suited him. He was a happy baby. He took everything in. He hardly ever cried. He got along with his playmates. He didn’t break his toys. He sat still for pictures.

When school started he made a friend named Moper Fax, who had an older brother named Muz. It seemed to Jeff and Jeannie that Wink wasn’t really such a strange name. Especially considering the rock musician Frank Zappa, who had something like two dozen kids with names from NASA, barnyard names and cartoon names.

Wink would do okay. They were sure of it.

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Wink grew up fast. Too fast for Jeff and Jeannie, who wanted to appreciate every second of his childhood.

Wink rode his bike to school with his baseball glove hanging from the handlebars.

Wink fished in the summertime.

Wink blew out candles on birthday cakes.

Wink had a paper route, which he was conscientious about.

Other kids liked Wink.

Wink learned how to dance.

Wink memorized sports statistics.

Wink went on dates.

Wink read graphic novels and scanned through the entire encyclopedia one April vacation.

Wink was something of a leader among the boys in his age group.

Wink’s teachers respected him and expected big things in his future.

Wink was able to extrapolate from life’s lessons.

And Wink had a sweet, winning disposition.

Jeff and Jeanie provided for Wink ably. They both came from well-off families. They inherited money early in their married life and invested it wisely. First in a small company that made jogging shoes, and later in a firm that marketed computer software and then in a micro-brewery. They were still hippies, with the long hair and pot use and their music. But they had turned into the activist kind of hippies. They took part in their community and treated serious subjects seriously.

They owned local commercial real estate, and they set up a mutual fund in Wink’s name that would cover his college tuition and the first expenses that a young man encounters upon graduation. They wanted to make certain Wink’s future would be happy.

There was only one short period of time when Jeff and Jeannie doubted that Wink’s life would turn out as they had envisioned. They blamed themselves for this. They felt they should have seen it coming.

Wink had always wanted a little brother or sister, but none ever came along. Jeff and Jeannie made a decision to stop at one child and concentrate all of their positive energy on Wink.

It made Wink feel lonely around the house. And about the time he started high school, he began to withdraw from his parents. He kept to his room. He was a child very much to himself. Some days Jeff and Jeannie only saw him at meals. They couldn’t shake him out of it.

They’d call his name up the stairs, but no answer would come back down. “Wink,” they’d call again. But nothing back. The boy’s name would hang in the air for a moment, giving both Jeff and Jeannie an uneasy pause.

Was it his name? Had the dare, their pot joke, finally caught up to their child?

They didn’t know what would become of Wink. They worried about his future. He seemed to have lost his socialization skills. They worried that he might go into a life of crime.

And if he did become an assassin, or a serial killer, what then? His full name would come into play. Wink Martin Dale. It wouldn’t take a good journalist long to hear Jeff and Jeannie’s pot giggle. Blame is always traced back to the parents. In this case, saddling an American boy with an odd name taken from a television gameshow host, it would be very easy to fix the blame on the young potheads, Jeff and Jeannie.

To be sure, it was an identity crisis. Young Wink had lost track of himself. But it wasn’t his name. A voice inside his head said, “Let that be the reason.” But he couldn’t leave it at that. That was too simple.

Wink knew who he was. He understood Wink Martindale was a very capable gameshow host, even if he was no Bob Barker.