"So why Simon?"

I jumped a little in my seat.  How long had he been in the car?

"So why Simon what?" I shot back.

"It's kind of a wimpy name."  He was staring out the passenger window, and his voice sounded strange.  Squashed.  "Like the skinny little twerp in the fantasy series who thinks he's some kind of wizard.  Only he's really just the comic relief."

He got like this sometimes.  Petulant.  Prone to self-pity.

"Well, you are a skinny little twerp," I replied, hoping to lighten the mood.  

He said nothing, just stared a little harder.  I slowed for a Honda turning left, providing the white SUV riding my tail an opportunity to test reflexes, brakes and horn.  All three worked.

"Any chance we could change it?"

"Change it?  Your name?  To what?"

"I don't know."  He finally turned away from the window, gave his shoulders a shrug.  "Something harder.  Less British.  One of those short, one-syllable names that sounds like a grunt.  You know.  Like Chuck."

"Chuck?"  I almost didn't not laugh.  "Would that be Chuck as in Chuck Norris?  Or Chuck as in throwing up?"

His upper lip did this curling thing.  I suppose you'd call it a sneer.

"You know, technically, I don't need to get your go-ahead on this.  I can just start calling myself whatever I want."  Now both lips were curling, which - technically - made it a smile.  "And," he went on to observe, "since we're in fifty-fifty on this arrangement of ours, my choice would count at least as much as yours."

"Fifty-fifty?"  I shot him what I hoped was an incredulous look.  "Don't forget I'm the imagineer."

"Maybe," he conceded.  "But I'm the imagined."

We spent the next mile or two in silence, staring at the occasional pine, the sere, rolling hills, trying to decide what sounded better: continuing our little tiff or returning to safer ground.

I was the first to crumble.

"I guess it's like what you said.  Simon is a kid's name.  Someone who'll never make it past eleven-years-old, no matter how long he's around.  And he'll always be an eleven-year-old kind of friend, the kind who's loyal, and trusting, and all those things you just can't be once you get old and fucked-up and cynical."  I glanced over, not quite meeting his eyes.  "Does that really sound so bad?"

"Not at all."  He gave me a look, one I couldn't quite read, then turned back to the window. 

"Maybe someday," he told the glass, "I can get a Simon too."