| She had planned on naming me Jacqueline. Claiming an intense maternal feeling during my conception, she had actually convinced my old man that I was a girl for nearly nine months, After a bloody, spiteful bitch, she told the hospital administration that my name was to be Jacqueline. The nurse reminded her that I was a boy, but she didn�t listen, or didn�t care. My old man eventually filled out the forms giving me his name, out of any lack of any creativity I suppose. He left a few months later, leaving her with a stack of bills and an eerily quiet baby. Legally my name is Steven, but I won�t answer to that. Jack is what I know, what my mother sewed into me, like pale blue veins of regret. On my first day of school, I walked in on a maze of windows and tables and walls and color. Everyone�s name was Scotch taped in big, bold letters to a desk. I meandered around through the endless rows of seats, staring at the sea of unfamiliar names. Christopher and Kevin and Joshua and Bradley and Michael and Timothy and Adam. Where was I? The blurry-faced teacher asked me my name. Was I Steven? I�m Jack. There is no other desk. I�m Jack. You must be Steven. My heart skipped around in my chest as the classroom pressed up against me then pitched forward. The room swung around in perfect focus and my head cleared. Two hours were spent in a cramped office, trying to sort out my life. I sat there, nameless, anonymous, like an untitled poem or an unlabeled Christmas present. I had my first identity crisis when I was five. But I never told her. I didn�t think I was supposed to. I came home that day armed with only an orange watercolor and a smile. I learned to walk home by cutting through the backyards of neighbors, a solitary march to and from my mislabeled desk. I�d pour a glass of milk, squeeze my eyes close and press against the corner of my lashes, watching the dancing colored diamonds flicker like flames behind my lids. The milk would slide down my throat and I�d journey upstairs. She would be up in her room, staring as the lifeless television churned, nodding her head at me like she always did, refusing to look her own son in the eye, She knew if I needed it, there was help in the drawer underneath the kitchen sink. A green stack of bills was always there, covered by a striped dishtowel, though I never once saw her fill it. I told George about the weather and Andrew about my teacher. To Abraham, the most concerned of my friends, I told my name. My name is Jack. Jack. Wake up. It�s a quarter to nine, and here I am, sitting up in bed, planning on smoking this cigarette down past the filter. I stare at my matches, a relic from a bar that closed down a few years back for admitting minors. I stare down at the diluted woman in my bed lying halfway under my stained quilt, her long black hair covering the pillow. I stare at her naked leg. My apartment reeks of smoke and dirty laundry, but she doesn�t care. Gradually, I lean over and smell her hair. Unimposing, good. I never lend my clothes to anyone because I know the smell of someone long gone can ruin a perfectly good sweater. Her eyelids flutter, she presses against me, and whispers, �Jack,� in my ear. I can feel my heart gasp. Her breasts are too small, her hips too wide, her chin too large. My heart pounds so hard my belly gives, and I can feel blood surge through my arms, my neck, beat against my ears, racing up and down my spine, until my entire body pulses. It�s almost nine, I realize, and burn my fingers on the lit cigarette. It falls on the quilt and melts a holy big enough for my smallest finger to just creep through. Shelly�s gone. I�m alone, picking at the burned cotton. My palm rubs against the taut skin of my right elbow. It feels like someone else�s dry, peeling flesh. I sit up, rolling my head against my shoulders and listening to my neck crackle like burning wood. To my left I find an opened box of lo mein with a fork in it. A note rests under the greasy white container, and I slide it out from under the take-out. Jack, I read. There you are, still sleeping, gripping the pillow like a teddy bear. The next few words were crossed out, with sharp slashes striking through each illegible letter. I�m working until five. Shelly. I find my matches near the unfinished lo mein and set the note on fire. I watch the paper smolder, realizing as it curls over that I don�t even have her number. It doesn�t matter: I will still see her. I lurch unsteadily out of bed and the cold air finds my skin and assaults me. I turn to look down at the street. The crushed blue fog of the morning presses up against the window like a child�s palm, tracing design on the cold, frosted surface. My own finger draws a circle, framing my face in the opaque stillness of March. I crawl into old jeans and hunt around for my beat up shoes with the frayed laces. I�m running faster down the stairs, picking up speed after each flight, until I push against the door and bound into the wind. I forget how cold March is. They say she�ll never wake up. A vegetable, I think to myself, and look away from the man with the white coat and eyes full of pity. He furrows his brow at me, a gesture of sympathy. The television is on anyway. A silent woman dressed in her sleek power suit gracefully sweeps her hands past New Jersey, up through New York into Massachusetts. Her nails are blood red and every hair is tucked into place like a new doll. Snow in the northeast, she says, her scarlet lips smiling at the man to her left, her eyes still trained on the camera. On me. The television has been muted for two months. There she is, lying so still and cold you can mistake her for plaster of Paris. Someone has brushed her hair back from her cheeks, exposing the deep lines engraved on her face, scrubbed and pale. Every line looks like a scar. Her eyes and lips are sealed shut, and I wonder what images dance behind her lids. She was in the garage this time, her head propped against the steering wheel of her supposedly broken down 84� Corsica. I don�t know who found her. Last time it was the visiting nurse. Before that, the plumber. Shelly idly crisscrosses the hallway and settles into a chair next to an oversized desk. She keeps one eye in the room and one eye on her charts. Her nurse�s vest is cut at an awkward angle and I can�t help but to look away from her, a mannequin propped up over a pile of papers. The sympathetic doctor approached Shelly, and she hands him one of her charts. Pointing a finger at my mother, he nods his head wearily and motions for another nurse to escort him into the room. They are as muted as the television glowing in anticipation. �Mr. Alterman, your mother hasn�t progressed.� The words fall like stones in water, sinking with a satisfying dunk and rippling about. I nod, shifting my weight from my left to right foot. �I know this is a difficult decision for you.� He knows, the doctor. He knows what to do. He�s been through this before. �However, the longer you wait�� �But I don�t know what she wants.� �Excuse me?� �She�my mother�never let me know�� Keep control, just plaster of Paris. ��About any of this. She�s no different like this than she ever was before.� The doctor looks away, embarrassed by my sudden confession. Shelly is peering into the room. She catches my glance and eases through the doorway to grasp my hand. I drop it, staring into the doctor�s somber face. �You think two months is too long. You think I�m in agony over losing her.� The words tumble out faster than he can catch them, spilling to the floor in a pool of pity. �I am in agony. I am suffering; because she is my mother and I never knew her. I never knew why she deluded herself or why she didn�t run after my dad. I don�t know why she insisted on calling me Jack, and I don�t know why she got into that car.� Tears spill down my cheeks and I furiously wipe them away. I can�t wait any longer. I shouldn�t have left the keys in the house with her. Shelly tells me God is forgiving, but I know Adam was sent to the Wasteland and never saw Eden again. I unfold a five dollar bill from my pocket and run a damp finger across the grain. In God we trust. The papers rest idly next to the alarm clock. Official looking papers, covered in inscriptions, dates and abbreviations, waiting for my ink. They have waited too long for my signature. I inhale as much as I can, filling my entire body, breathing in until the pain tears at my chest and my lungs verge on eruption. A pen finds its way into my hand and meets the paper. I can�t exhale, just continue to take in as much as possible, holding myself to keep from shattering. �Jack�� Shelly strokes the back of my neck as my eyes follow the flat green line parading across the monitor. And I exhale, soaking the world with my breath. �My name is Steven.� |
| Anonymous |
| Lindsay Kaplan 5-6/02 |