Who is Jeff Margolis?
I am not who I say I am.
I say I am Zane. I say that I am 38 years old and that I am the son of Richard and Judith. I say that I am married to Nancy, that I have a beautiful daughter, that I was born in Methodist Hospital, New York City. I say that I am a teacher. I say that I am honest and real and fair.
I say that I am, but I am not. I am not this day. This morning, I am 7 years old. I am 7 years old, but I am not in my bed in my house. I am not in the bed in the left room on the top floor. I am not in New York City. I am not Jennifer and Emily’s brother, and I am not me. I am here, but I am not here. This moment, I am nobody. There is nobody here.
I scream. I scream from the bottom of my throat. I scream cottage cheese and fine sandpaper and thin metal darts. I scream and my eyes turn red and round, and I stop screaming.
There is a large poster on the wall. The man in the poster has a bald head, and he is jumping in the air. He’s not wearing a hat. There are 50 hats on the wall next to him. There are 12 blue hats and 3 red hats and the blanket on the bed is red and brown. The blanket has long, black stripes, and it is heavy as wool and stone.
There are two windows behind me and one long window on the far wall. Near the window, there are two goldfish in a clear glass bowl. (Do the goldfish know each other? Can they know each other?) There are books in the cabinet and clothes on the floor and someone’s screaming downstairs. They’re calling for Zane.
I swear I’ve never seen these hands before. I am not wearing this shirt, these pants. I don’t know what this is, I think. I don’t know who this is, but I know this is not me. I scream and this is not my voice.
A lady comes inside the room. She is short and sharp and round as a gumball. She comes to the corner of the bed and pulls off the covers. Why are you screaming? she says. She puts her hand on my foot and tilts her head to the side. Stop screaming, she says. If you want to wake up, get up. But your sisters are still sleeping.
She sits on the edge of the bed, and I jump onto the floor. I walk to window and I look outside and I see a boy across the street and I scream again. The boy drops a green ball onto the ground and faces the window, and I open the window and I climb outside onto the roof. I hear a bird and I look at the boy and there’s a tree right to the side and I stand on the edge of the roof. The roof is black and it is cool and hot and the sun is rising. The sun is a big yellow lollipop, and it’s exactly round, and it’s - so – damn – big.
The boy’s name is Jeff Margolis, and I don’t know how I know this. I look straight at Jeff, and he looks straight at me. These are not my hands, I think. These are not my feet.
Later, my mother says that some children forget their stories. She says that when things happen, when big things happen, when things happen that are too big for young boys or young girls, sometimes we go forget what they are. Our memories go to sleep, she will say. We try to forget and our whole body forgets. We are not all new, she will say, and we are not all old.
Later, she will ask me, Did anybody touch you? Did anybody hurt you? Later, I will sit on the roof and I will walk to New Jersey and I will sleep on a bench near the bus station in Las Vegas, Nevada. I will think about Jen Paz y Mino and I will think about the fire in the basement and I will think about all of my stories and about all of the stories that people will tell me. My father says that I read the newspaper when I was 4 years old. My mother says that I pooped and spread my **** all over the wall when I was 3 years old. They tell me these stories and I think, Was this me? Was this him? They tell me these stories and I think, What is all this? What does it mean?
But I think about all of this later. Now, she leans flat out the window. Now, right now, just right now, she leans out the window and she looks at me straight. She does not blink and she says, I’m your mother. I’m your only mother, she says. I’m your mother, Zane, and I love you.
