Language is the skin of the soul.

—Fernando Lázaro Carreter

THE NEW SCHOOL was large, huge, vast, ceilings like a cathedral, sunlight stained of glass, floors reflecting squares of wobbly glare. Him, small. Waiting.

She turned to the boy, J—, who looked about four years old. He was six (behind on the Growth Charts) and it was his first day at New Paltz. His first day in first grade.

J— waited for the principal. He was standing next to a large potted plant (leaves curling down like slivers, green slices someone carved from the air in the middle of the night and then powdered carefully with dust) waiting for the man to be ready to see him. He wasn't sure what it was about, but he was not afraid. He was not afraid because the teacher had assured him that it was Nothing Bad.

It was nothing bad. The man said nice things to him, things about his words, about his vo-cabyou-larry. He said he had been told about the boy. J— did not answer, but only nodded.

Then, the large man reached forward with a newspaper. He held it out. He wanted J— to take it from him. So he did. He looked at it for a moment. Looked back to the man.

"Can you read that?" the Principal asked.

J— bent his head to the newspaper and began to read aloud.

HIS PAPI WAS UPSET. He was only four, but he knew his father's moods, which were always very serious. He loved him, but he was a little afraid of him, too. He was kind. But he was often angry. Like now.

He stood by the toy box, in front of J—, repeated himself.

".-.- --.-. -.-.- ..-."

J— didn't move, but only looked at the floor, down to where his Papi's hand pointed.

".-.- --.-. -.-.- ..-!," his Papi repeated.

The boy looked around for help. He didn't understand the sounds his father was making.

".-.-! --.-! -.-.-! ..-!"

They were louder. But no clearer. His Papi was upset.

THE TEACHER AT THE NEW SCHOOL, or the New New school (was it the New, New, New School?) made her way down the list, and the boy's heart begin to sink. They were up to Peters, and that meant it was almost time.

The move had been a drastic one. But the boy was used to drastic changes by now. He just watched them play out in front of his eyes like a show, a movie, a story. When the end of the last scene arrived, you knew it by its momentum, alone. And where would it be to, now? Boxes, highways, whispers, shouts, gasoline smell, a new room, leaving in a rush, waking up in the middle of the night to hear the car door dinging, state troopers, highway lamps like burning yellow stars smearing across the dark car window, bump in the highway, hope for a new life, bump in the highway, long days with strange friends, bump in the highway, everything changes, bump in the highway, a rhythm all night. The patient but unpredictable river of the road, always waiting.

She brought them, this time, brought them from the woods of New York to the suburbs of Maryland.

"Eric Reynolds?" Eric?" the teacher asked the classroom for the first time that year.

A boy in front of J— lifted his hand, and barked into the air.

"Here!"

"Amy Ryan? Amy?"

"Here," said a girl by the door, quietly.

It was his turn. He knew she had come to his name—aside from the fact that they were on "Ryan,"—because Mrs. Kowalski paused and did not say a name for a moment. Only looked at the paper on her desk.

"Jah...Jawqueen Ryan? Jaw-queen? Juh...Jow-queen?" she looked troubled by her unfamiliarity with the name.

"J—," he said, quiet as wind crawling over a stone face.

"Ah!" the pretty teacher with the freckles said. She looked very relieved. "Wa-kween!"

"J—" the nine-year old said but everyone else had moved on and noone heard him, or even saw his mouth move.

"Brian Smith?" the teacher repeated, brightly. "Brian?"

SECOND GRADE WAS NOT SO BAD. Until the storm broke.

"Fuck yourself," the bully said, sneering at him. The sounds shot from the taller boy's lips short and sharp, like a belt smacking skin. J— felt them spatter over him, lodge into his chest and his face and heart all at once. He didn't know what to do. How could he answer? He didn't understand what the words meant. He didn't know what to say. He just knew that in some way, the boy was also saying I Hate You.

J— tried to keep away from the larger boy for the rest of the day. But he grew unhappier by the minute, those fragments of hate working deeper into his body, into his mind.

He knew by now it would happen. It was always the same. Sooner or later there was someone standing over you, a shadow, a pair of eyes daring you to move. Gearheart, at home. Bullies in school and on the bus and waiting, magically, on the path to a new friend's house. There would be a hushed waiting period...and then it would begin. Living in a heavy silence for a time, as if under dark clouds, and then the storm would burst. Perhaps one day someone would say something nasty as you walked to the front of the line, where the short kids stand. Or the storm would break with one small word—like a flat, black, thunderclap—as you walked past an unfriendly face in their seat on the bus.

This time it was Fuck Yourself, and distance between J— and the new grade grew.

He liked his mother's friends. They were cool. They talked to you like they cared. Not like you were someone who would never be able to understand a thing they said, like some grownups did. (Although there was a time when one of them told him they were holding a lamp, and he knew the man was not telling the truth. He didn't know the word for the object the man had in his hands, but it was not a lamp. He had seen it used enough times by his mother and her friends. He just didn't know what it was called.) They wanted J— to call them by their first name all the time. No "mister," no "misses." When he walked into a room where a few of them would be sitting and talking, or playing guitar, or smoking, they would exclaim, happily. "Hey! It's J—! How are you doin', man?" They acted like they were friends of his, too; as if every time they saw him, they were happy about it.

His mother's friends used funny words sometimes, like "I'm hip." They said I'm hip, I'm hip and "That's a drag, don't be a drag." His mother said that once when he was complaining about something. "Don't be a drag, J—." He imagined someone being dragged on the ground behind his mother, and knew he didn't want to be like that. Once Sharon, one of his mother's best friends, told him "You think you're hot shit, don't you?" But it wasn't mean. Not really. He wasn't sure. He kept imagining steaming pieces of ca-ca, and kept wondering why she would say that. He did not think he was Hot Shit. But he thought she knew what she was talking about, somehow. And it didn't make him unhappy. Not in the way she had said it. He just felt a little lost. He wanted to understand what it meant all the way. He knew he was missing a piece. He knew she wasn't talking about shit, but meant something else. Like the words from the boy at school, the words he didn't understand, but knew meant I Hate You.

When he got home on that day, he wore an unhappy look upon his face. He didn't know he looked unhappy, but Sharon (who was at his house when he got there, and who was often there) asked him what was wrong. he told her about school, and the new words that he learned, the words now in splinters under his skin. The ones that wouldn't leave his mind, they kept moving back and forth Fuk Your Self Fuk Your Self Fuk Your Self Fuk Your Self, dancing with the memory of the cruel, bright eyes.

Sharon listened to his story, and her face lifted, her chin up. Her eyes got hard for a quick second, too. Then she relaxed (just a little) and said you tell him 'It's a physical impossibility,' J—.

J— knew immediately that he had been given a tool. He did not hesitate, and committed it to memory right away. Sharon was giving him a way of answering the strange words. As if they were magic runes, he sensed the power in their sound. He repeated them to himself silently. It's A Phys-i-kul Im-poss-a-bil-uh-tee. (He knew how to spell "Physical." He did very well in all the spelling bees, and all his spelling tests were 100s.) He made the words into a mantra. He said them over and over. He did not know what the sentence meant, though he had a vague sense of it. Mostly, he knew the words were a refusal, a challenge. He knew them to be an Answer. And if Sharon had given them to him for this reason, he knew they were more powerful words than the other boy could possibly hope to have. It was a good feeling. He took the phrase to sleep with him when he faded from the world that night.

The next morning, J— woke with the words in his mind, the tool of his new knowledge polished and resting patiently, as if it had gone out early for the bus. Calm, ready for the day, and with time to spare.

The scene at recess began no different than J— expected. After all, once the storm broke, it rained every day. And it was only a few minutes before he was faced with the same swagger, the same face, the same words.

The bully began with a tiny coaxing to the crowd so that he had an audience. And then he laughed and at some point swiveled to J— and said Didn't I tell you to go fuck yourself? He relished the words on his tongue like sweets. He brandished them as if they could strike J— down, as if they were lightning. But instead of crumpling to the ground, J— said That's a Physical Impossibility. And he kept watching the larger boy.

Because everyone was watching them, and this unlikely turn. Because he could say the words with confidence after repeating them, in his room, on the ride to school, in the hallway. Because there was no answer, and somehow every kid on the asphalt knew it. Because the silence that played out across the larger boy's face warmed J—'s bones like a wise old sun breaking free from wet clouds; a sun that immediately melted the aging splinters of hate that had been lodged under his ribcage, in his wrists, his neck. Because nothing was ever the same after that moment, on that day, and because even with the thousand and one bruises that were to be in his future, he now understood something about power. With four words, he had become a warrior, and indestructible. Even though he was still far behind on the Growth Charts.

IT WOULD HAPPEN EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE, when he was least expecting it.

For the most part, he had forgotten that he was Mexican. He didn't know what it meant, actually. He knew that he was something different. Not the same as the people in school, or his mother, or his adoptive father. Something about his skin, and his eyes, and maybe his nose. He wasn't sure where his Mexicanness hid. He was pretty sure it was fading away, though, whatever it was. Or maybe being Mexican was just in his past, like the prickly pears that had populated the edges of his sunny tall-grass yard in San Diego. He knew it had to do with his father, and with those cheap, tacky-looking bright toys his mother had bought at the fair that time, she had done it for him, the stickers said "Made in China" or maybe "Made in Thailand" or "Made in Mexico." He wasn't sure. But he had a bad feeling about the Mexican thing. Because all it meant to him was that he was something weird. Something nobody else was, except his little brother. But his little brother could barely speak.

He learned more through the years. About Mexicans. Things on TV. Or in movies. Usually that Mexicans were Drug Dealers. Mexicans sold drugs. And they had knife fights. And everyone said they were lazy. Lots of jokes about lazy Mexicans. J— knew that Mexicans wore big, funny hats. And talked funny English. And that they spoke his father's language. But his father was gone. And so was that language. Although he kept a memory of someone pointing to a light when he was just a child. La Looos they had said. La Loooos, J—.

He remembered how to count to ten. He would try it sometimes, very quietly.

Uno, Dos, Tres, Kwatro, Sinko, Sace, See-et-tay, Ocho, New-ev-ay, Dee-ace.

He could get to fifteen or so, actually, but then it all fell apart into pieces, unclenchable, unrememberable, not part of this world. There was nobody to ask about these words, nobody could give him more.

Sometimes he forgot that he was "Mexican," he thought he was like everyone else around him. But he would be reminded that he was different in many ways. Like when he would have to listen to people say his name three times in a row trying to remember it. Nobody else had to do that. Everyone else just said their name. "Mark." "Brian." "Todd." "Danny." "Eric." "Scott." "Robby." And you said "okay," and that was it. But his stomach clenched whenever it came time to wear a nametag, or to introduce himself. He knew he would have to watch the person's face get bunched up, and their voice get higher. Hunh? And he would say his alien name over and over. Then they would say "How do you spell it?" and it would only get worse from there.

So he changed it.

After the whole adoption thing, and after his last name had been changed from "Herrera" to a very short, choppy, Irish name, he decided to just go all the way. He did away with the alien name, the one that stopped his day in its tracks whenever he had to meet people. He made it short, and clean, and American. He called himself "Jack." And he told his family that there would be no more of the Old Name. He wouldn't answer to it. First he tried to make it Jazz, and his friends even began calling up his house and asking for Jazz, but the look his mother got on her face the first time she answered the phone changed his mind. He wanted less of that look, not more of it. He thought Jack would not raise an eyebrow on anyone's face. So "Jack," it was. And for the most part, that was the end of it. His mother told him she would not call him "Jack," but would still use his Old Name. And while that annoyed him, he was only eight years old at the time, and had to accept her word on the subject.

To everyone else, he became "Jack," and with his new Irish last name, any notions of Mexicanness receded into his past, forgotten.

He got used to a different question, in time. The puzzled look in people's eyes at times would be voiced as What's Your Nationality?

He didn't know what a Nationality was at first. But he figured out very quickly that these people were trying to dig up Forgotten Things, and he would have no part of that. Those days were gone—the days of the alien sound, the awkward moments in class, and the knotted brow and thrice-told name.

He thought about it, and along with the New Name, he awarded himself a New Nationality. Italian. He liked it. The language and sounds of the Italians who spoke their own Funny English reminded him of the sounds of Home Long Ago. But people like Italians better. Without a single memory of how he knew, he knew that this so. And so with that, Jackryan thought he had it all solved. The color was understood, the eyes made sense, perhaps, and the half-serving of history was filed, forgiven, and forgotten once again.

Until it happened once again, when he was least expecting it. Some woman walking down the street, or at a fair, or behind a counter would ruin it. She would speak the words that would break the spell. Piercing his costume in a heartbeat, all his preparation and his New Name and New Nationality falling to the ground in a moment, the brown-skinned woman would look at him and speak Spanish. She would speak it quickly and warmly, her eyes cradling the unknown sounds sweetly as she asked him....something. He knew what sounds she was making right away, and he also knew that he should know what she meant, that he was wrong for not being able to understand. Tiny like a doll in an empty toybox, he was dwarfed by shame, blown silent and stupid by one loving sentence. And he would then speak the Phrase that he carried everywhere; his passkey that allowed him to slip away, wounded, but alive. His ticket back to the New world.

"I don't know how to speak Spanish," he would say. But The Woman would always take on the same expression. It was a sweet and vaguely sad look. As if she knew everything about him and his heart and once again, he was threatened by the tireless clench of memory.

He kept moving. Rushed forward into forgetting. In time, he learned more Phrases to carry. One was No obla Esponyole. It worked, and he treasured it.

For a time he would tell the Woman Who Would Speak to Him in Spanish (for though her appearance was rare, she recurred throughout time, no matter where he moved) a bit more. He wanted to sweep away that look of forgiveness, so he'd say "My father left before I could learn," as if giving away the fault for his ignorance would make him feel less ashamed, but it didn't. It only seemed to prolong the moment, only seemed to make it worse. He dropped that part of the explanation. He would simply say No Obla Esponyole, and he brandished the phrase as one would a crucifix in the night, fleeing.

But they were only moments, and he could forget them as quickly as they came upon him.

BY NOW, THE BOY WAS IN THE SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEM and the school system and the law system and the minds of his friends and teachers as Jackryan and nobody even knew that once upon a time, he had a different name. The Nationality question still came up, especially with the name, but the same phrase that worked at 8 worked at 14, and for all anyone knew, Jackryan was just "Part Italian." That was good enough, and if he were feeling especially sporty or daring, he would tell people he was "part Indian," and he was. But he thought he was not telling the truth. Or he wasn't sure of it.

Jackryan only had a vague sense, as a young man, of his heritage. Eventually his mother said something about Mayan Indians, but he had no idea what that meant. And she didn't really sound positive about it. Plus, what the hell were Mayan Indians? Those weren't the Cool Indians. Those were Indians from some other place, some hot place, some place of jungles or something. He brushed that thought off, and told people he was half Indian, the kind everyone knew to carry Tomahawks, and who were on the land when the Pilgrims came. In the sense that it did not align him with the pilgrims (who he knew were not his heritage), it felt true.

It was a dangerous area of discussion, anyway. His White Legal father, the one who had given his last name for the new birth certficate, new school records, new social security card—the one who hated "Puerto Ricans" and "Punks" and "Niggers" and "Fairies" and "Fags" and who chased people down the highway to their driveway, the one who started fights with any person or group of men to look at him funny in public, the one who wasn't afraid to dare to a fight even his own adopted children while on his knees to "make it fair" didn't really care for too many kinds of people. Jackryan didn't know who all those people were, because it seemed like a flexible group.

One day, in ninth grade (the highest grade that Jackryan would reach in High School, and not graduate from) he ordered an album from a music club. It was Eddie Murphy's first record. Jackryan loved Eddie Murphy, he was funny as hell! And at the time, everybody loved Eddie Murphy. Even in the rural school that Jackryan had moved to, from Miami Beach. The New, New, New, New, New, New school where there was one black family from Kindergarten to 12th grade. And not one Cuban, Haitian, or Dominican. The school where they had got very close to digging old things up when in the first week, he was asked Are you Puerto Rican? Of course, he had vehemently denied that one. They asked him where he was born. He told them Los Angeles. They asked him, laughing, Did you have a Low Rider back in California? He didn't know what a "low rider" was. So he said no, he didn't. He thought that they were not fighters in this school, like in Miami. In Miami, he had gotten into his first fight on the very first day. But in the woods of New York, it turned out that they just waited longer, is all. But he was better at dealing with these things than when he was just a child. And eventually, he did fit in with a certain group of people, and nobody asked, anymore, about his Nationality. His name was now unremarkable, so it never came up. But his place in the New, New, New, New, New, New school became The Smart Boy Who Didnt Try Anymore. He was a Troublemaker. That was his crowd. He was just trouble, and in time, they just wanted him out. The principal told him so when he was 15.

But the Eddie Murphy album was a good time, a happy time, for a while. Jackryan listened to it over and over and over. He copied the voices, and practiced the skits, the jokes, practiced saying them. He would look into the big smile across Eddie's face as he listened to the album, to the jokes for the hundredth and tenth time. He would stare into the smiling, dark eyes and smile back as the happy, confident tone of Eddie's voice kept him company.

He began telling the jokes at school. Everyone knew who Eddie Murphy was, everyone talked about his jokes. But not everyone had his album. And when Jackryan began picking up the jokes that people let fade out, and as he brought the joke to its proper conclusion, and using the right voices for the characters, everyone would laugh loudly. He would tell more jokes, and people loved them.

But his legal father didn't see it as a good thing. When Jackryan, who usually would not look for approval from Gearheart, spilled over with pride one day, and blurted out that someone at school had gone far enough to tell him You remind me of Eddie Murphy!, Gearheart became furious, flew into a rage. Jackryan didn't understand it, and was truly shocked by the venom in his Legal White Father's voice. Eddie Murphy's a NIGGER, he said. They're calling you a Nigger. You tell them—

But the boy was a young man now, and he did not make a mantra of those words, not on purpose. He would not carry them with him as a strength. He would try to forget them right away, but would still remember them clearly many years later. He did not go to school as Gearheart said, and tell his friends not to say those things anymore. They were not, he thought, being insulting; they were giving him a compliment. They had made him feel funny, and popular, and now he just felt terrible and ugly and gross.

Jackryan bought Eddie Murphy's next album, too. But by that time, his legal father had left the family. And so had Jackryan.

Part 1 of 2. To be used as the basis for probably two books, one written in this voice, and one illustrated children's book titled I Am Wakeen.