I Know My First Name Is Steven by Mike Echols

and Christmas was very sad.
    Del couldn't bear to see his other children opening their presents without his Stevie there and so he slipped quietly into his room and cried as he talked to Stevie's picture, asking his son where he was and when he would be coming home.
    Being a single parent was difficult for Ken. When he wasn't in prison, he lived a bachelor's life, going and coming as he pleased. But in Santa Rosa he always hired someone to stay with Dennis while he went job-hunting and, later, when he worked. Usually he got sitters through a local babysitting service, but before the first one arrived, Ken indoctrinated Dennis with some Parnell family background, though not the complete truth, and Parnell cautioned Dennis to
never, ever
say anything to anyone about his being taken from Merced or the by-then almost daily sexual abuse, threatening Dennis with a severe spanking and being locked up in a children's home should he ever say anything about their secrets.
    After Christmas, Ken began work as a day front desk clerk at the Santa Rosa Holiday Inn. On January 2, 1973, he registered his son in the second grade at Steele Lane Elementary School in the Bellevue Union School District, stating on the enrollment form: Name, "Dennis G. Parnell"; Date of Birth, "April 18, 1965"; Place of Birth, "Merced, California"; Former School, "Yosemite Elementary,Yosemite National Park" . . . a real school, but one never attended by Dennis Parnell or Steven Stayner. That same month the Bellevue Union School District Office in Santa Rosa received the following letter:
    Mr. and Mrs. Delbert Stayner
    1655 Bette Street
    Merced, California 95340
    County Superintendent of Schools:
    Would you please distribute the enclosed bulletins to all primary schools in your district? Hopefully we are sending enough; if not, please let us know.
    George Hogan, Special Consultant, Office of the Chief Deputy, in Sacramento, suggested this as a means of getting the bulletins to all schools.
    Steven may not be in school, but a child may have seen or heard of Steven in his or her neighborhood. We must cover any and all possibilities.
    We appreciate your cooperation and thank you for any help.
    Sincerely,
    [signed] Delbert
&
Kay Stayner
    A copy of this letter and bulletin (i.e., the "Missing Juvenile" flyer) never reached Steele Lane, and it wasyears later that Del and Kay learned that the letters and bulletins they had so hopefully sent were thrown in the trash at the Bellevue Union School District Office, as well as at many other California school district offices. But an anonymous Steele Lane Elementary School office employee wrote on the back of a form forwarded to Dennis's next school: "Steele Lane did not receive any records from former school." However, like Steele Lane, the next school also failed to insist on receiving his records, and this brief note was the extent of concern for Dennis G. Parnell's lack of records and a birth certificate shown by any of the half-dozen public schools he attended as Kenneth Eugene Parnell's son.
    From prison in 1984 Parnell smugly said of his use of Dennis's real middle name, date, and place of birth, and the name of a real elementary school: "You have a lot of qualms about a lot of things in that situation. And I had various reasons for listing Yosemite Elementary. First of all, I had come out of the Park. And I had worked down there." He paused and then ventured, "It just followed the pattern." Still failing to discern acceptance in the author's expression, Parnell lamely added, "It fell right in."
    So, on the day that school Christmas holiday ended, Dennis was back in school, albeit with a different name and a new dad, and 170 miles from home . . . and, too, with a new family history to remember, one taught rather than remembered. But although he was not happy at this new school—once again he was a new kid without friends—Dennis was beginning to settle into his forced identity as Kenneth Parnell's son. After all, he