-1-
“Nurse, nurse! You promised, God damn it! Get them out of my box! This is my box. MY BOX!” Such was the echo that reflected off the walls and barred windows.
Dr. Pressman stayed to the rear of the group as they moved toward the sound. In all the time he’d been administrating Milton State Institution, he’d never changed his habit of letting the other psychiatrists lead the way. The reason continued to elude his analytical mind.
Twenty-five years earlier, before being allowed to practice, the psychiatrist who analyzed him brought it to his attention. He could still hear the doctor’s voice telling him that he needed to find and deal with the guilt he was harboring or he would never break away from his unwillingness to assert.
Many patients later, he was now known as an innovative pioneer in psychiatry, an identity that colleagues across the country revered and envied. The fact that he hadn’t yet exorcised the guilt he was supposed to be carrying hadn’t caused any lack of assertiveness. For the past fifteen years as chief administrator of the institution, he hadn’t suffered anymore from his neurosis than the other doctors from theirs. He just thought theirs were sexier and received more attention from the women. Females didn’t pay much attention to him, except his secretary and wife. His secretary had given him five years of duty… his wife, twenty years of devotion. He preferred to walk behind them as well.
As the group of doctors shuffled in front of him through the newly painted hallway, he breathed deeply. The smell and look of clean walls was something he was particular about. A new coat of white every four months. His battle with the budget committee had become the in-joke of the institution. In spite of the perennial resistance, he had always been able to manipulate the yearly budget to accommodate white, white and white, three times a year.
It was with particular pride that Dr. Pressman maintained the state’s twenty acres, a bequeathed gift years earlier from a prominent state legislator. Sometimes, like this morning, he wondered why with all the sanitized insulation around him, he still walked the sun-drenched hallways with apprehension. He had told himself many times that these feelings were just a manufactured anxiety, for he knew the main building and its three annex structures offered ideal comfort for everyone else, both patient and staff. The classic colonial design was a rarity for state institutions. Unlike most in the country, the patients here were surrounded with the beautiful and simple, without any suggestion of the dank, gray cliché image. Perfectly groomed grounds and sycamore trees served to frame the unique security Milton offered to everyone. No, all was as Mr. Milton had left it. It was as if it had never changed hands. The birds sang each morning. The bakery in annex three shared early morning aromas through the open windows of the main building, often sending both patient and doctor into hunger pains. And most important, the endless California sun rose each day and filled the southern storybook setting with hope.
As the doctors arrived at Ward C, white walls, singing birds and sunshine seemed to disappear. Here the cacophony of drug-induced utterances mixed with incoherent outcries always served as a gentle reminder of the primary reasons for their many years of study and painful practice. Here the doctors felt their responsibility most. Here were the lost, the uncontrollable, the “fucking animals” as many of the muscular attendants addressed them at staff meetings. It was this twisted human element in Ward C that made enduring days at Milton difficult for Dr. Pressman. The pressure sometimes made him think he was one of them himself...just waiting to happen. Fortunately, he was the only one aware of his fear, with the possible exception of the man whose voice he now heard. The voice was all too familiar. It was the sound of perhaps the most perceptive personality he had ever encountered. He’d spent months with the man and his voice and he didn’t want to hear it right now, especially as he passed an open window. It was croissant day - his favorite. He wanted to linger with the aroma trailing up from the bakery, but he was head of the facility. The voice coming from Cell 7 reminded him he had little time for his own vulnerabilities.
“This is my box. MY BOX!” The scream was typical of someone on this floor. The doctors paused and looked to Dr. Pressman for the nod that confirmed they had arrived at the right stop.
The group paused a few moments as they passed the small, barred window of Cell 7. Charlton Mathews, the gaunt man lying fetal position on the floor—a very clean, sterile floor—was having another one of his image battles, images of voices without faces, images that were not welcome in “his box.” The “holographic visits” as he called them had become commonplace since his arrival. Slipping into the altered dimension had become routine day and night. He continued to mutter in an almost child-like voice, “my box, this is my box.... “ Dr. Pressman peered through the window. His thoughts were unlike the others. He knew a great deal about the “box.” He just didn’t have the complete answer yet, or as he had learned over the years, his complete opinion yet.
The doctors moved on to Cell 4. There, Charles, a much calmer man, a much younger man sat on his chair staring out the window at the manicured grounds surrounding the institution. He could hear the doctors muttering among themselves as they paused a moment. He remembered Dr. Pressman had told him the tape review and study would be conducted in the conference room, starting today.
The doctors moved on through the halls and up the stairway toward one of the gleaming white conference rooms. They were about to hear Charles’s taped journal, his own version of what had happened, a version contained in a carton of audiotapes that had been ruled inadmissible as evidence. They had a heavy task ahead of them. Most would have preferred to be somewhere else on that July afternoon, especially had they known what they would shortly learn about Mathews and Charles, the two men whose lives they held in their hands.
Charles wasn’t the kind of person anyone would pay much attention to. He was in his late twenties when he met Mathews. Now, several months, and what felt like numerous lifetimes later, both of them were exhausted and looked ten years older than their age. To look at them side by side, one would definitely think water and oil. And yet, the minds, the souls of these two men had journeyed so closely with one another for the previous few months that each had become like the other...even hearing the same inner voices.
Once an eminent psychiatrist, Charlton Mathews was having a difficult time. His aging beard had now grown scraggly. Feeling boxed in by voices was a new experience for him. It hadn’t been that long ago when his talent was highly respected. Now at 55, heavy brows all but obscured his once brilliant and sensitive eyes. Compared to the alert, clean-shaven, muscular young body of his former patient Charles, Mathews was a wreck. Though they were both getting some respite from the obsession that had consumed them, they both would have preferred a different kind of rest. For now, however, Ward C, Cells 4 and 7 would continue to be their partial escape from thinking, since thinking was the last thing either of them needed—at least for a while.
Their skewed thinking had created two potential wards of the state. The authorities might soon be escorting them both to an upstate institution, depending on the content of the tapes that was about to be played for some of the country’s most respected doctors and analysts. The two men had been charged with murder; they would have to wait and hope the tapes would help get them acquitted. The defense attorneys knew that without a successful insanity plea, a guilty verdict would make life imprisonment or the death penalty inevitable; they too would have to be patient. During this pre-trial period, the doctors would determine their sanity and ability to stand trial. No one knew how long it would take.
Dr. Pressman, the chairperson for the group, slid the first tape into the deck. LED lights flashed a frenetic backward dance as the cassette rewound to the start. As the tape began, the fifteen experts listened intently. The recorded voice of Charles was quiet, innocent sounding.
It’s hard. I’ve been sitting here two hours, staring at the wall, afraid to start this journal. After months of getting nowhere, Dr. Mathews thought it would be a good idea...a journal, that is. But I have trouble writing. I’m having trouble talking too. I’d better date this March 3rd, 2005. He was rather insistent on keeping track of the dates.
It’s two hours and another five minutes now. Maybe this is the writer’s block I’ve heard about. So, anyway, I’m writing into this recorder because, well, maybe it will help. Maybe it is worthwhile to tell this story, the whole story, what I remember as I go along, wherever I’m going.
If this ever gets heard, I hope my voice doesn’t drive you nuts. I’m not a writer, although who knows. Guess we’ll both know by the time I finish.
I’ve been sitting here a long time now trying to put into words how it feels. I’m probably afraid to start. I’m assuming Dr. Mathews will want to hear this at some point, and he’ll probably share it with other doctors. That’s what he says happens sometimes with difficult problems. I’m a difficult problem, he says.
Mathews and whoever, maybe this will help. Mathews has convinced me that I’m not alone, that this inner confusion is not uncommon. That would mean some of you might understand it as if listening in front of a mirror, you know who you are. Some will hear, sort of from behind or in front of a two-way mirror. Don’t roll your eyes. I told you I’m new at this. Some of you will listen to this right in between. You’re right in between the layers of the two-way mirror. You’ll know who you are. You’ll be looking into yourself from two sides and the Godawful middle. You people will get it, really get it, and I’m not saying you’re crazy or anything, you’ll just understand it better. And it won’t always be comfortable.
Welcome to my world. It’s the middle look, the three-way mirror, and it’s scary.
What I’m going to try and tell is how I remember it. This is how my life started, at 28, the day I was born into this life that began with only one memory...or dream. I don’t know.
Anyway, the memory always starts the same way with me going to bed on the couch in my office. This memory has another memory inside. What I mean is I seem to have an attitude that comes from somewhere, because in the memory I go to bed with what feels like a habitual bedtime attitude—“tomorrow’s got to be better.” This feels normal, of course. After what feels like years of saying the same thing, this is normal. That’s how I remember it.
I guess I’m just bored with my “tomorrow’s got to be better.” The phrase seems alien to me. I don’t know why. I look in the mirror often, thinking about the one memory of who I’m supposed to be and I really don’t feel like that. I stand before the wall of an office staring at my framed Ph.D. clustered among pictures of my beautiful wife, my handsome son, my sprawling wooded estate, and the Advertising Awards, so many awards. This should all make tomorrow better than yesterday, right? It isn’t. It isn’t better because I’m not letting it be.
I remember how I told it to Dr. Mathews that very first day. In the memory, I had told him; I wake up in the morning, the next morning after sleeping in the office. I look out the window of my high-rise office into the vertical maze of glass and steel mixed with slums. Spotted here and there in the windows across the way, men and women (some dressed for maintenance work, others in business suits) gaze back at me. Still others peering from their slum windows look half-naked, wearing all they own. The “morning anxiety,” I think. Theirs, mine, the world’s. With less than a couple of hundred feet separating the buildings, I have to strain to see their features through the smog. Maybe, I think, if I see them too clearly, I’ll know too much.
I walk the forty-three steps it takes to reach my executive bathroom. The timer has heated both the floor and the built in shaving cream dispenser. I am prepared to begin another lousy day of being pampered like royalty. That’s another part of how I feel in this; I can only say it’s a very uncomfortable memory.
I splash on some cologne while the steamy bathroom is airing out, and as usual, the phone rings at precisely 7:25. Liz is punctual that way. She likes to make sure I am sleeping on the couch as usual and that I am preparing to meet the new day with the same aplomb and ambition that has kept her comfortable and bitchy for the ten years of our less than perfect marriage. At least, that’s what I think in this memory. I don’t know why. I just do.
“Good morning,” I say in what the memory tells me is my customary lifeless way.
I sense something different today. Today, she’s not combative. Oh yes. Today is different.
The new female voice I hear on the other end is a monotone, without personality, kind of like my own. “Charlie?”
“Yes,” I reply.
“Your house is burning, your wife is gone, your son has left and your dog is about to die.” Click.
That’s the memory.
I uttered the “house on fire” part every time I relived the memory. I repeated it to Dr. Mathews for five months. I was conscious of what I was saying. Some say that’s no good. You’re supposed to be unaware of conscious and unconscious thoughts and verbiage at the same time while being “under,” but what can I say? This day is different. Today is the day Dr. Mathews has suggested I start keeping the journal, so here goes. I’ll try to keep it going.
Amidst the ticking of his grandfather clock and the quiet surf outside his window, my eyelids told me the drapes had been opened. Then came the customary snap of his fingers. Snap, snap again, and there I was wide-eyed and refreshed, experiencing the usual catharsis after relating the memory.
“You feel like you’ve had a full night’s sleep, Charles,” Mathews whispered as he stroked his perfectly trimmed beard, his dependable way of greeting me after his hypnotic inducement. Actually, his technique did work, but a part of my ego, an ego I knew so little about, didn’t want him to have the satisfaction.
“You missed, Doc. Feel like I’ve been run over by a stampede.” Then I really let him have it. I don’t know why that day felt like the day to spit it out.
“That’s how I ‘imagined’ it happened, Doc. Is that what really happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, that’s what I pay you for. I don’t even know my name, for sure. You tell me. You tell me the answer. You tell me my real name, or just give me a name that hasn’t got any memories. That’d be a helluva lot better than what I’ve got now. And don’t tell me again that you believe I’m whoever I think I am, because I don’t believe it.”
That’s how it was that March morning, just yesterday, actually. It was the fifth month of confusion, insecurity and expensive therapy sessions with Mathews. I was beginning to believe that nothing I could say, nothing I could retch out of my soul was going to help me, or help Mathews feel he had accomplished anything with me. Getting answers seemed even more remote. I hated to hand him his first defeat, but standing up, I said…
“Doc, if anything pops up I think you can help me with, I’ll give you a call. The fact of the matter is I’m pooped. You’re pooped. Why don’t we say we’ve had a mildly interesting few months and save me some money?”
Without any fanfare, he stated, “Because, Mr. Randall, that’s just not the facts. You want answers as much as I do and now that I’ve put up with your bullshit resistance for the first few months and you’ve forked over several thousand dollars, it’s time I changed gears; time you stopped thinking I’m some kind of threat you can play with until the next more interesting threat comes along to feed your insatiable appetite for drama.” He rose and shuffled toward the door, “Charles, you’re due back on Tuesday and I think you should start the journal we talked about. You’ve been putting it off for months. Just try it. I think it will help. Tuesday we’ll start again. Unless, of course, you really aren’t interested in knowing any more about that body and soul you walk around with.”
I got up from the well-worn couch. I took my time retying the hand painted necktie, which, according to the gift card I found in the box at the hotel, was from my supposed wife, Liz. I was suddenly alive again. Staring me straight in the eye was the hidden WALDO I’d neglected to see though I’d searched many times. Liz’s card had said, “ ...It contains a hidden WALDO you will never find. All My Love, L.” But, here I was for the first time seeing the little nerd. I felt good. I hadn’t lost all my senses, though I wondered if I shouldn’t also know who MOMA was. Those were the subtly embroidered letters that crossed the end of the tie. Well, whoever MOMA was, she was about to get the respect an expensive tie deserves. I stared at my discovery in the mirror and muttered, “Well I’ll be. You’re right there, aren’t you?”
“I try to be,” said Mathews opening the door. “That’s my job. Tuesday?”
I had to smile. I liked Mathews, and maybe, just maybe, I should give up some of my resistance. “Yeah, Doc, sure thing.”
-2-
I walked down into the bowels of the parking garage, thinking that the whole experience was getting the best of me. Denial had been easy at first. I mean, the only memory I had—the one fire memory—told me I really didn’t like Liz. I didn’t love her, did I? Of course not. So the fire didn’t really destroy any cherished memories, at least none that Mathews could bring back. And her disappearing along with a son hadn’t really given me any sleepless nights. I was beginning to think neither Mathews nor anyone else was going to solve this mystery.
I climbed on my gleaming antique “Duo-Glide” Harley. I suddenly felt frightened. I thought back on how little I’d been able to tell Mathews so far.
The driver’s license I found in the bungalow said I was 28 years old. I was tooling around on a very expensive bike, wearing $2000 suits, fishing out $100 bills from my saddle bags whenever I needed them, and I wasn’t any closer to finding out who I was or where my goodies came from than I was four months ago. In fact, the only thing that had progressed in those months was the diminishing balance of the $400,000 I’d found in the saddlebags and my ability to handle the Harley after all but pushing it down the street those first few days. I had learned that though you may never forget how to ride a bicycle, I apparently had lost some of my memory of how to ride my Harley.
I was certifiable, a fruitcake, even by LA’s loose standards. A name, but no legitimate address. A man with a past, but with only one memory. Nothing else except all this material stuff: a luxurious hotel suite with all services paid for a year in advance and the closet full of clothes I was supposed to own.
It had been five months since my Rip Van Winkle awakening on that November morning. I had found myself half-dazed, half-dressed in a pair of wet black pants, lying under a palm tree on the beach in a cove somewhere along the Pacific Coast. Like I’d gone for a midnight swim or done some wading in the ocean. Beside me had been an empty diary with Charles Randall written on the blank cover page. A hotel key and book of matches from the Polo Lounge had led me to the Beverly Hills Hotel and the bungalow suite that was apparently my home away from—somewhere. With no suggestion of an accident and no bump on the head, I had been clean, squeaky clean, except for a lack of orientation and a very bad headache. Charles Randall was then and still is just a name—a name at the beginning of a blank diary.
I shook off the troubling memories, revved the engine and got the hell out of there.
The air was refreshing against my face, in spite of the First Stage Smog Alert LA was experiencing today.
It’s not easy having only one memory. A morning looking out of a high-rise window and hearing a phone call telling you your family is gone and you don’t even know who you are. If only that memory were a nightmare. If only I could wake up. But I’d tried that approach. I was locked.
A change into jeans. A ride up the coast. A good long cry. That’s what I needed right now.
It was noon when I got away. As I rode the cushioned flight of one of America’s few mechanical prides, the heat rising up my legs kept me aware I was alive, and the reflection on the chrome gas tank reassured me I wasn’t dreaming. The ocean air reminded me that I was a healthy, respectably good-looking guy with a lot of energy and, at least for now, a lot of money. If I only knew who it was thinking these thoughts. I wondered if I’d be impressed with myself riding around with a stash of money.
I passed a highway sign that startled me. “Death Valley - 180 miles.” I had no idea why I was attracted to the sign, but I found myself slowing down and turning onto the highway pointing toward the hottest piece of geography in America. I thought of Doc Mathews’ last words; “It’s time I changed gears and time you stopped thinking I’m some kind of threat you can play with until the next more interesting threat comes along to feed your insatiable appetite for drama.”
It was 85 degrees at the ocean, so humping over the mountains to the valley was consistent, if not prudent, for a loony pegged by his analyst as being a danger-lover.
After two hours of feeling like a nosecone in a re-entry maneuver, I crashed through the desert’s 106 degree heat and found the reality every motor needs: a gas station… well, a kind of a gas station. More like a cafe guarding a ghost town of scattered buildings and trailers. The antique pumps stood like retired sentries.
The silver metallic BMW at the front pump had personal plates that said it all: 4MYDICK. The nozzle of the hose was jammed firmly into the tank, giving the car what it needed, as the driver berated his passenger with the last thing she needed at the moment. “Fuck you!”
“Oh yeah? Fuck you,” she screamed back.
“No, Fuck YOU, you phony bitch!”
The screaming was the only sound in the otherwise quiet of the desert. I saw tears etching their way through the young woman’s face. She was obviously uncomfortable with the language, but seemed ill-equipped to escape it.
The driver jerked the back door open, grabbed a Gucci bag and flung it across the sandy ground, popping its latches and spilling Victoria’s Secrets. I felt strange, compelled to turn the other way. Everything about these two up till now seemed easy to watch, but the panties and bras, well, they pushed some buttons in me. Parental upbringing? A shy streak? I didn’t know.
Only a cloud of dust remained as 4MYDICK spun through the sandy station and onto the soft ooze of the afternoon asphalt. He was out of there, but without her.
She tearfully finished picking up her belongings as the proprietor came running out, shaking his bony arms at the disappearing silver reflection and shouting with tempered British astonishment, “Hey you didn’t pay me! You stole me petrol!”
His eye caught the girl. He hadn’t seen this much female in a long time. He paused, enjoying the way her jeans fit her just right, and continued. “He stole my petrol.”
“You’re lucky that’s all he took,” she replied. “Sorry. Girl problem.”
“He left you here?” queried the man.
“Yeah, the middle of a God forsaken nowhere. Got a phone?”
“What about my $16.25?”
She shook her head, muttering “4MYDICK,” as she pulled a twenty from her purse.
“Beg your pardon?” the old man said.
“Richard is such a...Jesus! Got a phone I can use?”
“Inside, miss.” He cast a final glance toward the endless black stripe of asphalt leading back to Los Angeles.
As she trudged toward the entrance, the old man moved toward the Harley as I hooked the nozzle back in place. “Yours is $8.46, sir.” The old man looked toward the road again, bewildered. “You believe that? Just stole it, just stole me petrol without even a word.”
I turned to the girl, but she was through the door. “Got something cold inside?”
“Perhaps,” he replied. “Then again, perhaps not. Game’s got them drinking everything that’s anything below boiling temperature.”
“Game?” I asked.
“Football league opener,” he proudly announced.
Inside, the place was jammed. All of the numerous seats were occupied by one - sometimes two - locals hooting and hollering at the football game. An old Stromberg Carlson TV hung from the ceiling. Could have been the whole town in there for all I knew.
The girl was busy popping quarters into the phone as I moved to the counter to order a drink.
“What’ll ya have, sir?”
“Something cold,” I replied.
“Somethin’ cold’s hard to come by today, sir, ‘less you got... “
I pulled a hundred-dollar bill from my shirt. “I got.”
The short-order-cook-turned-bartender-for-the-game quickly hauled out an ice-cold 6-pack. “Other five’s on the house, sir.”
I glanced over toward the girl who was having a frustrating time with her calls. “Send one of these twenty dollar ‘on the house’ beers to the lady.”
“No problem.” He grabbed a dirty glass from the counter and quickly rinsed it. “With a glass, on the house.”
“On the house,” I repeated, and took a look at the game that had the assorted sampling of town folk worked up into Super Bowl frenzy. A number of them were placing quarter bets on plays, while others were being taken in by the local hustler for some small-town big numbers on the final score. Though football was brand new to me, I felt strangely familiar with the sport. But at that moment, my mind wasn’t equipped to think that one through.
Even though my perfectly ripped jeans allowed some ventilation, I was cooking. The wall thermometer was stuck on ninety-five degrees, and it was sitting right in front of the whirling air conditioner.
The girl was getting nowhere with the telephone. As the bartender walked away from her, she acknowledged me with a toast, although I could see she wasn’t in any kind of party mood. Something about her face belied the language she had been using outside. I wondered what her name could be. Nancy? No, too old-maidish. Kristy? Too much the other way. Maybe a more formal name. She was dressed well, groomed like a professional. Could be an Elizabeth… Liz. I laughed at my inside joke. Could even be an Annette. Florence?
Suddenly, I had an elbow in my side. Somebody had scored and the idiot next to me had fallen off his stool, dropping both his body and his latest glass of beer into my lap.
“Ah shit,” he pouted, running his drunken hand down my pant leg trying to catch the beer trickling toward the floor. “Sorry...Shit, sorry buddy.”
I grabbed him to keep his two hundred pounds from falling on my feet. “No problem.”
He retched and lost it all over my sneakers.
“I’m OK,” he said. “I’m OK.”
I helped him up to his stool. He was sobering up fast, and he appeared to be genuinely embarrassed.
“God, I’m sorry, buddy,” he said as he grabbed some napkins and leaned over to wipe the mess from my shoes.
“No, no, no,” I said. “I’m fine. You just sit here.” I took the napkins and blotted the mess as he continued apologizing. “It’s OK,” I assured him. I dropped the napkins in the wastebasket. “Hey, bartender. Got some ‘on the house’ coffee for my friend here?”
“On the house, comin’ up.” He grinned and leaned over the counter. “Hey, wanna clean up in back? Got a bathroom to your left.”
I nodded in thanks and started toward the men’s room, which was on the other side of the phone booth.
“Oh God, Sherry, it was ugly,” the girl blurted into the mouthpiece. “Threw my case all over the lot, silkies went everywhere. What? How do I know? Just so he keeps going. Well, I’ll keep trying...I know you would, but a car in the shop is a car in the shop.”
I pushed open the men’s room door thinking what a schmuck Dick was, leaving her out here.
I stepped up to the sink, wondered whether to wash my shoes on or off my feet, then realized that the sink was one of those miniature basins with barely enough room to put one hand in at a time. That wasn’t going to work. Only one thing to do with my revolting mess.
After taking a deep breath from over my shoulder, I slipped them off, put them in the tank, and quickly flushed the toilet several times, sloshing the sneakers up and down, up and down. This wasn’t pleasant.
My feet made a unique sound as I passed her. She was still making calls. This girl knew enough people to fill a phone book, but she was having trouble finding someone to help her. As she dialed, she glanced down at my plight and grinned to herself. I found an empty stool, now that the game had ended.
My friend with the active elbows was having a cup of coffee. He glanced at my shoes. “Can I buy you a cup?”
I patted him on the back, “Don’t worry about it. A few miles on the bike, they’ll be good as new.”
Still embarrassed, he smiled to himself. “Bullshit, buddy. Them sneaks never gonna see ‘new’ again.” We both looked down and laughed.
His eyes wandered onto my knee that was realizing about 5 inches of open air from the custom rip and tattered threads of the jeans. “Nasty break you had there,” he said.
“Break?” I said.
He pointed, “Yeah, the knee. Cartilage removal maybe.” He leaned in for a closer look. “Yeah, definitely cartilage removal. What position did you play?”
“Play?”
“Yeah. Position. Football, wasn’t it?”
I felt myself beginning to panic. With Doc Mathews, questions like this happened every minute, but with this guy? Obviously, he knew something about sports and sports medicine. He might be able to tell me more about my knee than I knew myself. I didn’t know what I was talking about, but I blindly picked a position. “Yeah. Tight end.”
“Tight end?” He laughed. “You too good lookin’ for tight end. How much you weigh?”
“Hundred seventy-five.”
“Too small for pro, too big for high school. What college?”
“Uh...UCLA,” I responded. I felt like I had created my own trial, but couldn’t take the fifth.
He paused a moment, then burst into laughter. “It’s OK if you never made college, buddy. Hell, it took me six years to get through, and look at me now.”
I jumped in to save myself. He was making me crazy. “Yeah, I really screwed myself up in high school… sand lot stuff… sliding into third.”
“Well,” he put his arm around me as he stood up, “ wanna take care you don’t over do it. Can’t all be as lucky as Namath, makin’ millions with a bum knee. Gotta get back to work.” He looked down at my sneakers again, and chuckled. “Sure sorry ‘bout that.” As he took his last sip of coffee, he asked, “Where you headin’?”
“Well,” I glanced back at the phone booth, but she wasn’t there. I looked around. “Where did she go?” I asked the bartender.
“Bathroom.”
My friend persisted. “Where?”
“He said the bathroom,” I responded.
“No,” he laughed. “You. Where are you headin’ from here?”
“Oh, I’m not sure. East, the Valley, somewhere in the Valley.”
“ Somewhere in the Valley?” he said.
I took a deep breath, and popped the cap on another bottle of beer. “Yeah.”
He looked at me like I was the drunk one. He glanced over my shoulder. “Sweet on the girl?”
I didn’t know how to answer. I didn’t know why I was so concerned with her. “No, just curious,” I answered.
He winked. “They can fuck you up worse than that sandlot slide.” He made his way to the front door.
“How do you know so much about injuries?”
“Long story,” he said. “You take care.” He was out the door.
I turned to the bartender who was cleaning up. “Know him?” I asked.
“Who? Jacob? Sure. Town wouldn’t be a town without that old drunk. Takes care of the horses and all the stray dogs and cats we’ve accumulated over the years.”
“Veterinarian?” I asked.
He grinned. “Kinda. Before he came here ten or so years ago, he was the trainer for the Rams. Got caught up in some illegal, you know, the painkillers they’re not supposed to use. Loved his team. Took too good care of them. Saved some ball games and some lives nobody even knows about.”
As I watched Jacob shuffle across the lot and disappear, I heard the bathroom door open behind me. I looked in the mirror and saw her emerge from the bathroom, looking beautiful and calm.
She stepped up to the counter. “Pardon me,” she said to the bartender, “I noticed a Greyhound schedule on the wall in there. Is it usually on time?”
He shook his head. “That’s old, miss. Doesn’t stop here no more.”
She slumped down on a nearby stool. “I’ll kill that son of a bitch when I get back.”
“Need any help?” I volunteered.
She couldn’t suppress a smile.
“Thanks for the beer,” she said. “Wasn’t a very pretty scene out there.”
I looked to the bartender. “Trade you two warm for two cold.”
The bartender shook his head. “Gave you the last cold ones earlier. Ice?”
We both shuddered. “Warm will do fine, thanks,” I said. I popped the caps and handed her one. “Here’s to getting you… I don’t know your name.”
“Sara,” she answered. “Sara Reynolds.”
I lifted my bottle to hers. “Sara...Charles. Where’s home?”
“LA”
“Me too. Here’s to getting you home.” We each took a less than enthusiastic swig of the warm stuff.
The bartender, Joey—he’d finally volunteered his name—had heard most of my conversation with Jacob, so it was no surprise when I asked to borrow the autographed football propped up against the mirror. It was definitely a Rams’ ball. The whole team had signed it, including the coaching staff. Some had written a special message to Jacob. Obviously, they loved him, and must not have wanted to see the Commission force him out.
“Sara, how well can you run?”
“I was pretty agile at one time. 440 was my thing.”
I laughed. Not only was she willing to help me try something, but she would probably make an ass of me. “Well, take it easy, OK? I don’t have a clue as to what I can expect of myself.”
“You want to see if you can still throw a pattern? Why do you want to try the game again? How long has it been?”
“A few years,” I told her.
She looked at me as if she understood how hard this little test was really going to be - as if she knew I was not telling her everything.
It was three o’clock and the air outside was still. This was definitely Death Valley. But I needed to find out something and Sara was willing to help, so we put ourselves in a north/south mode and let the dropping sun fade to our side.
I tossed her the ball. It spiraled. “Why don’t you snap it to me?”
She gave me a furtive look. We were both aware of how well she filled her jeans.
I broke the awkward moment. “It’s kind of important, the snapping I mean.”
She smiled. “Yeah, it probably is.” She bent over, placed the ball in front of her and dropped her head.
“I’ll do a quick cross to the left and straight out, OK?” she said. Looking at her squatting over the ball made me think I’d never been in this position before. The scattered undies from earlier flashed through my mind. At least I knew I wasn’t gay. “Hike!”
The ball came back surprisingly fast. As I stepped back and prepared to pass, it felt strangely familiar. I cocked as she cut back to the center.
“Give it hell, Charlie,” she yelled back at me.
I released.
I couldn’t believe it. The ball was launched like a missile. It was long, straight, a flawless spiral, and she caught it. A perfect thirty-yard pass. A perfect catch. I stood there wanting more. Did I really play the game? Did I mess up my knee the way Jacob said?
She ran back and stopped directly in front of me, the ball tucked under her arm. “Learn something?” she asked.
I looked at her, wanting to tell her how little I really knew. “Yes. You are not only very beautiful, athletic, and smart, but also dangerous.” We both smiled.
Twilight was special that day. I was moving a classic machine along an unknown stretch of road with the arms of an unpredictable lady wrapped around me. I was still shaky from the afternoon’s revelation.
I knew how to throw a football, and throw it well. I had scars that might have come from a mistake made in the heat of a college or high school game. What if...no, I couldn’t be that good. The pros are banged up more. I shook it off. I was in the middle of the desert. “Enjoy the moment,” I told myself.
The air cooled as the sun went down. My face enjoyed the sting of seventy miles an hour. For the first time in memory, I was being touched. Sara’s arms made me feel better than I’d felt in five months. For right now, there was just the moment. She didn’t know it, but moments were all I’d had for months. Moments strung together. Moments I feared, yet moments that someday might tell me who I was. I wanted to believe Sara would become indispensable in bringing me back to myself, in helping me find a purpose for all this searching.
The sun at our backs stretched our shadows out over the giant, lifeless mounds of sand. The sun was dropping fast. Our shadows were stretching further, converging. I liked that. My eyes dropped to the pavement rushing past us.
It was dark when I pulled up in front of Sara’s small house in Santa Monica. We trudged wearily through the front door. Her roommate, Jesse, greeted us with coffee and homemade cookies. I was comfortable here and had to tell myself to go slowly. I felt excited about being so near a woman, lounging on her couch, feeling so close to her.
Slow down, I reminded myself. I stayed only long enough to be polite.
As I started the engine, Sara kissed me on the cheek.
“It was very kind of you to bring me home. Thanks,” she said.
We looked at each other. It was obvious. We both wanted to be more than just kind.
She agreed to let me pick her up after work the next night. She taught an adult education class on Mondays at Santa Monica College and would be free at ten. I wanted to rush home, jump into bed, and sleep the hours away until I could be with her again. That’s all I could think about.
Bookmarks
