Chapter

    10

The contract was burning a hole in my pocket. I pulled over to a sidewalk cafe on the beach.

I don’t know why I felt so ceremonious, but I had to choose just the right table...a secluded one where I could quietly deal with what ever I might learn from the contract.

The early afternoon sun was warm and comforting as I unfolded the document and read about Charlie Stevens.

As I studied the paper, frustration began to rise. Having bought the bike with cash, Finch hadn’t needed any other credit or bank references. The only information was my address. 1736 Lincoln Blvd., # 1024, in Santa Monica, not exactly consistent with the Beverly Hills Hotel. How covert was I?

I pondered the address a long while. I didn’t feel secretive. I felt outgoing and social, even though I wasn’t very willing to show it. I toyed with the thought of what I’d find if I went there. No amount of imagination could match the anxiety I felt at that moment. I didn’t have any choice. I was only ten minutes away from maybe finding out everything. I gulped my coffee, over tipped the waitress and left my hesitancy behind.

Somebody should have told me that kicking concrete is injurious to your health. My foot was throbbing as I stood beside the gutter I’d just tried to kill. Before me was 1736 Lincoln Blvd. The arty purple and green sign above the address said it all... “Mail Boxes for Rent.”

I sat back on my bike, staring at that sign while my foot struggled to feel normal again. I didn’t need this. The contract didn’t have another hint about me. This was it. I was up the creek without that necessary paddle—a mailbox key. I hadn’t come across any key over the months; so, I was back to point zero again. There was nothing left to do but...

“You son of a bitch,” was all I heard before I found myself pulled off the bike and lying on the street with my shoulders pinned to the ground by two knees the size of cement bags connected to a body that could pass for the cement truck. His long hair all but covered his very unhappy face.

His right arm was cocked ready to deliver his next message when I blurted out, “Hey, whatever you say! I’m all of that! I’m sorry! Forgive me!  What else?  Tell me!  What did I do?  What do you want?”  His stare was suspended for just a moment, like my fear. I learned right then that when you feel like a wimp and you admit it, God is kind. He hit me a little softer than I think he had intended before my confession. At least, that’s what the pain buddies in my face screamed at me.

He got up. He was happy. Maybe he got what he wanted. “Hand it over, now, or this bike is history!”

Nope. He didn’t quite have what he wanted, and I was at a disadvantage. I wanted to hand over whatever it was he wanted, but my jaw told me it didn’t want to move in order for him to hear me say, “What? Tell me. It’s yours.”

Suddenly, a fragment of memory flew through my brain. A movie image. He wrapped his body around the bike like the Indian lifting the washbasin from its moorings in “Cuckoo’s Nest.” This was really getting out of hand. My jaw co-operated at last. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. Just tell me what.”

He held the bike suspended above his head. “Six months’ worth, fucker.”

“Yes...of course,” I blurted out. Six months’ worth of what? Whores? Drugs? Money? Yes. One of the pain buddies said to choose money. I got lucky. I reached into my pocket and came out with the better part of the change from the hundred I’d broken at the cafe.

His Neanderthal sensibility gave way to modern day and this hairy monster from God knows where, gently put my bike down and like a perfect gentleman, took the money, counting as he uttered his apology. “Gettin’ behind isn’t good for you or me, Charlie, so save us both the embarrassment and pay on time. This is very annoying, you know?”

Annoying? God help me if he ever got pissed.

He turned around and walked into the shop front, “Seventy-two bucks covers it. I should keep the change for the space the 3 cartons of junk mail took up. Your box is stuffed too.”

I wanted him happy, really happy. “Sure, sure, you’re right,” I said. “Keep the change for being such a good guy. I appreciate your patience. You’ve really been good about it.”

He turned and grinned. “You lyin’ fuck, Charlie. Next thing you’ll be doin’ is offerin’ me a kiss.”

I managed a painful grin. Only down here, among the weird and wonderful, could this incident have turned into an acquaintance working toward a friendship. But it did. Appropriately, his name was Ivan. We had lunch together.

He knew me. At least he thought he did.

 I spent the late afternoon going through the mail addressed to Charlie Stevens, Charles Stevens and Mr. C. Stevens. Unfortunately, the majority of it was as Ivan had said, junk mail.

At least, a couple of pieces gave me food for thought. I had been called “Mr. Randall” by a Ms. Sobel over the phone and here was an Investment Newsletter addressed to Charlie Stevens, a newsletter from Investment Consultant, Lauren Sobel. Was this the same newsletter Mr. Finch had referred to?

The other interesting item was a personal invitation to Charlie Stevens from the manager of “The Mirage” in Las Vegas. I was to be his guest any time, for as long as I wanted to stay. From the tone of his letter, I was a man the casinos loved. Now, if I could only recollect anything about gambling, I’d maybe take him up on it. I chuckled to myself. I imagined myself running loose in a place like Vegas with memory problems and bank accounts full of cash.

That night, I met Ivan at what he had called “The Kitchen.” He gave me the address and I thought I was going to be eating at a beer-and-hamburger joint, but I was wrong. All wrong.

The Kitchen was a converted old church in Venice, used to house and feed the homeless. When I pulled up and realized this was the address he’d given me, I drove on. It took me a couple of circles of the block to get my thoughts together. Was this a joke? He didn’t need to play homeless and take food from somebody that really needed it, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to get a welcome hand pulling up on a Harley.

I decided to park down the street and walk back. I was confused. There had to be more to this.

Thinking “The Kitchen” would be a casual place, I had dressed in jeans and sweatshirt, which gave me a few less problems than I would have gotten. As I walked past the line stretched from the corner to the entrance, a few threw remarks that made me move quickly.

“Who the fuck you think you are?  Line’s to the rear, asshole.”

“Stand in line for your food like the rest of us, mother fucker.”

Niceties like that. They were right, though. I was, after all, breaking ranks to get inside and see what Ivan was up to. Doing it this way was obviously antagonist and presumptuous as hell. “Sorry,” I said, which got me a few more responses as I reached the door.

The man at the door, was a bit more understanding. He, after all, had food in his stomach. “Can I help you?” he asked.

“I’m really not here to take any food. I’m meeting a guy named Ivan. Know him?”

“Know Him?” He smiled, leaned inside the door and yelled out, “Hey, Ivan...some

dude lookin’ for you out here.”

From inside, Ivan answered back. “If he’s ugly as shit and got a lump on his left cheek, send him in.”

I was ushered into a room full of despair and hopelessness that made my plight seem irrelevant. Ivan, it turned out, was a volunteer. A steady volunteer at The Kitchen for the past two years. The homeless all knew him affectionately as “Ivan the Terrible.”  (Fancy that). He was a no-nonsense ladle man over the stew kettle, carefully measuring portions accompanied by an ingenuous smile and an out-of-tune voice murdering some rock and roll as he fed them.

I motioned to him and he returned a couple of hand signs suggesting ten more minutes.

I definitely felt out of place and wandered to the far end of the room where a young black man was strumming a battered guitar and forlornly singing an old blues ballad. He wasn’t much in the voice department either, but his honesty more than made up for it. I sat down on the floor a few feet from him and listened as he hunched over and directed his quiet voice toward the floor.

It wasn’t long before one, then two, then three of the homeless were gathering around as well. I continued to get a few looks, but I got a few smiles as well. I was beginning to feel something special in the room. It was another one of those strange familiar feelings with no reference. I was comfortable among them without an explanation for myself.

Finally, Ivan made his way through the crowded tables and tapped my shoulder. “Jeremy here does three more sets tonight before he goes to bed. How about we come back for a night cap?”

I nodded and stood up, following Ivan through the crowd and out the back door. As we stepped out onto the parking lot, he turned to me. “Pissed?”

I was surprised at his question. “Pissed? Why would I be pissed?”

“’Cause you thought ‘The Kitchen’ was gonna be a few beers, some burgers and some chicks, right?”

I gave him the kind of response I thought he hoped for, a shrug. After a long moment, I said, “If you don’t mind walking a bit, I’m parked down the street.”

We stepped off. “You know, Ivan, I do know a place where there’s beer and great burgers.”

“Sounds good to me, Charlie.  Chicks?”

You’re on your own,” I said with a smile.

This was truly a challenge for the “Classic.” Ivan was riding on the back with his two hundred seventy, maybe two hundred eighty pounds giving the “massive torque”— as the kid at Harley Classics had described it— a real test. I kept praying this wouldn’t in any way mess up the oil seals again. Dragging weight probably had nothing to do with it, but what did I know? One thing for sure, Ivan was thoroughly enjoying himself.

For the fifteen or twenty minutes it took to reach my little diner, I could hear him singing another old rock and roller at the top of his lungs which got more looks than the bike at the stop lights.

It was after we wolfed down our burgers and beer and ordered coffee that the real Ivan emerged again. This was the Ivan I’d seen at The Kitchen. The jukebox was playing, and Ivan just sang along in that happy, out-of-tune voice of his. He was easily the happiest guy imaginable. I wondered if Mathews would say he was the most unhappy guy imaginable and that this was all just a smoke screen.

“What’s your secret, Ivan?”

He paused with his singing.  “Secret?”

“Yeah.  What keeps you so up all the time?”

 “Well, shit Charlie, it isn’t these ‘great’ burgers and beer you bought me.” He slapped me on the back. “R and R, Charlie. R and R. Don’t you love it?”

Eventually, he wound down enough so that we could really talk. He had finished his coffee, and insisted on buying a pitcher of beer for us, then said, “So, what’s on your mind, Mr. Stevens?”

“Why the Mr. stuff?”

“Oh,” he said, “just figured you were more used to Mister than Charlie. Sortin’ your mail, I noticed you got a lot of formal stuff, banks, brokerage houses, you know.”

Ever since our encounter at the curb, Ivan had never lost his smile. Right now, it was disconcerting. “Do you always smile?” I said.

“Always,” he replied. “Unless I don’t get paid on time.” He laughed and hugged my arm. “So, c’mon, Charlie. I’ll call you Charlie, make you feel better. Enough small talk. What’s goin’ on? What you want me for? I’m just a simple guy. Why a rich guy like you interested in me, a guy who almost wasted you a few hours ago?

Obviously, the only way to talk to Ivan was straight. “I’ve lost my memory, Ivan. I don’t know who I am.”

He stopped mid-way in a gulp of beer. His smile suddenly went away. Then he burst out laughing. “Okay, Charlie. No more beer for you. Next thing you’ll be asking me who you are?” He let out another laugh.

“That’s exactly what I want you to do, if you know.”

The smile was gone again, only this time it stayed away. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, Ivan. I’m kinda wandering around in circles.”

For the next hour, Ivan tried to reconstruct his own memory of me. Seems I had been paying for the box for the past year, but six months earlier, I had disappeared. He told me he figured I was a crazy guy with lots of money and lots of smarts to have all that money and only one passion—my bike. He told me I drove it like a little old lady in tennis shoes and that when I was in town, I was at my box every day, 2:30 sharp, always an hour after the delivery. I’d never said much, hello and goodbye. Just a quiet customer.

“Was I out of town a lot?”

Ivan thought a moment, “No, you were around most of the time. You told me once that you’d be away in Mexico for a while, back in December, January, somewhere in there, and that you might send back some parcels you wanted me to keep in the refrigerator. I didn’t have any problem with that. You gave me an extra hundred, and the package passed customs, so I didn’t have any problems doin’ you a favor.”

“What was in the packages?”

“Hey, brown paper bag stuff.  What do I know?  You sent it, man.”

“Mexico?” I queried. “How long was I gone?”

Ivan thought a moment, “Six, seven weeks.”

What the hell was I sending back from Mexico in brown wrap, I wondered? “Did I say anything particular when I came back?”

“No,” he said. “You lost a little weight while you were away, but I just figured ‘Montezuma’s Revenge,’ you know.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it, Charlie. Wish I could tell you more, man.”

I figured I’d cover everything on my mind. “Ivan, did I ever talk about football, sports?”

He smiled. “No, Charlie.”

“How about women, anybody, names, anything?”

He patted my hand and shared the last of the beer with me. “Sorry, Charlie.” He smiled again, “You must have wanted to keep your women to yourself.”

I was grabbing at straws now.  “Never mentioned a Liz?  Elizabeth?

“Nope.”

I stood up with the curse of being tense too long. “Damn my back. Thanks, Ivan. Sorry I bored you with so many questions.”

“Hey.” he said. “Not every day I meet a guy with a problem like yours. Wish I could help. You just need some luck, that’s all. Like the time you won that pile at the track.”

“Track? What track?”

“Didn’t I... “He smacked himself alongside of his head. “I didn’t tell you about that, did I? How could I forget? Sorry, my slip. It was last November, I think. Just before Thanksgiving. You picked up your mail, all smiles, sayin’ you’d been lucky with the ponies. Yeah, now I remember, you said you were gonna treat yourself to something you’d always wanted. Next day, you drove up on that Harley. Sorry, man. I almost forgot. Too much beer tonight.”

Ivan was a good guy. He was overweight, crude, and quick-tempered, but he was a good guy.

That night when I got home, I reviewed the day. This wasn’t just any day. I had a series of connections that would keep me talking with Mathews for hours.

I checked the time. 2:30 in the morning. I really wanted to hear Sara’s voice and tell her all that had happened, but it was late. It could wait. I had tomorrow night to tell her all about it after her class. She had invited me to sit in. She hadn’t told me much about it but had promised I would find it interesting and valuable. She had accented the “valuable.”

As I turned off the light, I wondered what she meant. I wasn’t looking for my parents.

So…

I would find out in a few hours.