Chapter 8

Dr. Alvin Pressman lit a cigarette as he rose and made his way to the front of the room. He took a long drag, exhaling slowly, eyeing the audience of his peers. “Well,” he uttered cynically, “that… is but the beginning.”

He reached down, opened the cassette deck and turned the tape over for side two. “I would suggest we break for lunch and reconvene at 1:30.”

The group rose, stretched - some gathering their notes, others gathering their doodles - and meandered out of what had become a stuffy, smoky filled jury room of sorts.

Dr. Pressman hung back, gazing down at the box of tapes that made up the journal of Charles Randall. Though Pressman had been head of California’s State Penal Rehab Advisory Board for thirteen years, he hadn’t encountered anything like this before. He had been told he was dealing with an almost perfect crime. The state also told him that two alleged psychopaths, who should be kept in isolation the rest of their lives, had carried out the crime.

As he reached down and fingered the plastic cassette boxes, he reminded himself that the jury would never hear the tapes because of the Fifth Amendment, which his two patients were protected defendants from self-incrimination. His responsibility as chairperson, though not new to him, left him with a dry mouth. What was he afraid of, he wondered? He was just one of many doctors in the group. He wasn’t carrying the burden alone.  The judge had given the entire group the task of listening to the tapes and determining the mental condition of the accused men. But he was anxious about it. He had never been faced with judging a colleague like Doctor Mathews’ sanity.

As he turned over one of the boxes, something caught his eye. The handwriting was different from the others. He continued looking at the tapes. Some were labeled in script, some in print. Maybe it was just an innocent choice to switch from printing to cursive. He noted the box number where the change occurred: number eleven. He took another drag on his cigarette. It would probably be two or three days before they would get to that tape. “Interesting,” he thought to himself, “If anything were said on tape eleven that would suggest...”     

He picked up the phone and dialed his secretary. “Thelma, would you. oh, it’s going fine. Look, would you see if you could get some samples of Randall’s hand writing and his printing? I want to compare something. Great.  What?”  He looked at his watch. “End of my day? Probably around 5:30, assuming Schmidt doesn’t ask a lot of questions when we wrap it up. You know how he is. Thanks. Talk to you later.”

The group returned from lunch wide-awake. They seemed more intense. Pressman noticed more note pads.

LED lights danced once again as the tape resumed:

The cabby was a welcome relief as I headed back to the hotel from Sara’s. I was mildly depressed and the man at the wheel seemed to be mildly high. Hadn’t taken him long either. I’d only been gone maybe 4- or 5-minutes walking her to the door. Jerry (or so his ID read) seemed in control of the car, though his mouth was another matter. Eddie Murphy had nothing on this guy. His mind was going a mile a minute with four-letter words. He was funny though. I hadn’t heard that much raunchy before, at least not that I could remember. Like the kiss earlier, my reaction felt adolescent, naive. Where had I spent my twenty-eight years? At least my laughs supplied him with an ego boost and me a release from a hell of a day.

The next morning I was up early. I had to find a dealer and have my bike checked out. It was leaking oil and I didn’t have a clue where it was coming from. All I knew was I’d been wiping spray from my shoes every time I parked it, and it was starting to get to me.

I drove to the Harley dealer in Venice. The yellow pages had said, “Classic Harley — Antique Showroom of the West.” As I pulled to the curb, another biker, dressed in his just-right leathers and just-right dark glasses was moving methodically through the vintage bikes gleaming in the sun. He stopped dead in his tracks as he spotted my toy.

“Jeeeesus,” he said with the tone of reverence reserved for a miracle. “1959 FLH DUO-GLIDE. Overhead valve, 74 cubic inch V-twin engine, aluminum cylinder heads and pistons with hydraulic valve lifters, victory cam shaft, streamlined mirror-polished intake ports, cadmium plated, closed-end connecting rod bearing retainers.”

I was getting the education of my life and this kid had the nerve to stop his analysis. No, it was just a breath.  He continued.

“High compression ratio of 9 to 1, producing 60 bhp and massive torque, right?”

I shook my head. “Whatever you say.”

He smiled in awe.” $20,000, minimum. Am I close?”

Trying to retain some semblance of authority, I smiled back. “What’s the matter with you, Jack? Maybe 10 years ago. Wouldn’t take less than 30 for it now. Interested?”

Suddenly, he was quiet. I was grateful. I didn’t feel like trying to talk as if I knew bikes. I just wanted to get the damn thing fixed.  “Yo, bro, give me a minute.”

I went inside and brought the service manager out. He took about three seconds to tell me what the problem was and another three seconds to inform me that classics aren’t cheap to maintain. “Two hundred, if we don’t find any more about-to-leak fittings.

Common with this model, you know, but worth taking care of before you lose it on the highway.”

My little friend was in the service manager’s face now. “I say $26,000. He says 30. He’s pullin’ my chain, right?”

The manager threw a glance at the guy and said, “Right.” Before Mr. Leathers could start working me over again with his “I knew it” attitude, the manager winked at me and cut him short with, “Probably doesn’t want to upset you. They’re going for 40 to 45 nowadays.”

The guy swallowed. The reverence was back. The Pope had spoken, as far as he was concerned. “Jesus,” he mumbled.

The manager directed me to drive around to the maintenance department. Once there, he asked my name for the work order. I replied Randall. Once I scribbled my signature, authorizing the repair, the bike was wheeled off into the pristine repair area.

Two hours and $350 later, I was ready for the road again. As I waited at the counter for the change from the hundred-dollar bills I’d given the cashier, I heard from behind me, “Mr. Stevens. How good to see you.”

I turned around and saw a man I had no memory of ever seeing before. Was my real name Stevens? Had I stumbled right into the truth, or was he mistaking me for someone else? I was afraid to say anything as I stared at this anomaly in black tie and tux.

“Mr. Stevens, are you alright?”

I wasn’t alright. I was afraid to move or open my mouth. The stack of contract papers in his hands suggested he might be a salesman or maybe the owner. I managed to say, “I’m fine, just fine. And you?”

He gave me a sunrise to sunset smile that was like seeing a cartoon come to life. “Couldn’t be better, Mr. Stevens. Haven’t had any problems, I hope. You got the last one of those for a while. Hate to think there was anything wrong.”

The service manager, jumped in, trying to cover his ass, “Jesus, Mr. Finch, he didn’t say anything about buying it here.”

“I know, Larry.”

He turned to me. “You’ll have to forgive him, Mr. Stevens. He just started last month.

“What was the problem?” he asked the young man.

“Just a couple of minor leaks in the oil seals. Nothing serious,” he answered, as Mr. Finch reached in through the cashier’s window for the invoice.

After a quick glance, Mr. Finch muttered, “...as I can see by the total. But your warranty, Mr. Stevens, covers all of this. Miss Colburn, adjust this to a warranty repair and refund Mr. Stevens.”

He stopped short. My heart stopped. He was looking at where Larry had written ‘Randall.’ His eyes went to the bottom where I had signed my illegible signature, then back up to ‘Randall.’ He glanced over at me with a quizzical look. Then, like any sophisticated and polished salesman, he smiled and said, “How embarrassing. I’m terribly sorry Mr. Randall. I’ve never messed up on a name, but I guess there always has to be a first time.”

My instincts said play along and I bailed him out. “Oh, don’t be embarrassed. My error. I just gave Larry my first name. Randall. You’re right. It’s Mr. Stevens. Randall Stevens.”

He sighed in relief. “It would have been a first, you know. Thank you. In eight years, I’ve never forgotten a customer’s name or face.”

Part of me wanted to ask him right then and there what he knew about me, and when I’d bought the bike, but another part of me was petrified. I wasn’t ready.

“I wasn’t ready! It’s that simple. I wasn’t ready! So, I thanked him and left, okay? Just thanked him and got the hell out of there.”

It was at this point of the sharing with my Dr. Mathews, that he rose from his chair and glared at me. “Charles, you’ve been paying me a lot of money to get some answers. There might be some answers right there—free—you can’t just run away.”

I jumped up. “Who’s running away? I’m back here, aren’t I? One thing at a time.” I couldn’t wait to warm the couch. “Let’s get on with it, okay?”

Mathews paused, stroked at his beard, debating, always debating.

I closed my eyes. “It’s my nickel, Doc. Trip time. C’mon. Let’s see if we can find a Stevens in my life.” Through my eyelids I sensed the drapes being drawn. This was safer, I told myself. I’m protected here. Yes. He won’t let anything bad happen to me.

His voice soothed me. As I drifted off to his number counting, my inner voice became dimmer and dimmer. I strained to hear it telling me that I was safe here. That here is where I would find the answers.

Today, images were blurry. Halos bled through first, surrounding the checkerboard maze. Colors faded in. Mathews was still counting. Like the ticking of a bomb, the counting went on and on.

His voice began to disappear. The halos turned to clear outlines surrounding the windows. The familiar glass and steel maze of light chambers standing erect across the street told me all I had to do was turn around. The room came back as always from the darkness of my mind.

I had grown to like the hypnotic process. It was remarkable to be conscious and unconscious at the same time. Mathews didn’t explain it that way, but that’s how it was. Like a tide, I found myself moving in and out. Sometimes I imagined the waves carrying me were blades of ice, stacked sideways like playing cards. Cold, sharp edges, making me stay just one blade ahead to keep from falling. And then the void, the emptiness, the long dark fall from the edge of the wave, down, down... sometimes it seemed to go on forever. Today, I didn’t need this. I was anxious. I wanted to find Stevens.  Finally, there it was: the warming, the sign that time and space had carried me far from the cold.

Mathews could sense it. He was beginning to read my soundless journey like a book.

He knew. How? “Charles?”

“Yes,” I replied, clearing my throat of the mucus that inevitably gathered during those first couple of minutes.

“Where are you?”

 “One guess.”

“Okay, so it’s getting repetitive.”

“Boring,” I corrected him.

In the quiet, controlled voice I’d heard many times, he corrected me. “No, Charles. Stay with it. See beyond the familiarity. Try to look behind the night; the office that night as the sun went down. Look out the window again. Try to see the colors change on the building across the way, the blackness around the windows turning back to gray— take your time.”

I had tried this so many times.

Mathews came back at me. “Can Mr. Stevens see the daylight?  Charles, is Mr. Stevens around?”

Suddenly, my turn toward the window, a turn I had made dozens of times before, was unwilling to complete itself.

“Charles? Talk to me, Charles.”

“Something against my cheek, shoulder, hip and leg. Cold wall.”

“Charles, you’re standing in the middle of the room. You’ve been there before. There isn’t any wall… just your imagination...your wonderful, rich imagination. Now imagine the wall warm. Just a warm sliding cascade of slow-motion water. You can turn through it, Mr. Stevens.”

     I corrected him; “I don’t like to be called Stevens in the office. All the staff calls me Charlie.”

“Charlie Stevens?” Mathews quietly suggested. The pitch of his voice seemed higher, almost feminine.

“Yes.” I was turning through the slow-flowing water, warm water. The building across the way was not gray, though. “The building... “

“Yes?” Mathews leaned in. His voice was higher and it was closer. “The building is turning gray, Charlie?”

“No, red. Dirty red brick. Brick and fire escapes and washing hanging outside windows and… Jesus! Where the hell am I?” I felt my body lurch up, my eyes shoot open. Mathews was too close. I slammed into his face.

“Shit!” he exclaimed, grabbing his nose.

I was on my feet, half in and half out, screaming, “Where the hell was I?”

With his free hand, he gently took my arm. “Sit down, Charles. Just sit down. It’s OKAY.”

I was back now. Fully. The short-lived glimpse of the building was imprinted. “Jesus, Mathews, you didn’t tell me it would be like this.”

He was holding a tissue to his nose, the unexpected telltale crimson coming through. “No. If I knew what it would be like, we wouldn’t need to risk broken noses.”

We chuckled. “You alright?” he asked.

My knees were still shaky. “Yeah. I’m okay, I think.” I sat down. “Something I ate?” “Not funny, Charles, or should we stick with Charlie for awhile? You just broke through.”

“Yeah. I’m not so sure I’m going back there again.” We were both determined at that moment. I knew what his next question was going to be, so I asked it for him. “Want to tell me more about it?”

He knew my answer, so he answered for me, “Hell no.”

We both stood up and gave each other a hug. He walked me to the door. “Get some rest, Charlie. Day after tomorrow, three o’clock.”

“Yeah.”

He patted me on the shoulder. “Rest, Charlie. Rest.”

That night I slept twelve hours, because as I opened the bungalow door and reached down to pick up the paper, I realized that I had the morning edition of US News Today and yesterday’s evening edition of the Times. Leaning over wasn’t too good an idea either. I had a hell of a headache. Glancing at the usual bad news on the front pages of both papers, I figured my headache was probably the result of too much stress and too little fun. It was a rare day in LA: no smog, clear skies and mild temperature. I paused a moment to take it all in.

I wanted to feel happy. Was I the man who had everything at his feet, who felt joy at the sight of blue skies and clean air? Or was I the man who felt sick at heart as he stared at the usual depressing headlines? I wanted to understand what kind of man I was. I wanted to know whose feelings I was experiencing. I wanted to know whose blood I carried in my veins.

A sudden rush of loneliness made me close my eyes.

I remembered a soft voice, a certain touch. I missed Sara.