Chapter 30

The next day, tape number ten was pushed into the deck by an anxious Dr. Pressman.  As the now familiar voice of Charles filled the room, Dr. Pressman noticed Dr. Farnsworth had found a new seat in the conference room… next to Dr. Carrey.

I don’t know whether I was hoping Sobel would call so I could have a chance to appease my guilt or whether it was my fear of going back to Los Angeles to face more uncertainty. Whatever the reason, I had spent the morning on the streets of Manhattan, just wandering around, checking my hotel for messages every hour.

I hadn’t slept much last night. After all the walking I did, I thought sleep would come easy, but the mind was letting me know it was a demanding servant. If I wasn’t going to give it rest, it couldn’t give my body rest. And right now, I felt powerless over my brain. It was splashing its impulses about my skull like an out-of-control Pollock painting, fragmenting any sense of direction I might have had before the Sobel meeting.

It was afternoon now, and I was leaning over the railing of a Manhattan Island Cruise boat. I had progressed from memory loss to assumed identity, to challenged identity, to a double identity, to no identity. The inner peace feeling of Charles was gone. The terror and fear of Charlie was gone. The only thought that wasn’t being bounced around in my brain was the realization that I still had enough control to not throw the package into the river.

My money, watch, bogus driver’s license, bogus passport, any and all of everything associated with the identity of Charlie Stevens and Charles Randall was neatly wrapped and sufficiently weighted by one of Holiday Inn’s doorstoppers to take it to the bottom of the Hudson. I had a problem though. It was still in my hands, and it had been there for the better part of the two hours I’d been on the sight-seeing tour. I kept thinking of what Mathews would say, “...You’re just going through some motions. You really are somebody, somebody who needs everything in that package to survive. Throwing it away in an effort to rid yourself of frustration, pain, all that stuff, well, it’s just a waste of good money, driver’s license, passport, the lot. Sure you want to do this?” That’s what he’d say, I told myself.

I looked at my watch. It was three o’clock. I turned around and leaned against the railing and looked down at the weighty package in my hands. Maybe it was getting out on the water, the air, or the different kind of people that seemed to be enjoying the same things I was, but I was about to agree with the imaginary Mathews counseling I had just played out in my confused head. Then again, the deciding factor could have been the little boy standing next to me.

“What’s in the package, mister?”

I looked down. He was nine...maybe ten years old. Maybe younger. He had one of those faces that was hard to tell. He was holding his father’s hand.

“Oh, just some stuff I’m going to mail,” I said.

He laughed. “Out here, mister?”

“Well... “ I started to say.

“Don’t be rude Max,” his father interrupted.

I looked closer at the man holding the boy’s hand. He was about my age, dressed in dark clothes and wearing dark glasses. He was still staring out at the water. He pointed with his cane and said, “Look, the ‘pels’ are mixing again.”

I looked and flying in a swooping formation was a flock of seagulls moving in and out of a group of three pelicans. “Hey,” I said, “Never seen that before.”

“Happens often this time of year,” said the man. He gestured again with his cane to the other side of the boat. “Usually they stay closer to the Jersey side.”

Suddenly, I realized his cane was no ordinary one. It was white with a red tip. He was listening to the pictures, letting them tell him the difference in the air movement, the difference in the wingspan, the whole story. I could only look on in awe. His son was pleased. “He’s great, ain’t he?”

“Isn’t he,” corrected his father. “And there’s nothing great about hearin’ things.” He slid his cane up his wrist and extended his hand in my direction. “I’m Julian. This is my son, Max.”

I was a little taken aback, then I shook his hand. “Uh...Charles. Charles is my name.”

    “You sound like you’re from out of town.  Know that hesitation in out-of-towners. They’re always thinkin’ they might get mugged or somethin’. Nice name, Charles. Ohio...maybe Indiana, right?”

      “Los Angeles,” I said.

      “Maybe now, but you be a mid-west boy originally.” Suddenly, my own ears perked up. “You hear that, do you?”

    “Sure. You... “

      “Told you my pop was great,” the boy exclaimed.

      “Max,” he corrected him again with a hug around the shoulders. “You probably tried to lose it, Charles, but you still got that nasal quality. It’s nice to hear. Visiting are you?”

“Just a couple of days.”

“First time?”

“No. Here last week.”

“Frequent flyer, eh?”

“No.  Just these two

     “No.  Just these two trips.”

“Not one of those, are you?”

“What do you mean,” I asked.

Julian leaned over the railing and smiled. “Visitors hear all the bad things that could happen to them in New York and can’t wait to get back home. It’s not like that, really. A town of surprises, but just as many good ones as bad.”

He turned to the bow, as the horn blast of an ocean cruiser moved slowly toward the docking area. “See that? S.S. Argentina, right Max?”

Max squeezed his dad’s hand.

“Thought so,” said Julian. “This is Tuesday. Ever been on one of those, Charles?”

“An ocean liner?” I said. “No, don’t think so.”

“You are a tentative guy, aren’t you? Either you’ve been on one or you haven’t. But that’s OKAY. Don’t mean to be nosey.”

“No...no. You’re not...It’s just...” I looked at the enormous size of the ship. We were only fifty or sixty yards from her wake as it gave out with another blast of its horn, maneuvering closer to the dock and the several hundred people waiting to welcome the passengers home. “...it’s just I could have, maybe, when I was a kid. But, I don’t remember.”

“Oh, you’d remember, unless you were really young. Being on a ship like that stays with you forever. Played all the big ones when I was a kid. Now, I... “

“Dad,” the boy interrupted. “We better start moving to the front.”

“Yeah. Must be gettin’ close, the gulls are comin’ back. Always the first at the docks after a tour...love the boat scraps that get dumped, say...you wouldn’t be needin’ a land tour, would you. Son and me...”

“Dad.  He’s been here before.”

“Yeah, but he’s maybe…you never did answer my question before.”

“What question?” I said.

“You one of those with the bad impressions of the city?”

I looked at the boy.

    Julian was smiling… the kind of smile that you usually see on the face of someone wanting the right answer, a pleading smile.

“You know, I’ve never had a ‘real’ tour, except by a cab driver. Bet you two know all the real sights.”

The smile on Julian’s face was from ear to ear. “You get a Double Tuesday discount, ‘cause you’re from the mid-west...” He leaned in to whisper so his son wouldn’t hear, “...and you got balls, even if you can’t remember your name.” He chuckled.

“Why you whisperin’, Dad?”

“Man talk, Max...man talk.” He patted him on the shoulder. “Max here is just about a man. He’s my son, my friend and my manager, aren’t ya, Max?”

“We get the job done, Dad,” he said with a prideful smile. “How long you got, mister...for the tour? We can make it an afternoon, or an afternoon and night, or an afternoon, night and morning. How much time you got?”

I grinned back at the entrepreneurial kid who was obviously older than he looked. “I’ll sleep when you guys sleep. How’s that?”

“OKAY! Dad, you hear that?”

“You didn’t tell him the price, Max,” the father cautioned.

“Oh, sorry.  Six, eight, and twelve, plus tokens.”

“Tokens?” I asked.

“Subways, or buses if you prefer.”

“Of course. Tokens. Well, twelve sounds very reasonable, that’s the all-nighter, right?”

“That’s the best of the best, mister,” Max proudly offered. “We can show you everything...stuff you never dreamed of.”

Julian cleared his throat. “Max.”

“Just lettin’ him know we’re the best, Dad. You won’t be disappointed, mister.” “I’m sure I won’t. Call me Charles will you Max? No more mister, okay?”

“Deal.” He extended his small hand and we consummated the all-night tour of New York by a kid named Max and his blind father named Julian. This would cinch Mathews’ fruitcake assessment of me, if nothing else. I felt great. I felt like...I wasn’t sure what I felt like, but like a geyser that rests then erupts unexpectedly, the Charles in me was coming to the surface again  and I couldn’t wait for it to...I glanced at my package. “I’ll be right back,” I said to the two of them.

I went to the other side, out of sight, unwrapped the parcel, put the money, cards, passport, everything back in my pockets and threw the wrapping and doorstopper into the garbage can. I was not only traveling lighter now but was looking forward to the sights that my new friend, another man of the dark, was about to show me. Something about the whole idea made me feel more excited than I could ever remember being. Was it sheer accident, stumbling onto this strange combination? It didn’t seem real...but I was going through a lot of unreal experiences.  What was one more to add to them?  At least the next twelve or so hours would be spent with someone who had conquered living without the light. It wasn’t a good feeling to be so self-pitying. It didn’t make me like myself anymore. My own darkness seemed banal compared to his. That was probably a good sign. Maybe it was intuition, but I was looking forward to spending time with this unlikely duo.

I glanced toward the shore again. We were coming up on the “Circle Line” docking area, and as I made my way back to Max and Julian, people were beginning to move from the benches toward the railing to watch the approach.

One of the overzealous sightseers kicked something belonging to  Julian and fell forward into the railing. “Hey, for Christ sake, pick up your luggage...break somebody’s leg.”

“Here.” I jumped to remove what looked like an instrument case, “Let me help you, Julian..”

“That’s OKAY,” Julian said. I handed the case to him and he turned toward the obnoxious one. “Sorry, mister,” he said. “I forgot it was there. You okay?”

“Yeah...yeah. Get yourself some lighter shades, you could see your shit.”

Suddenly, a strange kind of anger welled up inside me, pulling me toward the passenger. His sunburned face testified to the degree of self-control he obviously lacked, but ignorance aside, he owed Julian an apology. “He might be blind, but you’re not,” I said in hushed tones, “You might want to say you’re sorry.”

The sunburned face went several shades darker at that moment. “Shit...fuck me...sorry mister. I didn’t see you were... “

“Don’t worry about it mister,” said Max as he grabbed the case from his father’s hand and guided him through the crowd. “C’mon, Charles, let’s try and miss the rest of the crazies.”

Strange reference for a little boy to use, I thought. “Crazies” was the kind of word grownups used to label people whose behavior was beyond the norm… beyond the accepted level of neurosis. The kind of word I was spending a lot of time contemplating.