“We couldn’t find you.”
“I change everything. Phone, my name. You know that. That’s why you hired me. I changed my address.” I’d given them a mail drop for messages, instead of the apartment. I wanted to protect Keara, but one secret confessed only made more room for the other.
“I’m aware that you changed your address. I picked you up, remember?”
“I don’t understand. I’m still here, you knew how to find me, I’m still doing the work. I’m keeping in touch.”
The Executive pulled to a curbside parking meter and stopped, and when I looked outside I saw the broad, neon-trimmed windows of the bar where Keara had just begun working. I could see her through the window, and so could he. All at once, I felt like I was on that rooftop again. Should have known.
“So, ‘Fletcher’ is it? For this week? Well, Mr. Fletcher, I get headaches, too,” he said. “Stress and worry, night and day. Mergers and acquisitions. Liquidations. Hostile takeovers. Will we make our numbers? Will the deal go through? Is our competition growing? Mr. Fletcher, I get headaches like you wouldn’t believe.”
The drone of an LAPD helicopter dopplered low overhead, and as the rotor-thumping faded, the Executive looked upward.
“Hostile takeovers,” he said again.
My eyes were on Keara and I thought my chest would burst. In my head I went back to jail, squaring off with Dad. Freezing up because I was dead, or Keara was, if I did otherwise.
“I’ve learned that I can’t do anything about them,” he continued, “so believe me, I understand where you’re coming from. I finally learned to attack the problem at its source—stress. If I get rid of the cause of my stress, I don’t have any more headaches. Am I getting through to you?”
“I told Jimmy as soon as I was discharged,” my words gush out almost ahead of my own breath. “I had everything set up and gave him all of my new information, along with that last passport you needed.”
“Do it beforehand, next time.”
I listened to eleven seconds of traffic drone while watching Keara.
“You understand this isn’t the sort of errand I would normally do myself,” he said. “Usually when there’s a personnel problem of this kind to sort out, I have people that do it for me. But I’m hoping that’s not necessary, in your case.”
“I appreciate that.”
“Can I give you a lift back?”
“No, thanks.”
“Buy yourself a drink, then.” He handed me a crisp hundred. “And don’t be a stranger.”
I stepped out of his car, closed the door behind me, and heard the electrohum of the lowering window.
“Got it?”
“Got what?”
“That’s the second time I’ve said ‘Don’t be a stranger,’ and I told you I hate repeating myself.” Then, “There won’t be a third time.”
In a blink, he’d merged with the traffic and vanished.
Dr. Carlisle—
Had to leave early today. Called multiple clinics in Long Beach/South Bay. Most could track visits back to twelve months ago, but no D. Fletcher turned up. Still waiting on call backs from others. I doubt we’ll find anything, regardless. These places are always overloaded and short-handed, and files go missing quite often, so I’ll be very surprised if we find anything.
I’ve attached time sheets for the department and a schedule of upcoming performance reviews.
Rgds,
-E
P.S. One of the clinics said the Soc. Sec.# was showing up as issued in Oregon less than a year ago. I double-checked that I had the correct number, so this didn’t make sense. I’ll ring the Trauma Center admission desk before I leave and see if they can verify the number.
JOHN VINCENT
NINETEEN
Maybe you were born with some strange abnormality, like a six-fingered left hand. Maybe some doctors think that it’s linked to some organic brain disorder but they can’t be certain, and your parents could never afford to find out.
Maybe you walked late, talked late, were held back as a child and diagnosed as retarded. Maybe you’ve got some strange aptitude for numbers that offsets that diagnosis. Maybe, just maybe, you get hit with a screaming skullache every six months that doesn’t register on any X-ray, blood test, MRI or spinal tap, and the pain is so bad you almost kill yourself trying to stop it. Maybe if they see you more than once, they’ll quit believing you when you tell them it was an accident. You go by your real name, they find your medical records and decide since you’ve done this before you’re a danger to yourself. And the State can shoot you full of Thorazine and children’s TV and puzzles in a room full of mumbling, head-bobbing, grown men and women who can’t wipe their own asses, if the State thinks it’s the same you over and over again. And the State decides how long you stay and when you leave, and they can make up the rules as they go.
Trying to pass yourself off as a twenty-one-year-old dead baby to some bored civil clerk is going to get you sent down to where there’s no sunlight, no God, and no clocks.
So you learn to do it all, learn the ins and outs of the System, learn how to forge some pieces and learn how to have the others certifiably issued from a civic authority so the old you can disappear.
The Social Security Administration wants a driver’s license, and wants to know why I don’t have a number yet.
I worked at my father’s shop until a few years ago. I never had my own paycheck.
I’ve been in jail.
I been living overseas with relatives. I just moved back, my passport’s being renewed, but I have this. Trifold international driver’s license, two hours, eighteen minutes.
I bring a birth certificate and a work ID to the DMV. They want a Social Security number and want to know why I don’t have a driver’s license already.
I been living overseas with relatives. I just moved back, my passport’s being renewed, but I have this.
I’ve been in jail.
It was revoked after a DUI in Arizona, four years ago. SR-22, ninety minutes.
I’ve lived in New York my whole life.
I own stacks of blank 1040s, W4s, baptismal certificates, time cards, thirty-five mail drops, three typewriters, résumé paper, large vintage books, correction fluid and strips, rollers, seals, laminating machine, four-in-one-exposure passport camera, surgical gloves and vintage fountain pens.
I subscribe to magazines, rent videos and check out library books to correspond to fictitious interests. I don’t register to vote and I don’t sign petitions. I stay out of every municipal database that I can.
Yes, I’m paranoid. But I’m a walking assemblage of federal offenses, outstanding bench warrants and psychiatric referrals. My paranoia is greater than the sum of its parts and, because of that, I am free to come and go.
I’ll pause between steps, admire the work, watch the pieces fuse together in front of me or in my head. Clean the table, do a line, another, then another, then another, lay them out in front of me and admire a job well done, though not yet finished. Birth certificate. Work ID. Security badge. Baptismal certificate. Social Security number. Address. Driver’s license. Bank account. Secured credit card. The economy’s good right now, and credit cards have been easier to get for the past couple of years.
That last overdose? Not me. That last psychiatric referral? Not me. Failed drug test? Lost job? Not me, not me, not me, not me. You must have me mistaken for somebody else.
I’m not scared of being caught. I’m scared of being caught twice. Maybe once, a doctor won’t believe me and I’ll go down for seventy-two hours and the State will keep me off the streets and out of harm’s way and save me from myself for three days. But I go down a second time and some clip-on-badge clerk will match one name to another and the domino-chain of whispered rumors and palmed favors ricochets from a county holding cell to Jimmy’s boss and I won’t live to see those seventy-two hours end.
Maybe Jimmy gets nailed, or someone he works for does. Nobody’s taking the heat for anyone
else, so the giant blame-boulder starts rolling, fingers pointing downhill, naming names and gunpowder-pelt bartering for shorter sentences and better meals in lockup until somebody says, Red-haired guy with a fucked-up hand.
House of cards and vicious circle at the same time, a crapshoot that shoots back if I slip just once. All because I made an exception for Jimmy, so I could rationalize the exception I made for Keara that I would willingly do again and again, even with God’s own gun to my head telling me to do otherwise.
———
“Are you presently employed?”
“Yeah.”
“What do you do?”
“I work for a messenger service.”
“How do you like it?” The Evaluator is pulling back, lightening the tone after digging too deeply. Wants me to breathe easy, trust him. Holding very still so I’ll move closer.
“It’s cool. I drive my own car, have flexible hours. Gets me outside.”
And I can do it with a virgin driving record, which I get with every change but which makes for ugly insurance premiums.
“Is it ever stressful?”
“Sometimes. Traffic or a rush delivery can make it tough, but it beats working in an office.”
“How do you sleep?”
“On my side.”
“How well do you sleep?”
Light sleeping, insomnia and oversleeping are big depression indicators, which leaves scarce room for the average person to deviate from the recommended seven-point-five hours of sleep without being tagged as a suicide risk. I can’t remember my last full night of sleep, can’t recall not needing six cups of coffee and a rail to wake up, but the Evaluator doesn’t need to know that. Ice on my eyes in the morning, eye drops, iron and B-vitamin supplements keep the pallor and bags away.
“It takes me a while to pass out sometimes. But once I’m under, there’s no waking me up.”
“And how early do you wake up?”
“On a workday, about six.”
“Before your alarm?”
“Rarely.”
“So,” he starts a new sheet of paper, and here it comes, “can we talk about your hand?”
“You noticed that?”
The Evaluator laughs, says, “I had to re-read the report, then I saw you doing those tricks earlier. Hard to miss.”
I don’t say anything—smile, nod, wait—let him fill the pause.
“That thing with the cigarette,” the Evaluator continues, “that have anything to do with your hand?”
“My dad bought me a magic book when I was a kid.” The first of only two complete truths I tell him. “Said I should take advantage of what God gave me, maybe I could do something so that the kids at school wouldn’t hassle me.” I’m calmer, my front dropping for a moment.
“But nothing ever came of it?”
“That’s right.” I feel the pause, so I give him one last piece of truth. “After a few years, people telling me to learn magic or play guitar or something pissed me off worse than the ridicule. Most of the teasing stopped after grade school, but then grown men and women keep saying I’ll bet you could be a fantastic musician with that, or something. They think they’re being helpful.”
“And they’re not?”
“Nah. They’re being charitable, which means they’re looking down their nose at me. It gets old.”
“Does anyone say anything about it now? Besides the unsolicited advice?”
“Like I said, mostly when I was a kid. Now and then somebody says something rude. Bound to happen.”
“How does it make you feel?”
“Pisses me off.” Another down gaze, clench my fists, unclench. Show him angry but subdued.
“What do you do?”
“Walk away. Ignore them. Not worth getting sued or arrested over.” Show him that I know right from wrong, that I act from reason and not impulse.
“Danny, did you suffer any kind of injury to your head when you were younger?”
“I was in a motorcycle wreck a few years ago. I broke my hip socket and fractured my wrists. Got a concussion, but didn’t fracture my skull.”
“A few years ago? Before the first migraine?”
“Yeah. Before the first one.”
“Other than the concussion, you’ve had no other physical head trauma that you know of?”
“That’s right.”
He’s not supposed to lead my answers like that. He’s been at this too long to be an amateur, so he’s slipping, showing his agenda.
“Danny, I know we covered this earlier, but I still need to ask you specifically, have you ever thought about killing yourself?”
It takes years of practice for an Evaluator to ask this casually, without a hint of emotion.
“Nope. Not a chance.”
“Has there been any incidence of suicide in your extended family?”
“None.” Dad, maybe. He put a bottle to his head and pulled the trigger for years. That’s what the Evaluator wants to know. Depression’s hereditary.
“And aside from high school and our visit today, have you ever seen a psychiatrist?”
“No, I haven’t.”
“How about any other kind of counselor or mental health professional?”
“No. I mean there was a little therapy after the concussion. It was all tests though, she didn’t ask about my childhood or drugs or anything.”
The Evaluator places his pen down onto my file, folds his hands on the table in front of him.
“Okay, Danny. It looks like we’re about finished here,” he says.
“What do you think?” Do nonchalant.
“About your risk factor? I don’t think you’re at risk at all. Am I wrong?”
“No. I’m fine. Honest. I just want to get home.”
“We’ll have you on your way shortly. I should add that I’m concerned about these migraines you’re experiencing. While they’re not getting any worse or more frequent, there’s no apparent trigger or source. They could be genetic—from your father—or long-term trauma from your accident. With many such migraines, the causes are never known, but if yours are serious enough to cause an overdose, then we need to look into them further.”
“I’ll do that. I’ll take one of your cards.”
“That’s not what I mean. I think the headaches are real, Danny. Presently, you’re covered through your employer, correct?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m going to make a referral to a specialist, so your insurance should pay for most of it.”
“Thanks. I appreciate it.” Do calm. Do not do impatient.
“The blue color is strange. It could be optical trouble, but it sounds much worse.”
“It’s just my eyes getting sensitive. There’s fewer photoreceptors for blue than for the other colors, so I see more of it, that’s all.”
He pauses, not timed, not calculated.
“How do you know that?”
Do quick-thinking. “Like I said, my dad was an eye doctor.”
“Right. Which brings me to him. He suffered migraines and died of a brain aneurysm.”
No, he’s still alive as far as I know. Likely broke, or back in jail, perhaps once and for all. Or he’s on the street. Maybe he’s looking for me. Maybe I’ve passed him as he slumbered by a sewer intake with a one-hundred-ten-proof teddy bear.
“He was taking medication for them,” the Evaluator continues, “but I don’t have a history for him. His history would help you greatly.”
“I’ll track that down before I go see that specialist.” Do not a care in the world. Do cooperative.
“Don’t worry about that. I’ve already contacted my office. They should be able to obtain a history for him.”
Do panic.
“It’ll take a while,” he continues, “but we can usually cut through the red tape faster than even a relative like yourself. It might help if we could contact your sister in Oregon, if she’s the custodian of your parents’ estate. She might have something that could help us.” r />
Do get out of here right now.
“I’ll ask her.”
“Are you all right, Danny?”
“I gotta eat. I want to get out of here.”
“Certainly. Can you tell me your sister’s married name, though? Or give me any contact information for her?”
“Explain something to me, Richard.” I’m doing lost it. “Where do you get off tracking down my dead father’s medical records?”
“Danny—”
“I had a migraine. You said so yourself. But they stick me in here with you, a complete stranger, and I’m supposed to tell you about every drug I’ve ever taken, every woman I’ve ever screwed, and any ‘episodes’ I’ve ever had, dredge up shit about this,” and spread my left hand out, inches from his face, “and re-live the details of both my parents’ deaths after I’ve had my stomach pumped, after I’ve been shocked in the chest, after I’ve overdosed, after not eating a thing after a four-day, godsplitting migraine.”
“Danny, you need to lower your voice immediately.”
Double-tap at the door, Wallace’s simian brow ridge scowl fogging up the wireglass.
Deep inhale, through my nose, out my mouth, conjure up Keara’s perfume, clench my fists, unclench. The Evaluator waves Wallace off.
“Danny, is everything all right? Is there something you haven’t told me?” Soft, forward, sympathetic. “I’m here to help,” he says.
The worst cards I’ve been dealt were from people helping me when I didn’t want it.
“Don’t help,” I tell him. “More shit I do not need. Please write your assessment report and let me go home.”
“Danny.”
I wipe my face, surprised at the wet heat coming out of my eyes and trickling shiny down my fingertips.
“Danny, can you look at me?”
I look at him. “What?”
“Have you done this before?”
“I’ve already told you.”
“Danny. You said ‘assessment report.’ How do you know what it’s called?”
“Psych class. Junior college.” Breathe. “All the case studies had them.”