by Ronald Malfi
There is Spanish music playing from an open window somewhere as I step out into the street. The day is tremendous and sunny, the light too powerful for my tired, weary eyes. I walk a short while until I fall beneath the yawning shade of the Mercy Medical Center. The pale brick façade and smoked windows are immediately recognizable. Thinking of the scar on my leg, I wonder if I have ever been treated here.
This is insane. Where the hell is my memory?
I find Calvert Street and maneuver through various neighborhoods. In some vague fashion I am aware I am heading toward the Inner Harbor—can actually summon a visual of the Harbor in my mind—but this passing familiarity does little to comfort me. I wind through a grassy park surrounded by potholed side streets punctuated by gaudily-painted plaster busts of giant crabs, their claws raised above their carapaces as if in victory. At the far end of the park, I spy a tooth-colored square building, columned, and flanked by brass lampposts with a wedge of police cruisers corralled out front: a police station.
They’re going to think I’m insane. They might even lock me up.
These reservations strike me like a hand across the face.
Moreover: what if I am wanted for some heinous crime? What if the police are out looking for me right now? I think of my vacant, echo-chamber apartment and am frightened to admit it could be the den of a serial killer, a sociopath, some psychotic religious zealot. Why is there no fresh food in my refrigerator? Why are there no clothes in the bedroom closet?
Why can’t I remember a goddamn thing?
I formulate a scenario where I am relentlessly interrogated by police, hammering me with a barrage of questions, all of which I cannot answer because I cannot remember any of it. Where were you on the night of the fifth? What’s your alibi? I do not know. And, of course, they do not believe me. You always see it—the bastard being drilled by the cops who never remembers a damn thing. The poor, dumb, hopeless bastard. You always see it.
Maybe that’s true.
Maybe they really don’t remember.
In the end, this paranoia defeats me. If I am a psycho killer, I do not want to know it. I decide the best bet is the simplest bet: call the apartment complex’s main office and ask to see my rental agreement.
I cross the street just as my nostrils become infused with the tempting aromas of the city: the Thai restaurants stacked along the boulevard and the brewing coffee from the Internet cafés. This stretch of Calvert is littered with delis and juice bars, with family-run bookstores that serve pastries and pizza parlors with tables on the sidewalks. Art houses, thrift shops, countless bakeries. There is a drilling pain at the center of my stomach, I am so hungry.
Shaking, head still throbbing, I drop down on another believe bench and wonder how I am going to call the office number without a telephone.
There are still some payphones around the city, if you know where to look for them. I know I have seen them before, but I’m not sure where they are. Still, I would need change…and damn if I didn’t leave my $2.18 at the Samjetta last night, sitting right there on the bar…
There are also a number of homeless people in Baltimore, perhaps more so than most urban locales throughout the country. While they are typically known to be solitary creatures, you can occasionally find them in pacts, in prides, in flocks, in murders, whatever, lighting together on park benches or bundling up in conspiratorial groups to keep warm over heating grates in the winter. Often, they loiter about the steps of churches and creep back and forth in the alleyways with designs on the dumpsters and the treasures within. They congregate outside the bohemian cafés and coffee shops because they know the art students who frequent these haunts are eager to give them handouts and feel good about themselves. The homeless are like hungry squirrels that way.
It doesn’t take me long to target a bearded, puffy-faced derelict talking to himself while hunched over on the stoop of a condemned building. The derelict wears a sawdust-colored trench coat matted with grease, pulled taut about his shoulders like a cape, and there is a backward baseball cap, equally filthy, on his head. Great tufts of pepper-colored clown hair explode at either side of his head from beneath the cap and his multicolored beard is as lush as the mane of a lion.
There is a Styrofoam cup planted squarely between the derelict’s feet. It is this cup that is the target.
Stuffing my hands in my pockets, I make a beeline for the derelict, my head down, moving with a pace quicker than normal. A normal person might have intercepted me before I drew much closer, but the derelict is not paying attention and even seems a bit inebriated. So I am able to get close, to get right in there, and when I strike the Styrofoam cup with the toe of my sneaker, spilling quarters and nickels and dimes to the sidewalk, it takes the derelict a moment or two to realize what is happening.
What follows is an eruption of nonsense, of partially understood curse words and gutter slang, coupled with the furious flailing of very long arms. Surprisingly, however, the derelict does not rise from the stoop; his eyes merely turn to saucers as he watches the spray of change, twinkling like a constellation along the pavement.
“So sorry,” I blurt to the derelict, already down on one knee, refilling the man’s Styrofoam cup.
“Blast,” growls the derelict. “Blast an’ dis’n dat.”
“Here. Here.” I pile the change back into the cup and hand it over to the derelict, who does not accept it. “Here,” I repeat, and finally set the cup back down between the derelict’s feet and walk quickly away.
What I make off with is nearly two dollars in change—seven quarters and a dime, to be exact.
SEVEN
There is a payphone inside Franelli Brothers’ Pizzeria; I stand with the receiver against my ear, one hand curled around it, while huddled in one corner. I try to make myself nonexistent. I’ve got the sheet of paper with the phone number of the apartment complex’s main office in one hand, and my eyes volley between the number and the phone as I punch the digits.
A woman with a rasping voice answers. I try to sound as cheerful as possible when I ask about their location. When she gives me the address, which I jot down on the sheet of paper below the phone number, I thank her and quickly hang up.
The office is located on Lombard Street. No money for cab fare, I spend the afternoon walking.
I walk past the office twice before realizing it is the narrow sliver of a building wedged between a bank and what looks like a defunct nightclub. Inside, there is just a waiting room and a small wooden desk where no one sits. The place is disguised as a travel agency, what with the various framed photographs of the Virgin Islands, Hawaii, and the Bahamas on the walls. There is faded, cruddy wallpaper peeling everywhere I look, tinged yellow by ancient cigarette smoke. A space heater shudders in one corner of the lobby.
Before I have a chance to sit in one of the waiting room chairs, a silver-haired woman with a pinched face and narrow reading glasses hobbles out of a door behind the desk. Upon seeing me, her pointy face becomes pointier. She holds her head up to examine me through her glasses. In the poor lighting and against the nicotine walls, her skin looks the pallor of cookie dough, the texture of a sun-swept desert landscape.
“He’p you?” the woman utters. It is the same rasping voice from the telephone.
“Yeah, hi, I’m a tenant in the St. Paul complex, apartment Three-B. I was hoping to get a copy of my lease for my files. I guess I must have lost it.”
The woman is already busy clacking away on computer. “Name?”
“Well, I’m not sure…”
The woman’s heavy-lidded eyes linger on me. “Excuse me?”
“I mean, I’m not sure whose name is on the lease. I can’t remember who signed the, uh, the paperwork—”
Exasperated, the woman says, “The apartment number again?”
“Three-B.”
The woman hunches close to her computer screen. I can see the reflection of the monitor in the lenses of her glasses. Then she rises with a grunt, requiring both han
ds to push off the armrests of her chair, and, rather shakily, shuffles to an immense filing cabinet that leans in a precarious fashion away from the wall. The woman pulls out one drawer, digs through a ream of paperwork and multicolored folders, and finally produces a manila folder. Opening it, scanning it, her pinched birdlike face nearly crumbles to dust.
Still scrutinizing the paperwork, she says, “You said Three-B?”
“Yes.”
“St. Paul complex?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry,” she says, and snaps the folder shut. “We don’t have your paperwork.”
Something like a lead weight crashes down through my stomach. “What do you mean?”
“Building went co-op last year. Three-B was sold. Don’t have no rental agreement.”
I swallow a lump of spit that feels like a hunk of granite. “Sold to whom?”
“If you’re living there,” says the woman, “then to you.”
“But there’s no paperwork, nothing with my name on it? Any information at all?”
“Not our job to maintain your personal records, sir.”
“But there must be something with some sort of documentation, some…I don’t know…some sort of…”
The woman’s eyebrows cock as she sets the folder down on her desk. With her brittle, yellowed fingernails, she peels a sheet of paper from the stack in the folder and hands it over to me.
“Have a look at it,” she says. “No name, no personal information. Three-B was sold in July. Paid in full.”
“Then maybe you’d have a copy of the check on record—”
“Cashier’s check.”
“Excuse me?”
“Paid in full by cashier’s check.” She snatches the sheet of paper back from me and buries it in the folder. “Three-B ain’t our responsibility.”
I take a step back from the counter, running my hands through the stubble of my hair.
“Can I get your name, sir?”
“I don’t…”
“There might be some paperwork in the back,” she says.
My eyes fall on the framed picture of St. Thomas, so that is the first thing that comes to me. I say, “Thomas. Last name’s Thomas.”
The woman’s suspicion is evident. She moves slowly to her computer terminal again, but her eyes linger on me. Her lips are pressed tightly together, a mere slit beneath her nose, and I can tell she is rolling her tongue over her teeth. She hammers out a few keys on the keyboard then stares hard at me.
“Thomas, eh?”
I rub at my face. “Yeah…”
“Let me see some I.D.”
My mouth dry, my hands shaking, I surprise myself by uttering a strangled laugh. “Please,” I say. “I’m sorry. Please. I have no I.D. I just need you to help me. Please help me.”
The woman’s gray eyes narrow. “You,” she says. There is sudden accusation in her voice. “You’re the guy who came in here last month, gave Suzie a hard time, ain’t you?” She is jabbing a talon-like finger at me now. “She called the cops on you, didn’t she? Giving Suzie a hard time about the same thing.” The birdlike hand snatches up the telephone on her desk and brings the receiver to her ear. “I don’t know what game you’re playing, mister, but I’m calling the cops. You can sit here and wait for ’em, or you can get the hell out and don’t come back.”
I am out the door before she is finished dialing.
EIGHT
Lost, hopeless, I wander the city streets until I find myself on a bench somewhere near Northeast Baltimore. The sky is overcast and threatening rain. I am overcome by a general malaise, a sort of chronic dampness of the soul. I anticipate giant hands reaching down from the heavens, grabbing me like a dishtowel, wringing me out. My stomach growls as I cast a wary glance at the clouds overhead and drop down onto a bench. baltimore, it reads, stenciled on the wooden slats of the bench, the greatest city in the world! Wholly ironic, directly across the street stands a row of dilapidated homes, pressed together like rotting teeth, looking like a strong breeze could take them all down like dominoes. The sidewalks are laden with trash, the street signs bent at right angles and spray-painted with gang symbols—fat chicks rock and shorty took the veal. Someone somewhere is barbecuing; the scent of flame-broiled meat makes me salivate.
A group of people, mostly black, have gathered at one intersection. Their talk is raucous, determined. There are a lot of fingers jabbing the air and many heads tip back on necks, hollering into the sky. Some carry signs, picket signs, and many of them are wearing bright yellow T-shirts with indecipherable writing across the front. Electric bass saturates the air, pumping from an invisible stereo. After a time, a slender black man with wet, hound-dog eyes approaches me and does a little jig at my feet, smiling.
“Where’s your sign?” asks the black man.
“Don’t have one.”
“An’ your shirt?”
“Sorry.”
The black man claps his hands. Then extends one for me to shake. His fingers look preternaturally long. “Name’s Clarence Wilcox.”
“Hi.” I shake Clarence Wilcox’s hand.
“Ain’t got no name?”
“One woman calls me Mozart,” I offer.
“Right on,” says Clarence, beaming. His long, gray fingers tickle an invisible keyboard. “Piano guy, right?”
“Right.”
“You waitin’ for someone?”
“No.”
“Looks like you waitin’ for someone.”
“No.”
“Looks like you hungry.” Clarence rubs his chin with those gray fingers, tugs at a wiry scruff of beard. There is an aloofness about him, like maybe his skull is full of used Kleenex and ball bearings and the discarded pull tabs from soda cans. “Want some burgers?”
“God, yes.”
Clarence laughs. His mouth is impossibly large, with countless rows of teeth. Shark-like. I imagine him trolling the ocean for prey. Again, he slaps his hands together. “Let’s shake it then, Mozart.”
I follow Clarence across the street. The house on the corner—arguably the most run-down—has some people sitting on the front porch drinking beer. Out back, a robust fellow with a cheesecloth complexion tends to a charcoal barbecue. The sight of the meats on the grille makes me want to break into a sprint toward it.
“This is Mozart,” Clarence tells the cook.
“Hey,” says the cook.
“Hey,” I respond.
“Listen,” says Clarence to the cook, “let’s load him up, yeah?”
And they do: they give me two hotdogs with ketchup and mustard, a plate of baked beans as thick and spicy as chili, a grilled chicken breast, and several cans of Budweiser. There is cake, too, and it appears it is someone’s birthday, as they all sing before cutting and distributing the gooey, chocolate slices. Ravenous, I eat the cake as I have eaten everything before it. I feel the large bites go all the way down and settle into my stomach. I am still hungry.
“Didn’t catch your name,” the cook says to me at one point.
“Call him Mozart,” Clarence interjects. He seems to appear from nowhere.
“What’s your real name?” The cook sounds suspicious.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I can’t remember.”
“Oh, yeah?” says the cook.
“I don’t know who I am.”
“That’s something,” says the cook.
“You got the amnesia?” says Clarence.
“I guess so.”
“How’d you get it?”
“Can’t remember. Don’t know.”
“I guess that makes sense,” says the cook.
“Maybe you was some governmental experiment,” says Clarence. “Like maybe a spy or something. Maybe they had you doing all sorts of sick shit over in the Middle East or someplace and now you’ve come back, they erased all your memory.”
“So’s he can’t tell people what he seen,” adds the cook.
“So he don’t go to the newspapers and make some deal out
of all the secret governmental shit,” says Clarence. “Yeah. Maybe that’s how you got that scar at the back of your head, too.”
“What scar?” And my hand goes immediately to the back of my head, feeling around. I only feel the undulations of my cranium.
“Big nasty scar,” says Clarence. “How’d you get it?”
“Don’t know.”
“Yeah, right—see? That’s the government at work, drilling right into your head. Zap. Take all your memory out. Can’t tell no secret stories without no memory.”
“Hell, yeah,” says the cook, eyeing me ruefully. His distrust is mounting. “Zap, all right.”
My fingers finally fall into a vague groove at the base of my skull. I trace it up along the rear of my head toward the top. I think, too, of the scar on my leg.
“You got no memory of being in the Middle East, Mozart?” Clarence continues.
“No.”
“Maybe over in Russia,” says the cook. “We still got spies in Russia, you think?”
Clarence shrugs. “Don’t know. We still got spies in Russia, Mozart?”
“I have no idea.”
“Yeah,” says Clarence, suddenly certain of himself, “you some governmental spy got fucked with.”
“Zap,” says the cook.
They ply me with more beer and a second helping of the baked beans. Clarence regards me with ambivalence, but I am soon under the suspicion that the cook, ever distrustful, is filling me with beer in hopes that it will loosen my tongue. Who am I? Why am I here? Anyway, it doesn’t matter. It takes a while, but soon I am full, and it is a fantastic feeling.
“Here, now,” says Clarence at one point, thrusting a bright yellow T-shirt at me. “Slip this on. We almost ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“To march,” says Clarence.
The T-shirt says won’t do 72! and looks two sizes too small. Still, grateful for their hospitality, I pull it on over my shirt. It constricts my movements and I wonder if it had previously been a child’s shirt. Clarence eyes me approvingly and claps me on one shoulder.