Passenger Page 10

  Sister Eleanor walks me to the rectory door and, as I step out into the snow, I thank her.

  “Answers will be provided in time,” she tells me. “You just let God lead the way. Have faith. I will pray for you.”

  “Thank you. And I hope you get well.”

  “Only Luke is left,” she calls after me as I’m halfway across the courtyard. Her voice is surprisingly strong. “I will pray that there will be no need for me to meet him.”

  I spend the rest of the daylight hours following the bus route in reverse. I start at the final stop—the stop where I had gotten off with my address on my palm and my memory gone just a few days ago—and study the map of routes while standing beneath the bus stop portico. A key in the margin of the map lists the different lines and the times of each stop. The line that services this stop is the Green Line. On the map, I tick off all the stops of this line as they wind through the city, and count twelve. Twelve stops.

  As I stand there, the Green Line bus arrives. The doors hiss open and a few passengers stomp out. None of them make eye contact with me. Shoulders bump into my own like I’m not even there. Behind the steering wheel, I catch a glimpse of the dark-skinned, overweight bus driver. She, too, does not look at me. And a moment later, the bus is chugging back down the street.

  Baltimore is a big city with many suburbs. It is even bigger in the dead of winter, when walking one block feels like walking three, and the wind funneling through the canyon of buildings is relentless. It is when you see the windows boarded up and watch the destitute families trudging from apartment building to apartment building, wrapped in flannel and heavy coats and hats and gloves. The homeless set fires in gravel pits and empty iron drums at night, the peppermint red glow of the giant Domino Sugar sign at their backs. These same derelicts sleep on grates huddled together like seals on a beachfront, desperate for warmth.

  The bus route takes me down Baltimore Street, through the district known locally as The Block. Flanking both sides of the street are the seedy strip joints and nightclubs, the greasy fried chicken establishments and a drug store, all currently dormant in the waning daylight. Soon, with the approach of night, they will all come alive. The tendrils of hypnotic perfumes are already carried by the air, foreshadowing things to come. I press on through the cold, the wind biting my cheeks and bald scalp. On one corner, two grizzled black men in filthy overcoats check me out with reptilian eyes while clenching cans of Natty Boh. Farther along Baltimore Street and the strippers dart between buildings, still in sweatshirts and tights, their hair pulled up, their faces unpainted. I pause at the next intersection. I can smell a fire burning somewhere. Also, farther off, police sirens whir. Rubbing my hands together for warmth, I scan the intersection for a bus stop sign or another portico. I find neither. Farther ahead, marquees snap on. Salsa music plays from a passing Cadillac. More and more cars file down the street, sloshing through puddles and kicking waves of freezing water up over the curb. In the blink of an eye, the streets are alive with leopard-pattern leotards and neon pink miniskirts.

  Up ahead, the coffin-shaped silhouette of a city bus shudders and coughs toward me. Black exhaust hangs around it like an aura. It slides into the intersection and banks a left.

  I break into a sprint after it.

  “Run, rabbit, run!” shouts one of the grizzled black men as soon as I take off.

  It’s the Green Line—in fact, the final bus of the night. As I sprint across the intersection, nearly taking a spill on a patch of black ice, the bus sputters to a stop and the interior lights come on. A number of passengers unload and spread out along the curb like a stain. I am running now for all I’m worth. The bus is still idling alongside the curb as I approach. I burn across to the opposite end of the street, crashing through puddles and kicking through snow rifts. Panting and out of breath, I reach the open mouth of the bus and stand there with my hands on either side of the doorway.

  Startled, the bus driver turns toward me. “Hey, now—”

  “Sorry.” I push off the doorway. “I’m sorry.”

  “You need something, buddy?”

  “No. No. Sorry.”

  Because I am losing my mind.

  Because maybe I never had it.

  What did I think I would find? Did I think I would find myself sitting on this very bus?

  At this moment, nothing would surprise me.

  There is a warm-looking coffee shop across the street. I enter and am instantly thankful for space heaters. The place is only mildly populated—there appears to be more staff than customers—and the few men who are collected around various tables and at the front counter are obviously just wasting time until the strip clubs open.

  I pull up to the counter and start rubbing my hands together. My decline in health carries with it poor blood circulation, as I have noticed a pervading and consistent numbness throughout my body since the recent drop in temperature.

  “C’getcha, hon?” drones a portly waitress with bleached blonde hair behind the counter.

  “Just a coffee.”

  “Cream? Sugar?”

  “Surprise me.” Really, I just want something warm.

  Behind me, two young strippers enter on a gale of stoned laughter. They drop into the nearest booth, both on the same side, and they cannot be older than nineteen. Their complexions are of an olive hue, their eyes both hazel, their hair auburn streaked with red highlights. They look like twins.

  When my coffee arrives, I do not drink it. Instead, I wrap my hands around it and drink up the warmth. To my left is a metal napkin dispenser, dented and pitted with rust. I touch it—it is cold—and tip it gently on its side while I stare at it. My dented, pitted reflection stares back.

  I am looking worse and worse each day. I am dying.

  I wonder if anyone has ever died from amnesia. In one of the books I stole from the library there is a chapter about severe cases of amnesia where people’s bodies have actually forgotten how to breathe, how their hearts have forgotten how to beat. Their stomachs can’t digest and their blood forgets to clot. But from memory alone? Can someone die because they can’t remember their birthday or the name of their first girlfriend?

  Therefore I am.

  As the night wears on, the male patrons pick up and saunter out into the cold. Many of them trade in twenty-dollar bills for singles at the register before they go. I don’t look up from my coffee. In fact, I watch my reflection simmer in the surface of the black liquid.

  Then I hear a sound like someone winding a clock. I perk up and turn halfway around on my stool. I do not know how I missed this before, but there is a gumball machine by the front door. It is not like the old-fashioned kind I bought from Wiley Jum. This one is more modern, the glass housing square, not circular, and there is a clear Plexiglas base beneath. A spiral slide winds from the top of the base to its bottom. The sound—the winding of a clock—is actually one of the young strippers turning the crank on the gumball machine. She is bent forward in exaggeration, exposing the seams of her black nylons running up the backs of her legs.

  But I am not looking at her legs.

  I am looking at the little green orb as it descends the slide, spiraling and spiraling and spiraling to the bottom of the clear Plexiglas base. Even when the stripper bends over just a little bit more to retrieve the gumball, I do not take my eyes from the orb, do not look away.

  The stripper turns and pops the gumball into her mouth. She grins at me, pleased with herself. Surely she mistakes my interest to be that of the carnal variety. She winks and a pink tongue darts from her mouth while the gumball, unbroken, pushes against the wall of one cheek.

  Because the refills are free and I need much warmth, I sit at the counter for a very long time. Finally, one of the strippers calls out to me.

  “Cue ball,” she says. I can make out her reflection in the dented and pitted napkin dispenser.

  The place is empty and even the waitresses have congregated toward the back where they can smoke cigarettes without be
ing disturbed.

  “Hey,” she says, more urgent.

  I turn halfway around on my stool and glare at them from over one shoulder.

  “Why you sittin’ there by yourself?”

  “Why don’t you come over here?” suggests the other stripper.

  I peel myself off the stool and, carrying my coffee, slide into the seat across from them. This close, I am certain they must be twins.

  “I’m Valentine,” says the first stripper.

  “I’m Angel-Eyes,” says the other.

  I sip my coffee and say, “Nice to meet you both.”

  “Boy,” says Valentine, “you look rough.”

  “What’s your name, hon?” asks Angel-Eyes.

  I say, “Ulysses.”

  Angel-Eyes drums calico fingernails on the tabletop. “Hey, now,” she says. “That ain’t your real name.”

  “Look who’s talking.”

  “Hon,” continues Valentine, “we keep it real.”

  “For reals,” adds Angel-Eyes.

  “You lookin’ rough.” Valentine will not let it go. “You got junk on you?”

  “Junk?” I say.

  “What about cash?” asks Angel-Eyes. “How much you got?”

  “Not a lot.”

  “Got enough for some fun?” says Valentine. These sirens are tag-teaming me, pecking like vultures.

  “Oh,” I say, “I’m afraid I won’t be much fun.”

  “Shit,” scowls Valentine.

  “Shit,” growls Angel-Eyes.

  “Ain’t a shakedown,” says Valentine. “We figured you out here trolling.”

  “Trolling?”

  “For gash.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Aw, shit,” says Angel-Eyes. “You got any smokes on you, daddy?”

  “No. Sorry.”

  “You always sorry for shit,” says Valentine.

  “Always sorry,” parrots Angel-Eyes. “Hey, daddy, who you think’s prettier—me or Val?”

  “I don’t know. You both sort of look the same to me.”

  “Racist honky,” says Valentine, but there is no spite in her voice. In fact, she reaches across the table and tickles the top of my hand with her catlike fingernails.

  “I don’t know what’s pretty,” I admit. “I can’t tell the difference between pretty and ugly.”

  “Who’s ugly? Me or Val?”

  “No, no—I mean…”

  “Yeah,” says Valentine, “you mean, all right.”

  I finish my coffee and rise.

  “At least toss us some smokes,” whines Angel-Eyes.

  “Don’t have any. Sorry.”

  “Asshole.” Angel-Eyes looks legitimately pissed off. “Always sorry. Why don’t you go be sorry some other place, white-ass bitch?”

  Before leaving, I drop a coin into the gumball machine just so I can watch the gumball—a red one this time—spiral down the plastic slide. I do not take it when it hits the bottom. Instead, I spill back out into the night, pulling my coat tight about my withering frame.

  On the curb, I decide to continue retracing the bus route tomorrow. It is dark and cold and with my poor circulation, I fear I may collapse in a frozen heap before too long. Even now, I am a long way from my St. Paul Street apartment. Up ahead, taxicabs are on a constant rotation along Baltimore Street. I hustle across the intersection and flag one down. I know I shouldn’t be careless with my money, but I’m suddenly exhausted and numb.

  When the driver drops me off outside my building, I enter and take the stairs two at a time. I can think of nothing better than falling asleep. Over the past few days I have accumulated enough memories to lull me quickly to sleep, and I am anxious now to put them to good use.

  Digging my key from my pocket, I slide it into my door and, just as I turn the lock, hear something click off to my left. In the shadows.

  I turn and see a man pointing a gun at me.

  THIRTEEN

  When you don’t know who you are, it is hard to tell where you end and where the world begins.

  It becomes impossible to tell if your smile is your natural smile or if it has been culled and cultivated from years of watching your father smile, your mother smile. Or the shiny smiles of shiny celebrities on television. That you like soft jazz because there is something chemical in your brain that attracts you to the lilting electric pianos and classical guitars, or because the memories you have, the good memories, memories of your friends and family, are memories you automatically associate with soft jazz. So soft jazz makes you feel good. You see someone in the street and the first things you see are the things that have turned them into who they are. They walk a certain way because of the things they’ve seen and the things they’ve done to make them walk that way. Their hair is parted to the right or the left or straight back because of the nurture factor—because of years watching a father comb his hair to the right or the left or straight back. Or because nature has seen fit to weave it in such a fashion—right, left, centered. The woman laughs then apologizes for her loudness because it was her mother who laughed and apologized for her loudness. The laughter is natural, the apology learned. This is why we wear the clothes we wear—the loose-fitting Hawaiian shirts or the tight-fitting blue jeans with the wide cuffs. Cowboy boots or moccasins. This is why we listen to the music we listen to. This is why we love and hate the things we love and hate.

  So many things we do because it becomes ingrained in us.

  So many things we do because our memories lead us to them.

  * * *

  He is a nervous, sweaty, sloppy thing, this man. He wears a blue nylon coat that looks two sizes too small and a rumpled oxford shirt that is only partially tucked into his wrinkled trousers. He’s got a squat, square head with a shiny pate covered with strands of greasy hair. There is perspiration on his doughy cheeks and along his upper lip and it looks like his eyes are fighting to stay open. Surrounding him is a cloud of alcohol and cigarette smoke and, when he manages a single step in my direction, his unsteadiness tells me he’s drunk.

  Still, he is waving a handgun at my face.

  His nervousness makes me nervous.

  “You,” he practically squeaks. His fat cheeks quiver. “You son of a bitch.”

  “Hey.” I prop up both my hands and press my back against my door. “Hey, man.”

  The man clenches his teeth and his eyes light up. Then he expels a gust of sour breath and again those fat cheeks quiver. One moment he looks ready to rip my head off; the next and I think he’ll burst into tears.

  “Bastard,” he breathes. “Son of…of a bitch…”

  “Take it easy, man.”

  “Don’t you tell me to take it easy!” He jabs the gun in my direction.

  “All right…”

  “Don’t you tell me a goddamn thing!”

  “All right…”

  “You…I…you, you son…”

  “All right…”

  And this is how it is going to end: in a piss-smelling hallway in a Baltimore City apartment building. Just another statistic. This stranger with no name, no identification, dead and forgotten. Who was he? No one will ever know…

  “You son of…of…” And the man, he starts crying. I advance cautiously in his direction, but he is quick to jab the air again with the handgun. “No!”

  I throw myself backward against the door. Brace for the shot…

  “I should do it,” he says, and it is like he is talking to himself now, “I should, I swear it, God, I should…” Those quivering cheeks. “Son of a bitch.” The barrel of the gun is all I see. “I swear, you ever fucking touch my wife again, you son of a bitch…”

  Crazily, I hear Clarence say, Must make you feel free. Must be like parole.

  “Barry,” I say. “Come on, Barry. Point the gun down, man.”

  “I should do it.” Like he’s trying to convince me. “I really should do it.”

  “Barry…”

  He staggers for a moment and plants one hand against the wall
to right himself. Briefly, the gun sways off me, dips into the shadows, reappears.

  “I should.” Then he shouts, “You son of a bitch!” and I prep for the flare from the muzzle and the deafening crack of gunfire to echo forever down the hallway.

  Something swings toward my head. I have time to see it is Barry’s gun, a glint of steel, coming in an arc toward the side of my face. Instinct pulls me back, but instinct is not quick enough; some part of the gun strikes my temple. Before I know what’s happening, I’m already on the floor, missiles exploding in my field of vision. I try to sit up, to prop one hand beneath me, but the world takes on a significant tilt. Like the Earth is trying to shake me off into space.

  “Barry,” I say…but now my voice is deep and slow, like a tape playing at the wrong speed, and I’m not even sure I manage to get the whole word out.

  He kicks me once in the stomach and I curl up like a fetus. Through my blurred vision, I watch as the pointy toe of a cordovan shoe strikes again, this time connecting with the side of my head.

  Must make you feel free.

  And the world shakes me loose.

  FOURTEEN

  A bit of black pavement carved through a sun-speckled, wooded landscape. It is less a dream and more like a single bit of film stock played on a loop, the same sequence over and over again, played and replayed, dulling as it goes. Bright colors dirty to sepia bronze. Such a nondescript, forested passageway could be anyplace in the world—Borneo, Mesa Verde, the Isles of Quios…

  * * *

  When I awake, I am splayed out in the darkened hallway outside my apartment, my head grinding like a jackhammer. I open my eyes and my vision threatens to shatter like glass. The pain in my head is tremendous. I touch my scalp with a set of fingers; they come away sticky with blood. When I sit up, the pain worsens. My stomach wants to cramp and fold in on itself.

  Yet despite all this, I am still alive.

  Barry the traveling ceramic tile salesman has spared my life.