Chapter One #2
At one thirty in the afternoon, Simon jerks up, enveloped in blankets, and slaps the alarm off. He’s sweating.
He scrubs his face with his hands. He doesn’t always dream when he sleeps, but it’s almost always the same dream. And that was a bad one.
Untangling himself awkwardly from the blankets and pulling on a pair of jeans, he assembles a fresh pot of espresso, takes another Vicodin as the coffee brews.
Then he sits on a chair by one of the long windows, bare feet up on the sill, sipping coffee and smoking until his sweat dries.
The apartment is warm; golden afternoon light spills through the parted curtains.
Outside, a radiant slice of street. Downstairs, one of the other meat workers is playing rock music at low volume. After a while, Simon feels better.
He rubs the muscles behind his neck with his free hand, working out the stiffness there. The dreams always throw him off balance. He doesn’t know what they mean, doesn’t know how to make them stop . . . He only knows they’re exhausting.
The dreams are merely one symptom of his condition, though.
It’s been five years since Simon was found washed up on the riverbank in Guatemala, five years since he was hauled onto the back of a pineapple truck and taken to Richard Flores’s village clinic in Piedras Negras to have his skull pieced back together.
No name, no home, no identity—no memories except the ones he’s made since he regained consciousness.
He’s lived with memory loss for half a decade, and it’s never gotten easier, with the dreams and the headaches and the snippets of hazy recall.
He’s a ghost of a person, spat out by the river, his only North Star a handful of clues pointing him toward a possible point of origin in America.
Still, he wonders if this quest was a mistake.
Coming here to track himself down has introduced more complications—he’s had to find work, avoid immigration, manage a new style of life.
But while there are many things he’s figuring out about living in the United States, none of those mysteries have so far held a candle to the mystery inside his own head.
This is why Dr. Flores pushed him, encouraged him to go.
“So many years of your life in a country not your own . . . It’s not right.
” Flores stood in the kitchen of the clinic house, near the concrete counter with the kerosene stove.
Out the window, in the gathering afternoon dark, a woman in a long skirt with a bundle of palm leaf kindling walked along the red-dirt lane.
Inside, a gecko clung to the wall, watching the doctor pour measures of cusha corn spirit into two small glasses.
“You should go to America—find out who you are.”
“I don’t know that country.” Simon was wary.
He had a routine in Piedras Negras; he had a life.
He’d spent the day labeling equipment in the clinic room next door and studying medical textbooks.
His knowledge of human anatomy had come very easily and was by then almost equal to the doctor’s.
Whether Flores’s suspicions—that Simon had some medical training in his background—were correct or not, it had certainly made him a better assistant at the clinic.
“Going to America is worth a try,” Flores had insisted. “Maybe you will see familiar things. Maybe your memory will come back. Maybe your soul will remember.”
“I don’t have money. I would need papers, passage—”
“I have money. Forget the money.” The doctor clunked the glasses onto the table. “If you find out you are a rich man, return to Piedras Negras and pay me back.”
“But—”
“No, listen.” Flores sat down with a sigh.
The gecko eyed the mosquitoes zooming around the light bulb under the tin roof.
“I understand it will be difficult. America is not what you’re used to.
But there is a deep part of you, something inside, that you do not yet understand. You know it is there, yes?”
Simon was forced to glance away. Yes, he knew.
“You must continue to interrogate it. To resolve it.” Flores passed him a glass. “Anyway, I didn’t put you back together after that trip down the river so you could sit around here at the clinic, or in the village.”
Why did Flores put him back together? Simon still isn’t sure.
He stubs out his cigarette in the glass ashtray on the sill. It’s time to scrape off the residue of the dream and get to work—his other work. Uncovering the clues to his missing identity is slow going and involves a bit of effort, but he keeps digging.
One day, he will get some relief. One day, he will remember.
From the top of his dresser, Simon collects a phone book, the top hardcover notebook from a stack, and an old orange cigar box.
He transfers everything to the little breakfast table near the window by the kitchen.
The notebook contains page after page of jottings in his own spiky handwriting.
He has a full collection of notebooks: They contain timelines of dates, accounts of his existing memories and his experience in the river, accounts of his dreams, notes from Dr. Flores, details about his migraines, and the steps he’s already taken to explore his lost past.
This latest notebook has journaled info that starts from when Simon arrived in America, with a list of investigative options.
His most recent dead end involved a trip to the Municipal Archives on Chambers Street.
He wanted to look up American death notices from 1982 to see if any US citizens had been reported deceased in Guatemala during his time frame, but the population of the United States is too enormous.
He’ll have to narrow things down; he’s been trying to figure out how to do that.
By accent? America is vast, and there are many types of English spoken here.
Perhaps he could scour a detailed map for recognizable place-names?
Or test himself with regional foods—some of the junk food in the USA is very location specific.
What he really needs to do is check the newspapers from five years ago for missing person reports.
But again, this is a massive job, a task that must be broken down into parts.
He can start with the southern states, the ones nearest Mexico, and even that will take weeks.
Today he has only three hours before offices close. What can he do in the immediate term? Consulting the phone book, Simon creates a list of places to make inquiries. He’ll have to go down to the grocery to use the pay phone.
He tears out the notebook list and stuffs it into his jeans, packs everything up.
Pulls on a black shirt, his boots, his peacoat.
Cigarettes in his left coat pocket, keys and cash in his right, gold-rimmed sunglasses on his head.
These clothes are more him than the clothes he wears to Gennaro’s.
When looking for items at Goodwill, he usually goes by touch, feeling for textures he knows: cashmere, linen, silk, wool, leather.
He doesn’t overthink it. Everyone has their own style, right? Once again, it’s normal.
The rock music has stopped playing downstairs. As soon as he gets out the door, he hears a ruckus. Someone on the second floor is speaking loudly.
“—not paying her to come up here and make trouble—”
A softer voice interrupts. Can’t hear the words. Simon turns his key in the lock, walks to the top of the dark-painted stairs.
“Don’t give me that bullshit!” Male, rough voiced. “It makes problems for me, and then I’m the one getting it in the ass because Miss Solange can’t do what she’s told!”
Someone is being vulgar and disturbing the peace in this building. In his building. Sofia Rosa would not like it, and Simon does not like it. He goes down each step to the second floor at a measured pace, assessing the territory.
One level down, in the dirty-yellow bifurcated hall, the gruff young woman in black clothes stands in the open doorway of her apartment. Her arms are up, hands clenched on the jambs, barring entry. Another, taller figure stands in shadow behind her.
“Malcolm, you’re being unreasonable,” the gruff young woman says. “Solange is still doing her job.”
A middle-aged man in black trousers and a pimp’s polyester shirt—Malcolm, presumably—stands in front of her, shouting.
“If she were doing her job, she wouldn’t be up here seeing you!
” Face contorted, Malcolm takes a lumbering step across the linoleum toward the young woman in the doorway. “You dumb bitch—”
“Hello, friend.” Simon finds himself suddenly at Malcolm’s side, although he can’t remember moving—how did that happen? His vision grays a little at the edges. He straightens his shoulders, and it feels like an uncoiling. “You’re being very loud.”
Malcolm grimaces at the interruption. “I don’t give a flying fuck about—”
Simon bumps Malcolm hard backward. People aren’t used to being manhandled by strangers, and it slows their reaction time.
Malcolm also reacts slowly. His mouth makes a dumbfounded “oh” between his jowls as Simon pushes him inexorably toward the second-floor balcony.
There’s an electric familiarity here; Simon doesn’t know why, but he feels very alive in this moment.
Something inside him is stretching, flexing, released from confinement.
Malcolm’s facial expression cycles from fury to frustration to fear. “Hey—”
“You’re in my building, and I don’t like you.” Simon keeps his tone friendly. “Nobody likes you.”
“What the fuck are you—” Malcolm is bent back against the banister. The wood creaks. “Jesus Christ, man.”
“You should go.” Simon keeps his gaze lasered on Malcolm’s eyes, which are a darting, muddy hazel.
“Don’t hurt him,” the young woman says behind them, in a voice that suggests she doesn’t care either way.
Simon smiles.
“Okay, okay, Jesus,” Malcolm whimpers.
Simon releases him. Malcolm stands, takes a breath. Looks at the young woman.
“Don’t,” Simon warns darkly.
Malcolm closes his mouth, backs up. He moves to the stairwell, jogs down to the ground floor, polyester shirt flapping.
Simon looks over the banister to check that Malcolm strides out the narrow door. He hasn’t done anything like that before. Not in America. A terrifying thrill of exultation bubbles up inside, leaving him peculiarly charged as he turns around.
“Great,” the young woman says, shaking her head, which apparently means that nothing is great. “Thanks a lot.”
Simon blinks. “He was being a problem.”
“There was no problem, and it was none of your business.” The young woman is rail thin, in tight black jeans and boots and a knee-length black cardigan.
The gray T-shirt underneath—so she doesn’t wear only black after all—reads Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains.
Her long brown hair is shaved in an arc over her right ear, the remainder pulled back in a straggly ponytail from a stern, plain face.
Simon squints. “I don’t—”
“I better go talk to him.” The taller figure in the apartment entrance sighs.
She hoists a shoulder bag, steps forward into the hall. She’s a Black woman, very attractive, maybe early thirties, wearing purple pants and a white T-shirt. Her coat is in the crook of her elbow.
Simon’s neighbor turns to her and frowns. “You want me to come along?”
“He’ll be pissed that Boy Wonder here had him on the rail, but he’ll calm down.”
“Then check in with me later so I know you’re okay.”
“Will do. Thanks.” The tall woman eyes Simon, walks past him for the stairs, heads down.
He’s just deflected a potentially nasty incident with an aggressive man, but neither of these women seems appreciative, or even relieved. This is confusing.
Simon looks back at the young woman. “I thought—”
“There was no thought, you didn’t think, you just acted.” She has a faint accent, which becomes more pronounced when she’s clearly angry like this. She throws up her hands. “But it’s over now, it’s done, so thank you very much and goodbye.”
She pivots into the entrance of her apartment, collects a tote bag from a hook on the wall, and a beanie, which she tugs over her hair. Shouldering the tote bag, she backs out, pulls the door shut after herself.
For the first time, Simon sees a small blue card stuck with clear tape to one side of the door. The card reads N. Pace, Private Inquiries, and a phone number.
A few things are coming clearer now. “You’re a private investigator.”
“Yes. Congratulations for noticing.” She yanks her keys out of her jeans pocket, turns her back on him to lock up.
“That woman, Miss Solange, is your client.”
She glares over her shoulder. “Look, we don’t know each other—”
“We live in the same building.”
“And we still don’t know each other. Excuse me, I have to go.” She walks around him to the stairs.
Simon hesitates, but the words private investigator are ringing in his head.
He’s spent six weeks trying to figure things out on his own, getting nowhere. Could the solution really be this simple?
It’s worth a try.