Clean Slate

by Harley Crowley

  Clean Slate

  Copyright 2012 Harley Crowley

  Chapter 1

  Something was wrong. He slowed his jog to a stop and stood on the gravel path, staring at the body of water lapping at the rock riprap a few feet away across the grass.

  What the hell?

  He didn't recognize this place! Why didn't he know where he was? He blinked a couple of times, to clear his head, but it didn't clear. Or rather, it was completely clear.

  He couldn't remember a damn thing!

  Okay, this doesn't make any sense! He looked down at himself and saw sweatpants; his shoes were trainers. Thin thermal gloves kept his hands warm in the cold air. He touched his head. Sweatband.

  I've been running. Just stay calm, this will clear up in a minute.

  His breath was visible in little white puffs that got more frequent as anxiety grew. He didn't know what to ask himself first. Or who he was asking. What's my damn name! He didn't know his own name! It seemed as though it was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn't catch it. Sorry, I didn't catch your name. He knew it was supposed to be a sort of joke, but it didn't warrant a smile. Not funny! Get a hold of yourself!

  The air had a hint of the dank smell of decomposing seaweed. A pair of seagulls floated offshore, and a few sailboats were moored at the end of a small pier. This was salt water then, a bay.

  Other people were walking and running on the path where he stood, and he moved to one side. A woman jogged towards him, raised her hand and panted, "Good morning," with a perfunctory smile. It felt like a routine trail hello. He turned to look at her after she passed. Did he know her? Two girls ran by fast, chatting to each other as if they were hardly exerting themselves. A man on a bicycle swerved around and past them.

  Obviously he'd been exercising. He held onto that thought to see where it went. What did he know? He was in a park, on a trail that he could see wound up the hill into the trees, a trail he had been on just moments ago. He was on the edge of salt water. And on the edge of panic.

  It seemed like morning, and just then the sun started coming up and sent fingers of light through the trees, tracing their images on the grass. Which meant that was east, and this water must connect to the Pacific. He was on the west coast. It seemed as though he already knew that.

  He tried to quiet his anxiety by staying focused on whatever data he could collect. He felt around for a pocket, a wallet, car keys, something to give him a further clue. There was nothing, but that was a clue in itself. He must live around here somewhere because, if he had no keys, his car wouldn't be one of those in the parking lot across the lawn from the water.

  Maybe I'm having some sort of brain episode. That didn't help his attempt to stay calm, because it made him wonder if he was in physical danger. Maybe he was having a stroke.

  But he felt fine. His body felt good, in fact, his muscles warm from running, blood circulating just the way it ought to, legs tingling from the exercise. Emotionally, not so good.

  He needed to collect his thoughts. He needed to locate his thoughts, the missing ones. He walked a few feet to a bench along the edge of the trail and sat down, dropped his head in his hands and breathed deeply. His name was gone. The name of this place was gone. It was all a big gaping hole. He didn't know where to go. He didn't know where his home was. He couldn't bring anyone to mind. On top of that he didn't know what he was supposed to do next, or where he had been headed, just moments ago.

  Thinking wasn't doing that much good. He was completely lost, cut off from the people somewhere who must know him. People who belonged to him, or that he belonged to. But his memory was unpopulated except for vague shapes with blank faces, and the harder he tried the more amorphous those figures became.

  For a moment an unexpected surge of excitement hit him. It raised the hair on his arms and tingled across his shoulders. No encumbrances! I'm completely free! It was an ecstatic feeling, a sense of unlimited possibility.

  The flash of euphoria didn't last, and suddenly he was on the verge of whimpering, head still in his hands.

  The voice of a woman broke into his thoughts, and he looked up. "Are you all right?" She was an older woman, with grey hair tucked under a baseball cap and a red sweat suit that covered a compact body.

  "I'm sorry to disturb you. I just wanted to be sure you were okay."

  He gave her a long look, long enough that she seemed to think better of intruding. She stepped back and began to turn away, nodded her head in acknowledgement that she might have overstepped.

  "No, wait!" He shook his head, embarrassed. She stood quietly, poised to stay or go.

  "May I ask you something?" She nodded.

  "Do you know me?"

  "Not really. I do see you running here in the early mornings, fairly regularly." She pulled up her sleeve and looked at her watch. "You're right on schedule."

  "What time is it?" He needed another fact. He had so few.

  "It's 7:20." As she looked at him he suddenly felt naked and vulnerable, and foolish. What a ridiculous predicament to be in!

  "There is something the matter, isn't there." She didn't seem alarmed. It was reassuring.

  He took a deep breath, and looked for courage, because if he said this out loud it would be real and he'd have to cope with it. He wasn't sure he was ready to involve someone else in this dilemma. He didn't want to admit how helpless he was right now. But he spoke it anyway.

  "All of a sudden I can't remember anything. I don't know who I am. I don't know where I am. I don't know where I live." He tried to look calm, he tried to speak matter-of-factly, but he didn't quite make it. There was an embarrassing note of panic in his voice. He could almost feel tears coming, and he fought that back.

  "Oh my, that must be frightening." She was distressed for him, but didn't seem disturbed, and he was surprised to feel a sense of relief that he wasn't quite so alone. She could have freaked out and walked away. Thought he was a crazy person. Maybe he was a crazy person.

  She took the seat beside him on the bench, not too close, but still a comfort somehow. More comforting actually, than if she'd reached out to touch him.

  "I wonder if there's something I can do to help."

  He was at a loss as to what that might be. What was next step for a man without of a shred of identity, either on his person or inside his head.

  "Maybe someone here knows you." She indicated the park with its sparse population of people moving around the trail that looped through it. "We could ask."

  "No!" He hadn't meant to be so abrupt. It was just that he was too embarrassed to let anyone else know what had happened to him. And how inappropriate was that, if he wanted to solve the problem?

  "I'm sorry. It was just an idea."

  "No, I'm sorry. I'm just a little jumpy here."

  She frowned, thought for a moment. "Is there someone I can call? I have my cell." She pulled it out of a pocket of her sweat suit.

  "I don't know who to call. I don't know of anyone. God, this is weird." He shook his head. It didn't help.

  "How about the police. They should know what to do. You have to start somewhere." She had her phone in her hand.

  He sifted through the possibilities. He could continue on the trail, see if he had a sense of where to go, see if anything came back to him. Let his horse-mind take him back to the barn. But he didn't know which direction to go. Back the way he was running when he stopped? Or towards the buildings he could see ahead through the trees? Only one direction led home.

  Maybe if he just sat here for a while things would come back. It could be a momentary glitch. Maybe his mind was taking a little vacation, and it was due back any minute. As the occasional runner or walker passed by he looked at them closely, in case they might be someone who knew him, mig
ht stop and come over to say hello.

  "It seems a little extreme, to call the police. I don't want to make a big deal out of it. There must be something else I can do."

  She smiled at him. "It does seem like a bit of a big deal, though. If it were me, I think I would probably ask the police to come. Unless . . ." and her voice trailed off.

  Then, "My car is here. I could drive you to the police station. Unless your car is here too."

  He laughed. "How would I know?" It felt good to laugh. There was some humor in this, after all. In a way it was a comical predicament.

  "Anyway, I don't think it's here because I'm not carrying any keys. Or a driver's license. That would have been a big help."

  They sat there for a while, as he used up and rejected his nonexistent alternatives.

  "Okay, I guess you could call the police. I can't think of anything else to do. I'd appreciate it."

  She popped open her cell phone.

  "Maybe they're already looking for me. I could be running away from a crime scene. Which is why it would be better for you not to let me get in your car."

  "So now we know something about you. You have a sense of humor in the most difficult of circumstances." She pushed a button on her phone.

  "Tell them no siren!"