by C. L. Bevill
Jane’s stomach lurched. A story meant the whole world might see it. Someone might see it who she didn’t want to see it. “Wait,” she said, not exactly understanding why she should be so reluctant. After all, I want to know who I am, right?
The doctor had picked up her chart and was flipping through the papers inside. He glanced up. “Yes?”
“I don’t know who I am,” Jane said, “but I don’t think that will help me.”
The doctor sighed. “What you are is unidentified. The hospital needs to bill someone for your treatment, and you need help in recovery. Best-case scenario is that you have a psychological issue, and your memory will come back on its own. Probably when you see your sister or your mother or your boyfriend. Full-blown amnesia is a lot rarer than what we see in movies. Worse-case scenario is that you have some kind of neurological damage that I haven’t been able to determine. That might indicate a permanent memory loss, although the fact that you can walk, talk, and chew bubble gum are all positive signs.”
“How’s that?” Jane said, getting irritated at the doctor’s pragmatism.
“You could be drooling on the sheets because you don’t know how to even sit up,” the doctor said. “A complete vegetable. Hey, you’re intelligent, articulate, and cute to boot. It’s all gravy, baby.”
Jane stared at the doctor. “You’ve got teenagers, right?”
“Three,” he said cheerfully.
“I guessed.”
The doctor patted her foot. “Don’t worry, Jane. We’ll figure out who you are. We’ll figure out what happened to you. Everyone loves a good mystery. After the story comes out, people will be falling out of the woodwork to help you out.”
“You know, the name, Jane, doesn’t sound wrong,” she said. “It sounds like it should be my name.”
“Maybe you have a similar name,” the doctor said. “Watch some television. Get up, and talk to some of the other patients if you feel like it. Something might come to you. And tomorrow we’ll get you into a shelter, so you can get yourself all situated.”
As the doctor walked out of the room, Jane glanced at the window. She didn’t know what time it was, but it was close to dark. The little rays of light were greatly weakened. Sun’s going down. Time for all things dark to come calling. She shivered.
The words that came to her were peculiarly familiar. No one can rest in his own shadow.
She’d been strangling the bald man in the car. She’d been afraid of him. He’d hurt her before, although she couldn’t remember how. The handcuffs had been used as a weapon against the bald man. The fear and instinct to flee had overwhelmed every other thought in her head. She didn’t want to tell the doctor about that. The detectives who’d been there would have taken that as some sort of criminal endeavor on her part. Owning up to attempted murder wouldn’t have helped her any. The fact that the bald-headed man hadn’t come forward to identify her spoke volumes about his part in some kind of illegality.
But those words in her head bothered her in a way she couldn’t possibly understand. Run, the voice came to her. It reverberated through her brain and pushed at her demandingly. It didn’t sound like the familiar voice of her inner self. It seemed masculine and angry. It called to her as if it knew her, as if someone was frenziedly trying to help her.
I’ve got voices in my head, Jane realized. I really am crazy. Oh, and it’s worse, they speak French phrases. I don’t know who I am, and I hear French voices telling me to run.
Jane sighed. She turned on all the lights in the room, from the bed light to the overhead ones to the bathroom light with the door left open. She used the little control to turn on the television and listened to the news on CNN. Nothing much was happening.
She flipped around the channels but couldn’t find local news. It occurred to her that the local news wouldn’t start until 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. So she got up and moved the blinds on the windows to see outside. The sun was about to dip below the skyline. The hospital parking lot stretched away. The lights there were bright. She could see all of the cars parked there and the lots empty spots. People were coming and going but mostly going.
Jane implored herself. “Remember, dammit,” she muttered fiercely. “Remember. You’ve got a name. You’ve got an identity. Someone knows me. Someone must care enough to be searching for me. If not here, then somewhere else. Who am I?”
There was a rush of fear inside her, as if she would never find the answer to her question. There was fear of the unknown, an unspeakable fear that she would find out the answer and not like it.
Someone does know you, came the guttural response. That voice in her head again as if a man was whispering into her ear. It was a desperate thought, pushing its way through to her, a last ditch effort to communicate with her.
Jane jumped and looked around the room. She was alone. She didn’t want to ask the question, but she did all the same, “Who are you?”
The blinds clattered shut as she recognized the last bit of the sun disappearing behind the horizon.
The growing snarl of rage and discontent echoed in her brain. It was the howl of despair and anger as something happened beyond his control.
There was no other answer to Jane’s question.
Chapter 3
Fear is greater than danger. – Swedish proverb
The night teemed with restless sleep and dreams of chilling creatures weaving through shadows.
Nurses came in and out of Jane’s room to check her vital statistics at odd times. The nurse’s station was just outside her door, and it seemed as though complete silence was never achieved there.
Just as Jane was drifting off again and the sun was coming up, something reached out to touch her, and she woke with a scream. She threw her hands in the air to protect herself from the something. The orderly delivering breakfast jumped backward with a muffled shriek.
“Le Christ!” he expelled. The tray trembled in his hands. He was only about twenty years old and had dark brown hair and eyes. He stared at Jane as if she was insane. “Didn’t dey give you somet’ing to he’p you sleep?”
Jane wiped a hand across her sweating brow. She fought to normalize her breathing. “I didn’t want it.”
The orderly set up the tray on the rolling table, keeping a wary eye on her. “If I was you, I would have taken it. Looked like you was in the bayou without a pirogue and snakes and gators all about you, goin’ et you up, girl.” He looked over his shoulder to check if anyone was listening. “All dem bruises and such got to hurt, yes. Ask for oxycodone next time. Won’t wake up for ten hours, I guarantee.”
The mental image the orderly’s statement gave her made Jane shudder. She knew immediately that once she had been in a bayou, in a deep dark miasma where things lurked. She knew it in a way that made her insides fill with abject dread. Running through black waters, she had forced her way through ankle-deep mud that dragged at her flesh, all the while she worried about alligators nibbling her legs. However, the worry about hungry nocturnal reptiles had been secondary to the worry about what was coming after her.
What had been coming after me?
Roux-Ga-Roux.
“Okay, den,” the orderly said gleefully, as if he hadn’t just been recommending narcotics to knock her on her ass, so she could sleep without pain. “Here ya’ll go,” he said as he briefly revealed the contents. She saw he was missing the tips of three of his fingers before he added cheerfully, “Got some runny eggs, soggy toast, and orange juice, you. Oh, and a spotty banana. Only the best for our patients.” He chuckled and left the room.
Jane stared at the tray. She got up and went into the bathroom. Today several someones were coming to speak to her. There would be a social services individual who would help her find a place to live. There would be a reporter from the local newspaper who would do a piece on Jane Doe, who’d been hit by a car while running down the street while restrained with handcuffs. The police detectives might come back, if they were really interested. Since the doctor had professed his close relationship with t
he Superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department, she thought they might get more engrossed with Jane Doe #7.
And by the way, what happened to Jane Does #1 through #6?
Jane performed her ablutions and brushed her teeth, happy to be moderately clean. For some reason, it felt as though the thick, dark bayou mud was sticking to her entire body. She couldn’t seem to wash it off. She wanted to take a shower, but the nurse had told her that the stitches on the top of her head couldn’t be immersed in water. Instead she was given a powder which could be rubbed into her hair to clean it chemically. It wasn’t the same.
When she returned to her bed, she sat on the side and pulled the rolling table with the tray to her. Jane looked at her arm again. In her mind’s eye, the arm wasn’t so skinny. The bones weren’t readily apparent. She hadn’t always been underweight.
The images changed to vague imageries of containment, of a place she was once held captive. There was a small room. The bedframe was iron. The cuffs were on her wrists again. A chain was connected between the cuffs and the iron bedframe. The food she was given was irregular and unappetizing. Starving herself seemed preferable to what she was enduring.
Someone kidnapped me. Someone held me in a room, chained like an animal.
You were held accountable for your actions, the other voice came. The masculine tone wasn’t exactly judgmental. She felt as if the voice intended her to know that she had paid for the consequences of her actions, deservedly or not.
What actions? What did I do to deserve that? came her mental questions before Jane could help herself.
Remember, was the instant response. Remember.
I can’t remember. Damn you!
“Damn you!” she repeated aloud. Jane looked around her. Nurses and other medical professionals bustled past her door. No one was watching her. No one cared if she was talking to a voice in her head.
Jane reached for the tray’s plastic cover and pulled it off. The eggs and toast were still steaming. The glass with the orange juice had perspiration on it. She reached for a plastic fork before she saw the neatly folded note lying beside the plate of food. It stood out because it was light blue. It didn’t seem as though it was supposed to be there.
Her fingers stopped at the fork and slowly went to the note. She touched the paper, almost expecting an answer or for the voice in her head to say something, but there was nothing. It felt like a regular piece of paper. There was no voice warning her. There was only Jane thinking of those last words: Remember. Remember.
Her fingers grasped the note and flipped it open by deftly twisting her thumb and index finger. There was the name of the hospital at the top with its address, phone number, and website below the name. The paper was four inches by six. It was something they used at the desk. Notepaper or something for people to jot things down upon. It was something anyone could have snagged walking past the desk.
It said “You’re not safe here.”
Jane made a noise that was something in-between a gasp and a sigh.
The writing was slanted right and heavy. Someone had taken a moment in time to hurriedly write it and while Jane was in the bathroom had slipped it under her tray. The young orderly hadn’t done it. After all, he wouldn’t have looked around and recommended she ask for oxycodone if he had. He would have simply told her.
You’re not safe here.
If I’m not safe here, then what I am supposed to do? Jane felt the crown of her head. The stitches were right on top. A little patch of hair had been shaved away. Most people probably wouldn’t even notice them. Her hair naturally lay on top of the cut. She could slip downstairs. She could walk out the door. She could walk away. It was New Orleans. There was probably a thousand ways to get lost in New Orleans.
Jane looked down. In a hospital gown? Way to not be inconspicuous. She took a moment to look at the note again. There was nothing else there. Just those four words.
And a voice in my head. And the fact that I’m probably crazy. And I don’t know who I am. And that a bald-headed man with a tattoo at the base of his skull is likely looking for me. And I don’t know why.
Jane decided the hospital was the best place to stay for the moment. Some of the nurses were fiercely protective and they had scalpels, too. Well, they have pressure cuffs, anyway.
She managed to eat a little and drink all of the orange juice. What she really wanted was a cup of tea, but the nurse said no caffeine was allowed yet. She shoved the note under her pillow and thought about what she could do.
I’ve got no memory of who I am. I don’t know who’s who in the play book. Someone’s warned me I’m not safe.
Jane thought of something and pulled out the note. After a moment, she found a pen in a drawer in the stand next to the bed. She took a moment to write the same four words below the original. Her handwriting wasn’t the same. She hadn’t written the words to herself.
See. Not quite that crazy.
A social worker from the city of New Orleans came in about an hour later. Her name was Lareina Rule, and she also thought Jane was faking it. “You’re sure you don’t want to tell me your name?” the older African American woman asked. She wore a pale green trouser suit and lots of silver jewelry that clinked as she moved. She held a blue clipboard in one hand and a silver Cross pen in the other. The pen was poised above the paperwork on the clipboard as if Jane would answer straightaway.
Jane was getting tired of the implication. “I don’t know my name. If I knew my name, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” She knew she sounded snippy, but she didn’t much care about it.
Lareina clicked her tongue. Jane knew the social worker was used to people who didn’t trust her. Moreover, the social worker didn’t have a lot of use for people who didn’t fend for themselves.
“I brought you some clothes,” Lareina said. She put the clipboard and pen down on the end of Jane’s bed. She lifted a bag she’d brought into the room. “T-shirt, jeans, underwear. Didn’t have your bra size, so I skipped that. There are some panties in there. Some canvas shoes. These are all new from Walmart, so you don’t have to worry about fleas or such. You’ll need them to get wherever you’re going.”
Get the hell out and don’t let the door hit you on the ass as you leave, is what she means, Jane said to herself. “What about the man who kidnapped me, the one who held me captive?”
Lareina shrugged. “Bald man you said. Tattoo on the back of his neck. Caucasian. Taller than you are. Late twenties. Don’t know anything else about him. I expect you’ll need to call the police about that. I wouldn’t think it would be a problem unless he’s your pimp. Then, if I were you, I wouldn’t go back to my crib, would I?”
“I’m not a whore,” Jane gritted.
“But you don’t remember that, do you?” Lareina said slyly.
“I don’t need to remember to know that I’m not that,” Jane said. Her teeth ground together. What if I was that, what difference would it make? None, because these people think that choice would make me less than desirable. Well, screw them.
The social worker sighed. “You’ve got needle marks up and down your arms. Mostly healed but some are fresh. You’re malnourished. Someone put handcuffs on you and not in a good, policeman sort of way. Since you don’t remember what you are, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to say what you’re not.”
“I suppose that means you’re not going to help me,” Jane said. She swallowed some of her rage. When I get back to…what? I’m going to do what when I get back where? It seemed as though it was on the edge of her brain. She’d been about to remember something. It was where she belonged, and she would have done something about the city services who were supposed to help people.
I’ll never look at a person down on their luck the same way.
But you never judged them like this woman judged you, came the voice again. Never, not you.
“Listen, honey,” the social worker said, “I don’t know what your game is. But you’ve got a good little scam
here. Free food and a bed for a few nights. You’ll walk on the bill and stick it to the hospital. Then when they let you go, you’ll go back to your man and start up the same nastiness again.” She clicked her tongue again. “Five years from now, they’ll find you floating in the river. Drug overdose or some man beat you to death. I’ve seen it before. I don’t want to see it again, but there’s only so much our department can do.”
Jane stared at the woman. She was in her forties. Her black hair was starting to gray. Her brown eyes were weary with cynicism. “Sometimes it isn’t what it appears to be,” Jane said. Her tone was careful and collected. “I don’t know what I am. But I do know I’m a good person and you’re wrong.”
Lareina blinked. She put the bag on the end of the bed. “The doctor says they’ll let you out this afternoon. You can get dinner out of them. If you want, I’ll get you a bus ticket to wherever you came from. Maybe you’ve got family who’ll take you in until you can get right again.”
Jane couldn’t help herself. The older woman was stuck on a tangent. How many untrustworthy people does one have to deal with before you can’t trust anyone?
Take the ticket. Name some city far away. Go now. The inner voice came again. The masculine voice that was full of arrogant direction.
No, I’m not going to do that. I might be afraid, but I’m not backing down. “Maybe if you can tell me where the better shelters are or suggest a place I can stay for a few nights. I hope my memory will get jogged by something in the city so I don’t go on this way.”
Lareina appeared surprised. “The tickets are something you can cash in if you’d like. Most folks like you know that. They take the ticket without hesitation.”
“I’m not going to lie,” Jane said. “The police took my clothes as evidence. One of the nurses told me there wasn’t anything in the pockets. There weren’t any cleaning marks on the inside. They thought they might be able to trace the handcuffs, but that won’t help me much unless the man who kidnapped me knows my name and where I’m from. I don’t have money and I need help. I need to know who I am.”
