"When you're laying there on that floor and they're counting, for nine seconds, all you can think is how free you are. But then you know, you gotta get up, and you gotta fight some more, cause if you don't, they're gonna kill you."
Dalton West is lost. Not in a physical sense, much deeper than that. From the time he'd awakened on the side of the road in an old pickup truck six months back, until today, was all he could remember. Even the name he carries is borrowed from a sticker on the back of that truck.
A fading polaroid image of a young boy, with a big, antique teddy bear that he somehow knows is him, and a small, silver medallion on a string around his wrist, are the only clues he has to who he might be, and what happened to make him forget everything else. Everything except an urge that keeps telling him someone's life depends on him remembering.
When he meets Leeanne, a small town girl, with even bigger problems, he'll put his search on hold to make sure she gets more than nine seconds of freedom.
Big Daddy Crawford marched me into the River Grove City Jail, in beautiful downtown River Grove Oklahoma. They’d obviously named it a jail to put a scare in local troublemakers.
There were two offices, a lobby, a breakroom, two restrooms, an interrogation room and the “holding cell” which I was currently occupying. Only it wasn’t.
They’d brought me in and parked me on a hard, oak bench, with a pipe running along the front edge, which they clipped my cuffs to and handed me a pillow.
“If we hurry, Sheriff, we’ll make it just in time to roll the first game,” Skinner said from the office on the left. He’d disappeared into it five minutes ago.
There was an answering grunt from the office on the right, which seemed about twice the size. Both men emerged a few minutes later, wearing red and black, Charlie Sheen style bowling shirts, with flames running up the black panels on the front.
They carried bowling bags and as they left, I could read, “River Grove Ballers” embroidered across the back of the shirts. They pulled the full length glass door shut behind them and locked the door. I could hear them talking as they walked down the sidewalk to their cars.
It was cool and quiet in the station, and they’d left me enough slack to lie down on the bench. It could be worse. The pillow was a nice touch. I lay with my right arm, cuffed to the pipe, dangling off the front of the bench, and folded my left hand under my head on the pillow and stared at the ceiling tiles.
I played the last few days over in my head. The weird acid trip of a journey I was currently on had started four days before in a little town called Binger. I pulled up to the Chinco café around noon. Slid into a booth by the window and ordered a cheeseburger, fries and a Coke.
I watched the traffic go by, what there was of it and the food came fast and hot. It was good. I was hungry and by the time the waitress came back to check on me, I’d polished it off.
“Maybe you could help me with something,” I said. I pulled out the photo and laid it on the table. “Ever see a teddy bear like that before?”
“Well, no, I don’t know that I have,” she said. “But, there’s a fella not far from here, oh shoot. Verla!”
Verla, a tall blonde, the polar opposite of the dark haired, twig of woman standing at my table, poked her head out of the kitcen.
“Who’s that guy over toward Altus, I think, likes teddy bears a whole bunch?”
“Oh, yeah, but he’s a strange one, huh? What was his name? Don’t know, but he’s got a shop, I think. Shouldn’t be hard to find.” Verla said, disappearing back toward the griddle.
“Well, sorry sugar, wish I could help you more, that’s a cute little boy, is that you?” the waitress smiled, her nametag said Phyllis.
“Yes ma’am,” I said.
She walked into the kitchen, “Verla, the boy’s looking for his childhood teddy bear. I don’t know if it’s cute, or creepy.”
Verla said, "I don't care, he's cute though."
I left money on the table and walked out, smiling. I didn't much mind what pretty girls said about me, as long as they remembered me.
I’d spent two days combing every flea market, thrift store and antique shop in the southwest quarter of the state, without another clue. A few people seemed to have heard of the man.
“Yeah, over toward’s Frederic, I think,” one young gas attendant said. “Heard he’s a little different, if you know what I mean?” I didn’t.
“Meeker, about a mile north of the crossroads in a old barn,” a grocery clerk said. She seemed certain. But, the barn wasn’t there.
Finally, I’d found somebody who claimed to know this guy, and I end up here instead. Oh well, saved me paying for a motel and he wouldn’t be open now anyway.
Just before disappearing into his office, Crawford had kicked a galvanized bucket over toward me. “Piss in this,” he said. I did.
I laid back down and stared at the ceiling, trying to remember something, anything, from before six months ago. The doctor who’d examined me after the cops found me on the side of the road, estimated I was twenty-seven.
“Not quite thirty,” he said, pushing the skin around my eyes back to look at something. “If I had to guess, twenty-seven.”
It was a hell of a thing. Losing twenty-seven birthdays, twenty-seven Christmases, and twenty-seven summer vacations. Just gone. Not a trace.
I recognized things, from TV and faces in the news. I understood seasons and holidays, even remembered song lyrics, but when it came to me, I just couldn’t.
“Might be a trauma thing,” the doctor said. “I’m about as educated as you on this. But, my desk reference says a trauma could cause this, and no since there doesn’t seem to be any skills loss, I’m guess it was mental trauma. No signs of recent injuries, all your tests came back clean.”
I felt better after that, because, somewhere, in my head when I realized I couldn’t remember anything, it was like a file had opened up. All the bad things I’d ever heard about amnesia, or seen on TV, or read somewhere popped up.
Could be caused by brain tumors, or weird diseases, or terminal injuries, aneurysm, the list went on. At least I wasn’t dying, not today, I had some time.
But, there was somewhere I was supposed to be. Someone I was supposed to be helping. Of that much, I was certain.
I’d been found in South Kansas. My fingerprints came back clean. The truck had been sold by somebody in Oklahoma, to a guy matching my description. I hadn’t broken any laws.
So, they’d let me go.
I started with Kenneth Braggs, the guy I’d bought the truck off of. But, he wasn’t much help. I’d paid cash, and he’d signed over the title.
“You never gave me no name,” he said.
That wasn’t strictly legal, but it all seemed on the up and up. Meaning, there wasn’t enough money in sticking it to me, or him, for the sale of a thousand-dollar truck.
Then, I’d assessed my situation. I didn’t have anyone depending on me. I had a truck. I had two clues to who I was, the polaroid, and a little silver medallion tied on a string around my wrist. Since I’d bought the truck in Weatherford, I started there. Tonight was the closest I’d gotten to the bear.
Not to say that I hadn’t found bears that matched the picture. I’d found a few.
At some point, my playback turned into dreaming. I woke up to someone rapping on the glass door. I sat up. There was sunlight. I looked at my watch. 7:30. I couldn’t feel my right hand. I sat up and rubbed, squinting toward the street at the rapper.
Before I could focus on the woman who’d been rapping on the glass, Big Daddy Crawford moved her aside, inserted a key and pushed the glass door in.
“Sorry, Rita, I overslept. We might have had a few after winning the preliminary round last night,” the sheriff sounded happy. Then he remembered me. His shoulders sank.
“Oh my, Mr. Crawford, did you forget this poor guy?” Rita blew past the sheriff like a cool breeze. She was all smiles, with a halo of white hair. Like Paula Dean, only less racist.
She sat next to me. She smelled great, too. Like cookies and Christmas and campfires all rolled into one.
“Mr. Crawford, I insist you release this man’s chains immediately. This is no way to treat a visitor to our fair city,” Rita said.
She took my left hand in hers and patted it. Half of me wanted to crawl in her lap, and half of me wanted to find out what she was really up to. She didn’t quite add up.
Being nice. I smiled.
“Who are you, young man?” Rita asked. Her eyebrows raised. She met my gaze, evenly.
It took a second. For one brief instant, I’d been ready to give my real name, but I couldn’t quite remember it.
“Dalton West, ma’am,” I said.
“Well of course, you’re the young man looking for a teddy bear, aren’t you, dear? I heard about it from my granddaughter, who works out at Boots’s,” Rita said.
She turned her gaze to the sheriff. “Mr. Crawford, could you not find this young man some better accommodations? Has he committed a crime I’m unaware of?”
The sheriff had a bag of donuts clamped in his teeth. He tossed them on the bench next to me. “Here, Skinner will make coffee.” He disappeared into his office.
“Well, Rita, I was just about to find that out,” he said. I heard paper ripping. He came out with a long fax. Crawford was reading it.
“Fingerprints came back okay, cops up in Kansas cleared him, apparently a few months back, truck checks out, but he needs to get the title transferred, so, no. Other than driving without a license, or insurance, he’s clean,” the sheriff said.
“Wonderful, so, let’s get these cuffs off him and get him a shower, shall we?” Rita said. She stood and swept out of the station.
“Right away,” Skinner said. He was coming through the door with two cups of coffee. He handed me one. “Sorry, didn’t have time to make fresh. Hope this works. Black.”
I opened the donut sack and took a bite of a glazed. They weren’t my favorite, but these were good. The sheriff tossed Skinner a key ring. He disappeared into his office. Skinner bent over me and unlocked the cuffs.
“West, come in here,” the sheriff said.
I stood up, shaking my legs to get the blood flowing and took a sip of the coffee, hot. I stepped into a wood paneled scene from every fifties TV show ever. The wall away from the door, had huge, sunlit windows. The sheriff sat at a rolltop desk. The other walls held wooden shelves, filled with law books, pictures, and plaques of various sizes. One section of wall held three large wooden file cabinets.
The only modern thing in the room, was the laptop on the desk, an inkjet printer, and a fax machine. They still made those?
“Look, I get you’re a good guy, but I wouldn’t be doing my job….”
Traffic noise from the street filtered in. The sheriff paused. Rita’s voice called from the front door.
“And I know you’re not charging him for no insurance, Mr. Crawford!” She half sang it, but she sounded serious.
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Rita!” he said.
He slapped the laptop closed. He spun the big oak office chair around to face me. The traffic noise faded as the front door closed.
“Listen. I don’t know what you’re up to. My boss won’t let me do my job and impound your truck. So, you’re free to go. But, don’t let that fool you. We take weirdos asking questions very seriously around here. I wouldn’t suggest extending your visit.”
He handed me my keys. I took a deep breath and let it out.
“So, the donuts?” I asked.
“Yeah, sure, take them,” he said.
I made a quick stop in the restroom. Much better than pissing in a bucket. I splashed water on my face and ran my hand through my hair. Not bad for a night on a bench. I knocked on Skinner’s open door.
“Uh, you’re going to want to empty that bucket soon,” I said.
I picked up the donuts and coffee and walked out into the sunlight.
The jail was situated on a corner. At the opposite end of the block, was a parking lot. I could see the town’s two sheriff’s cruisers noses peeking out from behind the building.
I guessed my truck was somewhere in that lot. I wasn’t wrong. I unlocked the door, sat the donuts in the seat, and dropped the coffee in the cupholder.
I went to the tailgate and pulled the canvas cover back. They’d dug through it pretty good, but everything was still there.
I put the key in the ignition and turned on the radio. I twisted through several gospel stations, one strident Alt-Right political talk show, and landed on a classic rock song that sounded familiar.
There were four more donuts in the sack. Two chocolate glazed, one with sprinkles, and my favorite, a cinnamon sugar cake. I chose it and took a bite, leaning back in the seat.
The coffee was still hot, but just what I needed. I squinted against the sun and popped the glove compartment. There was a blue bank bag, still neatly zipped, although I bet they’d been through it.
The coins and bills spilled out on the seat beside me and I raked through it. Twenty-seven dollars and eighty-six cents left. I needed to find some work, or at least a place to stay.
I had a sheriff who didn’t want me there, a mysterious benefactress who’d set me free, and a man named Vern with a fetish for teddy bears to find. It was going to be that kind of day.
It would be a while before I remembered that last thought, and regretted it.
Right now, I had to make sure I could keep going for another day and that meant making money, or setting up a trade.
I reached down into the slot between the seats and pulled out my cell phone. They’d obviously missed it. It was a burner with very little information on it, but it had what I needed for that morning.
Then, I had a decision to make. Part of me said, put some distance between yourself and that trigger happy sheriff. But, a bigger part said, if there’s one place they won’t harass a guy for parking, it’s right where they left it.
I tossed the phone up and caught it, dropped my keys in my pocket and locked the truck.