The Other Mr. Bax (8 page)

“What is that?” she said.

“What?”

“This.” She touched a spot on his back, about five inches down from his neck. “Is that from the accident?”

Roland shook his head. “What?”

“Is that a scar?”

He reached over his shoulder and down his back.

“Oh. It’s from a burn… long time ago.”

Joyce straightened. There was a pained look on her face. “Why haven’t I seen it?”

“Well…” Roland peered into Joyce’s confused eyes. “You haven’t seen it?”

“Let me see that,” she said.

He again leaned forward so she could examine the scar. Her fingertips touched the spot, her nails scrapping lightly. “It’s real,” she whispered.

“Fireworks. Dana and I. We were on a houseboat—”

“Dana? No.” She shook her head. “That didn’t happen, Roland.”

“But… it did.”

She lowered herself to the chair behind her, her head still shaking. “What the hell? What are you talking about?”

“I shouldn’t have the scar?” The look on her face—like she had just been slapped. Roland pulled the question back into his mind, where it shifted from light to dark, from innocent to cruel.

“I have to go.” Joyce rose from the chair and headed for the door.

“I’m sorry,” Roland said.

She turned, raised her hands, looked as though she was about to say something more, but then didn’t. As the door closed behind her, the room seemed to expand, while he seemed to shrink. His stare held the memory of her standing there—just a memory, but without it he’d be alone. He held her in his mind, but then the moment began to pull away, as did all the moments before it—the past, as if none of it had happened. He stared toward the door. His life, like pages ripped from a book—shuffled, shaken, and scattered in a malevolent wind. Anyone could pass through that door. Any scenario could lie behind it. He dropped his head to his pillow, closed his eyes, found a recent memory of Dana, and clung to it.

J
oyce gazed toward the ceiling
of her motel room, sifting through the past hours, searching for anything that might contain a chance of logic. There were moments, back at the hospital—perhaps she could’ve stupidly assumed Roland had somehow defied the limits of modern logistics in his being there, and she could imagine herself finding the compassion to forgive him for all this craziness. But there was one detail she could not overlook: he was not the man she had married; the scar on his back was proof of that. She rolled to her side, gazing off toward the door, trying to recall the last time she’d seen him shirtless. It was not all that long ago.

She lay still, closed her eyes, her mind slowing, beaten by the non-stop push and pull of the day. The dull hum of nearby traffic pressed against the walls around her—the murmur of the TV in the adjacent room blended with it. Sleep was right there, an inch away, ready for her; and she was ready for it, though not dressed for it. She rolled to her side. The clock on the nightstand showed 11:13.

Brenda
…

She dug a plastic card from her purse, picked up the phone next to the clock, keyed in the long string of digits printed on the back of the card, and then her sister’s number. Brenda answered, “Hello.”

“I almost forgot.”

“You’re in Buffalo?”

“About ten miles east of Buffalo.”

“You saw him?”

She huffed. “I’m not sure
what
I saw.”

“What do you mean?”

Her chest rose and fell with a sigh. “I don’t get it.”

“It’s him?”

“I thought it was… he was, at first; I was so convinced. But now I don’t know.”

“Joyce, you met him? You saw him? I mean, you were there in the guy’s room, weren’t you?”

Joyce closed her eyes and drew in a breath—her heart thumped along with another noise coming from behind the wall.

“Joyce?”

“Yes, I saw him, but he’s not exactly… This isn’t right.”

“It’s him? He’s there?”

“Something very… something impossible has happened.”
Th-thump, thum thum
... She put her hand to her chest.

“Jesus, Joyce. Impossible? Like what?”

“Well, he disappeared yesterday.”

“Yeah, right. I got that.”

“I mean, literally.”

“Literally?”

“He vanished.”

“You mean like magic?”

“I… No. That’s how it looks though. He’d never said a thing about leaving. He was making lunch, and then was gone.”

“Okay, so… that’s just the way it looks. You didn’t see him go. Nothing magic about that.”

“He thinks he’s married, Brenda, to another woman. Dana. He doesn’t even know me.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“You know about the concussion?”

“Who’s concussion?”

“Roland has a concussion… or had one, I don’t know. Hit his head somehow. Kate and Brian are convinced it caused some sort of weird amnesia. I might’ve believed that myself—I did at first. But now I don’t know.”

“But, Joyce, if he’s there, then he didn’t disappear. He had to have flown there.”

“Well…” The noise again, the dull thumping—it seemed to come from the wall behind the TV. “He remembers when we were kids, Selma… but he doesn’t remember me beyond that. Not a thing.”

“That sounds like amnesia, doesn’t it?”

Thump thump thump thump
… as steady as a heartbeat. Joyce’s gaze shifted from the phone to the dead TV screen. “Brenda, there’s a scar on his back, a burn scar. Roland doesn’t have a scar. Not like that, anyway. I’m not talking little. It’s a big one. I couldn’t have missed it.”

“A scar? Like how?”

“He is Roland.”

“But… okay, so, how’d he do that?”

“He looks like and sounds like… I mean, the way he talks. His mannerisms… But the scar. How’d he end up with a fully healed burn scar between then and now?”

“Yeah, well… I’m kind of like wondering—”

“Impossible… him being here, the scar… But here he is.” Joyce filled her chest with air and let out a big huff.

“Okay… okay… He’s there, has a new scar, so, now what?” Brenda said.

The thumping from behind the wall stopped, but then, seconds later, it returned at a more determined pace.

“I don’t know. I’m too tired to think right now.”

“You’re flying home tomorrow?”

“My plane leaves around 1:30.”

“How about I come hang out with you for a few days?”

“What about work?”

“I’ll work something out. I’ll be there… tomorrow evening.”

“The airport?”

“I’ll drive.”

“Really? You sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“Thank you, Brenda. I really appreciate it.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow then.”

“I hope the couple in the next room hurry up and resolve their issues. I’ve got to get up early for my meeting with the cop.”

“Oh, I hate that. They’re arguing?”

“Well, no. Sounds like some serious making up. Hanky panky.”

Brenda chuckled. “I’ll let you go. Goodnight.”

After washing her face and brushing her teeth, Joyce climbed into bed, turned out the light, then squirmed from one side, to her back, to the other side, until she found a tolerable position. She pulled the sheet and blanket up over her shoulders and closed her eyes, but her mind ignored her efforts to forget. With counterproductive determination, she struggled to disengage. Sleep came, but only in snippets—frustrating teases. Hours passed before she finally managed to let go.

T
he buzz of an alarm
came from down the dimly-lit hospital corridor. Joyce turned. It stopped. No one other than herself appeared to take notice. But then it rang again. A voice, from somewhere behind her, said, “Hello?” She cracked open an eye and grabbed the phone from the nightstand. “Hello?”

“Your wake-up call, ma’am.”

She thanked the person at the other end, laid the handset back in its cradle, then climbed out of bed and dragged herself to the shower. The night had so begrudgingly doled out rest, and now it seemed sleep would reclaim her were she to simply close her eyes.

After several minutes of sitting, yawning, fidgeting, longing to be anywhere but the sour smelling police station she had just driven to, Sergeant Waterman appeared.

“Good morning, Mrs. Bax. You sleep okay?”

She nodded while attempting to hide another yawn, then followed him down a well-lit corridor—windows to the right, closed doors to the left, posters and public notices artlessly pinned to the walls between them. He held open a door for her, then offered her a chair before a desk scattered with papers. A wood and brass prism-shaped nameplate, with “Sergeant Peter Waterman” in raised letters, held down a stack of papers on the desktop. Waterman dropped into a swivel chair behind the desk, pulled open a drawer, lifted out a file and laid it open over a heavily-doodled desk pad. A variety of ID cards were clipped individually to the lined forms in the folder.

“Can I get you a coffee?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“You take anything in it?”

“Cream, please.”

He pushed himself up out of his chair and left the room.

A dozen or more framed photos and signed certificates adorned the wall behind the desk. Joyce leaned forward, trying to make out the person shaking the sergeant’s hand in one of the photos—no idea—then glanced down at the open folder on the desktop; a laminated blue and white card was paper-clipped to a scribbled-in form. She turned the form around to read it.

“Erie County Library…” She jumped at the sound of Waterman’s voice coming from behind her. He set a white polystyrene cup before her. “It’s really not good for anything other than borrowing books,” he said. “Not legal ID, you know.” He picked up the sheet the library card was clipped to, removed the card, and handed it to Joyce. “Does that look like his signature?”

She nodded.

“Your husband’s?”

She looked up at him, annoyed by the deliberate redundancy of the question, and again nodded.

“One of two credit cards…” He stepped around to the other side of the desk, picked up the next sheet, removed the card, and handed it to Joyce. “Same signature. The card’s number’s not valid though. No matching account. Never was. So, what could he have used it for?” He shrugged. “Turn it over. Look at the backside.”

She flipped the card over.

“Looks like it’s been swiped a thousand times, doesn’t it?” He smiled. “I can’t help but admire your husband’s respect for detail.”

The card, she noted, was not from a bank she was familiar with.

“This one caught
my
interest. The state recently redesigned our licenses, to make them more difficult to forge. This though…” He slid another laminated card toward Joyce. “Some DMV employee had to have printed it up and then deleted the record. Bad employee.” He shook his head. “I fail to see the point in carrying around an invalid driver’s license with your real name and birthdate printed on it.”

Joyce examined the photo on the license—a bored looking Roland. “You said last night that he isn’t in trouble. This stuff isn’t illegal?”

“You’ve never seen these before?”

“
Is
it legal?”

“Possessing fake ID is not a crime. Freedom of speech. Using fake ID to commit fraud, on the other hand, is a felony. Thing I don’t understand is why a person would go to such an elaborate degree of trouble and expense unless they were planning to profit from it.”

“That’s not Roland. I mean, he isn’t—”

“The other night, you said your husband was with you in Phoenix. You seemed convinced our guy here wasn’t your man. You first noticed him missing at around”—Waterman flipped through the pages of a note pad—“sometime before five PM.” His eyes locked onto Joyce’s. “Now you’re telling me
this
is him?” He patted the forms on his desktop.

Joyce glared at Waterman, irritated by his pointed innuendoes and by her own gullibility—walking into what now felt like a trap. “You’re wanting me to repeat what I told you on the phone? Fishing for inconsistencies? I don’t have the answers you’re looking for. I can’t tell you why he had all this phony crap on him; it doesn’t make sense to me either. But I’m absolutely sure he wasn’t intending to commit fraud. Nor am I.”

“Mrs. Bax, I’ll be frank with you. This doesn’t look like fraud to me. Not in the typical sense, anyway. The first thing
anyone
would do is change their name. But what was he doing with all this? A man from Arizona, a wallet full of New York ID? It doesn’t make sense that he’d spend the effort and money just for the fun of it. You see what I’m saying? The only purpose I can imagine this having is deceiving someone about his state of residence. You know of any reason he’d want someone to believe he lives here in Akron?”

Joyce was only half-listening. A chill passed through her as she realized just how congruent this story—the cards she was holding—was with Roland’s story—his claim that he lives in New York, or did, up to the night of his disappearance from Phoenix, anyway.

Ting, ting, ting
. Joyce lifted her eyes. Waterman absentmindedly tapped his coffee mug with an ink pen—his lazy blue eyes on her.

“Do you, Mrs. Bax?”

“I’m sorry.” She blinked. “Do I, what?”

His eyebrows lifted. “Know why your husband would want anyone believing he lives here?”

“No.” She dropped her eyes to the folder lying on the desk. “Do you have anything else?”

He pulled open a desk drawer, removed a wallet made of a coarse, black fabric, and handed that to her. It appeared old, worn—not the wallet she remembered him carrying, the one she’d given him for his birthday nearly a year before. She peeled it open, ripping the hook and loop apart. The plastic photo insert inside contained a variety of notes and cards, but no photographs—typical of her husband.

“There’s a few more things,” he said, going through the folder in front of him. “A grocery store card, a movie-rental card”—he tapped the card with his index finger—“from a store that never existed.” He shrugged his eyebrows, turned his head, coughed, then continued. “Social security, bank debit card. We checked them all out, including those in the wallet.” His breath left his lips in a huff. “Except for the social security card, none are valid.” He flipped his hands open, shoulder height, palms up. “I’m stumped. That stunt he pulled in Akron, this stuff… It’s useless for the most part. So what’s it for?”

She slipped the remaining cards into the wallet, then dropped that into her purse. “That’s everything?”

“Uh huh.”

“Sorry I couldn’t be of any more help to you.” Joyce stood. “I have to get going, I have a flight to catch.”

“Yes, of course. Please, feel free to call me if there’s ever anything I can do for you. Or if anything comes to your attention that you’d be willing to share.”

Protein! Her body demanded it. Joyce was one of these people whose moods were at the mercy of a regular eating schedule. Her shortness with the cop was a testimony to this fact. While on her way back to the hospital, she pulled into a restaurant parking lot. The clock on the dashboard indicated she had plenty of time.

After ordering an omelet and coffee she pulled Roland’s wallet from her purse and again went through its contents. She removed his social security card, remembering what Waterman had said about it being the one thing in Roland’s possession with any validity. Though it appeared authentic, the signature was odd; his middle initial, which he typically ignored, was included.
She compared it to the signature on the back of the credit card—no initial, and the handwriting was different. She couldn’t recall him ever signing his name in that way. But then the SS card, she realized, was probably signed when he was young, perhaps a boy.

As she studied the card, it came to her; he’d
lost his wallet some years back, with that card in it. The card she now held was mushy with age, his signature smeared as though it had been through the wash. She laid it on the place mat, before her, and dug another card from the wallet—a voter’s registration, Board of Elections, County of Erie—same address as the one on his driver’s license.

Joyce removed card after card, all of which supported Roland’s claim of being a resident of New York. And while there were no hints of a life with her, there was nothing suggesting another woman either. She opened the bill pocket and found a small amount of cash and a slip of paper, a cash-withdrawal receipt from an ATM. The first twelve digits of the account number were represented by Xs. Only the last four were printed. Those, however, matched the last four numbers on the fake debit card.

“Greek omelet. Can I get you some more coffee?” The waitress stood at the side of the table, holding a plate of food.

“Yes, please.” Joyce pushed the cards to the side, then continued picking though the wallet, studying every scrap of paper and rectangle of plastic until it appeared empty. She shoved a finger up into the deepest of the inner pockets. Something was stuck inside. She shifted and tugged at it, slowly working out a photo—Roland, with his arm around a dark-haired woman, both smiling, looking straight into the camera’s lens.

Dana
?

The woman in the photo had clear, olive skin, and long, thick, curly hair. She appeared relaxed, content, at home. She may have been ten years younger than him, though the Roland in the photo appeared slightly younger than the man she knew.

She flipped the photo over. “Aug-92”
was written in the upper right corner.

Ninety-two
?
Where were we
?
Chicago
?
Was it spring
?
Yes
,
May of ninety-two
.
The apartment on Ohio Street
.
August
…
Did he go somewhere
?
No
…
no
,
he was working on his show for the Eastman Gallery
…
every day, painting
. She turned the photo face up.
Is it real
? She glanced toward the table to her right. The man sitting there quickly shifted his gaze to the open newspaper in his hands. She turned back to the evidence spread out before her and attempted to piece together a story.

“How is everything?”

Joyce looked up at her waitress, standing to her left—“Fine”—then chopped off a chunk of omelet with her fork and shoved it into her mouth.