Ray left me this car. Ray took a piece of my soul.

Sometimes I stand in the doorway of the barn and stare at it, though covered with a grey cover.

My Tahoe, parked next to the car, has no luxury of a cover. I don t need to remove to cover to see the car; I know every line, every curve, the coolness of the hard metal, smooth under my hand.

Don t get me wrong, I keep it maintained and serviced regularly. I keep the fluids good, tires up and yes, even drive it occasionally. When the night is too long and the city calls me to loudly, I take the car and prowl the streets. As it winds through curves, hugging the road, or purrs through city traffic, I can feel eyes coveting.

Those are the times we are one, the car and me. 1965 Corvette. Stingray. Black.

It had the Big block V8 engine, tapering rear deck, and hidden headlamps that were the classic markers of the 65. There was no mistaking the classic.

Here though, in the dim evening light, dust filtering through the musty air, the car taunts me haunts me. Most of all it makes me think too much. And when I think, I always think of Ray.

Ray is another classic. He was my mentor, my friend. So many other words I can use to describe him in my life: teacher, coach, comforter, protector, confidant and occasionally, yes, lover. Our relationship of 20 years, which lasted longer than some marriages, was unique. Ray was 12 years older than me, and sometimes that was like another lifetime. Other times, there seemed to be no difference.

Our time together began when he started training me in martial arts. As a master of Tai Chi, Taekwando, Judo, and Akido, plus a range of weapons techniques, Ray was himself a quite lethal weapon. Rarely did he have to use those lethal methods.
He was thankful of that. But those methods were there and passed skillfully along to me, a young woman of 25 at that time. I wanted to learn from the man whom I knew so little about. I realize now that though he taught me so much, I still have plenty to learn. He hadn t exactly wanted a student then, but must have somehow figured that a pupil to learn his craft would eventually be needed.

And his craft? Almost unheard of these days. Ray helped people. A man of mystery and character not found in many today. He helped in situations that many would walk away from. He asked nothing in return. Nothing but a favor. The stories of people he helped were many and varied: an elementary school teacher trying to find her husband; a doctor convinced her hospital was killing people on purpose; a traveling religious show where murders followed them; a pharmaceutical chemist who believed his company guilt of deceit; a sculptor being stalked; a cadet at a military institute .
the list went on and on. All in Ray s personal case files. Also included in his files were weather the person he had helped had later repaid their favor. Most people who crossed through Ray s life never saw him more than twice. I guess I was lucky in that respect.

But who was he? You might ask at this point. Stingray , the car, perhaps the man, a myth maybe. His background was always a bit shadowy. All that most people knew about him was that he advertises surreptitiously in newspapers, ostensibly offering a "'65 black Stingray, for Barter Only To Right Party" and including a telephone number. Those wishing to enlist his services, presumably having learned the ad s real meaning by word of mouth, would call him for help. Ray, if that was ever his real name, was shaped into being. I was privy to some details of his life, but others remained sketchy at best, even to someone who shared his house for more than a decade.

I know he grew up in California, Oregon, Washington and even Canada. Family was not a subject Ray had much to speak about and I know as little today about his roots as I did the day I met him. His mother was dead, apparently since Ray was a young child.
His father served in some sort of capacity in the military and he too was gone. Ray had spent much time educating himself and was so well versed it was almost unreal.

He turned up in Southern California after Vietnam, where he served from 1968-1974 when Saigon fell. What he did there exactly,
unclear. But from what I am able to gather, he served as part of a secret U.S. intelligence group. Things he did, things he saw, tortured him I know. Even years later sometimes nightmares came.

I do know that when he returned, he was a changed man. He did not want that life. It was then that his benefactor , a man I only know as Benjamin, instructed him and provided more education and only asked one favor: that Ray help others. This was a favor Ray fulfilled repeatedly.

Ray had many philosophies, one about money : The world runs on money. Everybody walks around with this invisible number in their heads. You hit the figure close enough, the penny drops, you own the man. I take money out of the equation. My hands don t sweat because I m never at the pay window. It was how he operated. Benjamin had seen to it that Ray never needed for anything, which is how Ray set things up for me.

Did I say I was lucky? Yes. I count my blessings in all the things he gave me, including a large part of himself. The part of him that I believe loved me. At least loved me as much as he was capable of.

I secured the barn door and walked back in the ever dimming evening light to the house. 80 acres of forest, meadows and rolling hills surrounded on 2 sides by National Forrest in remote Colorado, this place was a perfect retreat. Benjamin had built most of it and Ray and I finished it.

The house had special features, unique to the lifestyle that sometimes came with danger.

It was a 3 bedroom, 3 bath log cabin style home with river rock accents. Large windows faced the east in the huge lodge style living room. No one would guess that with a touch of a button, either on the remote or the wall, that solid metal covers could be lowered to seal the windows for protection. Just like walking into the large foyer, it would be hard to detect the steel doors that would slide out of the wall, sealing the foyer off from the rest of the house, making a would be intruder a prisoner and keeping them out of the main living areas. You would more likely notice the large living room and river rock fireplace, the view of mountains and the river below, the wood inlay staircase that wound up to the second floor, or the Tuscany styled kitchen with eat in dining area. The furnishings were eclectic, from travels throughout the world, some pieces being very expensive while others were shabby chic finds and vintage pieces collected from thrift stores. But all fit together well, especially in the study, where the library of Benjamin s, Ray s, and mine blended into a literary gold mine. Dark wood ruled this room, cherry finishes, and heavy furniture set off by crystal and more gemstone inlay made this room particularly manly, but I had no reason or call to redo the room. If I tried, I could every once in awhile catch the long past scent of a cigar once smoked over a glass of brandy in this room. Here, again, the casual observer would not notice the panel which when pressed properly, would swing aside and reveal Ray s most personal room. This was where his case files were kept. And where a cache of weapons matched a small armory. I didn t spend much time in there anymore, letting things growing dusty with time.

The house begin to have a fall chill once the sun set, being only September, but high in the mountains. Maybe more for my soul than my body, I lit a fire in the fireplace then put the tea kettle on. It was in these lonely evenings, I was happy to have the company of Blossom, an orange stripped female cat, and Jones, a solid black male kitty. Ray had never been what you call a cat person, but had grown attached to the duo and insisted that they would come as obediently as a dog when he said koomba roomba. (it did work and I still don t understand.) He always said it with a smile and I have a feeling it had something to do with a case from many years ago. I always say I am going to research it in his files, but to this day haven t done it.

As the last of the days' light was replaced by an almost all encompassing black night, I hit the remote button which lowered the metal shutters over all the downstairs windows and then secured the front and back door. I really probably had no need for this much security this deep in the woods, but lately my nerves had been on edge and some of my old paranoia had returned to play in the recesses of my brain. It was most likely too much time alone, too much time thinking.

I took my tea upstairs to the master bedroom where the king sized bed called me. I discovered Blossom and Jones were already at the foot of the bed, one napping one grooming his face. Soon they would bound out of the room to stalk the night, as they were creatures called by it. I on the other hand, was no longer.

For three long years, the gradual anxiety which had followed me all my adult life had come back full force, causing your average gut wrenching full blown panic attack at the most in oppertune times. Ray had taught me many tecniques of meditation and relaxation, but it seemed once he was not around to be my focus, I had put those skills away in the dark closet under the stairs with Ray's clothes.

I decided to have some sleep tonight, so I downed a sleeping pill. I tried not to use them much, as obtaining refills was more work than it was worth. But after several nights of restless sleep, dotted with nightmares or filled with dreams of years past that made my heart ache, I needed a break. A dreamless break.

I slid into pajama bottoms and tank top. I knew by the time I finished my tea and several pages in the book I was reading, the pill would kick in. And tomorrow brought things that had to be done. Things I had been putting off too long.