Chapter 2
The job was tedious and his shoulder hurt him a lot more than he wanted to admit. But he had to work. He had no money and the place he was living, though cheap and definitely sleazy; still cost him $700 a month. And he had to find the money someway. He rubbed his right shoulder with his left hand as he walked through the doors and hung a left to go to his room.
"Hey…Snake Eyes…." The front desk clerk called to him.
He turned and made his way to the desk.
"It's due, Man, the whole $700 by next week. I'd let you slide, but the management is coming down hard. The clerk stated. "If it were up to me…." He started, and then shrugged.
He nodded and smiled, promising to get the money somehow, someway by then, even though he knew it was not going to be possible. He felt like, in the past, that his smile had gotten him out of a lot of sticky situations. But is hadn't worked today, not here. He would have to go with Plan B. Only, there was no Plan B.
He made his way, slowly, down the hall to his room. He entered his bathroom and slowly and carefully pulled his t-shirt over his head. The bullet would he had sustained had been a clean one, and the shot had been a through and through. The free clinic had done a great job in cleaning his wounds and patching him up. He needed more pain medication, but he knew he wouldn't be able to go back to them. Something told him he was in trouble. He was just not sure how or why. What he did know was that he knew that people don't get shot without there being a reason. And he was pretty sure he didn't want to know what that reason was.
He turned and looked at his back in the mirror. The wound still looked good, which was great. But he was bone tired. He stripped off the rest of his clothes, showered, put on a pair of boxers and fell into bed. He was asleep in minutes.
It felt like only a few minutes later, and he was jerked awake by the sound of his alarm clock going off. He looked at his clock only to realize that the night had indeed passed. He got up, got dressed and headed off again, for yet another day of manual labor. He was good at his job, despite his slim build and his looks. His co-workers constantly teased him, saying he should be on a billboard somewhere modeling Calvin Klein underwear. He was too good looking to be leading trucks in a freight warehouse. He just smiled and nodded, and he continued to load trucks.
Weekends were good. Always a welcome respite from the weekday grind. And he loved to go to the park. He had very little money, and the park offered free entertainment. He could people watch, which he did a lot of. He could sketch, though he was not sure where that talent came from. But the good thing was pencils and paper were cheap, so he could indulge himself as much and as often as he liked. And he drew lots of things. Things he didn't even know he remembered.
He knew he had amnesia and he felt like a walking pseudo-person because of it. All he knew, for sure, all he could remember were the things that had happened since he had been shot, only those things from the past 6 months. His memories started with him dragging himself out of freezing cold water. He knew he had then passed out. He also remembered the feeling of something warm running down the side of his face, and he remembered his head hurting so bad it was hard to focus on anything.
He had no idea how he had wound up in one of New York's many free clinics. He had had surgery to there at the clinic to clean and close the wounds. He had refused the talk of sending him to the hospital. Again, he had been shot. He didn't know if he was a wanted man. He didn't know who was after him and he felt like he would be a sitting duck in the hospital. He left the clinic, AMA, when he heard talk of sending him to the hospital anyway. He had taken a few necessary items, surprised at how easy it was to lift the supplies. He hoped he had enough bandages and medication to do him, for a little while, at least.
While he was at the clinic, after surgery, a nurse had asked him for his name. He had just stared at her. He hadn't realized, until that very moment, that he didn't have one. He could not remember his own name. He stalled for just a second. He had glanced at her name badge. Her name was Jackie. He looked around the room for other inspiration. He quickly came up with Jay Sterling. Jay came from the nurse's first initial. Sterling came from the many packages lying around which had the word 'sterile' on them.
TBC
END NOTES: FYI-A 'through and through' means that there was an entrance wound and an exit wound. AMA means Against Medical Advice.