I walked through the door and I was home.  The Manger looked almost exactly like Angel's back in Pittsburgh.

Complete with the unwashed noontime masses.

I sat at the bar and signaled the bar tender.  When he saw me his face goes white.  He turned to the mirror behind the bar that is covered with snapshots.  He found a particular picture and goes even whiter.

He walked towards me as though he trudged through glass and lava.

"C-can I help you?"

"Yeah get me a beer."

"No problem."

His entire body relaxed as though a huge weight had been lifted.  When he came back he avoided eye contact.

"Thanks, hey, I was wondering if you could help me?"  The bartender stiffened up.  Something strange was going on.

"What'cha need, friend?"

"I'm looking for someone..."

"Who's that?"

"Sam Conners."

Ever see an old western, when the Stranger comes in and says one name and everything just stops.  The music, the laughing, everything just hangs on that breath.

I quite suddenly had many sets of eyes on me.

"Why are you asking about Sam Conners?"

"I heard he hung around here a lot.  In fact I was told he was here the night before he disappeared."

"Are you a cop or something?"

"No, just a...friend."

"Well if you are a friend of his, you ain't real close.  Sam's been gone for five years."

"I know, I talked to Naomi Rose before I came here."

"Well, that bitch ain't all there."  He scoffed and started cleaning a glass.

I was losing his interest, they weren't going to tell me shit.  "Well, if he hung around here a lot, I see you have a ton of pictures on the mirror, any of him?"

"Maybe, maybe not."

"What was that picture you looked at when I first sat down?"

"None of your fucking business."  He moved down the bar away from me.  

I reached into my pocket and pulled out a fifty.  "What do I owe you for the beer?"

"Three seventy-five."

I waved the bill in the air, he relunctantly grabbed it.  I tell him to keep the change.

He stood for a moment, as if his next movement was the most important thing in the world.  The bartender turned and grabbed the picture he was looking at earlier.

"Here, this is the only picture I have of Sam.  Though if you really wanted a picture that bad you could have saved us all time and looked in the mirror.  You two could be twins."

I looked at the picture.  I looked into the mirror.  It was me, but something was different.  I wasn't Sam Conners, but I had to be a brother.

"Why didn't you give this picture to the police?  His sister put in a missing persons report but didn't have a picture..."

"Sam's sister is a bitch.  She drives up here all the time for some ectasy and oxycotin.  No one took her seriously.  Sam had a habit of disappearing from time to time."

"Where is she now?"

"Morgantown down in West Virginia.  Some place called the Brew Pub is where she drinks every night."

She is beautiful.

She was going to kill me.

"I'm sorry miss, I just thought..."

"Thought what asshole?  You show up with a message from some prick that left five years ago and think I'd invite you in for some cake?  My kid is inside the house and you want to come down here and make her go through this shit again?"

Until this point the man had been silent, "Honey, maybe we should call the police."

"Fuck the police, Carl.  Get your ass inside, I have nothing to fear from this limp dick cracker.  Do I?"

"No...just let me explain..."  God, let me explain lady.

"You got five minutes and then I'm going to go in the house and get a gun, and shoot you in your ugly face?"

"Fair enough."

"Clock is ticking..."

Where to begin?  Apparently, I'm not Sam Conners, but maybe a friend?

"Do you know who I am?"

"No, other than some skinny ass white guy talking about bullshit from the grave."

"What do you mean grave?  Is Sam dead?"

"Shit, I don't know."  The tension was broken and she sat down on the porch.  "Sam just disappeared.  No note, no fight, nothing, just poof and he was gone.  I had some friends that said they thought they saw him here or there but no real proof."

"So, this is hard to ask without sounding crazy, I'm not Sam Conners am I?"

"What?

"I have this problem, amnesia.  I came down here because I don't know who I am and I just....I guess I was hoping I could fill in some of the margins."

"I'm really sorry for you, but you don't look anything like him.  Not that I could prove it.  How does a man get to be thirty with out a single picture?  I tried getting him to call his family but they were all gone.  All he had was the one bitch of sister and she had so many drugs in her, I'm not even sure she knew what she looked like."

"So he just disappeared?"

"He used to hang out at this bar in town called the Manger.  The night before he left somebody told me he was talking to a man dressed all in black.  They were arguing about some sort of debt.  In the morning he was gone and that other guy was gone too."

"Any theories?"

"I don't know the mob?  I just told him the week before I was pregnant, so I just assumed he couldn't hack it and split town."

"Well I apologize for bothering you ma'am."

"I'm sorry for yelling at you, I wasn't very ladylike, just a sort spot you know?"  A chill wind picked up and we both shivered.  "I wish I could help you more, what was your name?"

I snort, "uh...Sam."

"You don't sound sure."

"I'm not really, especially after today.  Well I'm not going to waste any more of your time.  Thank you again Miss Rose."

I walked a little slower to the car than I had left it.

I drove off.  When I looked in the rear view mirror I saw Naomi staring off into the Heavens.

My vision was spotty due to the sun and I sort of drifted off in my thoughts.  

When I finally returned my gaze to the house, there was a woman and man staring at me.

"Can I help you...sir?"  She looked apprehensive as though she was debating helping me or calling the cops.

"Are you Naomi Rose?"

"Yes, how do you know my name?"

"I'm Sam...Sam Conners?"  My voice rising at the end.

"The hell you are, that motherfucker didn't look anything like you and if you know that prick and are trying to pull some kind of joke on me, then you and your boy can both go fuck yourselves.  You and your mother."

Bethlehem is one of those former steel glory towns that watched it's money wash on down the rivers to another state.  Blue collar break down.

I did some research before I went to the address.  Didn't want to get, I don't know, shocked by flooding memories or blankness.

I went to the public library and looked up newspapers and articles from around the time the missing persons report was filed.

Sam Conners of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania was almost a fucking ghost in this town before he disappeared.  

The following is a direct quote:

So this chick filed a missing person report on a brother she hasn't seen in a decade because he didn't call her.

That's it.  I don't even know what would cause Cisco to even give this to me.  My real life detective show is fucking lame.  The address I assume is the girlfriend's house.  I'm going there in the morning.

To kill time tonight I saw that some movie called Star Wars is on TBS.  Rog is always talking about that flick and constantly calling me a fag for not remembering it.

Some uppity women cleared her throat twenty times behinde him.  He mildly strolled over to her and fished around his pocket for a second.  He's a plainclothes officer and loves being under the radar.  He stares the lady down and then flings his badge on her table.  

He got real close to her and whispered, "drink some fucking water before you choke to death cuntrag."  Then he stole her chilifries.

"I fucking love doing that Sammy, fucking love it..."

"I believe you."

"So, Elizabeth filled me in on everything so far..." he reaches into a bag and brings out some file folders.

"I got three bits of information so far for you, Sam.  Number one is Missing Persons, number two is People with Records, number three is Morgue Records, and number four is Birth records."

"Ok, any hits?"

"A few, the birth records are kind of hit and miss being as we don't really know how old you are.  You're welcome to take a look and see if it jogs anything up."

"Why the death certificates, I'm not dead."

"Yeah but unclaimed bodies, John Does and such are sometimes unclaimed because the wrong body was buried."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning a body could be identified as Sam Conners and buried but it ain't him because it's you, dipshit.  I also looked through the computer and mug shot archive, I didn't get a facial recognition so you've probably haven't been through the system in Pennsylvania.  I need to get your prints to send it to the nerds in Clarksburg, to cross reference with the FBI."

"Ok.  Sounds like a lot of guess work right now."

"That's why I went to missing persons.  There's a guy named Sam Conners that went missing from Bethlehem about five years ago.  No real good photos of the guy were turned in but his descriptors match your frame.  Here's the last known address."

My hand was trembling as he passed a slip of paper.  Bethlehem.  It hit me as hard as Conners.  I know Bethlehem is the place.

"Well, good luck.  You aren't an official police investigation, Sam, so be smart out there.  Here's my card, professionally I can do little for you as this case isn't mine, or isn't really even open anymore.  But, as a friend, give me a call if you want me to check up on anything.  Now get the fuck out of here.  Grab Elizabeth's ass for me too."

"Thanks a lot, Sergeant Rosenbaum."

"Call me Cisco.  Now scram."

My name is Sam Connors.  Sorry if I'm getting repetitive, I just like saying that.  Most of you in the world are very careless with your identity.  You never know when you can lose it.

Just think about it, really think.  What if you felt your name didn't belong to you?  

Would that make you feel hollow?

Is your name tied to your identity?

For me, that fucking last name was my anchor.  I was capsizing in the storm.  When I heard the name Conners, my anchor found purchase.

Now it's time to fill in the details.  

Down a couple blocks is a law firm, Hoster, Stead & Carmack.  Everyone once in a while when the firm is defending some low life, they bring the guy/girl over to Angel's Bar to have some unofficial, client attorney face time. 

Not that the partners ever come her, usually it's this junior junior fresh out of law school chick named Elizabeth.  She's real hot, but you didn't hear that from me.

She came in yesterday and was stood up by I think the Road Captain of Devil's Finger.  He's trying to beat a "crossing state lines with a minor" rap.

I bought her a drink because it's just sad to see a woman with shoulder pads sitting alone in a place like this.

We got to talking, she already knows about my amnesia, when I confessed that I think I know my last name.

Elizabeth got excited for me, which is more than I can say for these other fucks.

She gave me a card for a police sergeant that helps out with her firm from time to time.  Elizabeth said that if I play my cards right I could get him to look for any information on a Sam Conners, be it an accident, or missing persons.  Hell, even warrants would get me closer.

I meet with him later today.

Peace and chicken grease