Chapter 8 Things get Strange – August 2021
Rick went down to dinner with Marsha that evening. She once more inquired how he was doing with his finances .
He replied with a grin, “I have over sixteen hundred dollars from the last six weeks. That is pretty darned good. I am turning out to be a decent street person. Don’t think I will be asking if you want fries with that.”
“That is excellent Rick, where are you keeping your money,” she said?
“It is on the top shelf of my wardrobe cabinet, beneath my underwear.”
“That is too risky. It would be easy to steal. You should get it into a bank account.”
“Marsha I can’t open a checking account without some form of ID. How are you doing at the office?”
“Not very good, unfortunately, Silvia has excellent work habits and never leaves the files unlocked. I’m getting desperate and about to do something radical.”
“Marsha, really be careful,” Rick exclaimed. “We don’t get too many shots at this; if you get caught, they will never trust us again.”
Marsha said with a small smile, “I have an idea that is so radical I don’t know why we didn’t think of it before. I am going to ask her!”
“What,” Rick spluttered, “What do you mean.”
“I am going to ask her if we had any ID accompany us. All she can tell me is she won’t look, or if she finds them, not give them to us. I have been working there for five weeks now and don’t see any other way.”
“Hmm, the only downside is that if she says no, she will be more conscious of locking the files. Since she is so good at that now it makes no difference. Go for it.”
The next morning Marsha did exactly that. She asked Silvia if she could have a minute during their coffee break.
“Silvia, do you know if Rick and I had any identification like a driver’s license when we were admitted? As you know, Rick has been out and earned some money, too much to leave lying around. It should be in a checking account.”
Silvia thought for a second, “I don’t know Marsha, but if you do it is in your files let’s take a look after the break.”
Marsha didn’t know if she should shout for joy or cry because it took her so long to do the obvious.
She settled for a mild, “Thank You.”
After their break, Silvia led her to the files and unlocked them, pulling Rick’s and Marsha’s files out. Both files contained their social security cards and long expired driver’s licenses.
There was also a transfer form from Northeast Rest Home.
Silva said, “There is no reason you shouldn’t have these, we only retain them if the person isn’t competent, both of you certainly are. Here are yours, I have to hand Rick’s directly to him.”
She then said with a smile, “Of course the way you two have been acting lately that might become moot.”
“What do you mean,” asked Marsha?
“You don’t fool me, girl. I see the way you look at him.”
“Silvia! I do not! And besides, we are too old for that.”
“You are still breathing. You’re not too old,” rebutted Silvia.
“It’s really not like that,” Marsha replied half-heartedly.
“I just admire the man for the way he has gotten his life back and is out trying to do things instead of whining about it.”
“Right,” said Silvia, “and you just lie around doing nothing all day. I’m not certain who is in my office helping me for free every day.”
At that point, Marsha realized that she was on the hook to work in the office, or Silvia would know what she had been trying. Her face must have given her away.
Silvia laughed, “I wondered how long it would take you to ask. Ruth and I had a bet going. She thought it would be two weeks ago, I said last week. So the bet is off.  You do not know how hard it was for me to remember to keep those files locked.”
Marsha looked at Silvia and started laughing (it would never do for an eighty-six-year-old woman to giggle), “Okay you got me, but I would still like to help in the office.”
“Thanks, Marsha, we need it, and you have really taken a load off of us.”
While this conversation was going on Rick had been walking to work. Since Charles asked him about seeing any drug deals he varied his walk to check out the surrounding area.
On his fourth day of doing this, he saw a man loitering near a street corner. A car pulled up, and a man handed what could have been cash out the window. A brief conversation ensued. The car pulled away, and the loiterer made a call on his cell phone.
“Bingo,” Rick thought. He continued on his way.
Every day for the next week, he used this route, several times observing cars pull up and the same routine happening. He was careful to use an old man’s shuffle and kept bent over.
The more non-threatening he looked the better. He hadn’t given it any thought until then, but his walk had become a much younger man’s stride, and he was standing taller .
On the fifth day, there was a difference, when he was almost up to the man, a car pulled up, and in a reverse of the previous stops, the man handed an envelope to a passenger in the back seat. As the car pulled away Rick took note of its license plate.
It was a vanity plate so was easy to remember. He kept on like he had not seen anything.
The next Friday he approached Charles.
“Charles you asked me if I have seen any drug deals going down, I think I have.” Rick then went on to explain what he had been observing and the license number.
“Thank you, Rick, I will take it from here. I don’t want you to go near that corner again. You have probably figured out I am working undercover to watch this area. You have moved us up the food chain with this plate number. We will handle things.”
Rick was relieved. He had figured Charles was an undercover cop, or from a rival drug gang, but not which. A man he considered a friend had asked a small favor, and he had helped. He was still glad that he was on the side of the angels.
Marsha was very excited when he returned to the rest home later. “It worked! Silvia gave me everything of mine she had. She will give you yours directly. She can’t give them to me because she does not have a HIPPA permission slip from you. ”
They both had a good laugh over Silvia’s and Ruth’s bet. She neglected to tell him Silvia’s other comments about how she looked at Rick.
“I’m not sure how this helps that much, a social security card and an expired driver’s license won’t be enough to open a bank account.”
Rick replied, “I have been thinking about that. I will just have to renew my license.”
“Won’t you need to take the actual driving test again and can you pass the eye test?”
“Yes, and yes,” Rick said. “My eyes have always been good. I think I can get the use of a car for the test.”
“How would you do that?”
“Well the Baltimore police owe me a little,” Rick told her, knowing full well the grief he had coming. After telling his tale, brief as it was, Marsha felt like he was taking too many chances out on the street.
To her surprise, Rick agreed with her.
“Marsha, the longer I keep going out there the higher the chances are that something will go wrong. I know that I just have not figured out how to break the cycle. I could work at McDonald’s. It is certainly honorable work. It just would take about ten times as long, and I’m not getting any younger. ”
The next-day Rick saw Silvia and got his license and social security card. She seemed to be very curious about his and Marsha’s plans for after they had established themselves.
Rick wasn’t aware that they had any plans. They were just working as a team, so they could get back to a normal lifestyle as long as their health held out.
Silvia just said, “ Oh,” to that piece of information. She thought, “Who am I to disillusion him; Marsha has plans, even if she hasn’t thought it through.”
Rick asked Silvia about his admission form. She made him a copy. It was the same as Marsha’s, the same date, from Northeast. This was a little strange. Whatever happened; it happened at the same time to both. He said nothing to Silvia about what he had just read.
That night they discussed it at dinner.
“Marsha there is something funny about this. Why would both of us be transferred in, without records from Northeast the same day?”
“Rick you’re getting to be a conspiracy nut,” Marsha teased.
Rick looked at Marsha sharply, “I have never had a conspiracy thought in my life. ”
Rick stopped what he was about to say as he looked at Marsha.
“Marsha, what is your age?” he asked.
“You know it is eighty-five.”
“Will you do me a favor, walk over to the mirror and look at yourself; as a matter of fact, I will join you.”
They walked over to the mirror and stood side by side looking into the mirror.
After several minutes, Marsha said, “What is going on? Neither of us looks in our mid-eighties, we appear more like seventy.”
Rick slowly said, “It is not only our facial appearance it is our carriage. We are standing taller.”
“Marsha I don’t know what is happening, but for now we had better think conspiracy. Who or why I have no idea, but I do not want to end up in a laboratory somewhere.”
“Well I don’t either, but it couldn’t be worse than here,” she joked.
“We can walk out the door here,” Rick said darkly.
Marsha said, “I am sure there is a simple explanation, but no sense in bringing this to anyone’s attention.”
“Since we are seen here every day people probably don’t really look at us anymore. ”
Marsha replied, “I think that must be, but I would be more comfortable if I knew what was going on.”
The next evening Rick went to the Mission to talk to Charles, but he wasn’t there. It took two more trips before he caught up with him. He explained to Charles about why he and Marsha needed identification and the fact he needed a car to use for their driving test.
Charles thought for a minute and said, “Yeah we can do that. Meet me here at ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”
At ten the next day they met at the Mission. Rick introduced Marsha to Charles.
Charles said, “Rick you old dog, I did not know you had such a pretty girlfriend.”
Rick and Marsha did not argue the point about their relationship. They were both anxious to get on with it.
Charles had an old beater of a car. “This is from the impound lot, but it runs. I don’t want you connected with any official cars or even any personal ones. I have made an appointment for both of you with a friend who works in the MVD so it should be easy in and out.
On the way to the MVD, Rick drove and practiced parallel parking along the way. Parallel parking was no longer a Maryland requirement, but Charles didn’t say anything as it was good practice. Rick had been driving for almost sixty years, so it was only blowing the rust off .
Charles made the comment, “You sure don’t drive like an old person. There is the smoothness with your driving that you do not usually see in older drivers.”
Rick shrugged his shoulders, “Seems normal to me.”
When it was Marsha’s turn, she performed similarly.
The driving test went off without any problems. Both Ricks and Marsha’s eyesight and depth perception proved to be as good as anyone on the road. Both certified that they were not insane, on drugs, illegal, or anything like that.
Of course, Rick thought, “I wouldn’t tell them if I were.”
The driving test went smoothly with the exception that the examiner said the car smelled pretty bad. Soon Rick and Marsha after paying in cash had new driver’s licenses with their pictures and were on their way back to the Mission.
Marsha said she noticed that smell on the way over. What do you think it is?”
Charles thought a moment, “It probably has something to do with the body they found in the trunk.”
“What!” Rick screeched.
Charles let out his booming laugh, “Gottcha. I have no idea what caused this smell.”
Rick had the grace to laugh and admit he had been had .
“Charles, I sincerely want to thank you for your help and guidance in all of this.”
“No problem my man, this duty I have sucked, it is usually dealing with the losers and the bottom feeders. It feels good to help someone who isn’t.”
They arrived back at the Mission, and Charles let them out with a cheerful, “See you around.”
Before leaving the Mission Rick went into the front door, he put a one-hundred-dollar bill in the red kettle that always stood there.
He felt he owed a debt to the Mission and couldn’t leave it unpaid.