A Family’s Anguish

Mel Adrian expected his 22-year-old son for dinner Christmas Eve. They had plans to meet at a relative’s house in a small town 90 minutes northeast of Edmonton, Canada.

A surveillance camera in the young man’s building showed Kelvin, a Ford mechanic, leaving his apartment at 9:30 a.m. that day, carrying a plastic hamper and a small box.

His family and friends haven’t seen him since.

Mel Adrian is now in Los Angeles, the biggest city he’s ever visited, putting up fliers and showing his son’s photo to mechanics, asking if maybe he came by looking for work. No one matching Kelvin’s description has shown up at shelters for the homeless or local hospitals.

The only clue so far arrived in the mail Jan. 10, a notice saying that Kelvin’s maroon Pontiac had been impounded after being illegally parked in West Hollywood--about 1,200 miles south of his apartment. Kelvin’s car had been towed about midnight on Doheny Drive, just off Sunset Boulevard.

The mystery deepened: Kelvin Adrian showed up at the Los Angeles impound lot the night his car was towed, and again, two days later, to pick up clothing from the hamper in the trunk. Lot operators told Mel that they assumed his son didn’t have the money to pay for his car. The young man was alone, they told the father. They thought he seemed nervous.

Kelvin was not a kid who dreamed of Hollywood, as far as his family knows. His friends called him “Kelv.” He had no apparent desire to be a movie star or a model. He likes techno and country and western music. He had no computer. He loved his stereo and his custom-painted yellow Chevy pickup with black lines stretching past the hood. He’d never been outside of Canada. To the best of anyone’s knowledge, he knew no one in Southern California.

At the time of his disappearance, he had cashed a paycheck, leaving him about $450, his father said. Kelvin has not used his credit card; nor has he withdrawn any money from his bank account since leaving Canada. Before he left his apartment, he took out the trash and washed the dishes.

He told his supervisor at Universal Ford Sales that he was not feeling well and couldn’t work Dec. 23. He apparently didn’t speak to anyone about his Christmas Eve shift. A co-worker told Mel that Kelvin looked pale and figured he had the flu. At work, Kelvin apparently never spoke of Los Angeles, or even the United States. Mel thought he disliked working four 12-hour shifts, which rotated so he never had the same days off consecutively.

Kelvin grew up in a tiny farming town called High Prairie, population 3,000. “What we call traffic is three vehicles at a stoplight,” said Mel. “A long wait is three people in line at the bank.”

During winter, you can hop on a snowmobile, head into the woods and roast hot dogs. During fishing season, feisty walleye--a type of perch--leap from clear lakes. Kelvin fished, skied, played golf and camped.

When his parents divorced 15 years ago, his father won custody and raised Kelvin and his brother Brandon, who is three years younger. When their mother died seven years ago, the boys’ youngest brother came to live with them and their father, a plumbing and heating contractor.

Mel believes that he was reasonably close to Kelvin. They’d talked when Kelvin broke up with his girlfriend, a woman he’d seen for almost two years. Mel supported Kelvin’s move from High Prairie to Calgary, thinking his boy needed to see more of the world.

Kelvin had been working for the sole Ford dealership in High Prairie, and was in his third year as a journeyman mechanic--a process that takes four years. His father thought the change would give him more experience.

So Kelvin moved to Calgary last June, changing apartments several times until he ended up sharing a place with a 20-year-old cousin. Kelvin urged Brandon to move to Calgary so they could hang out.

But Brandon, who works in a sawmill, didn’t have enough money. Kelvin spoke regularly with his brothers and father by phone.

Mel likes to think about the times they spent zipping through the countryside on snowmobiles. Or the fishing tournament that he and Kelvin entered when the boy was only 10. Kelvin won second place with his walleye on the second day, beating out 350 amateur and professional fishermen.

Now, Mel is loaded with guilt and worry. Had he, a single father, unwittingly burdened Kelvin with too much responsibility while the boy was growing up? Had he missed some telltale sign, some key remark that would have indicated wanderlust or mental frailty?

Law enforcement authorities are baffled. This is not, they say, the garden-variety missing-person case.

“He’s a really clean-cut kid, a down-home country boy,” said Constable Andy Hobor, Calgary Police Service’s missing persons coordinator.

“He’s a little naive, not very streetwise and very trusting,” said Dave Credland, a case supervisor with Child Find, an Alberta-based group that helps locate missing children.

On the plane ride to Los Angeles, the woman in the seat next to Mel struck up a conversation. She offered lodging for him and Brandon at her Pasadena home.

Mel accepted her hospitality a few days later. He is not a wealthy man. As it is, friends in High Prairie contributed money to help him pay for his visit. Los Angeles was bigger than he had imagined. It became clear that he wasn’t going to spot his son while walking along a sidewalk.

He and Brandon began putting up fliers bearing Kelvin’s picture on lampposts and in stores in the neighborhood where Kelvin’s car was parked. They also have put up posters in Venice Beach after hearing that it is a place popular with young people.

Mel doesn’t know what to think. He believes that if Kelvin had intended to move to Los Angeles, he would have arranged to have his tools shipped and checked out immigration procedures. He also would not have paid his January rent.

Mel has one message he wants his son to hear. He struggles in relaying it, his face reddening and his eyes flowing with tears:

“I just want to tell you that you’re loved and missed. That your father and your brothers are very concerned. Get in touch with us; let us know you are OK. We are your family. If you are running from something, we will stick by you. If you’ve decided to forge a new life, we just want to hear from you.”

He and Brandon plan to keep looking until they depart for home Thursday evening.

“Somebody has got to have seen something somewhere,” Mel said.

Kelvin stands 5 foot 11, weighs 130 pounds and is usually careful to put gel in his dark blond hair. His eyes are brown. Like his father and brother, he speaks with a distinctively Canadian accent.

Anyone with information about Kelvin Adrian is asked to call 1 (800) 387-7962.