Dead Man: 6 (i)

John discovers that he isn't alone after all...

 

 

 

John opened his mouth to answer, but there was nothing. Instead he just sat there, gaping at this new arrival. It wasn't just that someone had seen him and spoken to him.  It was who that someone was.

            He realised he was looking at himself. A doppelganger. Except... not quite.  He was about the same age, John thought.  But he had longer hair, curling around the ears and flopping slightly over his forehead and collar. The clothing was different as well. More casual than anything John had ever worn: a maroon sweatshirt over a bright green tee; faded jeans; basketball boots that were scuffed and worn.  His face, too, had what his mother used to call a 'lived-in' look - like it had been rounded and hardened by some kind of more rugged experience than John himself had known.  But it was still undoubtedly his face - which was now grinning at him in a playful way, like a joke was being played on him. 

            The man lifted his hand and patted John's shoulder - a friendly gesture, light and reassuring.

            "Surprise, eh? Didn't expect to see me, did you?"

            John shook his head.

            "I gotta tell you, you were a challenge to find, mate," the man said. "I didn't expect you to bugger off so quickly." He looked quickly around at the park. "I've never been here before, see - not this place. But something told me you'd want to be alone and quiet. I can understand that. I had an instinct you'd gone down that side street.  Then, when I saw the park, I thought 'That's where John will have taken himself.'  And lo and behold."

            He looked back at John then - still with that grin, creasing the lines at the corners of his eyes.

            "And to answer the question you're struggling to ask - yes.  I am you.  Or perhaps it's fairer to say an aspect of you. A you that could have been, but wasn't."

            John found some words at last.

            "You're what?"

            The man relaxed a bit against the back of the bench, driving his hands deep into his jeans pockets as he stared off into the distance.

           "It's hard to take in, mate, I know."  He nodded thoughtfully.  "Some old poet once wrote a poem about a road not taken.  That's the kind of idea.  I'm your road not taken... and you're mine."

            The man sighed, and something crossed his features - very gently, barely perceptibly, as when a breeze ripples across still water. It was a look that spoke to John of sadness, but with an understanding and wisdom in it. A hint of resignation, but tempered by acceptance, too. That was a look John knew well himself - even if he'd never seen himself make it before. He knew the sentiments that had shaped it. At that moment, he felt a connection with the man. He knew they were both thinking the same thing.

            "Robert Frost," John said.

            "Ah, that's the fellah.  We must've read it in school."

            John shook his head.

            "I read Frost at university. 'The Road Not Taken.'"

            The man held up his thumb.

            "Of course, John.  You went to university.  That was your road. That doesn’t stop me knowing the poem, though." He held out his hand then.  "Anyway... we haven't properly introduced each other.  I'm John, as you know... but you can call me Jack to avoid confusion.  Most people knew me by that."

            John took the hand and could feel the strength and firmness there as they shook.  It was good to make that contact again with another human being. Or whatever Jack was. Jack! John had never been called that in his life!

            "Firm handshake, eh?" Jack said.  "That's what dad always told us, wasn't it. 'You can always judge the quality of a man by the firmness of his handshake.' He knew a thing or two, didn't he, bless 'im."

            In spite of himself, John felt a smile break out across his face. 

            Jack picked up on it. "What was that other thing he always used to say?"

            "'You make of it what you make,'" John said.

            Jack nudged his arm.  "That's it. 'You make of it what you make'."

            They both sat quietly then for a few moments, thinking over that shared memory.

            "He could have made more of it, really," Jack said then.  "He had potential. He could have done things. Like with all of us, though... it's all about finding the opportunity.  Or creating it. Some do, some don't. And who knows, anyway?"

            On that note, he turned to look at John again.

            "Which is partly what this is all about, John. Why we're here right now, like this. As we will talk about... in a bit."

            "Is it just us, then?" John said. "Are we the only ones like this in... whatever this is?"

            Jack nodded.

            "I'm the only one who can see you, just as you're the only one who can see me.  To everyone else, living or dead, we are invisible as we are. We only exist to be seen by each other."

            John sat for moment and tried to digest this information.  There was something else he'd noticed about the man.

            "I can see that you are me in many ways. But there are differences. You're dressed differently. I've never had hair as long as that. And you... speak differently. You sound..."

            Jack winked at him, cutting him off.

            "Australian?" he said.

            "Yes."

            He chuckled.  "Actually, New Zealand. I went out there in my late teens.  Lived there for many years. Died there, too."

            "Hang on," John said. "I've never been to New Zealand."

           "And I've never been to university, mate. Like I said before... I'm a you that could have been, but wasn't."

            John frowned.  "What do you mean by that?  How can we be the same, but different at the same time?”

            Jack drew himself up again.  "Because we're the selves we would have become had we made a different decision at a crucial time.  Sixteen, to be precise.  Do you remember that?"

            John thought back.  Yes… it was a crucial time. All that future ahead.  What to do with it.

            Jack said "What was it at that time that you... I mean we were so stuck on?  What was that thing that we racked our brain over for weeks and weeks? We spoke to teachers. We spoke to mum and dad.  Even brother Harry, that tosser, had his own bit of input."

            John chuckled. "I was right about him, then."

            "We were," said Jack. "Even if he was our brother. How did the old fart turn out, by the way? You were the one who stayed closest."

            John shook his head. "He turned out as you might expect. Married a woman who took control of him. Sucked everything out of him. Her puppet now. He seems happy with his lot."

            "Well," said Jack, "His time will come, too. The other Harry will pay him a visit when he's ready.  Or he'll pay the other Harry a visit, whichever comes first."

            "I don't think there ever was another Harry," said John. "He seemed to know from the start where he was going and what he wanted to do with his life."

            Jack gave that thoughtful smile again.  "There's always another Harry, mate.  Just as there's always another Brian, or Paul, or Linda, or Grace, or whoever you care to know or name.   Even Mick Jagger said that if he hadn’t made it as a rock star, he’d have been a teacher.  Imagine, then, if he’d never bumped into Keith again on Dartford Railway Station.  Instead of The Rolling Stones, we might have had Mr Jagger’s Music class.  Every one of us has that other side."

            Jack looked out across the park again.  He nodded towards something and John followed his gaze.  The child was now back in his buggy and the woman was pushing him along towards the gate.  Behind them, the swing they'd just left was still swinging to and fro, slowly as the pendulum of a clock.

            "She has," Jack said. "He has, too... the little'un... though he's too young yet to know it.  A few more years to go for him."

            John turned back to him.

            "It's like the old yin and yang thing, you know?" Jack went on. "Those two things inside our heads.  Equal and opposite forces. It doesn't have to be good and bad, or right and wrong, or strong and weak. It can just be like this fork we meet in the road - like that poem.  One goes one way, one goes the other.  Both roads look good. Neither is the wrong road necessarily, either. They're just two roads.  And you can only take one of them - even if you kid yourself you can come back and take the other one some day.  Which one?  You see what I'm saying?"

            John nodded. "Yes.  Decisions."

            "Exactly," said Jack.  "Decisions. Shall I follow my head or my heart – that kind of thing, too."

            John thought again.

            "And that's where I was at sixteen," he said.

            "We were," Jack corrected again.

            "Alright... we were."

            "And what was that decision, mate?"

            It was obvious to John now.  How could he not have thought of it before.

            "Stay on at school... or take a job."

            "Exactly," said Jack.  "Simple as that.  Except it wasn't simple, was it."

            It wasn't a question. It was a time to reflect. Jack was right - it wasn't simple. He remembered the weeks of agonising. The constant questioning. The way he'd been pulled this way and that - not just by his own brain, but by what others were saying. The teachers who were trying to encourage him to stay on and do his A levels, because he was bright and had strong potential.  Then Harry - already at work and earning - telling him he should get a job, make a career, head on up the ladder. Quit dawdling before it was too late to start.  Harry - the one with the big ideas about being a branch manager by his early twenties, buying a new car, his first house, getting all the things that mum and dad had never had, doing something to make them proud.  Harry, for whom it was always money and status and progress.

            "You've got all the education you need for that," he'd say.  "Look at me. I didn't get your qualifications, but I'm doing alright for myself.  You don't need education to get on in the world."

            Mum and dad were more neutral on it - though mum was more for education, if anything.  The chance she’d had, but turned down... to get married and raise a family. The need to find work, too.  The potential that she wasn't able to realise - or, by the time she could have done something, it was too late to realise.  The fire wasn't there any more.  Just the regrets.  Dad just wanted him to do what he wanted to do - whatever it was that he wanted to do, because John couldn’t decide.  All the 'what ifs?’ that kept spinning around in his head - restless days and sleepless nights of them, like balls spinning around in a lottery machine. 

            He felt Jack's hand on his arm again.

            "You're seeing it now, mate, aren't you."

            "Yes," John said.  "What do I do for the best?  And how will I know it's for the best? And what if I make the wrong decision?  And how will I know, anyway?"

            "You got it right there!" Jack said. "And do you remember what happened, in the end? What made the casting vote?"

            John thought again.

            "It was an accident, really," he said, at last.  "A split-second decision over something.  That simple thing.  Turning one way instead of the other." His head dropped as he remembered.  "Just like this morning, at that crossing.  Looking one way and not the other.  Looking the wrong way, in that case."

            "That's it," said Jack.  "And that split-second you mentioned..." He nibbled on his lower lip a moment. "That split-second made another split.  The one that sent you one way… and me the other."

(to be continued)  https://www.abctales.com/story/harryc/dead-man-6-ii