Doppelganger

chapter EIGHT

“Okay, people, listen up,” Ms. Simpson said. The bell was about to ring and our seventh-period class was getting fidgety. “Don’t forget to read the rest of act three tonight, starting with the banquet scene—the climax of the play. This is where Macbeth comes face-to-face with his crimes. Literally.”

The bell rang and everyone sprang up. Everyone except me.

I’d stayed in my room after supper reading Macbeth, starting from the beginning right through to the end of act three. As depressing and horrible as the story was, it beat watching yet another football game with Barry. Only problem was, I’d been thinking about the play ever since. I even dreamed about it last night. I dreamed that I was Macbeth following that glowing dagger down the hall, and I was the one stealing into Duncan’s chamber. Only it wasn’t Duncan I stabbed to death, it was Chris, and there was Amber next to me, watching, both of us splattered in blood.



It made me sad to think about what Macbeth had done to himself. All that killing—the poor guy just wasn’t cut out for it. Not when it came to offing the people close to him, at least. On the battlefield up against random soldiers—that was a different story. There he could handle it. There it was okay.

I wondered which area I fell under. On the one hand, Chris had attacked me first, and the old man was pretty much a goner already. Besides, I hadn’t known either one of them. On the other hand, I couldn’t help feeling a little bit like Macbeth, as if somehow I’d lost a part of myself in the killing. And even though I didn’t know Chris at the time, I felt like I did now. Too well.

But that wasn’t the only thing bothering me now. There was another question on my mind. It occurred to me in class as we read through act three, but it had been in the back of my mind ever since Saturday night when Barry had lost it and I’d watched Sheila stand by and do nothing.

“What is it, Chris?”

I looked up to see Ms. Simpson standing over me.

“Nothing,” I said. I started gathering my books, then stopped. “Well,” I said. “We were talking today about Macbeth killing his best friend, and why he did it, and his soliloquy and all, but there’s one thing I still don’t understand.”

“Go ahead,” she said. She sat down in the desk next to me and crossed her legs. I could smell her perfume from where I was sitting.

“Lady Macbeth is supposed to have all this power over her husband. So why didn’t she stop him?” I asked.



“From killing Banquo? She didn’t know. Remember we talked about how Macbeth struck off on his own, kept her out of the loop.”

“Yeah, but she did know. Before the scene with Banquo and the murderers, Macbeth more or less comes right out and tells her. You know, ‘there shall be done a deed of dreadful note,’ and that whole thing. And she never says a word.”

“Okay, fair enough. And you think she should have?”

“Well, I don’t know. Her husband’s about to hurt someone close to him, kill him even, and she just stands back and lets it happen. Shouldn’t she have at least tried to tell him it was a bad idea?”

“Maybe the fact that she doesn’t says something about her. Maybe that’s her weakness.”

“I guess. But what are you supposed to do with someone like that?”

“I’m not sure I follow you,” she said.

“Well, say you know someone who isn’t stopping a person close to them from hurting other people. What are you supposed to do?”

She paused and stared at me sort of intently, like she was searching for something. It made me nervous.

“Chris,” she said, “is there something you want to talk about?”

“Not really,” I said.

“’Cause you can if you want.” She smiled.

I smiled back. “I’m good.”

“Okay. Well, in that case, to answer your question, I’d have to say that you have a few options. You could do nothing, of course. Or you could confront the person, encourage them to step up and stop whatever’s going on from continuing.”

“What if they won’t?”

“There’s always that chance. Maybe they can’t. Or maybe they’ve tried and the other person keeps on hurting people anyway.”

“So in other words, forget about it.”

“Of course not. Just don’t be disappointed if things don’t work out. People can be weak.”

They sure can, I thought.

“There’s another option, you know. You could always try confronting the other person yourself. Maybe you can stop what’s going on.”

“Right,” I said. I stood up. She stayed sitting at the desk, a smile, on her face. It was a nice smile, but it had an edge of worry to it. I wasn’t used to a smile like that.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Well, I’m just glad to see you’re taking Shakespeare to heart. You didn’t seem that interested in what we studied before, to be honest.”

“What can I say. It’s Shakespeare, right?”

“Right.” She laughed.

“See you tomorrow,” I said. I left and headed for practice.

Things with the team were better than they’d been on Saturday after the game. Josh, Steve, and a few of the other guys joked around with me in the locker room, but everyone still acted a little cold toward me, like they were pulling away somehow. I figured it was probably for the best, all things considered.

I went through practice sort of numb. Coach spent the whole first part lecturing us about our loss, rambling on about commitment and effort and all that crap. I barely paid attention. This time I wasn’t thinking about Amber. I’d seen her at lunch, but only in passing. As far as I could tell, things were pretty much over.

I had other things on my mind too. My conversation with Ms. Simpson had gotten me thinking more about Barry and Sheila and Echo. I just didn’t understand why Sheila would stand by and let Barry hurt Echo any more than I could understand why Barry would hurt Echo to begin with. In fact, I understood it less. In some ways Sheila reminded me of my own mother—a cold fish. But there was a toughness to my mother that Sheila didn’t have. My mother had an edge that could cut sharper than any knife. Sheila may have had an edge once upon a time, but it was blunt now. I suppose living with Barry would be enough to dull anyone. Maybe that’s why she stood by and did nothing—Sheila was just too weak, like Ms. Simpson said.

And what about me? Why didn’t I just take Barry on myself, like Ms. Simpson had suggested? While we did laps around the practice field and ran drills, I kept asking myself the very question. At first I figured I was just scared. After all, I was a coward—at least as far as I could tell. But that wasn’t it. Not completely. Underneath it all, I felt like it wasn’t my place. I was just a visitor, a stranger in their midst, no matter who I might look like. I mean, what made me think I could come along and try to change anything about the Parkers? Doppelgangers aren’t supposed to change the world; we’re just supposed to live in it. That’s what my mother always told me, anyway. And that’s what I tried to tell myself as I took the bus home from practice.

Along the way, the bus paused before a railroad crossing to listen for oncoming trains. I looked through the window and saw the tracks stretching into the distance on their way out of town. Not too far down those tracks was the culvert. I wondered how Chris was doing in there. I shivered imagining what he must look like by now.

Poor kid. I’d told him that night when I stuck him in there that I’d try not to screw things up. Now, five days later, I couldn’t tell if I was keeping my promise. Then again, things were so screwed up already, I wasn’t sure if I could really make them any worse. All I could do was make them bad in a different way.

Which was probably what I’d do if I confronted Barry. Who knew—maybe what had happened to Echo was an isolated incident. Maybe Barry felt guilty enough to make sure what had happened on Saturday would never happen again. But somehow the look on Sheila’s face had told me that wasn’t true. As the bus crossed over the tracks and headed on, I figured I’d just have to wait and see.



I didn’t have to wait long. Only three days.

It was Thursday. I’d just gotten home after a grueling practice. The game against Springfield was on Saturday and everyone was freaking out, especially the coaches. Bakersville and Springfield had this big rivalry going way back, and practically the entire population of both towns turned out for “the big game” every year. It was even more important than making the play-offs. By the time Steve dropped me off, I was pretty beat and looking forward to a hot meal, a shower, and then bed, but as soon as I walked in the door, I could tell something was wrong.

Things had been pretty quiet all week. Barry had been subdued, even going out of his way to be nice, particularly to Echo, and after a couple days I started to think that things were better. I was ready to forget about it. I mean, I’d almost allowed myself to forget about Chris, about what I’d done to him. It’s like I was Chris. Mother would have been proud.

The only time I faltered was when I’d see his face in the mirror. It wasn’t so much the fear of seeing those monster eyes again. Though it gnawed at me a little, I had enough trouble worrying about the things I could control. It had more to do with seeing Chris. It never failed to catch me off guard—to see him staring back at me like that, with an accusing look, even though it was my face now. So I took the mirror off the wall in my room and stuck it in the closet next to the pornos.

Things were even starting to get better with Amber. By Tuesday I’d managed to get her to talk to me a few times, and on Wednesday she even smiled at lunch when I made a joke. Of course, there were kids around, so who knows if she was faking it, but it was a start. She was still pretty cold, but I was going out of my way to be as nice as possible. Just like Barry.

But that Thursday when I walked in the door, the first thing I noticed was the smell of booze. It wasn’t beer—it was whiskey. That goddam smell was haunting me. I poked my head in the living room. Sure enough, there was Barry, wreathed in cigarette smoke, lying back on the sofa watching TV with a butt in one hand and a glass in the other. I looked at my watch—it wasn’t even five. He was home early.



I slipped into my room, dropped off my books and clothes, and headed back out to the kitchen. Echo’s door was open when I went by, and I could see her sitting on her bed, reading. She glanced up and gave me a quick, nervous look when I paused in the doorway, then went back to her book.

“What’s Dad doing home?” I asked, coming into the kitchen.

Sheila was at the sink, peeling potatoes. As soon as I opened my mouth, I could see her stiffen.

“He was here when I got home a half hour ago. Trouble at work. Trouble with Mitch.”

“The boss?” I said. Uh-oh. “Did he get fired?”

“No,” she muttered. “But that’s about all I know.”

I could tell she didn’t want to talk about it, and she wanted me to talk about it even less.

“Just let me know when it’s time for supper,” I said, and headed back to my room. The next hour dragged by.

I tried reading Macbeth for a while, but it made me even more anxious. First Macbeth goes to the three witches to find out about his future. They conjure up three apparitions who each give him a prophecy. The prophecies make Macbeth feel safe, but any idiot can see he’s headed for trouble, especially when he orders that Macduff’s entire family be massacred. The whole thing is creepy and bizarre. But the next scene is even worse. Lady Macduff is all upset about her husband taking off to escape Macbeth, and so Ross, one of the lords, tries to calm her down. Then he leaves, and she jokes around with her son. Even in the middle of all this trouble, she still keeps her sense of humor. Then Macbeth’s goons show up. At that point, I closed the book—I knew what they were there for.

I watched the news instead. Big pick-me-up there. The police were still trying to figure out who was behind the killing of that woman from Springfield. They hadn’t found her Subaru yet and didn’t really have any leads. Good luck with that, I thought. I knew how those things worked. The rest was more of the same—terrorist attacks, bank robberies, a factory explosion, just a typical day. Oh yeah, and some dog that had gotten itself stranded in a flood got saved. Big deal. Like that made everything else better.

There was a knock on my door.

“It’s time,” Echo said, looking in.

“Right,” I said. I got up and followed her to the table.

Barry was in prime form. As we all sat down for a meal of mashed potatoes (apparently the Parkers had mashed potatoes every night) and frozen fried chicken, he didn’t waste any time launching into a sloppy rant against Mitch, who he pretty much just referred to as “that bastard.”

Apparently Barry had gotten into a fight with “that bastard” and had been sent home early—not before, of course, making a pit stop at the liquor store. None of us really said much throughout all this, though Sheila made feeble attempts to tone him down now and then.

Listening to the whole thing, I felt more embarrassed for Barry than afraid. At one point he practically broke down. Desperation flowed from him, tainting everything.

“I tell you, Sheila, he just doesn’t understand,” he said.

“Mmm,” Sheila agreed.

“I’m just trying to make things better there. That’s all I’ve ever tried to do.”

“I know, dear.”



“I have a system, goddamit!”

“I remember you telling me. It’s a good system.”

“Damn right it is. Only that bastard is too much of a numbskull to realize it. And then he gets pissed off at me because he’s too stupid to understand.”

“He certainly is.”

“That’s what I tried telling him today.”

“Oh dear,” Sheila murmured.

“And what does he do?” Barry went on, oblivious. “He sends me home. Says he’s going to dock my pay. Says I’m on thin ice. Like I give a shit.”

But I could tell he did. And he was worried. And that’s what he was really pissed off about.

Echo could tell too. “May I be excused?” she whispered while Barry paused to take a breath and another swig of his drink. He’d barely touched his food. Neither had she.

“Sure, Echo,” Sheila jumped in.

“Wait,” Barry barked.

Echo, who had just started to stand up, froze.

Oh God, here we go, I thought. Looking at the faces of Sheila and Echo, I could see they were thinking the same thing.

“You didn’t hardly eat a goddam bite,” he said, looking at Echo’s plate

“I’m not hungry,” she said. From the looks of things, none of us were.

Barry frowned. I could see the little drunken wheels turning in his head, trying to decide where or how to direct his anger. Sheila seized the opportunity to step in.

“Go ahead, sweetie,” she said. She turned to Barry. “Echo’s got a lot of homework for tomorrow. A big project. I told her before dinner started she could be excused early.”

Good one, Sheila, I thought.

“Fine,” Barry growled, and the rest of us sort of breathed a sigh of relief.

“Thanks, Mom,” Echo said, and finished standing up, bumping her plate in the process. The plate jumped forward and collided with her full glass of milk. I watched the whole thing unfold, a little chain reaction of disaster. It was as if everything immediately went into slow motion, just like on TV, with the glass tumbling over and a cascade of milk washing across the table and spilling into Barry’s lap. For a second after it happened, we all stopped and stared.

Then, the explosion.

Barry jumped up, dripping milk from the waist down.

“You little brat,” he yelled, “you did that on purpose!”

“No!” Echo cried, stepping back as both Sheila and I froze at the table.

“Goddamit!” Barry cried, wiping at his pants with a napkin. It was a futile gesture—he was already soaked through—and he was just sober enough to realize it. He threw the napkin aside, picked up his plate, and slammed it down on the table, where it shattered into a dozen pieces.

Echo, meanwhile, had slipped around the table and was almost out of the kitchen when Barry spotted her. Before I could do anything to distract him, he jumped toward her.

“Get back here and clean this up,” he shouted as she darted away.

Suddenly it was Saturday night all over again. There was Barry, banging on her door, threatening. Then, from the other room, I could hear the door opening and slamming, and muffled shouts and Echo crying. Once again Poppy began tearing around the house, yelping. And there was Sheila, at the table with that deadened look, picking up the pieces of a broken plate.

“Go in there,” I hissed.

She looked up at me with a sort of dazed expression.

“What do you mean?” she said.

“Do something.”

She sort of shook her head a little, like she was waking up from a dream. She glanced toward the hallway, toward Echo’s room.

“Oh,” she said. “Oh.”

Then she went back to gathering pieces of plate, her eyes down at the table.

“Mom!” I shouted. She started and finally looked up at me. I could see resentment in her eyes. I had always thought Chris looked like Barry, but suddenly I could see a little bit of her in him too.

“He’s just in one of his phases. It’ll pass,” she said. “You should know,” she added, and looked away.

A slow, silent minute passed. I didn’t know what to say. All I could do was sit there and stare.

“What do you want me to do?” she suddenly shouted, even though I hadn’t said anything. Her eyes began to well up. “Echo’s tough. Just like you.”

“Listen to her,” I said. Echo was still crying.

Sheila was shaking now. I could hear the pieces of ceramics rattle as she carried them to the sink. She came back to the table with a washcloth. She started wiping up the milk and picked up the tipped glass. It broke in two as she lifted it. She held the bottom piece up before her, looking at it in amazement.

“Everything breaks around here,” she said, choking back a sob. “I can’t have anything nice.”

She dropped the glass back onto the table. I watched as it rolled across and come to a stop in front of me.

Echo had stopped crying, but Barry was still yelling like crazy. I looked up at Sheila. Her eyes were closed. She was squeezing the washcloth, and milk was dripping between her fingers and onto the floor. Finally she threw the washcloth down and left the kitchen. A moment later I heard her bedroom door slam.

That’s it, I thought. If she doesn’t care, then neither do I. I jumped up from the table, grabbed my jacket, and took off.

The days were getting shorter, and it was already starting to get dark. The streetlights were humming to life in the dusk, and the air was sharp with cold and the smell of fallen leaves. It felt good to breathe it in, to be out of that house, that cramped, suffocating box.

It had been nearly a month since my mother kicked me out into the human world. But I felt like I understood them less now than I ever had before in my cabin on the mountain, watching the world from a distance. Things were messier the closer you got. All that emotion, all that intensity. And it wasn’t just the Parkers—Amber, her parents, Coach, all the kids at school, everybody. It made me dizzy just thinking about it. Worst of all, I still had the whole rest of my life to have to deal with this kind of stuff. Today in Bakersville, tomorrow somewhere else. Somehow I had the feeling that I’d never get it right, never figure out how to make it. My mother was right—I was an embarrassment. A loser.

Anyway, I just started walking, and before I knew it, I was walking toward the edge of town. I figured I’d keep going. I really didn’t see how I could go back to the Parkers’. Besides, I couldn’t be Chris forever. I’d have to leave at some point. It had been over a week now, and I hadn’t felt any problems with the form, but who knew how long that would last?

But then I tried imagining what my leaving would do to the family. I mean, in the middle of everything else, to have their son disappear, only to turn up dead? They were already falling apart. Wouldn’t this just be the final blow? I didn’t care so much about Barry or Sheila, but what would happen to Echo? On the other hand, maybe a death in the family was just the thing they needed—something to sort of pull them together. They would all stop and realize what was really important, just like in all those shows on TV. They would be a whole new family. Right?

Either way, I won’t be around to find out, I thought as I neared the far side of town.

A pair of headlights came up from behind, casting my shadow out in front of me. I watched it as I walked along, all stretched and thin like a doppelganger. There I am, I thought, seeing the shadow weave and shift as the headlights drew nearer.

The car slowed down as it came closer. A moment later, just before it passed me, it sped up again. I looked up as it drove away.

It was Amber. Or her car, at least.

I froze and watched her disappear around the corner. Guess I won’t get to say good-bye, I thought. Then again, considering she’d seen me and hadn’t stopped, it probably didn’t matter much. I felt kind of sad anyway, which was stupid—she wasn’t even really my girlfriend. She only thought she was. And even that was up in the air.

No sooner had I started walking again than another pair of lights appeared, this time heading toward me. She’d come back.

She pulled over, and I went around to the driver’s side. She looked at me for a moment before rolling down the window.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Walking,” I said.

“Duh,” she said. “I mean, what for?”

“Just wanted to,” I replied. “It’s a nice night.”

Stupid, I know, but what was I supposed to say? “I didn’t feel like listening to my kid sister who’s not really my kid sister get the crap beat out of her by her drunken father while her brain-dead mother stood by and did the dishes. Oh, and by the way, I’m disappearing for good. My body will probably turn up in the spring when some jerk takes his dog for a walk on the railroad tracks outside of town.”

“Since when do you do that kind of thing?” she said, her brow crinkling.

I shrugged. “First time for everything,” I said.

“Right,” she said. I think she could tell I didn’t want to talk about it. She turned off the engine. A long silence passed. She seemed to be waiting for something, but I wasn’t sure what.

“So what are you doing?” I asked.

“I just took Christine home from practice.”



“You guys went even later than we did,” I said.

She snorted. “Got to get ready for the ‘big game,’” she said. “Half-time show and all that. Remember, we’re hosting this year.”

“Oh yeah,” I said.

“I hate cheerleading.” She sighed. “I’ve always hated it.”

“Then why don’t you quit?” I said without really thinking.

Her head jerked up, and she gave me a kind of funny look.

“What are you on?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, come on,” she said. “Something’s going on. For the last week, it’s like…” She paused, and my heart started pounding. “You’re just different, that’s all.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” I asked.

She didn’t say anything for a moment.

“You need a ride?” she said at last.

“No thanks,” I said. I looked down to where the road disappeared around the corner. In the distance I could hear the blare of a horn as a freight train made its way through town.

“Come on, get in,” she said. “I’ll take you home.”

She glanced up at me. It was just for a second, but it was enough. The coldness, the anger, all of it was gone, and for the briefest moment she looked like she did in that photograph, the one I’d found tucked in Chris’s birthday card, maybe even more welcoming. My heart started pounding again and I felt funny, sort of dizzy.

“Okay,” I said.

She nodded. The warmth had faded now, the wall was back.



I went around the front and got in, and we drove off.

“So you ready for Saturday?” she asked.

“I guess,” I said. Really I was dreading it. I’d made it through a week of practices, but I had no idea what would happen to me when the real thing came. And the fact that it was the “big game” only made matters worse.

“It’s all you’ve been talking about since school started.”

“I know,” I said.

“Didn’t like getting benched, huh?”

“Who does?” I replied.

A few minutes went by. She seemed sort of squirmy as we drove along. At least she wasn’t driving a hundred miles an hour like last time.

“So you really think I should quit cheerleading?” she asked.

“If that’s what you want. I mean, if you don’t really like it, why not?”

She gave a nervous laugh. “God, my parents would kill me. Not to mention my friends.”

“No they wouldn’t.”

“Yes, they would.” She laughed again. “Besides, people would talk. About us.”

“What do you mean?”

“Star linebacker, head cheerleader—the dynamic duo. You know, all that Ken and Barbie stuff. God, I hate that crap.”

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t, then,” I said. I was starting to feel confused, like I couldn’t tell what I was supposed to say.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” she said, nodding. But she still seemed pretty wound up.



We pulled into the driveway. Barry’s car was gone. I breathed a sigh of relief. She turned off the lights, and we sat for a moment in the dark.

“Want me to come in?” she said.

That was the last thing I wanted. Not that I didn’t want to spend more time with her, but I had no idea what the scene would be like in there.

“Now’s not the best time,” I said. “I’ve got a big test tomorrow. Need to study.” I could tell my voice sounded funny.

So could she. “Right,” she said. She looked over at me. “See you tomorrow.”

“Okay,” I said. I started to open the door, then stopped. “So you want to do something tomorrow night?” I said.

“Sleepover at Tammy’s,” she said.

“Oh.”

“Besides, you’re going out with the guys. The usual pregame bash, right?”

“That’s right,” I said, “I forgot.”

She smiled. For the first time, a real smile just for me. “Just stay out of trouble, okay?”

“I’ll try,” I said. I closed the door and stood back. I watched her drive away and didn’t turn until she was out of sight. And that’s when I knew that I was in love. To this day, it’s the best and worst thing that’s ever happened to me.