Doppelganger (8 page)

Not long after that I saw headlights flash over the walls of my room. I glanced out the window. Barry was backing out in a real hurry, practically screeching his tires as he tore off down the street.

I muted the TV. The house was quiet, but when I put my ear up to the wall, I could hear Echo next door whimpering. I almost went in there to see how she was, but I couldn't bring myself to face her. I was the one he was really mad at, not her.

So instead, I just lay on the bed with the remote in my hand and drifted through the channels, emerging an hour later when I headed to the bathroom for some aspirin. My headache had come back.

The house was quiet. Barry hadn't returned yet, and Sheila had gone to bed early. Echo's door was open, her room empty. I looked for her in the living room, but she wasn't there, either. Then, on my way into the kitchen, I saw the basement door was open. Going over to it, I could hear Echo's voice coming from below and crept down a few steps to see what she was up to.

“Be careful, Mrs. Weatherby,” I heard her say. “You don't want to spill, now.”

I peeked down to see a glow in the corner of the cellar. It was coming from the lamp behind the hanging sheets. Echo was in that little room. I could see her silhouette play across the sheet as she poured imaginary tea for the animals seated at her table. For the next fifteen minutes, I watched that curtain, listening to Echo as she spoke in this funny little voice to her stuffed rabbits and bears. It was kind of weird to hear a ten-year-old talking that way. It was like watching one of those kids' shows that take place in a faraway land where everything is sunny and green. I know they're just make-believe places, but Echo acted like she was really there, as if everything that had happened earlier was forgotten.

I went back to my room and shut the door. I turned to the mirror and saw Chris looking back at me, his face dark and mournful. I'd never realized how much he looked like Barry until now. For a second I almost expected to see the doppelganger eyes pop out. I almost wished they would have.

“You were right,” I said to the reflection. “The world is a crappy place.”

Seeing the look on his face, I couldn't help but think that maybe he was better off in the culvert. It didn't make me feel any better.

 

There was a knock on the door. I opened my eyes and looked at the clock. It was half past noon. I'd been asleep for over fourteen hours.

“Yeah,” I called out.

Barry stuck his head in. “Get dressed,” he said. He seemed excited about something.

“What's going on?” I said, sitting up.

“It's Sunday. What do you think?”

“Church?” I said.

“Funny. Just get your ass out of bed. The game's going to start pretty soon.”

He left and I fell back onto Chris's bed. The game. This whole thing was a game. A sick one.

I took my time getting up. Now and then I could hear Barry holler to me. He sounded all chipper. When I finally stumbled out to the living room, I noticed Echo's door was closed and Sheila had gone to work. Barry was on the couch, smoking a cigarette, watching TV with the volume turned up insanely loud.

More football.

Seeing me, he moved over to make a spot on the couch. I glanced around, trying to think of a way to get out of this, but he seemed pretty intent on my joining him, so I sat down. He opened a can of beer and handed it to me. I just sort of looked at him.

“Come on, take it,” he said.

“No thanks.”

“What's the matter? Too good to have a beer with your old man now?”

“You really think I should?”

“What the hell's gotten into you? It's Sunday.”

“Right,” I said, “Sunday.”

I took the can, had a sip, and tried not to look too disgusted.

And that's how I spent my afternoon—sitting next to
that psycho on the couch, watching football, listening to him shout at the TV, his voice louder with every beer. The worst part about the whole thing was that—this is so bad, I can hardly say it—at first all I could think about was the night before, imagining him slapping Echo around in her room, but then I started to forget about it. Barry would jump up every time there was a big play, a smile on his face. And then he'd turn to me and clap me on the shoulder or sort of punch me in the arm like Steve and the other guys did. And pretty soon I was jumping up and down too, laughing and punching him back. There we were, side by side, drinking beer, father and son, just a couple of guys. The whole scene was too weird for words.

Then Echo came out of her room.

As soon as I heard her door open, I shrank down into the couch. For me the party was over.

“Echo, sweetie, get me a beer,” Barry called out, seeing her go into the kitchen. She came back a minute later with two.

“Here, Daddy,” she said, but she didn't smile.

Neither did I.

“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.”