A Cabinet of Curiosity

by Bradford Morrow

  Soon it is established: both (Matt) Smith and (Matthew) Smith live in San Rafael, (Matt) Smith on Buena Vista Street and (Matthew) Smith on Solano Street; each was born in San Rafael on July 24, 1969; the names of their parents are identical—“Cameron and Joellen Smith.”

  Coincidence? Not very likely.

  And yet—what else, but coincidence?

  In his shock, disorientation (Matt) Smith yet has time for a petty satisfaction—Buena Vista is a much more elegant street than Solano, more expensive houses, quieter neighborhood. Whoever (Matthew) Smith is, or is presuming to be, he is less affluent than (Matt) Smith as well as heavier, slack jowled.

  “Guess we must be related? Somehow. …”

  “Must be. Yes.”

  “Except—I’ve never heard of you before. …”

  “—never heard of you before.”

  “Jesus!”—whistling thinly through his teeth.

  As (Matthew) Smith speaks, (Matt) Smith glances about the terrace at other tables. Trying to get his bearings. (Is the floor shifting? No.) There is the hostess in her striking wraparound skirt, there is the (white) kid with the skimpy beard and ghastly dreadlocks tumbling down his back. It’s a warm, balmy June day, hazy sky like a smudged watercolor. Sfumato—is that the technical term? Bizarre that the other diners, mostly women, are chattering companionably together oblivious of (Matt) Smith and (Matthew) Smith in their midst, each as confounded by the other’s existence as by the appearance of a basilisk. Covertly glancing at each other, fascinated, repelled.

  (Matt) Smith tries to speak, has to clear his throat: “Well! What’re the odds?”

  (Matthew) Smith coughs, laughs: “… fucking coincidence. …”

  Embarrassment settles between them. Sudden shyness.

  “D’you think …”

  “Do you think …”

  “Some sort of—genetic …”

  “Orphans, from the same family? Adopted—”

  “But I’m not—adopted. …”

  “I’m not. At least I think so. …”

  “I think so too. I know so.”

  The men are excited, breathless. Wanting to laugh and yet each feels threatened, endangered. (Matt) Smith worries that it is some sort of bullying contest; the rougher and less civilized man will triumph.

  But no, not possible. Not on the terrace of the Purple Onion.

  (Matt) Smith notices that (Matthew) Smith has been reading a magazine while waiting for Kizer—looks like Scientific American. (This too is an obscure coincidence, for (Matt) Smith subscribed to Scientific American as a brainy high-school kid years ago. But he has long since allowed the subscription to lapse.) Seeing that (Matt) Smith has noticed the magazine, (Matthew) Smith says with an embarrassed shrug: “It’s a paradox how we ‘see’ objects with our eyes—objects and one another—yet with a microscope we ‘see’ a very different micro reality, magnified. Which is ‘real’? Is one ‘more real’ than the other?”

  Why, (Matthew) Smith has intellectual pretensions! (Matt) Smith resents him all the more.

  “We see what we want to see.”

  “We see what we’ve been told to see.”

  “What we’ve been told we want to see—that’s what we ‘see.’”

  (Matt) Smith and (Matthew) Smith laugh together, guardedly. Shyly glancing at each other.

  (Matt) Smith concedes: “There’s a natural bias in humankind toward the unexamined. For what we think to be common experience. We have to suppress—censor—what contradicts our sense of the ‘real.’ Otherwise—”

  “Of course! ‘Otherwise.’”

  There is a pause. The men reconsider. (Matt) Smith still finds the situation unnerving but is beginning to feel that, yes, he might master it, control it, come out on top somehow with an anecdote Kizer will find wonderfully entertaining when (Matt) Smith recounts it to him.

  Not very politely, in fact rudely, (Matthew) Smith snaps his fingers at the dreadlocked waiter, who has been hovering nearby in the hope that, at last, the men have orders for him. “Hey? Over here? Drinks for both of us.”

  (Matt) Smith orders a pomegranate-lemon spritzer. Not with much enthusiasm but the spritzer seems the most palatable drink at the Purple Onion. (Matthew) Smith orders a Bloody Mary.

  “Bloody Mary? Here? They don’t serve Bloody Marys here.”

  “Of course they serve Bloody Marys here. Why’d we come here, if they didn’t? Ask Kizer.”

  “Kizer doesn’t drink at lunch. …”

  “Kizer certainly drinks at lunch. And drinks are served here.” (Matthew) Smith appeals to the dreadlocked waiter, who laughs politely as if (Matthew) Smith has said something witty. Indeed, on the table is a drinks list.

  Drinks at the Purple Onion Café? Since when? (Matt) Smith is amazed.

  “Since they reopened. After the renovation. You must have heard, since you live in San Rafael, that a suicide bomber set off a homemade bomb here last fall?”

  (Matt) Smith has not heard. Or rather, (Matt) Smith has heard, but—“That was just a ridiculous rumor, Matthew. It never happened.”

  His heart trips. Just slightly. Calling the other Matthew.

  “Certainly it happened.”

  “No. Certainly it did not.”

  “Look, I live in this town. The bombing was big news. Three people died plus the teenaged bomber. Half the restaurant collapsed; they had to rebuild. It just opened again—when?—in March. I met Kizer for lunch, we sat on the terrace and talked about how strange it felt, to be having lunch here—where people had died. …”

  Lunch with Kizer? Here? Renovation? (Matt) Smith doubts this.

  “You can see by the wisteria—there hasn’t been any damage. Those trees by the parking lot … The Purple Onion was repainted, I think, and some alterations were made, but—not …” (Matt) Smith begins to stammer, this is so absurd. Suicide bombing! Purple Onion! “Someone played a prank, called in a bomb threat, but it turned out to be a hoax. The café was evacuated; in fact, Kizer and I were supposed to meet for lunch that day but the area was cordoned off. False bomb threats were called in to the high school and the hospital too, that day. …”

  (Matthew) Smith retorts: “Those bomb threats came after the bomb at the Purple Onion. There was an actual bomb here. A kid from the neighborhood, high-school dropout, he’d made a bomb at home and just walked over here with it.”

  No, no! Nothing remotely like that happened. (Matt) Smith is laughing, frustrated. Trying to remain calm in the face of the other’s obstinacy as he has had to do, as a rational person, through much of his life. “It was a stupid prank some high-school kids played to get one of their classmates in trouble. This poor kid, innocent kid, he’d been bullied mercilessly. …” (Matt) Smith’s voice is shaking. Recalling those terrible days when Lisa called him in his office sobbing on the phone. Trevor refuses to go to school. He has locked himself in the bathroom. I am so afraid he will hurt himself. … Why can’t you come home!

  (Matthew) Smith continues to insist that, yes, there was a suicide bomb here. Asks the dreadlocked waiter, who grimaces, smiles nervously, says, yes, he guesses so, last year, before he’d moved to San Rafael and started working here, yes, there was said to have been a suicide bombing. Here.

  (Matt) Smith shakes his head. Ridiculous! His face is hot with indignation but damned if he will continue this fatuous exchange.

  It is clear that (Matthew) Smith is a damaged personality. The kind of person who pursues a subject when it is evident that others do not wish to continue. Gratified, vindicated, (Matthew) Smith yet takes a new tact, lowering his (nasal, maddening) voice in a way to suggest sympathy, pity.

  “I know, Matt—you don’t want to think about it. That is your prerogative. That is only natural. You and your wife—I would imagine—whoever she is—would rather—rather not.” But now (Matthew) Smith has gone too far, uttering the words your wife.

  “And you? Do you have a wife?” (Matt) Smith sneers.

  Barely can (Matt) Smith bring himself to
look at (Matthew) Smith’s coarse, asymmetrical face. Barely, to acknowledge the watery eyes just visible behind smudged olive-tinted lenses.

  “I have an—ex-wife.”

  “Ah. I see. Ex.”

  “You don’t ‘see,’ I think.” Now (Matthew) Smith’s voice is quavering, indignant. (Matthew) Smith glances about the terrace with an angry smile. (Where the hell is his drink? How long have they been waiting?)

  Next question should be, what is the ex-wife’s name? But (Matt) Smith refuses to ask this question, just yet.

  4.

  Damn Kizer! Now forty-five minutes late.

  And no call from him, no explanation or apology.

  At least their drinks have been brought by the dreadlocked waiter: a Bloody Mary for each.

  (Matt) Smith doesn’t recall ordering a Bloody Mary but, hey, this is fine. Tomato juice for physical well-being, vodka for confidence.

  “We might as well order our lunches too. What d’you think?” (Matthew) Smith swallows a large mouthful of the neon-red drink.

  Not waiting for (Matt) Smith to join him as he drinks. Not suggesting a toast to their having, so oddly, met. (Matt) Smith feels just slightly rejected by the other, more blustery man in a rumpled shirt of no distinction while he, (Matt) Smith, makes it a point to wear a freshly laundered shirt each day, often a tattersall, on principle.

  Never would (Matt) Smith wear such old, ugly sandals as (Matthew) Smith is wearing! Never would he expose ugly, misshapen toes, discolored toenails. His teenaged children would be utterly mortified by him. His wife would recoil in dismay, disgust. And (Matt) Smith thinks too well of himself: his masculine pride.

  Seeing again the scattering of minuscule acne scars on (Matthew) Smith’s forehead, (Matt) Smith feels a surge of satisfaction. He was spared such petty indignities in high school where appearances matter so much.

  “Yes. Let’s order. If Kizer turns up …”

  “… he’ll be surprised to see us.”

  (Matthew) Smith snaps his fingers another time, summons the waiter. Gives his order while (Matt) Smith studies the menu just slightly confused for there are new items listed; not every dish is labeled organic, local, gluten-free.

  (Matthew) Smith has ordered a hamburger, medium rare. With French fries. (Matt) Smith has not had a hamburger in years, tries to avoid red meat, is tempted to follow his companion, but decides no, a cold salmon platter might be better.

  (Matthew) Smith remarks that he’d last seen Kizer two weeks ago for lunch, after playing squash. He hadn’t played as well as usual, sciatica kicking up again, so Kizer had won, but just barely.

  (Matt) Smith feels a pang of jealousy. Do (Matthew) Smith and Kizer see each other so frequently? At two-week intervals? Kizer only has time for (Matt) Smith every four, five weeks. And they have not played squash in months.

  Feeling an impulse to confide in (Matthew) Smith, he sometimes wonders if indeed Kizer is his close friend as he wishes to think. If indeed (Matt) Smith has any friends at all.

  Recalling how sometimes Kizer will tell him he can’t make lunch this week, has to postpone lunch next week, plans have changed and he will have to cancel. … But possibly (Matthew) Smith is lying? Something devious about the hooded eyes behind the olive-tinted lenses, that insidious nasal voice.

  Then, (Matthew) Smith’s phone rings. (Matt) Smith feels a pang of anxiety, that the call will be from Kizer.

  For him. For the other. Not for me. …

  But (Matthew) scowls, listening—the call seems to be of no significance, or a wrong number.

  (Matthew) Smith puts away his phone. (Matt) Smith has already put away his phone, in his shirt pocket.

  (Matthew) Smith remarks that Kizer never used to be late, until recently. (Matt) Smith denies this: Kizer is never late, at all.

  “Well, since that—misunderstanding—with my wife—or whatever it was—Kizer has begun to be less reliable.”

  “Misunderstanding? With—who? Who is your wife?” (Matt) Smith’s heart is beating rapidly.

  “My wife? Lisa.”

  “Lisa! You don’t mean—Lisa Finch?”

  (Matthew) shrugs, grimacing. If this is a joke, it is a just-barely-amusing joke.

  “Well, yes—Lisa Finch.”

  “But—that’s not possible? Is it?”

  A pause. Neither can quite look the other in the eye.

  “Lisa Finch—from Petaluma.”

  “Petaluma? No. I don’t think so. Sacramento.”

  “Well, yes—born in Sacramento. But her parents moved to Petaluma when she was two.”

  “Five, I think. When she was five.”

  “Two. I’m sure.”

  Another pause. Breathless.

  At last (Matthew) Smith says, in an even voice: “We were talking about Kizer, actually. How, since a ‘misunderstanding’ with my wife (at the time my wife, not ex-), he hasn’t been so reliable. Though we are still friends—of course. Each of us the other’s oldest friend.”

  “Wait. What was this ‘misunderstanding’?”

  “Is it possible that you don’t know? Yet?”

  “Don’t know what ‘yet’?”

  They stare at each other for a long moment before realizing—This person is me. Yet—not-me.

  Fortunately, breaking the tension, their lunches are brought to them by the dreadlocked waiter, who has been glancing at them, from one to the other and back again, with an expression resolutely neutral.

  Also, their drinks are depleted, or nearly. (Matthew) Smith orders another Bloody Mary. (Matt) Smith hesitates, then orders another Bloody Mary.

  “Yes, it’s ‘early in the day.’ But one more won’t hurt.”

  “Most sensible thing you’ve said yet.”

  (Matthew) Smith laughs, baring big ungainly, stained teeth.

  He had braces, took care of his teeth, (Matt) Smith thinks. His parents had loved him and provided dental, medical care for him.

  “I see that your hair has thinned,” (Matthew) Smith says with a sly spider dimple of a smile, and (Matt) Smith says, not missing a beat, like the capable ping-pong player he’d been as a kid, “I see that you’ve had some skin trouble. Carcinomas?”—in a tone of sympathy.

  (Matthew) Smith winces. (Is it so visible?) Conceding that, yes, he’d had several small, coin-sized skin cancers removed from his forehead and cheeks a few months ago, in a dermatologist’s office. Not major surgery.

  “Dermatologist? Who’s that?”

  “Dr. Friedland. A woman.”

  “Friedland! She isn’t a dermatologist, she’s our GP.”

  “Your GP, maybe. My dermatologist.”

  Wary with each other. Falling quiet as they eat their lunches. (Matt) Smith is feeling slightly light-headed—vodka so early in the day. … He has noted how thirstily (Matthew) Smith drinks, disapprovingly. The man is an incipient alcoholic.

  “You’d said, your wife—ex-wife—is named Lisa Finch?”

  (Matthew) Smith shrugs, chewing. His mouth is bracketed by lines like fissures. Clearly doesn’t want to pursue the subject but (Matt) Smith can’t resist.

  Saying, with a curious sort of tenderness, “I’d thought you—we—l-loved her—loved Lisa.”

  (Matthew) Smith laughs indulgently. “What’s ‘love’—a matter of perspective.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that we ‘love’ people to the degree to which we don’t know them. Beyond that point, ‘love’ falters, fails.”

  (Matt) Smith protests: “I—I am sure—I love my wife very much. …”

  (Matthew) Smith coughs, laughs. Clears his throat.

  “It’s a matter, as I’ve said, of perspective. Of seeing the object with the naked eye, or through a microscope.”

  “But what went wrong? With you and your Lisa. …”

  “Matt, why would you want to know? If you’re ignorant of—well, your wife and Kizer—”

  “‘My wife and Kizer’? What do you mean?”

  (Matt) Smith falters. His b
older self meant to exclaim, What the hell do you mean!

  With a curious sort of dignity, or obstinacy, (Matthew) Smith tells (Matt) Smith that he is better off not knowing.

  “But—I don’t want to remain ignorant. I want to know—whatever it is that I don’t seem to know. …”

  “Look, we aren’t the same person. We aren’t ‘identical.’ What is true for me isn’t necessarily true for you. All I can tell you is what I know—suspected. For years I’d been suspicious of Lisa and Kizer. That softness in her face when she looked at him, spoke of him. The way she went blank sometimes when I touched her, as if she wanted to throw off my hand but didn’t dare. The way she would shrug away from me, shivering. Then again she would ask about the canoe accident, how close I’d actually come to drowning, and how my friend Nate Kizer ‘saved’ me.” (Matthew) Smith pauses, brooding. “Those many times she seemed depressed, burst into tears. …”

  “Nate Kizer saved you? But—that isn’t possible. … I was the one to save him.”

  A long pause falls upon the men, like vapor. A chill vapor, causing (Matt) Smith to shudder.

  For vividly (Matt) Smith remembers: the rain-swollen river, pulling his oar in water denser than water should be, a boy screaming, panic—then, in rushing water, so much colder than he’d expected. …

  “I was the one to save him. I—I saved Nate Kizer’s life when we were eleven years old. …”

  (Matthew) Smith shrugs. As if to say OK, so what?

  “I—don’t remember Nate ever telling me he’d saved anyone’s life. I mean—if he had, he’d have told me. …” (Matt) Smith hears his voice faltering, failing. Clearly (Matthew) Smith remembers an episode very different from his. Though they are seated only a few inches from each other, at the wrought-iron terrace table, it’s as if there is a chasm between them.

  “And my wife—Lisa—she’s a very different person from your wife. Ex- wife. We are each other’s closest friend—or almost. We have no secrets from each other.” Though it is true, (Matt) Smith must concede, that from time to time Lisa succumbs to migraine headaches and doesn’t want him to touch her or even to speak to her.