Soul Identity

by batchelder, dennis

  “I called you Arthur. Isn’t your name Arthur Berringer?” I held my breath.

  Santa took another step closer. He stood less than a foot away. He breathed hard and clenched and unclenched his fists. “Yes, it’s Arthur, but nobody except my mother ever called me that.” He looked out the window and then back at me. “You’re with them, aren’t you?”

  I got up and wondered if I would be able to defend myself with the coffee mug. We stood eye to eye with our noses almost touching. “No, I’m not with Soul Identity.” I bit my tongue. Damn, now why did I have to say the name of the company? Santa’s eyes flicked back to the dining room table. “Just give me a second to explain—that guy Bob stopped by to see me last week, and I thought he had come to ask you about me.”

  “And why would he be asking me about you?” His voice came out in a growl.

  “They wanted me to do some security work for them, and I thought they were running a reference check. I wanted to find out what they were asking you, but I had forgotten your name.”

  Santa stared at me.

  “So I searched the Web, and found you in the tax records. That’s where I saw your name was Arthur Berringer.”

  We stood there, face to face, for what seemed like forever. Probably it felt a lot longer to me than it did to him. I listened to a jet ski go by outside, and wondered if anybody had heard the earlier shot blast and called the police.

  Finally Santa spoke. “You forgot my name? Jeez, Scott, I’ve been your neighbor for two years now.”

  “I know,” I said. “I’m so stupid sometimes. I wanted to ask you, but the longer I waited, the harder it became.”

  The wild look receded. “Hell, we’re neighbors.” He smiled and stuck out his hand. “Let’s start over. Everybody calls me Berry.”

  I shook his hand and looked him in the eye. I figured I might as well confess all. “And I’ve been calling you Santa behind your back.”

  Berry laughed and slapped me on the shoulder. “You and the rest of the world.” He picked up his mug and sat down on the other wheelchair. “Sit down and tell Santa what you want.”

  Whew. I told him about Bob’s visit the previous Sunday. “They sent me a reader in the mail, but I sent them the eyes of a bluefish.”

  Berry raised his eyebrows. “You’re just gonna give it all away?”

  I smiled, not sure what he meant. “I’m giving nothing away, Berry. They asked me for my soul identity, and I didn’t want them to have it. Why would they want my eyes, anyway?”

  “You really don’t know, do you?”

  I shook my head. “I thought they were crackpots.”

  Berry shook his head. “They’re not crackpots. They’re for real. I believe it.” His eyes filled with tears, and his voice cracked. “And that bastard told me no.”

  I separate how I handle people’s tears into four buckets. The first contains tears from those caught doing something bad or stupid. I wait until the histrionics end and offer them a tissue as they sort out what their next step will be. The second bucket’s tears come after I say something insensitive and hurtful. I apologize to these people for being such a blockhead. The third’s tears come on their own from those who cry at weddings and at the end of mushy movies. It works best when I act like I don’t notice these tears. Of course, joining in by dabbing my eyes and making sympathetic sounds can lead to happy endings on dates.

  Berry’s were filling up the fourth bucket—the one that holds tears from deep, heart-rending losses. Usually I just say, “I am so sorry,” and I sit with them and reflect on the good times before the loss. But I had no clue of what Berry might have lost.

  I leaned forward on the wheelchair. “What happened?” I asked.

  He wiped his eyes on the back of his hand and sat silent for a minute. “Do you believe in past lives?”

  “Reincarnation?” I shook my head.

  “Me neither, until a few weeks ago.” He blew his nose on a handkerchief. “In fact, for the last couple of years, I’ve wanted nothing except to hurry up and die and get it over with. Living out here has become so lonely for me.”

  I had watched Berry putter around his yard many times from my office window. Until this morning, I couldn’t recall seeing anybody visit him.

  “I moved here when I retired,” he said. He patted his armrest. “For forty-two years I sold these wheelchairs. I lived alone, but I was busy with work and my buddies. We did six conventions a year—see the pictures?” he asked as he pointed at the wall. “It was a good gig. But once I landed here I lost my way.”

  I thought about how little I knew my neighbor. And how crappy that made me feel. “Do you have any family?” I asked.

  “Nobody I talk to. My brother’s kids, but I haven’t seen them for more than a decade.” He sighed. “It wasn’t supposed to end like this. I planned to work until I keeled over, but then some bozo at the office cooked up a mandatory retirement age. And my buddy from work got married to our teenage receptionist and bolted to Puerto Rico. He died two months later. Too much stress on his heart, I guess. Lucky bastard.”

  “So how does Soul Identity enter the picture?” I asked.

  “They showed up right after I visited that palm reading place out on route fifty.” He counted on his fingers. “A little over three weeks ago.”

  “That tiny cottage with the big hand outside?” I asked. It was just a few miles north and west of us, on the main route to Ocean City. “Why’d you go there?”

  “I know it sounds crazy, but I wanted to know how long before I kicked the bucket,” he said. “My life insurance agent claimed their actuarial tables showed nine years, but he didn’t know how much I’d been drinking. My doctor guessed four. I was looking for a third opinion.”

  “Why’d you want to know?”

  Berry shrugged. “The shortest path, I guess. I have no kids, no friends, and busy neighbors. Just me and the bottle keeping each other company. I wanted out.”

  I thought how lousy a neighbor I must be, how I had been unable to see through the Santa façade and into the agony that made up Berry’s lonely days. “Did the palm reader help?” I asked.

  He nodded. “I spilled my guts to this little old lady. And she predicted that somebody would soon give my life a purpose.” He stared at me. “She was right, you know. The very next day a Soul Identity member came by the house and gave me a reason to live.”

  So it seemed Soul Identity preyed on lonely people, selling false hopes of reincarnation and taking their money. I felt better about ignoring them—they weren’t the kind of customer I wanted.

  I thought both of us could use some fresh air. “Can we take a walk as we talk?”

  “Sure.” Berry carried our mugs into the kitchen and set them in the sink. He nodded at a box in the corner. “I started recycling three weeks ago. Everything’s different now.” He pointed to a folder on the countertop. “Those are their forms. Bob had come to pick them up, but then we had a little problem.”

  I glanced at the shotgun on the dining room table. The problem seemed more than little.

  Berry helped me right my mailbox, and we collected the scattered junk mail. Then we headed north and walked along the road next to the shore. We could see the Annapolis capitol building and a swarm of sailboats over on the western side. Two container ships headed north toward the Port of Baltimore. The breeze filled our noses with the salty smell of the bay.

  Berry pointed to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge four miles in front of us. The twin spans soared majestically over the bay and glittered in the morning light. “Have you ever thought about the changes that first bridge caused?” he asked.

  I enjoyed having the bridge on the northern edge of my horizon, but I had given no thought to its impact. “No, not really.”

  “Sixty years ago most people on this island were farmers and crabbers. The bridge replaced the ferry, and the islanders became commuters. People live here and work in Baltimore or Washington. You can reach the beach from the cities after work in time for sun
set.”

  I thought about the traffic. “Not on Fridays you can’t. Where are you going with this?”

  “The bridge united two different worlds,” he said. “When that first Soul Identity member came to my house, he showed me the bridge that connects me to my own future world.”

  “Aren’t we all connected to our future?”

  Berry stopped walking. “Scott, my future was over in four to nine years. Soul Identity showed me how I could extend it forever, by building a bridge between my present life and my future lives.”

  First past and now future lives. What was this organization up to, anyway? I resumed our walk, this time back toward our houses. “I thought that the common thread tying all the beliefs in past and future lives was that you could never really be sure where your soul had been, or where it was going next.”

  “These guys at Soul Identity are different,” he said. “Don’t ask me how, but they can identify and track your soul. They read it, and after you die and come back in a new body, they find it again.”

  Right. I stopped in the middle of the road. “You said that these guys can find you again in a future life? That’s tough to swallow.”

  “They’re not looking for you,” he said. “They’re looking for your soul. It’s a big difference.”

  That was interesting. We reached the front of Berry’s house. “But why would I want to keep track of my soul?” I asked.

  “Think about it from my side,” he said. “I saved some money, and the school of hard knocks taught me some tricks on making it in this world. I have no kids to pass the money and tricks to. But what if I could give it all back to me? I could jumpstart my next life by using this bridge, Scott. That’s what is so exiting.”

  I thought about it. The belief that people have a soul is common. But the idea that some group could track your soul, find it again in the future, and pass along the information and money you banked seemed pretty novel. And if they could really do that without cheating you in the process, it also sounded compelling. I could see why Berry was interested.

  We went inside. I sat down at the dining room table this time. I moved the shotgun to the side and opened the folder.

  Berry’s questionnaire mostly dealt with geography and dates: where, when, and for how long he had lived or visited different places. “Why so many questions on location?” I asked.

  “They said it has to do with their recovery formula.”

  “It sounds pretty complicated. If you missed a place on your questionnaire, are they saying that your soul can’t be found?”

  Berry smiled. “No, but they did say it helps if they know where to look.”

  Why wasn’t Berry seeing these guys as a pyramid scheme? Or a freaky cult? “Let’s say that I buy into Soul Identity’s bridges,” I said. “What’s in it for them? They can’t just be doing this because they love to help people.”

  Berry shrugged. “Maybe they charge a commission for delivering your money back to you.”

  This organization promised to deliver to a future person only if he turned up and asked to be identified. They could operate with virtually no oversight, because their clients were mostly dead. Whoever cooked up this scheme was a genius. “Do you really trust these guys to turn over your lessons and your money, and not to keep it, or give it to their buddies?” I asked.

  “Dammit, of course I do! Even more so, now that they won’t let me play.” He sighed. “It doesn’t really matter if I trust them or not, does it?”

  Back to the little problem. “So why didn’t they let you in?” Maybe Berry didn’t have enough money to make it worth their while.

  “Bob didn’t want to tell me. He just said that I wasn’t suitable.” He patted his shotgun. “But when I got a little persuasive, he coughed out the real reason.”

  “Which was?”

  “This.” He tapped his left eye. “It’s glass. Had it for eight years now. I lost the original in a freak accident. I wore a patch for a year or two, until I got tired of looking like a pirate.”

  I looked closer. I had never seen a glass eye before. It looked real enough to me, except now that I knew, I saw that its pupil was smaller than the right eye. “They told you they needed to read both your eyes?” I asked. “They told me that too.”

  Berry nodded and started sniffling again.

  I noticed that the glass eye cried just as much as the real eye.

  Berry wiped his eyes. “So now I’m screwed. How could I have been so stupid to get my hopes up?”

  Berry believed that Soul Identity was for real, more so now they wouldn’t let him in. They were the fish, or the girl, that got away.

  I never took on clients that I felt stretched the law or exploited people. In fact, I regularly turned down working with groups I suspected had criminal or religious ties.

  Soul Identity was creepy from the start, and Berry’s story only made it worse. My gut told me I should walk away. But these guys were still in my thoughts over a week later, and I was feeling guilty about being such a lousy neighbor for Berry.

  I looked at him. “You really want in with these guys, don’t you?”

  He sighed, then nodded. “I do.”

  I took a deep breath and stood up. “Berry, I’ll take Soul Identity on as a client. And I’ll do my best to find a way to get you in.”

  three

  I put my feet up on my desk. Jane’s unfinished report glared at me until I flipped it over.

  I thought about Berry and what might have driven him to Soul Identity. He was lonely and looking for something to live for, but he could have joined any number of clubs and charities that would have been happy to fill up his time and give him a purpose in life. He could have used his Internet connection to enter the wild world of online dating. He even could have joined a church; most of them offered some sort of eternal life.

  With all those options, why did he latch on to something so far out of the mainstream?

  We all have a strong urge to obtain or achieve something special. Maybe we build the largest collection of coins or stamps or beanie babies. Maybe we become experts in trivia or geography or famous movie stars. Maybe we join a church which teaches that only the select few who learn God’s real secrets will be saved. Whatever path we take, we want to be seduced into thinking that we are special and different and maybe even better than everybody else.

  Churches employ this seduction to attract and retain members. Successful love relationships thrive on it too: both partners feel they’re the luckiest people to have found each other. Until one of the partners finds somebody else who makes them feel even luckier. Like my ex-wife did.

  Soul Identity seduced Berry by offering him immortality and a purpose for living. When it dashed Berry’s hopes, I seduced myself by thinking that only I could help him. I guess we weren’t that different after all.

  I had made a promise to Berry. Jane’s report could wait. Time for me to make nice with Soul Identity.

  Archibald Morgan, executive overseer. How could I reach him directly? Our cursory search had turned up neither phone numbers nor email addresses. I would ask Bob the delivery guy.

  I called the number on the green pen, and the dispatcher put me through. “Bob, this is Scott Waverly,” I said. “You delivered me a package last Sunday.”

  “Hello, Mr. Waverly.”

  I wondered if Bob had recovered from his scare with Berry. “Didn’t I see you tearing out of my neighbor’s house this morning?”

  Silence on the line for a minute. Then, “yes, sir, you did.”

  “You know you knocked over my mailbox? I had junk mail flying all around the neighborhood.”

  Another long pause. “I am sorry, sir. If you fill out a damage form, my company can reimburse you.”

  Yeah, he had recovered. “I need a favor from you,” I said. “I’d like to speak with Archibald Morgan. Can you give me his number?”

  “Sir, the only way you can reach Mr. Morgan is through me. I’ll be happy to deliver a letter for you.”


  “Maybe I can email him?”

  “Sir, it really is a very fast service I offer. When should I pick up your letter?”

  “When can you get here?”

  Bob said he’d come by in forty-five minutes, so I cranked out a letter to Archibald Morgan and asked him to call me on my cell phone. Then I walked next door and told Berry to put away his shotgun. He promised to stay inside until Bob was gone. I spent the next fifteen minutes racing through the airport report. I emailed Jane my analysis, my concerns, my suggestions, and my invoice.

  Bob reached my house on the forty-fourth minute. He looked at his watch. “I need to get moving to deliver this today.”

  “Today?”

  Bob smiled. “This is what we do, sir. We’ve gotten pretty efficient over the years.” He took the envelope and handed me his clipboard.

  Just like last time, I signed my left-handed John Doe signature on his form, kept his green pen, and watched as he drove away. But this time I followed.

  I’m a bad follower. I am reminded of this each time my relatives come down to visit DC; we pile into our cars and head to the mall. I get frustrated when I can’t telegraph to the leader to pass the slow guy, switch lanes, or watch out for the cop ahead. So I end up trying to lead from behind, which doesn’t work if the guy in front still thinks he’s in charge. Leader-follower situations work best when I lead.

  But I couldn’t tell Bob to let me lead. Fortunately he drove a big green van, which is not that common on the Eastern Shore. The cars out here are SUVs and Beamers for the coastal dwellers, and pickup trucks and Mustangs for everybody else.

  I stayed a quarter mile or so behind the van. This wasn’t difficult, as the road north runs straight. I expected him to make a left onto Route Fifty and cross the Bay Bridge toward Annapolis, but he surprised me and continued north. I sped up to keep him in sight.

  Bob took the next right and drove parallel to the highway. This road had more turns, and for a few seconds I thought I had lost him. But then I saw his van parked on the right, next to the same palm reading outfit which Berry had mentioned earlier. There was a sign out front that read “Madame Flora’s.”