The Five Times I Met Myself

by James L. Rubart

  “What did you say?” She took a tiny step toward him, an incredulous look splayed on her face as she repeated the question. “What did you just say to me?”

  “That I’m somehow connecting with the Brock from the mideighties. In my dreams.”

  “This can’t be happening.” Her gaze moved past his head, and she put out a hand as if to steady herself, shuffled a few steps to the right, and settled onto a bench.

  “Karissa?” Brock moved toward her.

  “How in the world . . . it’s not possible . . .”

  “What’s not?” He stopped three feet from the bench.

  “This is so bizarre.”

  “What is?”

  She frowned at him, disbelief on her face. “You told me about this. You did. It’s all coming back to me.”

  Had he? In another one of the time lines? If he had, she wouldn’t be reacting like this. “I don’t think so. This is the first time I’ve—”

  “Shut up, Brock. I mean you told me about it when we were young. When we were first dating. You told me you were having conversations with some old guy who claimed to be you. We were running on the Burke-Gilman Trail.” She peered up at him with a look full of trepidation. “I blew it off at the time, and you did too after I started questioning your sanity. We joked about it for at least a few months after. But I could tell, there was a part of you that believed God was doing something extraordinary. A part that didn’t just believe, but would take action.”

  “That Brock did take action.”

  “You can’t be serious. You’re saying that version of yourself did things differently?”

  “In my reality yes. In yours, no.”

  “But even though I don’t remember both time lines, you do?”

  “No, I only remember the one I was in before I started dreaming. So each time things change, I’m flying blind. I’m trying to figure out what has changed, the chaos that version of myself has created.”

  Karissa’s eyes narrowed. “Not the choices you would have made.”

  Brock was silent for a moment. “But I did make them. The capability to choose the wrong path is in me. And worse than that, I’m the one who set myself on that path.”

  “You’re making my mind spin.”

  “Welcome to my insane world.” Brock opened his palms. “His actions—my actions—changed everything. It’s my fault, all of it. My fault.”

  “What is?”

  “Didn’t you hear me? I outlined a plan for myself and it changed my history. Things that I never wanted to happen, happened. And now all I want is to go back.”

  “Back to what?”

  “You and me. There was never a divorce. I never married Sheila. Tyson never killed a man and went to jail.”

  “You really believe that, don’t you?”

  “I lived it. It was my reality for fifty-three years. What I’ve been going through for the past two weeks is not my life. Not your life. Not our life. It’s a waking nightmare.”

  “Were we happy?”

  The question tore at Brock because he couldn’t lie, but he didn’t want to tell her the truth. “We could have been.”

  She stared at him with cold eyes, but then the ice started to melt, and she didn’t drop her gaze. It took only seconds for the final bit of frost to leave her countenance, and for the first time in years, in any of the realities he’d lived in, the real Karissa looked at him.

  “ ‘My density has brought me to you.’ ” Brock smiled, held out his hand like George McFly did in Back to the Future, and finished the quote. “ ‘I’m your density. I mean, your destiny.’ ”

  She tried to suppress her laughter, but he saw the last vestige of her resolve to shut him out shatter, and she laughed. Brock took a tentative step forward, then another, then he sat next to her on the bench.

  “We can figure this out. We can turn it around, I know we can.”

  Karissa shuddered as if years of pain were falling off her. She turned away from him slightly and leaned forward as her hands rose to her face. Soft sobs floated toward him and he debated staying still or letting his arm wrap around her. He hesitated, then put his arm on her shoulders with the weight of a feather. With his other hand, he pulled two tickets from his back pocket and held them out in front of her.

  “What’s that?”

  “Me being crazy.” He hesitated as he glanced at the tickets. “It’s two tickets to the Birch Bay Waterslides.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “Want to go?”

  “You’re insane, Brock.” Karissa turned her head, but not before Brock spied a hint of longing in her eyes.

  “Do you remember that day?”

  The veneer cracked further and Brock saw the twenty-four-year-old Karissa that had fallen in love with him that summer day back in ’85. And then he saw deeper, into the pain he’d caused her. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t really done it to her, because the choices he’d made had caused it to happen, no matter which version of him caused it.

  “One of the best days of my life.”

  “Then let’s go back.” Brock held up the tickets again. “Please. Let’s just try.”

  “Brock, I don’t . . . I can’t . . .”

  “No expectations, let’s just go.”

  Karissa shuddered again, then stiffened and pushed herself into the back of the bench. A moment later the mask was back up and set in place more securely than before.

  “No, Brock. I’m not a kid anymore. Neither are you. Let it go. Let us go.”

  “I can’t. I love you too much.”

  “I’m sorry. This is too strange.” Karissa shifted her weight from him and scooted away. “Maybe a shred of my mind believes you. But even if it does, what difference does that make? We’re still where we are. Now. Today.”

  He stared at her as his stomach clenched. “I don’t understand.”

  “Don’t you get it? You might not remember carving up our relationship with a serrated blade, but I do.”

  “I’m sorry, but that wasn’t—”

  “Listen! In my time line, you still made the choices you made, the scars you created are just as deep, and the memories just as painful.”

  Brock had no argument. She was right. He did get it. But that didn’t quench his certainty that God was in this moment right now, and he wanted to breach the wall that stood between them.

  “Don’t shut me out. You felt it. I know you felt it. God stirred something inside you. Don’t shut him out. Don’t shut down what he’s doing between us.”

  “Really?” Karissa tilted her head down, looked at him from under her eyebrows and pointed at the sky. “You’re going to lay the God card on me? After what you’ve done to me? You’ve got to be kidding.”

  She tilted her head back and locked her jaw. The final brick in her wall snapped into place, and he had no doubt the Karissa who had sat on the bench next to him just a moment ago had vanished.

  “Don’t go, Karissa. Please.”

  “Stay out of my life.” She surged to her feet, spun, then called out over her shoulder. “You and I are dead. And resurrection isn’t coming.”

  Chapter 41

  Brock headed for Java Spot praying he and Morgan were still friends. He was the only person left. But what if his friend didn’t know him in this time line? What if his younger self had blown up that relationship as well? But he was out of other options and needed to talk to someone.

  When he arrived at Java Spot, Brock went around to the back and pulled out the key Morgan had given him years ago. If it worked in the lock that would be a strong sign they were still friends. He slid it in, hesitated a moment, then turned. The lock opened and Brock puffed out a sigh of relief. Yes.

  He wove through the stainless-steel racks that held filters and syrups and boxes of Black Fedora coffee. He tapped a case of Colibri Ochre and smiled. He’d actually had to work a little to get that one right. Before he could leave the storage room, the two-way door was flung open. Morgan stepped through and
jerked his head back in surprise.

  “Whoa, Nelly!” Morgan did his horrid impression of that old sports announcer. “Ya talk about chur ding-dong-dandy break-in, give-me-a-heart-attack play. You trying to get yourself shot, son?” Morgan grinned and gave Brock a quick hug. “Where’ve you been, Brock-O?”

  “We’re friends, right?”

  “No, sworn enemies as we’ve always been. Like Lex and Superman. You’re Lex, of course.” Morgan threw his head back and flexed in a bodybuilder pose that accentuated his biceps as well as his sizable gut. “Tell me, I know, I should change my name to Adonis.”

  “Without question.”

  Morgan relaxed and pointed to his mouth. “I sound just like him, don’t I?”

  “The impression’s getting better.” Brock held his thumb and forefinger a half inch apart. “You’ve moved it from a one to a one and a half on a scale of a thousand.”

  Morgan wiggled a finger at him. “I’m going to make money on that impression someday. Just needs a little more work.”

  “No one knows who what’s-his-name is anymore.”

  “Wrong again. Everyone knows him. Keith Jackson is a legend.”

  “So was Howard Cosell.”

  “Who?” Morgan squinted.

  “My point exactly.”

  “I know who Cosell was. I grew up with him just like you. That was a joke.”

  “I’m laughing inside.”

  Morgan grabbed a stack of napkins and a bottle of Italian-soda syrup and handed them to Brock. “Here, take this out, will ya?”

  Brock followed him out into the shop. A few customers lingered, but the place was mostly empty. Morgan snatched two bags of Jamaican Azure and one bag of Karoma Brûlée off a shelf to Brock’s right and plopped them on the counter. “People are loving your latest concoctions. They’re gold.”

  “I need to talk.”

  “Okay, spill it.” Morgan rested his large frame on his elbows on the counter. “From the look on your face, it’s a whopper.”

  “I’m stuck here.”

  “Where?”

  “I can’t get out of this time line.”

  “Good, now you’re making sense.”

  “This isn’t my life.” Brock swept his hand in a wide circle. “None of it. You’re not going to believe me, I know, but I swear to you that I’m not making it up.”

  “Making what up?”

  “And it’s your fault.”

  “You want to start at the beginning?”

  “Do you remember giving me that book on lucid dreaming?”

  “A book on what?”

  Brock rubbed his face. Of course not. Not in this time line. “Never mind.”

  “No way, you gotta tell me now.”

  As Brock laid out what had happened to him, Morgan’s face morphed from amusement to concern to resignation.

  “You really believe what you’re telling me.”

  “I don’t believe it, I know it. I swear I’ve had conversations inside my dreams with a younger version of myself. Told him things he should do differently. He did, and it’s destroyed my life.”

  “Sorry to be blunt, Brock-O, but you did that all by yourself.”

  “Yeah, I did, just not in the way you think I did.” Brock stared at the cup of coffee in front of him. He didn’t have the energy to try to convince Morgan what he said was true. Even if he did, what would it accomplish? It wouldn’t change anything.

  “I went to see my brother yesterday.”

  “Any thaw?”

  “I threw another six feet of ice on top of what was already there.” Brock kicked at the floor.

  “How?”

  “The wrestling match from years back. I revisited what I did to his hand.”

  Morgan frowned. “Why in the world would you unearth that treasure?”

  “Couldn’t help it.” Brock frowned at Morgan. “It didn’t happen in my other time line.”

  “Of course it didn’t.” Morgan winked. “Talk to me, what do you need?”

  “Right now, I need a liberal dose of Baileys added to this concoction. Do you have any in the back?”

  Morgan frowned at him with the look of a scolding teacher. “Don’t think we need to go there.”

  “What?”

  “You better be joking about the drink or I’m going to have to smack you upside the head and see if there’s any sanity left inside.”

  “What’s wrong with me having a drink?”

  Morgan stared at him, the scolding look now returning to one of concern.

  “You okay?”

  “Tell me why you’re worried about me having a drink.”

  Even before Brock heard the answer, he knew his world was about to be rocked again with a revelation that would rip the cover off another dark part of his soul. Even though the three remaining Java Spot customers were well out of earshot, Morgan leaned forward and lowered his voice.

  “I’m not that familiar with AA and the principles they sling around in their meetings, but I’m thinking that once you’re set free from the bottled demons, you aren’t supposed to pick up a glass ever again.”

  Heat washed through Brock as he recalled Ron’s implication. “How long?”

  “You telling me you don’t remember anything from those years?”

  Brock blinked.

  “What you are doing, Brock?”

  “Please.”

  “Are you telling me you don’t have any recollection about being wasted six days out of seven for three years straight?”

  Brock’s only response was a shake of his head.

  “You truly don’t?”

  “How long ago?”

  Morgan looked up to his right. “You started drinking in 2000 and it went full-blown gonzo in 2001. Let’s just say you started the second half of the decade in a way you’ll never remember.”

  “And then?”

  “By the summer of 2004 you figured it out, got help, and haven’t touched anything that I know of since. And never been tempted since.” Morgan let out a mock cough. “Till now.”

  “The drinking.” Brock spun a drink coaster like a top. “That’s what broke up my marriage to Karissa.”

  “It wasn’t just the drinking, but the booze had to be a major contributing factor, yeah. No surprise there. You ready to tell me what’s really going on?”

  “I already told you.” Brock stood and stared down at his friend. “Thanks for listening. And do me a favor.”

  “Anything.”

  “In three days I’m meeting with a man who might be able to help. Pray for that conversation.”

  Morgan laughed. “You’re never going to let that go, are you?”

  “Let what go?” Brock’s body went limp. “You became a Christian at that men’s retreat back in ’98. I was there.”

  Morgan smiled. “Tell you what, Brock-O. If I ever do get religious, my first prayer will be for you.”

  Chapter 42

  JUNE 10, 2015

  Finally. Time to meet with Shagull again. Within minutes of arriving at the Ballard Locks, Brock spotted Shagull leaning back against the railing. The doctor peered into the locks at the boats lined up for their turn as he stuffed what looked like three or four walnuts into his mouth. When he spied Brock he waved and chewed faster, and tossed the rest of his meal to the pigeons in front of him looking for a snack.

  “Lovely day,” Shagull said when Brock reached him, then guided them to a dark-green bench.

  Brock gazed at the sunlight dancing on the leaves of the maples and drew in the faint scent of Puget Sound carried by a light wind. What the doctor said was true, but he hadn’t noticed any of it till now. “Hard to see the beauty these days.”

  “Ah, yes.” The doctor leaned his walking stick up against the bench. “I can’t imagine.”

  “You mean you can imagine.”

  “No.” The doctor leaned in. “I can’t for a moment conjure up the pain you must be going through. I have great empathy for you.”

  Brock leaned f
orward, elbows on his knees, “Karissa is gone from my life. Tyson is barely there. Morgan isn’t a Christian. Please tell me there’s hope for me dreaming again. I have to get back there.”

  The doctor answered by launching into a monologue.

  “In its own way, the story of every man and every woman is a quest. A journey not unlike Bilbo’s in The Hobbit, or Dorothy’s in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, or the Pevensie children in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Bilbo went with the dwarfs. Dorothy went down the yellow-brick road. Lucy, Edmund, Susan, and Peter stepped through the wardrobe and into Narnia. Alice went down the rabbit hole. Neo chose the red pill. You are on your own quest.”

  Brock leaned back and sighed. He wasn’t up for a lecture about quests and destiny. He needed to know how to dream again.

  “There’s a point to this, right?”

  “Most people refuse to face the truth. They choose to stay where they think they’re safe.” Shagull sat back against the bench. “You’ve made choices, Brock.”

  “And look where it’s brought me.”

  “Where is that?”

  “You know exactly where. Tell me how to dream again so I can get back to the time before I, or he, made the decisions I influenced him to make. I have to turn this thing around.”

  “What if you never dream again?”

  “I can’t continue to live like this.”

  “Why not? You’re the one who set this life in motion.” The doctor folded his hands and tilted his head.

  “Which is why I need to be the one to change its trajectory.”

  “I’d like to give you something.” The doctor used one hand to open his coat, the other to pull out a long brown envelope. He set the envelope on his lap.

  “What’s in the envelope?”

  “We’ll get to that in a minute.” The doctor tapped his lips. “Do you think God speaks? Talks to us?”

  “Sometimes I think yes, sometimes I’m not so sure.”

  “Neither am I.” The doctor chuckled. “But I’m starting to lose my balance on the fence and believe I’m falling.”

  “Which side are you coming down on?”

  “That he does speak. If we’re willing to slow down enough to listen. And if we’re willing to act on what he says.”