The Five Times I Met Myself (11 page)
“Oh?” Karissa glanced at him with eyebrows raised and slowed her pace slightly.
“I recently had an, um, interesting conversation with an extremely strange man.”
“Where did you meet said man?”
“First time? Last year, at Morgan’s, before I met you. Second time when I hiked the PCT a few weeks back.” Brock hesitated, then dove into the deep end. “He says when we met, he wasn’t really there, he was dreaming. And that I wasn’t real, just part of his dream.”
“Okay, I’m starting to get the bizarre part.” Karissa glanced at him with narrowed eyes. “Who is he?”
They passed a pair of young girls who struggled to stay upright on their roller skates.
“I don’t know.”
“He didn’t tell you his name?”
“Not exactly.”
“What’s that mean?”
“That’s the even more bizarre part.” Brock pointed his finger at his head and tapped it. “He says we’re related.”
“How?”
Brock waited till they passed a man riding a recumbent bike so slowly it seemed a miracle he stayed upright.
“He claims to be me.”
Karissa jerked her head toward him and laughed. “He what?”
“That’s what he says, that he’s me. Me from the future.”
Karissa wiggled her fingers. “How exciting.”
“He’s serious.”
“Me too!” She grinned, maneuvered closer, and punched him lightly on his arm. “I’ve always wanted to talk to myself in the future. Can you ask him to send me back next time? I know I’d be up for it.”
“Good news. I still have all my hair.”
It helped to joke about the subject, but the anxiety inside still churned like an avalanche.
“Wonderful. I like your hair.” Karissa’s smile faded. “I can tell this is bothering you. Who is he really?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
Brock fell in behind Karissa for a few paces as a slew of cyclists approached from the opposite direction and whizzed past them.
“I’m thinking riding this trail might be more fun than running it.”
“Why don’t you just tell me you’re out of shape and can’t hack my torrid pace?”
“Can’t admit that. Twenty-four-year-old males are required to maintain their macho image at all times. No weaknesses allowed ever.”
“What about late last summer when we did the Crystal Mountain Summit run?”
“You mean me throwing up at the top?”
“Um-hmm.”
“That was to make you feel better.”
Karissa smiled and slowed to a steady jog. Brock’s breathing grew more rhythmic and his lungs stopped burning with the fires of Hades. “Will I ruin your image of me if I say thank you?”
“Not in the slightest.” Karissa slowed a bit more and gave him a serious look. “Can we talk a few more minutes about this future you?”
“Sure.”
“When he showed up last year at Java Spot, did Morgan talk to him too?”
“No, I’m sure Morgan saw him, but the place was busy and he didn’t come over to the table.”
“Why haven’t you told me about it till now?”
“Because I thought he was some harmless wacko, but the more I think about it . . .”
“You don’t anymore? You think he’s dangerous?”
“No, not dangerous. I actually kind of like the guy.” Brock paused to breathe. “It’s just that . . .”
“What?”
“There’s no way he should know some of the things he knows.”
“In other words, Morgan is playing one of his practicals on you. The Joke Master strikes again.”
“Exactly what I’m thinking.”
A few paces later, the trail opened up on their right to the parking lot for Log Boom Park. Twenty or so cars dotted the concrete. Halfway to the end of the lot, Karissa slowed to a walk and Brock followed her lead.
“You ready for a break?” Karissa glanced at her watch. “We’ve been doing seven-and-a-half-minute miles for forty-five minutes now, and I’m feeling the burn.”
“Sure, if you need to.” Brock stopped and grinned as he leaned forward with both hands on his knees and drew in deep breaths of the crisp September air.
“I’m getting the distinct feeling this guy’s knowing things he shouldn’t know is the precursor to a serious conversation.”
“Could be.”
“Then let’s go out to the end of the dock and have a serious conversation.”
They strolled out to the end of the pier that jutted two hundred feet into Lake Washington. Only a few boats dotted the water.
They reached the end and sat with their legs hanging over the water.
“I can’t get some of the things he’s told me out of my mind.” Brock glanced at Karissa. “Like I said, impossible for him to know them.”
“You’re not serious.” Karissa pulled back and narrowed her eyes. “You don’t actually think this guy—”
“No way. Of course not.”
“You do!” She laughed.
“No, I don’t.”
“Why would you even entertain an idea like that?”
“Probably because of Paul.”
“Paul your cousin?”
“No. Paul in the New Testament, the one God took up into heaven to take a look around.” Brock turned and faced Karissa. “If God can do something like that, or take Enoch up without him physically dying, or take John into a vision where he’s a time traveler, seeing the future, why couldn’t he do something like this?”
“I’m not saying he couldn’t, but even with bringing God into it, you do realize how completely insane you sound?”
“Without question.” He grabbed a splinter of wood that had come loose from the dock and tossed it into the water.
“And you also realize you can’t talk to anyone about this, right?”
“I didn’t even want to talk to you about it.”
“Just so you know . . .” She took his hand. “I don’t think you’re crazy to consider all possibilities.”
“Thanks.”
“So when do I get to meet your imaginary friend?” Karissa giggled. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist.”
“Not funny.”
“I thought it was.”
“Okay, it was a little funny.” Brock sighed.
“So what’s the biggest thing this guy knew that he shouldn’t have known? The thing that keeps you from letting it all go?”
Brock studied Karissa’s face. She still thought it was a joke, he could tell, but this might push her out of the world of humor. And that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing.
“At the first meeting, he told me I was going to break up with Sheila and start dating a girl named Karissa. This was a whole month before I met you.”
Karissa’s eyes went wide. “Okay, that is definitely weird.”
“I realize it was probably just a lucky guess, but still . . .”
“What else did he say about us?”
“He apparently thinks a great deal of you.”
Karissa smiled and told him with her eyes she knew what that meant. She was definitely a treasure, without question the greatest thing in his life. And by the time the Pacific Northwest leaves dropped from the trees next year, he would ask if she wanted to commit to going through the rest of their earthly existence together, forever and ever amen.
He took Karissa’s hand and she squeezed it tight. “Your older, wiser self seems to be saying there’s an extended future for us.”
“Apparently, yes.” Brock drew her face to his and kissed her deeply.
When they pulled away, Karissa took Brock’s face in both her hands and peered deep into his eyes. “I think I like Future Brock.”
“Yeah, I thought you would.”
“So you really think Morgan set this whole thing up?”
“That’s what I’m going to find out tonight.”
T
hat evening, Brock sat at his usual table in Java Spot, waiting for Morgan to close up his dad’s business, and tried to make sense of his two encounters with the old guy who claimed to be him. The guy’s hair had thinned and was going gray, but the color still showed a healthy amount of the dark brown it must have been earlier in his life. Same color as Brock’s. Then there was his amber eyes. Again, the same color.
And there was a quality about the man that mesmerized Brock. Confidence? Maybe. But it was more than that. The man carried himself in a way that reminded him of . . .
He shook it off and stopped trying to figure it out. He glanced over at Morgan as his friend wiped down the reclaimed-wood countertop. Morgan was the answer. Had to be. All this was one of his friend’s strange practical jokes. What other possibility was there? If only he could get rid of that infinitesimal shred of doubt. No, there was no doubt. There were only two possibilities: Morgan had set him up, or the old guy was
crazy. But the old guy had been over-the-top sincere, which is the part that weirded Brock out the most. That and the things Future Brock knew.
A few minutes later, Morgan finished up and sauntered over to him with a ceramic mug full of coffee.
“Why the night visit and not out with Karissa?”
“I saw her earlier today.”
“What else? I see it pushing to get out.”
Brock motioned toward the chair across from him, and Morgan plopped into it.
“Last year, I had a strange encounter with a man right here in your shop. I blew it off. Wasn’t worth mentioning to you, although now I wish I had. But then he showed up again during my hike on the PCT a few weeks back. Just wondering if you had anything to do with the guy.”
“Do with him?”
“Like putting him up to messing with my mind.”
“How is he messing with you?”
There wasn’t a hint of playfulness in Morgan’s eyes. Didn’t surprise Brock. In the years they’d played poker together, his friend had never shown any tells. Stone Face was the nickname Brock and his friends had given Morgan.
“Is this the moment where you tell me you had nothing to do with my two meetings with the guy?”
“I had nothing to do with your two meetings with the guy.”
“He put on a masterful performance. Did you coach him on what to say?”
“Who is
him
?”
“You serious?” Brock tilted his head forward. “You didn’t set this up?”
“I didn’t set up anything.” Morgan stared deep into Brock’s eyes. “You’re a little freaked, pal. I can see it. What’s going on?”
If Morgan hadn’t set it up and Future Brock wasn’t crazy, then someone was playing him. Someone who knew more than most people did about Brock’s life. But who? And more importantly, why?
“You know what he told me?” Brock shook his head. “Told me he was me, thirty years from now. I guess it would be twenty-nine years at this point.”
Morgan’s thin smile grew into a full-out grin. “You have got to be kidding.”
“No. Told me I was going to meet Karissa a whole month before you introduced us.”
“This guy should call himself Amazing Brockdini.” Morgan pulled the towel off his shoulder and wiped the maple-wood table. “That it?”
“Told me the first time we met I should go on a fishing trip with my dad, then the second time told me I’d done it.”
“But you haven’t done it yet, because it’s still in your future.”
“Right.”
“But he’s saying it’s his past, because he’s from the future.”
“Makes your brain spin, doesn’t it?”
“But it also makes total sense that you would travel back here from the future to talk yourself into going on a fishing trip.” Morgan shrugged. “Because you like fishing so much.”
“Yeah, total sense.”
“Why are you so worked up about an imaginary self from the future?”
“He says I’m the imaginary one. That I’m part of his dreams.”
“Describe the guy to me.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t notice him a year ago. We sat at the back of the shop, but still, we weren’t that far away.”
“Sorry, don’t remember. Describe him.”
“A little shorter than me, graying brown hair. Amber eyes, still fairly lean. One hundred eighty pounds or so.”
Morgan took a drink out of his large ceramic cup, thunked it back down on the table, and tilted his head to the side. “Lemme ask you something, Brock-O. You think maybe your mind is trying to tell you something?”
“Like?”
“You know who you just described?”
The question struck Brock like a ten-foot emotional wave, and he admitted what he’d felt from the first time he’d met the older gentleman. But Brock had ignored the impression and pushed it down where he wouldn’t have to deal with it.
“I’m right, aren’t I?” Morgan leaned in with expectant eyes.
“Thanks for asking.”
“You’re not going to say it, so I will.” Morgan poked him in the chest. “You just described your dad.”
“No I didn’t.” Brock answered too quickly, but Morgan already knew he was lying.
“Oh shut up, you did too. I see it written all over your face. All’s I’m saying is, maybe you’re trying to work some things out.”
Brock stared at Morgan’s table. Too many hot drinks had started to crack the finish. “What things?”
“I think you want a relationship with your dad.”
“You think wrong.”
“You don’t hate your dad.”
“Oh that’s right. I don’t. Not at all. Never have.”
“You gotta give your dad a break. He’s not the same guy he was
before he started doing the religion thing. He changed. Genuine change.”
“It’s called following Jesus, or being a Christian. Not ‘doing the religion thing.’ ”
“Right, I keep forgetting your cool lingo.” Morgan raised his hands toward the ceiling and shook them. “How can I get saved and keep mah soul from the comin’ hellfire? Speak to me the truuuuuth, Brother Brock!”
Brock laughed. “You better be careful. You don’t have much time left, pal. I’ve called down the hounds of heaven on you, and they’re coming.”
“Woof.” Morgan grinned and popped Brock’s shoulder with his fist. “We’re getting off the subject. If you can’t see that your dad isn’t the same guy he was when we grew up, then maybe you’re blind.”
“Still doesn’t explain who sent the guy and why whoever sent him.”
“I’m just saying you should stay open. And next time the guy drops in, ask him if Minnesota ever wins a Super Bowl.”
M
AY
20, 2015
F
inally. Meeting day with the doctor. Brock kissed Karissa good-bye and walked out the front door toward his car. As soon as he slipped behind the wheel of his Lexus and fired it up, a song pounding through the speakers stopped him cold: Steve Miller’s “Jungle Love.” Impossible. He popped the CD out of the player and stared at it.
Young Hearts
. The “complete greatest hits” album he’d never purchased.