THE CHANGE - CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

PART SIX - CHARLIE'S OLDEST FORGOTTEN FRIEND / CONSCIENCE TIME

PART SIX

CHARLIE’S OLDEST FORGOTTEN FRIEND

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 18TH

LOS ANGELES, CA

TWENTY-TWO

See, now here was the thing.

To recap: I was standing there, covered in blood. I had no idea where it came from, or whose it was. I was so drunk I shouldn’t even be standing.

I was standing there, pointing a gun.

There was a man – a naked man – inside the steaming shower stall. He was precisely my height, and precisely my weight. He had the same hair. The same eyes. The same face.

He looked just exactly like me.

There was blood – some caked, some watered down – sluicing off of him in runnels. Cascading darkly toward the tiles.

As he turned to me and smiled, a strange light about him.

“You should see yourself,” he said.

That man was you.

“FUCK!” I exclaimed. I didn’t know what else to say.

“WOO-HOO!” you responded, casually rinsing the clots from your hair.

At that point, reality began to unbend. I was standing there, yes. But I didn’t know if it was a dream.

I could feel the gun metal, real as hell, in my hand. I could feel my shoes, pressing my socks to my feet. I could feel the floor, dizzily spinning beneath me. It was the spin of the earth.

But right there you stood.

You were looking at me, as the blood washed clean; and your eyes were so clear that I wobbled before them. Looking at you was like looking at my soul. And it hurt, in a way I could not name.

“Good to see you again,” you said.

So what was I supposed to do? What was my best-case accurate response? Should I shoot you? Should I shoot myself? Should I offer to soap your back? Kick your ass? WHAT?

You laughed. “Just hang out. Think about it for a minute.”

I did as you said, but I didn’t know why. My finger was still on the trigger. “I think you should get out of the shower,” I said, “and start explaining things real fast.”

“Just a second,” you said. “Let me soap up quick, with particular attention to those hard-to-reach areas.” At which point, you started soaping your ass.

And this was the amazing thing.

You were totally not afraid.

I was pointing a gun at your head. Normally, when I did that, there was some fucking fear attached. People cringed and cowered, made nervous by death. They expected that I would probably pull the trigger. And they were generally right, because I generally did.

But you? You just didn’t even care.

“Who the fuck are you?” I said.

“I’m the thing that you’ve been missing.” Looking back at me as you said it. “I’m the friend you forgot you had, remember? The one that you always talk to. The one who is always here.”