Doppelganger

chapter SEVEN

It was a beautiful day. One of those fall days when everything is crisp and the leaves are changing and the sky is blue and there’s that great smell in the air. It was that kind of day when things really started to go to hell.

It began with Steve coming by at around ten thirty. I had just fallen asleep after lying in bed all morning, staring up at the water stains on the ceiling, trying to forget about Amber. Next thing I knew, there was this banging on my bedroom door and in came Steve, all pissed off and yelling about how we were going to be late. It was game day—I’d forgotten all about it.

“Late night with the woman, huh?” Steve said, throwing clothes at me while I scrambled around in my boxers. “Was it wild?”

“It was wild, all right,” I muttered.

I could tell he wanted more, but I wasn’t talking—not to him, anyway. Not after all the horrible stuff he’d said in the cafeteria yesterday. Besides, I don’t think I could have gotten it out anyway. I mean, I was barely standing. I had a terrible headache, and everything looked as fuzzy as my brain felt.

“Well, you better forget about that and start getting ready for today. You’re going to need to be wild for Waterbury in a few hours.”

“Right,” I said.



It turned out I didn’t need to be wild after all. Just before game time, Coach called out the assignments, and my name didn’t come up. I didn’t say anything, but some others did.

“What about Parker, Coach?” one kid asked. Everyone looked at me.

“Parker’s warming the bench today,” Coach growled. “Any other goddam questions?”

No one said a word, but you could tell they were all kind of shocked. I just sort of shrugged and sat down while the others did their warm-ups on the field. I was relieved, to tell the truth. I almost asked Coach if that meant I could go home, but seeing that scowl on his face whenever he looked at me, I decided it wasn’t a good idea. So I just waited, listening to the school’s marching band bang out their crooked-sounding songs, the bass drum beating in time to my headache, and watching the cheerleaders do their cheers, jumping up and down in their little uniforms and smiling so that even the ugly ones looked sort of pretty. Of course, none of them looked as good as Amber. Even from where I sat, it was obvious. She looked at me only once, doing kind of a double take when she saw me sitting on the bench by myself. There were a few times when I thought I caught her watching me out of the corner of her eye, but from a distance, it was hard to tell.

The thing I didn’t like was the crowd behind me. By the time the game started, the stands were packed with people. It seemed like half the town had showed up—including Barry, and Amber’s parents—and I could only imagine what they were thinking seeing me on the bench all by my lonesome, my helmet in my lap.

Screw them, I thought. I closed my eyes and tried to focus on how warm the sun felt on my face and arms.

“Parker.”

I opened my eyes and saw Ballard, the assistant coach, standing over me. He reached down and squeezed my shoulder a little bit.

“What’s up?” I said.

“Don’t take it too hard, kid,” he said. “Coach is still a little mad you missed Thursday’s practice. But he mostly wants to send a message to the other guys about the importance of commitment. Don’t take it personally.”

“Okay,” I said. I wasn’t about to tell him I didn’t care, since he was being nice to me and all.

“Besides, we want to save you for Springfield. That’s the game that really matters, you know. Coach figures if he keeps you out today, you’ll be even hungrier next week.”

“Right,” I said. “Sounds like a good idea.”

He sort of grimaced and shook his head. “You’re a brave kid, Parker. Real brave.”

“Thanks,” I said. I wasn’t sure what I was being brave about, but if that’s what he wanted to believe, it was fine by me.

No one else talked to me for the entire game. All the other kids kept their distance, even on the bench. I caught a few of them giving me forlorn looks now and then, but no one would look me in the eye. Like last night in Amber’s room before our fight, I was invisible. Today, it was just what I wanted.

The game dragged on forever. I tried paying attention so that I would know what to do next time, but between being tired, my head pounding, and Coach running back and forth screaming at this person or that after every other play, I got a little lost. I just remember that pretty soon everyone was huffing and puffing and sweaty and tired. In fact, they probably looked worse than me.

Finally it ended. In spite of all the cheers of the cheerleaders and the hollering of the crowd and the honking of the band, we lost. Back in the locker room, I kept catching the other guys giving me dirty looks, like it was my fault or something.

Don’t blame me, I wanted to tell them. I didn’t even play.

It was only later that I realized that that was why they were mad. I figured it out as I was walking home alone from the game after everyone took off without me. The stupidest part of the whole thing was that I actually started to feel guilty. I mean, I wasn’t feeling particularly good to begin with, but even though I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong, I still felt like I’d let the team down. Ridiculous, I know. But there it is.



“Pass the potatoes, please,” I said.

Sheila handed me the bowl from across the table without even looking up, then went back to her food. Dinner had started out okay, what with the bustle of plates and bowls as everyone loaded up, but that soon ended, and the four of us had settled into quiet. I was pretty nervous. Barry was cutting his steak with a sloppy sort of viciousness—hacking off chunks that seemed way too big for any normal-size mouth—and sucking down beer. As for Echo, she kept screeching her knife on the plate every time she tried to cut her meat, drawing nasty looks from Barry. Sheila remained oblivious, engrossed in spearing her peas with rapid, futile jabs.

What made me so nervous was that under the silence I knew something was lurking, something ugly. I knew it the second I got home and saw Poppy, the Parkers’ dog, take one look at me, crawl under the desk as far as she possibly could, and curl up into a ball. Heck, I knew it even before that, when Barry sped by me on his way home from the game without stopping to pick me up. For the rest of the afternoon, I felt it settle over the house, like the storms that used to roll down off the mountain and break over the cabin, soaking everything in sight. Every time I came out to the kitchen, I’d look into the backyard and see Barry out there scraping furiously at the leaves with a plastic rake missing half its teeth, then stuffing the gathered piles of brilliant yellows and oranges into plastic bags with a vengeance.

“Don’t go out there,” Sheila said the third time I looked out. I glanced over to where she sat at the table, puffing on one ultralight after another. I hadn’t seen her smoke until today, but she seemed to be making up for it pretty good.

“What’s his problem?” I asked.

She just sort of frowned and shook her head as if I should know better than to ask, stabbing out one butt before lighting up another. After that I went back to my room and didn’t come out until dinner.

And now here we were. One big happy family.

“Goddam it, Echo, would you stop it already!” Barry hollered, reaching over and snatching her knife away. He slammed it down beside him on the table and went back to his steak.

“But how can I cut my meat?” Echo said, her voice practically a whisper.

“You can’t,” Barry said. “That’s the idea.”

“Here, I’ll do it,” I said, reaching over to Echo’s plate.

“Don’t you dare touch that,” Barry snapped, pointing his knife at me.

The hackles rose on the back of my neck. Looking across the table, I could see Sheila staring at me in confusion.

“What’s the big deal?” I said, and reached over again.

“That’s it!” Barry said. He jumped up and grabbed my plate and Echo’s, lurched over to the sink, and threw them in. At the sound of breaking ceramic, Sheila put her fork down and buried her head in her hands. I looked over at Echo. She just sat there with a blank look on her face, but I could see her shoulders droop a little. In fact, her whole body looked like it was shrinking.

“I was still eating,” I said as Barry plopped back down into his chair. Sheila looked up sharply in alarm. Echo shrank another inch.

“I don’t give a damn about that,” Barry snapped, going back to his steak. “If you can’t listen to me, you don’t get to eat. Either of you.” He looked over at me. “Besides,” he sneered, “I can’t imagine that you’re hungry—it’s not like you did anything to work up an appetite today.”



“I had to walk all the way home from the game,” I retorted.

“You deserved to walk home. Give you a chance to think about your screwup.”

“It’s not my fault they wouldn’t let me play,” I shouted. “Just because I miss one stupid day of practice—”

“Yeah, because you were too much of p-ssy to suck it up and go to school.” He was really starting to yell now. I could see his face getting all red and puffy.

Might as well get it over with, I thought. Better than just sitting there with all that quiet, waiting.

Barry kept going. “Do you know how goddam embarrassing that was to sit there and see everyone staring at you on that bench while your team went out there and lost? Do you have any idea?”

“No,” I muttered.

“And that’s not all. Who knows if there were any scouts out there today. What do you think that’s going to do to your chances?”

I didn’t have a clue what he was talking about.

“Barry,” Sheila broke in, “he’s only a junior.”

“So what?” he said, turning on her. “You think they’re not already looking? Especially with the way he’s played this year? And what would they have thought today? I’ll tell you what they would have thought—that he’s a screwup. That’s right, Sheila. A screwup with a piss-poor attitude.”

Like father, like son, I thought as Barry kept going.

“If you’re sitting on a pile of dough that I don’t know about, Sheila, please tell me, because there’s no other friggin’ way he’s going to college without a scholarship. That’s just the sad fact of the matter.”

“All right, all right,” she said. She stood up and began clearing the table. I looked over to see that Echo had slipped away. Barry was the only one still eating. He didn’t look at me or even seem to notice that Echo was gone. The only time he even really moved was to grab his beer when Sheila tried to take it along with the mashed potatoes.

I got up to leave, but as soon as I started to move, he banged his hand down so hard that the silverware on the table rattled. I guess he had been watching me after all.

“You stay there until I say so,” he said. “You like to sit—you can sit there for a while.”

I got up anyway. I was too tired to deal with this kind of crap, and I couldn’t stay at that table for another second watching him eat. I pushed my chair back and headed for my room.

“Get back here!” he shouted.

I could hear the fury in his voice, but I just kept right on going into my room, slamming the door behind me. I waited, half expecting him to burst in at any second, but he didn’t. Instead, I heard shouting in the kitchen as Barry and Sheila began arguing. Their voices were muffled coming through the door, so I couldn’t hear what they were saying exactly. But I could tell it was about me.

This went on for about ten minutes.

Then things got really ugly.

I heard a loud crash and ran out to see Barry sprawled on the living room floor with the coffee table collapsed under him, the ashtray broken, the newspapers scattered. Sheila stood in the kitchen doorway, frozen with one hand over her mouth.



Barry stirred, pulled himself to his hands and knees, and shook his head.

“Echo!” he screamed.

I saw a bit of movement out of the corner of my eye. It was Echo. The noise had drawn her out of her room as well.

“What the hell are these doing here?” he hollered, reaching behind him and grabbing a pair of pink Rollerblades off the floor. Echo’s face had lost all its color. She had that same look I’d seen on Amber’s face when I grabbed her the night before.

Barry kept going. “How many times have I told you not to leave these goddam things on the floor? You come here.”

Echo yelped and turned to run.

“No you don’t,” he cried, and grabbed at her.

She slipped out of his grip and bolted for her room with Barry in hot pursuit. The door slammed shut, and he began banging on it, hollering for her to unlock it or she was going to be sorry. The latch clicked. Barry yanked the door open, dashed inside, and shut it behind him. I just stood there, frozen, listening to him scream all this horrible stuff at her while she cried. Then there was a sound of banging and other noises too, and I could hear her begging him to stop.

A screaming noise erupted, sending chills along my back, as Poppy burst out from under the desk and began running back and forth between the living room and the kitchen, yelping the entire time as if she’d been kicked in the stomach, as if she were the one in that room with Barry.

I looked over to where Sheila now kneeled on the living room floor, sweeping ashes into a dustpan. She glanced up at me for a moment, then began picking up pieces of the broken ashtray while Barry screamed and Echo cried, and Poppy ran frantic circles around us. Watching her go about it in the middle of all that noise was almost worse than whatever Barry was doing in the next room. It made me sick.

Suddenly I couldn’t take it anymore. I ran back down the hall to my room, flipped on the TV, and turned up the volume until I couldn’t hear anything else. And even then, I still covered my ears with my pillow.

Not long after that I saw headlights flash over the walls of my room. I glanced out the window. Barry was backing out in a real hurry, practically screeching his tires as he tore off down the street.

I muted the TV. The house was quiet, but when I put my ear up to the wall, I could hear Echo next door whimpering. I almost went in there to see how she was, but I couldn’t bring myself to face her. I was the one he was really mad at, not her.

So instead, I just lay on the bed with the remote in my hand and drifted through the channels, emerging an hour later when I headed to the bathroom for some aspirin. My headache had come back.

The house was quiet. Barry hadn’t returned yet, and Sheila had gone to bed early. Echo’s door was open, her room empty. I looked for her in the living room, but she wasn’t there, either. Then, on my way into the kitchen, I saw the basement door was open. Going over to it, I could hear Echo’s voice coming from below and crept down a few steps to see what she was up to.



“Be careful, Mrs. Weatherby,” I heard her say. “You don’t want to spill, now.”

I peeked down to see a glow in the corner of the cellar. It was coming from the lamp behind the hanging sheets. Echo was in that little room. I could see her silhouette play across the sheet as she poured imaginary tea for the animals seated at her table. For the next fifteen minutes, I watched that curtain, listening to Echo as she spoke in this funny little voice to her stuffed rabbits and bears. It was kind of weird to hear a ten-year-old talking that way. It was like watching one of those kids’ shows that take place in a faraway land where everything is sunny and green. I know they’re just make-believe places, but Echo acted like she was really there, as if everything that had happened earlier was forgotten.

I went back to my room and shut the door. I turned to the mirror and saw Chris looking back at me, his face dark and mournful. I’d never realized how much he looked like Barry until now. For a second I almost expected to see the doppelganger eyes pop out. I almost wished they would have.

“You were right,” I said to the reflection. “The world is a crappy place.”

Seeing the look on his face, I couldn’t help but think that maybe he was better off in the culvert. It didn’t make me feel any better.



There was a knock on the door. I opened my eyes and looked at the clock. It was half past noon. I’d been asleep for over fourteen hours.

“Yeah,” I called out.



Barry stuck his head in. “Get dressed,” he said. He seemed excited about something.

“What’s going on?” I said, sitting up.

“It’s Sunday. What do you think?”

“Church?” I said.

“Funny. Just get your ass out of bed. The game’s going to start pretty soon.”

He left and I fell back onto Chris’s bed. The game. This whole thing was a game. A sick one.

I took my time getting up. Now and then I could hear Barry holler to me. He sounded all chipper. When I finally stumbled out to the living room, I noticed Echo’s door was closed and Sheila had gone to work. Barry was on the couch, smoking a cigarette, watching TV with the volume turned up insanely loud.

More football.

Seeing me, he moved over to make a spot on the couch. I glanced around, trying to think of a way to get out of this, but he seemed pretty intent on my joining him, so I sat down. He opened a can of beer and handed it to me. I just sort of looked at him.

“Come on, take it,” he said.

“No thanks.”

“What’s the matter? Too good to have a beer with your old man now?”

“You really think I should?”

“What the hell’s gotten into you? It’s Sunday.”

“Right,” I said, “Sunday.”

I took the can, had a sip, and tried not to look too disgusted.

And that’s how I spent my afternoon—sitting next to that psycho on the couch, watching football, listening to him shout at the TV, his voice louder with every beer. The worst part about the whole thing was that—this is so bad, I can hardly say it—at first all I could think about was the night before, imagining him slapping Echo around in her room, but then I started to forget about it. Barry would jump up every time there was a big play, a smile on his face. And then he’d turn to me and clap me on the shoulder or sort of punch me in the arm like Steve and the other guys did. And pretty soon I was jumping up and down too, laughing and punching him back. There we were, side by side, drinking beer, father and son, just a couple of guys. The whole scene was too weird for words.

Then Echo came out of her room.

As soon as I heard her door open, I shrank down into the couch. For me the party was over.

“Echo, sweetie, get me a beer,” Barry called out, seeing her go into the kitchen. She came back a minute later with two.

“Here, Daddy,” she said, but she didn’t smile.

Neither did I.