Kristopher Jansma - The Unchangeable Spots of Leopards

It’s a mean thing to say and it stings her, I can tell. And it’s difficult to get out straight, because to be honest it’s the opposite that’s become true. I can hardly stop myself from telling her the truth. I feel it seeping out of me faster than my sweat. What’s truly too easy is forgetting all the lies that I’ve been believing for years.

But she buys my lie, and so I follow it with one more, without even realizing that it will be the last one I’ll ever get to tell her.

“I’ll be back in an hour, I promise.”

She gives me a look — a pitiful, pitying look — and then I think she really would grab my heart from a funeral pyre. For a second I think I would grab hers, too, but then she moves off into a darker part of the bar and is gone.

The trumpets tremble while the bass guitar aches, and I cross over to the bar and begin to work my way down toward my double through the crowd. My double looks up at me and realizes he’s standing in a corner and there’s nowhere to go. As I work my way across the room, I see him telling the man he’s with to give him a few minutes. The other guy sees me coming and begins talking very fast in French. Then suddenly it is only my double and me, standing face-to-face.

“Henry Waterford,” he says with a smile, reaching out a hand to shake. The blue lights above the jazz group gleam off our watches and now they look the same. Then gesturing to my clothing, he says, “They say great minds think alike.”

And now I see. My double doesn’t look like me; I look like my double. This is the boy I grew up wanting to be. And, twenty years later, I’ve become him.

“But fools seldom differ,” I say. “You followed me out to the lake today.”

“I’m sorry for that,” he says, reaching for a cigarette — a new affectation for Henry. He offers me one but I decline. “But you’ll know what I mean when I say that it’s not every day you meet a twin you didn’t know you had. My driver followed you out to the lake. I’m afraid my snooping skills leave a lot to be desired.”

“You don’t remember me, then?” I ask.

“From the accent I’d say you’re from around West Charlotte,” he says with a shrug. “If you know me from there, then you know there’s a lot I can’t remember about those days.”

He’s right — my Southern drawl has crept back in, despite a decade of firm repression.

“Billy,” I lie, shaking his hand. “We were on the high school tennis team together.”

He laughs and studies me carefully, as if trying to remember me. “Of course!” he lies finally. “Billy. It’s so good to see you again.”

“What brings you to Ghana of all places?”

“Business,” he replies vaguely, finishing his cigarette after three shaky drags. He’s looking around to see if his friend is still nearby. “You remember my family was involved in telecom?”

I don’t remember ever knowing this, but I nod.

“Well, Africa’s the new frontier in the market,” he says. “Fiber-optic cables. Cell towers. Wireless hot spots. They’ve sent me out like some kind of a scout. Boring .”

“Didn’t you have a sister?” I ask, a little breathless.

“Married. Kids,” he says, as if this is all there is to say. I suppose that it is. Still, it makes me wince, just a little, and while Henry can’t quite place me, he looks just a tiny bit uncomfortable at my reaction. Perhaps I am not the first man to ask after his sister in a dark bar somewhere. He fidgets a little. “Anyway, what brings you to Ghana, Billy?”

“I’m a writer, Henry,” I say, gesturing toward the bar. The singer is burning up a rough imitation of Ella. As the bartender sets two whiskeys down in front of us, I feel Tina coming up behind me. I turn to look at her and so does Henry.

“Another American!” he cries. “This really is the spot tonight. Do you two know each other?”

Tina catches my eye, daringly. She lets a moment go by. This is your last chance, her eye tells me. This is it, right here.

“No,” I say. “We’ve never met.”

“Well, I’m Henry! Henry Waterford! Come on and join us for a whiskey! And this is Billy. Billy… ”

He pauses, not sure what my last name is. I am about to supply it, when Tina does.

“Littleford.”

“Oh, so you do know each other!” Henry says.

“No,” Tina says. “I suppose we don’t, really. I’m just a great fan of his work.”

I can’t even look at her. Henry doesn’t let the beat drop, though, bless him.

“He was just telling me all about it! Join us, join us!”

I hazard a glimpse and know immediately that for years after, I’ll wish I hadn’t. She looks so incredibly sad. Not for herself, but for me.

“Christina Elizabeth Edgars-Boyleston,” she says, shaking Henry’s hand. “Thank you so much but I’m afraid I’m leaving.”

“Tomorrow, then?” Henry says cheerfully.

“No,” Tina replies, “I’m taking off tonight. There’s a red-eye at six AM. Got to get back home. Got to hurry — there’s a lot to pack.”

She gives me a defiant look. I’ll do it, she seems to say. I’ll really do it.

Henry gives her a pleasant smile. “Next time,” he says.

“Yes, next time,” I echo.

Tina looks as though she’s about to say something, but she just fakes a smile and turns away.

Henry shrugs and sips his whiskey thoughtfully. “What might have been, eh? Makes you wonder, sometimes. You know a friend told me I ought to write a novel someday. About everything that’s happened to me.”

“But you don’t remember anything that’s happened to you,” I say. I wonder what would happen if I showed him that story I wrote twenty years ago. Would he even know it was about him?

Henry laughs and sips his whiskey. “So, then I’ll make it up! Who’s going to know? Anyway, tell me. Is it exciting, being a writer? I’m so bored with my whole existence , I can’t even tell you.”

I smile at Henry. At last I can see my way out of this place.

“Well, I’ll tell you all about it. But if you’ve got some time tonight, you may actually be able to help me out.”

• • •

I convince Kojo to come back with the Hyundai by promising him all the money I have left. He was off happily cavorting somewhere with one of his many lady friends, and he is not all that pleased when he arrives in the car, nor is he all that sober. When I introduce him to Henry, Kojo blinks two or three times, as if to make sure the drinking has not left him seeing double. When Henry calls me Billy, Kojo blinks again, at least until I pat him on the back and ask him if we shouldn’t get going.

Driving out to the lake after dark is “not advisable” according to Kojo, but I insist that it is important. The old man never sleeps; I am sure that he will be up. As Kojo guides us along the dark and winding nighttime roads, I catch up with Henry about our hometown. Everyone we ever knew is married now; half of them have released some tiny versions of themselves out into the world — a world no larger than the city limits. Everyone we used to know is exactly where we left them, only now they have doubles and triples.

“Tell me more about being a writer,” Henry says. He is thrilled. This is more fun than he’s had in months, clearly. “Truth is, I really like the idea of being a writer.”

For years I wanted to be everything he was. Now that it seems he wants to be what I am, I’m not quite sure what to make of it.

“The idea of it’s great,” I explain. “But then there’s the actual thing of it.”

He nods and looks wistfully off into the blackness. Tina told me once that, in her line, you come to realize that just about everyone is a part-time writer. Even people who never wrote a full page in their lives think that they might, soon, sit down and churn out a masterpiece. The really good ones, I suppose, make it seem like anyone could do it.