Dead Ringer

“Oh my God! How are you?” asked a man I’d never seen before.

“I’m well,” I responded, not sure what to say next. “How are you?”

“What’s it been? A dozen years?” he asked. “You look great!”

“Ah, thanks.” I smiled. I studied his face and nothing rang any bells. Admittedly, I’d always been terrible with names and faces. Because of my disability, people tend to remember having met me. I’d like to think that was because of my charm and good looks but in reality, I’ve always stood out in a crowd and have never looked like anyone else. I had to come clean. “I’m sorry,” I said. “Where do I know you from?”

“High school,” he said. “You remember me,” he insisted. “We used to hang out at basketball practice!”

“Basketball practice?” I asked. I used to shoot a lot of hoops and I was pretty good at it. Most people would look at my arms and think there was no way I could even hold a ball let alone hit a twenty-foot jumper. I’d often challenge those doubters to a game of H-O-R-S-E for money. Those who underestimated me paid the price! Still, I did not remember ever hanging out at any “basketball practice.”

“Yeah!” he said. “You were the team manager, I was the assistant coach! It’s great seeing you!”

“Um, thanks,” I nodded. “But I was never a basketball team manager.”

“Sure you were!” His confidence grew. “At Salem High.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “You must be mistaken me for someone else. I didn’t go to Salem High, I’m not originally from around here.”

“No, you were the basketball team manager!” he shook his head. “Remember?”

“Nope,” I said. “Track team manager. For another high school entirely. I came to Salem for college and I’d never been here before then. You must be thinking of someone else.”

“I can’t believe you don’t remember me,” he said.

“No, seriously,” I said. “I’m not the person you think I am. You definitely have me confused for someone else.” I laughed in an effort to diffuse his frustration.

“Well,” he said. “If you’re not him, you’re a dead ringer for him.” He tilted his head in disbelief.

“Have a good day, sir,” I smiled and walked away.

 

I continued to be intrigued by that conversation off and on over the summer of ‘93. I’d only met a handful of other people with the same disability as me and none were very close to my age. I was a bit excited at the thought of someone who looked like me and lived in the same town. It would have been nice to grab a cup of coffee with someone who may have had similar experiences as me.

 

A few weeks later I walked through downtown Salem with my girlfriend, Julie, when this woman, who didn’t look at all familiar, approached us.

“Roger?” she asked. “I haven’t seen you in forever! How are you?”

“Chris,” I said. “My name is Chris.”

“No,” she assured me. “Your name is Roger.”

“Excuse me?” I snickered and looked over at Julie. I had told Julie about the basketball coach and we couldn’t believe it was happening again. “My name is Chris,” I repeated.

“Roger!” she said. “I should know your name. I drove you to school every day for two years!” She laughed.

“No, really,” I said. “I’m not Roger. I didn’t go to school here until college. I’m sorry, but I’m not him. Seriously.”

Julie backed me up with a nod.

“You’re not kidding?” the woman said.

“No,” I said. “I’m not.” I smiled. “But you’re not the first person to confuse me for this Roger person. There have been several others. One guy swore I was the basketball team manager at Salem High. I never went to Salem High.”

“Hmm,” she said unconvinced and turned away.

Julie and I looked around every corner for my twin for the rest of the afternoon. At least now I knew his name.

 

One morning after I worked the overnight shift at the radio station, Julie had gone grocery shopping while I went to bed. I’d fallen into a deep sleep when she kicked open the door, dropped the groceries, sprinted across our studio apartment and pounced on the bed.

“I SAW HIM,” she exclaimed. “I saw HIM!”

“Who?!?!” I asked and tried to peel my heart off of the ceiling.

“The guy!” she said. “The guy who looks like you! I saw him!”

“Really?” I put my glasses on as if it would help me see him. “Where?”

“He was walking across the parking lot over by Heartland,” she said. “He does look exactly like you! He has your walk! Your receding hairline.”

“Hey!” I said.

“Just making sure you’re awake,” she smiled. “I thought it was you at first. I thought, ‘how in the world did he get here so fast? He was asleep when I left him?’ Then I realized I had your car! There was no way you could have beaten me here!”

“So,” I asked. “What did you do?”

“Well,” she said. “He had gone into one of those side stores so I ran after him. I didn’t see which one he ran into because I was parking the car. So I checked all of them but I couldn’t find him anywhere. He disappeared.”

“This guy’s like the Loch Ness Monster of Salem!” I said.

“He is!” she laughed.

“What does he look like?” I asked.

“Well, I was driving and it was from a bit of a distance,” she said. “But, he’s about your height. He has our build. He’s a dead ringer for you!”

Up until now, no one I knew had seen this guy. I had asked around to some of my friends who grew up in Salem if they had ever seen him or knew who he was but none had. They always indulged me with mild amusement. Of course most of them didn’t get it, everywhere they turned they saw people who looked like them. How could they imagine what it’s like to almost never see someone who would understand what it’s like to stand out so much in a crowd?

There were numerous other encounters, most of which people would ask if I was Roger? When I told them I wasn’t him, they’d always look mystified. Julie and I had split up and I moved away from Salem for a number of years. Every now and then I’d remember being mistaken for Roger and it always struck me as strange that our paths never physically crossed, Salem is not that big of a place. I wondered if anyone approached him convinced he was me. I knew of a bartender who used to claim he was a radio dj from the station I worked at to get laid. He wasn’t one of us, of course. I wondered if Roger knew of me and had ever tried that. I hoped he had better luck than me! What if he wasn’t such a nice guy and decided to pass the blame on to me when he did something wrong?

“Honest, officer, it wasn’t me,” he might have said. “It’s another case of mistaken identity, it happens all the time! It was this Chris guy who was seen robbing the bank! He’s always getting me in trouble!”

 

When I moved back to Salem in 2010 I walked into a pastry shop one afternoon and an older gentleman ran from behind the counter to give me a big hug. I knew the young woman who worked beside him and that this was a family-run business. I figured she was his father. He seemed genuinely happy to see me but didn’t look that well. I knew I’d never seen him before. He was a kind man with soft eyes and he spoke with what appeared to be a Portuguese accent. With his hands on my shoulders, he told me he had “the cancer.” It dawned on me he thought I was this Roger character. I didn’t have the heart to tell him I wasn’t. It wasn’t hurting anyone for him to think of me as Roger or Chris and it seemed to make him sincerely happy. I wished him well and best of luck with his health. People really seemed to like this Roger guy! I heard recently the gentleman from the pastry shop passed away shortly after that day.

Holly, my current girlfriend, and I were walking her dog, Mindy, along the cove near her house. We were deep in conversation.

“You have this incredible skill of seeing people for who they really are and taking them at face value” I told her. “On our first official date you glanced at my arms for a second and then seemed to move right past them. It was like nothing to you. Do you know how rare that is?”

“Is it?” She asked.

“It was a coffee date,” I said. “It lasted 90 minutes!”

“Coffee dates work,” she said. “You can always bail after 15 minutes if it’s a disaster!”

“Ha!” I said. “We lasted 90 minutes so I guess we were doing something right!”

“Pip, right?” A guy interrupted, put out his cigarette and walked over to speak with us.

Now I have the face of pretty much every other Bostonian of Irish descent; light-skinned, piercing blue eyes, and a forehead that has continued to invade the hairline a little more with each passing year. But this guy wasn’t looking at my face; he was looking at my arms.

“Nope,” I said. “My name is Chris.” Pip? Who would answer to the name Pip anyway? Was he thinking of Roger? I hadn’t thought of Roger in quite some time. Is Roger, Pip?

“Oh, sorry,” he said. “You look just like Pip.”

“People always used to confuse me for another guy,” I said. “Roger?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I think that was his real name. I always knew him as Pip. I think he lived around here.”

This doppelganger thing just won’t go away!

 

A week or so later we were walking Mindy when a car barreled around the bend.

“Roger?” asked a woman I’d never seen before as she skidded to a halt in the middle of the street.

“Um,” I said. “No.” I quickly glanced behind her car to make sure no one would come along and hit her car parked in the middle of the street.

“Really?” She replied.

“I’m not Roger,” I said. “But I get mistaken for him a lot.”

“I bet,” she said. “I grew up with him and he used to live on that street.” She pointed to the street where Holly lives now. I seem to be getting closer! “He’s a really nice guy!”

“No doubt,” I said. “People seem to always be smiling when they think I’m him.”

“Dead ringer,” she said and sped off.

 

That was the last time I’d been asked if I was Roger. Or Pip. I doubt it will be the last. I’m not sure I’ll ever have that cup of coffee with him and, so far, I haven’t been accused of robbing any banks. It’s hard to believe that this has been going on for more than twenty years. I just hope who ever he is, or where ever he is, that he knows how much people seem to be really happy when they think they see him. I continue to be fascinated by random folks convinced that I’m a dead ringer for him.