Have You Seen Me? I’m Positive You Think You Have.

Have You Seen Me?

Recently I went into a local deli/store and there I became entangled in conversation with a man I may or may not know, about a career I never had and a life I never lived. But he seemed certain of who I was. In fact, more and more certain as the conversation progressed.

This, sadly, is not an unusual event. I apparently have a familiar face. And when I say “familiar” I mean there’s exact clones of me! ‘The Boys from Brazil’ or ‘Invasion of the Body Snatchers’ Pod-People kind of thing because I seemed to be just about everywhere I never was.

When I was in my teens, older people often said I looked exactly like a young Robert Redford or Andy Gibb from the Bee-Gees, (before or after he died was never established.) Later in life, I was told I looked like actor James Franco. I never could see the resemblance to any of these stars and apparently, neither did any girls my age. I was absolutely certain the following conversation NEVER occurred:

Anyone: “Hey! Are you Jason Morgan!”

Mr. Redford: “No! I’m Robert Fucking Redford!”

I first became aware of this anomaly while I was living in New Jersey attending the fourth grade. My teacher, the one from a previous blog that yelled at me for throwing pebbles and I jested about throwing her..well, nevermind about that. Anyway, she said she saw me riding my bicycle along a busy highway the day before. She thought it was extremely dangerous and chastised me for it. I protested explaining I was at home pretending to do my homework and hadn’t ridden my bike for months. She wasn’t having it. My teacher was adamant that it was me and called me a liar and threatened to call my parents. I begged her to call them as long as she left out the part about me ‘pretending’ to do my homework. But, she was satisfied with just never trusting anything I ever said again..except, apparently, the Grand Canyon comment.

Since then, all sorts of people were commenting about how they saw me here and there; the bank, the shoe store, church, restaurants, Pizza Hut, the arcade..well that last one may very well have been me, just about everywhere and they were absolutely certain it was me. Ultimately, I was only marginally certain that it wasn’t me. After all, if enough people tell you something, you start to believe it.

The sightings became so prevalent I thought I had hit the jackpot! Having my very own army of clones would be amazing! I could potentially get by with just about anything and blame it on my doppelganger – pod person thingies. I was the original Dollar General, able to be seen on multiple street corners from a single location, (do we really need another Jason right here? We already have one across the street!). As fun as the fantasy was, it was completely harmless, that is, until my senior year in high school.

After taking four years of Spanish language classes, I couldn’t habla one word of it. I even had trouble ordering off of a Taco Bell menu so naturally, when the opportunity to travel to Spain with my Spanish teacher presented itself, I seized it.

The flight out of JFK went smoothly. We landed in Tangier and although our connecting flight was to go north to Barcelona, things went south..for me anyway. Each gate was guarded by intimidating men with long-guns and before we could get to our gate we had to go through a heavily armed security checkpoint. Each student presented their passports and were ushered right through. But not me, no, that’s not how my life rolls.

Upon presenting my passport, there was a clear expression of concern on the guard’s face, then more guards began to collect. My passport was being held up to my face then a piece of paper the content of which I couldn’t see. Then it was held up to a computer screen then back to my face, paper, computer screen, my face. There was a lot of perturbed head nodding and head shaking and eye squinting on their part. On my part there was just profuse sweating and butt cheek clenching.

I looked at my teacher with some confusion mixed with a great deal of terror hoping she could shed some light on what they were yammering about. I certainly didn’t know if they were speaking Spanish or not but, apparently not since my teacher just shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. After twenty minutes, they released me with no explanation, just a collective stern look. Well, glad that’s over with…………..until we landed in Barcelona.

We made it to the airport and went to the baggage claim to retrieve our luggage but mine’s not there. My teacher takes me to the security kiosk to inquire about my missing suitcase that, as it turns out, was being held hostage by security which lead to me having to show my passport. That then lead to a collection of armed security, perturbed squinty eyed looks and more comparisons to face, paper, computer and yammering, so much yammering. I clearly knew nothing of the Spanish language but I was damn certain Barcelona was in Spain. I glanced at my teacher with that same terror-stricken face I used just two hours before. My teacher stepped up and spoke with the security quintet, (which is French/Italian not Spanish), at length in a language I had failed to learn in four years.

Finally, my teacher turns to me with an amused look on her face, restraining her laughter. She informed me that I..me..Jason..5’5″, 114 pounds matched the exact physical description and appearance of a known terrorist running around Europe. Well, how exciting is that? At every airport, train station and bus station on that trip I was pulled aside by armed security and run through this charade. All I could think about was the movie ‘Midnight Express’ and how I was going to end up in a Turkish prison writing letters home to mommy that no one was every going to read; (Geography was also a class I failed to pay any attention to). My teacher had to actually add time to every stop on our itinerary for “Jason to be interrogated”. But as strange as that was, things got a whole lot stranger when we arrived at our hotel in Barcelona.

Our bus pulled up in front of the hotel directly behind another bus. There were high school aged students standing outside of the bus in front of us, clearly waiting to board. We exited our bus and stood waiting for our luggage to be unloaded when I hear some anxious griping, (in English), from the line of students boarding their bus.

I turned to see what the commotion was and they’re waiving me over telling me to “stop screwing around”. One approached me, grabbed my arm and started to gently pull me towards their bus. Perhaps my teacher has staged an elaborate hoax but I was in no mood. Maybe just a little mood because it worsened when the other students’ teacher got into the act. She sternly told me to get on the bus or they’re going to be late. Holy MIERDA! (Okay, to be fair I knew that Spanish word but in my defense it’s not on the Taco Bell menu, but it should be, right next to the picture of their refried beans).

Was my trip over? Is it time to go? I thought I just got here? I’m so confused at this point I didn’t even know who I was anymore or if I was coming or going. But a little voice was telling me things weren’t right..Oh! actually that voice was my teacher ‘ordering’ me not to move in such a tone that was very unnerving. She was rightfully concerned that I was being abducted and I was rightfully concerned that I was losing my mind. She spoke with the other teacher and returned exasperated; undeniably this was not a joke.

My teacher explained that they thought I was one of their students whom I look “exactly like” . They were from a high school in Ohio, a state I had never even visited? Or did I? More disturbing was that particular student didn’t even go on the trip with them. Too bad, I really would’ve liked to meet me and, decades later I actually did, but not that me, an other me.

Throughout my early adulthood people also had a regular tendency of accusing me of being Canadian. Canadian? Really? Frankly I didn’t even know what Canadians looked like but I was offended anyway, eh. I just couldn’t understand it, the nerve of some people, eh; that is, until I went on a cruise to Alaska with my wife and kids. We made a stop in British Columbia where we took a tour of the Botanical Gardens. It was there that I saw me..er, actually him but the me-him! Yeah, he was a little taller than me-me, but who isn’t? But, I’d be damned if he didn’t look exactly like me. I almost screamed, “Terrorist!”. Hey, see something, say something right? Anyway, I was just so amazed at the resemblance I followed.. okay, stalked him for twenty minutes getting a look at different angles and at every angle he looked just like me-me. So THIS guy was the reason that I got accused of being Canadian!!?

I was relieved that as I got older, there were fewer sightings of me but, apparently I wasn’t completely free of it. So, there I was at this local deli/store where I ordered a sandwich. While I waited, I looked up as the entrance door opened and a man, who looked like he was on his way to a Charles Manson look alike contest, walked in. He immediately made eye-contact with me, a huge smile appeared on his face as he stretched his arms out like he was preparing to hug me and bellos a loud “Heeeeey!”

‘Good grief! Am I supposed to know this person?’ Other than his resemblance to Charlie he doesn’t look familiar at all! But ‘Mr. Manson’ was just so excited to see me that we must undoubtedly have a connection somehow. I felt terrible that I couldn’t figure out who he was. He began asking me questions about how my life was going, how the wife and kids are and something about my career.

I was giving him vague and hopefully relevant answers. You see, I wasn’t exactly paying attention to the conversation as I was mentally reliving my entire fucking life trying to figure out where this waco-doodle fit in; The playground? Pee-wee soccer team? Old classmate? Work associate? A neighbor? Some incident in college involving copious amounts of alcohol? Who knew, certainly not me.

While the rest of the patrons were enjoying the impromptu ‘Shakespeare in the Deli production of “The Comedy of Errors”, I was trying to tune back into the conversation to see if he would provide any further clues as to my alter ego. He asked me if I was still working. I gave my reply with some trepidation because he was so vested in this conversation I wasn’t entirely sure how my ‘fidus Achates’ might react to a slip up. But, after stammering a bit, I admitted that I was retired. He then said, to my relief, “Oh, that’s great! Did you get out before all the trouble started?” Ha! If he actually KNEW me, he’d know I WAS all the trouble at work.

At that point I knew for certain we had never met and he had been a victim of an ‘other-me’. But there was just no way I was going to tell him, I couldn’t crush his enthusiasm and his excitement for this unexpected surprise reunion. Luckily, my name was called, my sandwich was ready, I paid and fled the store without looking back leaving poor ‘Charlie’ with the impression that his best-friend-forever was a complete and utter asshole.

My childhood fantasy of having my own clone army aside, I’m now up to five confirmed clones and, to be honest, I don’t like any of them, they’re nothing but trouble!