Out of nowhere, he grabbed our shoulder and turned us slightly and kind of brusquely to face him. This was, more than anything, surprising. We’d been walking down the street, head down against the wind, at a decent clip and then suddenly stopped and manually coaxed to stop and look up in his direction.
“Hey, oh my god. How are you? What are you doing here?,” he said.
We were, prior to being asked, pretty OK - but now entirely disoriented. This man standing in front of us - or, rather, in front of whom we had been prompted to stand - was not someone we recognized. At all. No part of him was familiar. Not his face, his voice, or his brand seemingly new gray coat. Even his height - maybe six or seven inches taller than us - didn’t seem like something with which we had ever been acquainted.
And what were we doing here? On a sidewalk during the day? We weren’t here deliberately. Here was just a means of getting elsewhere. If he hadn’t stopped us, we wouldn’t be here at all. This person, whoever he was, had mistaken us for someone who evidently did not walk on sidewalks. What kind of person doesn’t walk on sidewalks? And what kind of person is acquainted with people who don’t walk on sidewalks?
Rather than answer the questions we were posed, we wanted to shut the whole interaction down. Say something like “Oh, sorry, you’ve got the wrong person,” but this man looked at us with an excitement and certainty in his eyes that made us doubt ourselves. Maybe we were exactly who he wasn’t expecting to see here. Maybe we were misrecognizing him?
“Oh hey, fine, yeah, good, just running around, y’know,” we said and paused as he nodded waiting for further details. We didn’t want to provide any, so instead asked how he was doing hoping this might clarify who he was and if there was any chance that we actually really did somehow know him.
“I’m great. Tired, obviously,” he said and laughed for reasons we didn’t understand, “but really great. It’s so crazy to run into you like this. I was actually just talking about you the other day. I was telling Claire what you said about that Alexandra Kleeman book.” He laughed again.
It was maybe a mistake to ask him how he was doing because, well, things were more complicated now. We do in fact know a person named Claire and the person we know named Claire would absolutely be interested in talking about Alexandra Kleeman. We have also casually said things about Alexandra Kleeman books to various people. It’s true. These details should, then, confirm that we are who this person takes us to be. It would be extremely wild and unlikely that we look incredibly like a person who also knows an Claire and also reads Alexandra Kleeman. That seems like an implausible set of congruent facts.
The problem is that we are not this person. We have absolutely never talked to this man about Alexandra Kleeman. Ever. There is no way. It is not a thing that has happened. We know this like we know that it is cold outside and absurd to think we would stand outside and chat with anyone at all for any length of time in this weather.
But how flattering would it be to be talked about! And to talk about something we said about a book! We were certainly not the person who said something worth repeating about Alexandra Kleeman, but it was vicariously thrilling to be mistaken for that someone.
“Oh, cool, yeah,” we said and smiled. We wanted to seem grateful but also humble for having been talked about even if we were not the person talked about at all.
“Yeah, and then we were talking about organizing this thing around like body horror? It’s kind of unclear right now. Still early. But we were thinking you might want to be involved? Maybe help us out? I’m actually meeting Claire, Ethan, and Devon for coffee in like ten minutes. Do you know Devon? She does like long poetry, like wild performative stuff? Doesn’t matter. She’s great. What are you doing? You should come.”
We entertained the idea of running directly into traffic.
We know a Claire and used to know an Ethan, but almost certainly not this Claire or this Ethan. The Claire we know doesn’t know the Ethan we knew. Maybe? I mean, we don’t talk about Claire to Ethan because we don’t talk to Ethan at all anymore and also don’t talk about Ethan to Claire because why would we? But maybe they do know each other? And maybe they are these very people that this (as far as we can tell) total stranger is meeting for coffee? Our Claire and Ethan might be down for something about body horror. It had never come up ever before, but how often did body horror really come up at all with anyone?
And did we want to organize something about body horror? Sure! Yeah! That would be an interesting thing to be involved in. But we couldn’t be involved because we were definitely (probably?) not the person being asked. No one who actually, genuinely knew us would ask us to be involved in “organizing” anything. Organizing is not in our skillset. It isn’t even something we lie about in job interviews.
We couldn’t say yes to coffee or organizing because we weren’t the ones being asked. We also though couldn’t say no for that same reason. Could we now end this interaction? Just interrupt what was happening by saying “oh, sorry, you must have us mistaken with someone else”? Too much time had passed for this to be an easy or light correction, but maybe we could shrug and note that we “must just have one of those faces”? Or allude to the possibility that we have a double or doppelganger running around? Or maybe we are the double or doppelganger? Ha ha ha. We could throw in a reference to Shakespeare or Dostoevsky or that Jake Gyllenhaal movie where he has an identical twin or something and there’s a giant city-sized spider? Maybe cultured references like that might lead him to consider involving us in the body horror thing anyways? And wouldn’t it be cool to have two people who are seemingly identical to each other (but otherwise strangers) at a body horror thing? We could screen like A Zed and Two Noughts or Persona or that Cronenberg movie with two Jeremy Ironses? We could turn this otherwise awkward instance of misrecognition into a serendipitous occasion! We got your body horror right here! Our whole body and personality and social group is indistinguishable from someone else’s!
We didn’t do or say any of that. We said we were pretty busy right now, but maybe reach out next week and we’ll see.
“Absolutely. Oh, but I don’t think I have your new number?”
WHAT. THE. ACTUAL. FUCK.
Reader, we gave him our number. This stranger. We saw no way around it. We were hoping he’d pass us the phone to enter the digits so we could at least see what name he was planning to put us under. No such luck. In addition, we were so confused by this whole interaction that we gave him our real phone number. It did not even occur to us to lie.
But, AND MORE IMPORTANTLY, who has a new number in 2023?
A very interesting person probably. Someone who travels or has devastating and terrifying exes or is reckless in unprecedented ways.
“Cool. OK. I’ll message you,” he said and he turned as if to head back on his way and release us from this dizzying encounter until “Shit, my bad, I just unloaded a bunch of stuff and didn’t even ask how you are. What have you been up to? Your Insta has so much going on it’s hard to keep up.” He laughed and we felt vicarious resentment flow through us. Our actual Insta has nothing going on and, in fact, doesn’t exist - but this person for whom we were mistaken seemed to live a rich and various life that they enjoyed sharing with others. Who was he to judge? Literally, who was he at all?
“Just writing or trying to write,” we said with a courteous smile that would hopefully indicate that we were trying to end this agony as quickly and politely as possible.
He looked at us as if we were lying. He squinted and scrutinized us as if writing were an utterly foreign activity, as if we had just said we were creating scale models of old Cadillacs or destroying ashtrays we bought by the dozen at the dollar store. Apparently this person who didn’t walk on sidewalks, said interesting things about Alexandra Kleeman, knew at least one Claire, had competent organizational skills, needed a new number, and posted often on Instagram was functionally illiterate? Incapable of writing or trying to write? We didn’t like this look or, increasingly, the man giving it.
“Oh… so I guess the thing in - was it Slovakia? - didn’t work out?”
“I’m sorry?”
“The thing in Slovakia? Or was it Slovenia? Last time we spoke, you had that dinner to go to… ?” He trailed off to give us space to fill in the blank. As if he were guiding us to our own memory.
We didn’t know how we could possibly continue this conversation. There were no contextual clues here and no easy way to deflect the question. We also didn’t want to corrupt this person’s impression of whomever he thought we were. What if the Slovakia or Slovenia thing was really important? What if this person’s getting it or not getting it was something others were eager to know or talk about? And if we said we did or didn’t get it (whatever it was) then maybe a whole slew of rumors and innuendo would follow? It was not our place to weigh in on someone else’s Slovenia or Slovakia thing. It would be irresponsible in a bad way. It was also - it warrants emphasizing again - cold outside and we had officially become a hindrance to other people trying to actually use the sidewalk for walking.
“Yeah, that isn’t me. I don’t have a Slovakia or Slovenia thing. I mean, I don’t think I’ve ever been involved in anything to do with Slovakia. Or Slovenia.”
Not only did he once again look at us like we were lying, but like we were trying to hurt him. His face did these little contortions, blinked quickly, and tilted his head like a dog trying to understand a new phrase as he struggled to process and accept this information, these facts. He half-looked like he was going to argue the point, but didn’t.
“Maybe I mixed you up with someone else.”
“Yeah, must be.”
“Huh, that’s so weird. I could’ve sworn it was you.”
“Nope. Sounds cool, though.”
“Yeah.”
It seemed like we had reached a kind of parity. He was now as confused as we had been initially. We could see him going back over the conversation in his head and looking at us with less ease and enthusiasm. It was as if we had just let slip that we were Keyser Soze or some more topical example of a person who reveals their true identity to the shock and surprise of everyone.
While he looked like his grip on reality was troubled and shaky, we were at this point fairly comfortable being someone other than ourselves who lived a life other than our own. We had settled in. A novel and impossible kind of self-confidence propped us up and was - we were certain - legible in our posture. We were considering re-reading Alexandra Kleeman books and really thinking that sadly we didn’t have time right now for this body horror thing. We had other interesting things to do and post about. We would engage in many and different things as soon as this cursed conversation was over.
“OK. Well, I should get going. It was so good to see you,” he said and gave a little wave.
“Yeah. It was,” we said and we tucked our head back down against the wind and resumed walking on the sidewalk and considering if maybe we ought think about being the sort of person who doesn’t walk on sidewalks for a change and then quickly thought better of it because that would be crazy but also maybe we would avoid walking on this particular sidewalk for a little while lest we run into a repeat of this interaction with this man who couldn’t distinguish us from someone else entirely but avoiding this sidewalk just to avoid him was far more effort than we wanted to spend and cast the whole thing out of mind soon enough as we went about the regular activities that make up most of our days.
Hours later, that evening, we realized that we totally knew that man. His name and everything. We still weren’t the person he thought we were and still didn’t much care for that conversation at all even a little, but were quietly happy to have learned that some person who looked uncannily like us was right now possibly avoiding sidewalks in Slovenia or Slovakia, talking about Alexandra Kleeman, thinking about body horror, posting countless enviable things on Instagram, and knowing nothing at all about any of this and absolutely nothing at all about us.
Thank you for the deep belly laughs.
I absolutely love your writing, this was fantastic. I have never been to Montreal and only found the blog because RFQ linked to your piece on girl, online, but I'm now a dedicated subscriber. Genuinely this feels like Writing.
It does feel Unethical but I so love the idea of leaning into it, going along. What would that coffee shop meeting have been like!
Also, small typo near the end: "ought think".