In my eighth-grade "Language Arts" class, we had to do a book report-presentation
combo. We could select a book of
our own choosing, but it had to be approved by our teacher. We were permitted to pair
up, too, and so a friend and I opted to read a YA entitled Deathman, Do Not
Follow Me by Jay Bennett. I don’t remember much about the book, except that
I really liked it as a thirteen-year-old. A kid by the name of Danny Morgan was the main
protagonist, and he was daydreaming in history class at some point
in time. I believe, too, that he inadvertently got involved with some art
thieves or some such thing. Anyway, my project partner and I made the equivalent of an abridged book-on-tape before there was any such thing (or was there?). This was going to be
our presentation part. As fate would have it, we didn’t have to go
public with the tape. I don’t recall the reason, but it worked to our benefit. For starters, nobody would have understood what
was going on. We flubbed our lines on occasion as well. My buddy, the narrator said “art expedition” when he meant "art exhibition."
What made me think about Deathman, Do Not Follow Me after
all these years is an encounter I recently had with a passerby. I saw this man
coming toward me who looked an awfully lot like someone I once knew—a man named
Jerry who has been dead for thirteen years. What went through my mind as the
distance that separated us narrowed—and he looked more and more, and not less and less, like
Jerry—was what if he said hello to me as if it was him? What if it was like the
occasional meetings we experienced for so many years—we lived in the same
neighborhood—where we’d briefly chat about nothing especially important like his desiring a move to Reno, Nevada, a great "walking town." After
all, if he’s standing there as Jerry and knows me by name, I couldn’t tell him that he’s dead and that I attended his wake. This potential scenario very literally played in my brain in the several seconds leading up to us passing one another. He was a dead ringer for
Jerry all right, but it wasn’t him.
Had it been Jerry, what would I have done?.
Would I have turned around and gone home, thinking I had either lost my
marbles or was still in bed dreaming? Or would have I continued running my errands, believing that maybe—just maybe—I’d entered the Twilight Zone.
Afterwards, I kind of wished it really was old Jerry that I saw on the
street the other day. It would have certainly given me some food for thought. Then again, I probably wouldn't have written a blog about it.