The Fabled Tom Lawrence

He was the most extraordinary man I ever met. His name was Tom Lawrence, and I am now living in his house. It’s odd how things work out.
I was staying with Raymond and Denise, and although they never expressed negative feelings toward me, I must admit I had become something of a leech. My only excuse is that I was depressed at the time, and I couldn’t bring myself to seek employment.

One night, Raymond invited over an old army buddy, who being a little older, came forward with the most fantastic stories of his vast experience far more detailed than anything Ray ever admitted to. They met in Okinawa and when Tom related tales of his time there, Ray would concur with a nod of his head, but there were other bits that seemed not to fall within the range of Tom’s possible chronology, and though Ray verbalized nothing contrary in his company nor when we were alone, he made it apparent by rolling eyes and silent lip movements that some of Tom’s history was not to be believed.
For instance, Tom went into detail about the time a drum of oil spilled and ran down a hillside where they were camped and several men died after running around engulfed in flames. The way he described the smell of charred flesh, I could envision the scene and sensed the awful odor of pork roasting that was described. A glance at Ray told me that this had indeed happened and he was a witness. “It was the army’s mistake, of course,” Tom said, “Those oil drums should never have been stored so close to where hundreds of men were sleeping.”
However, when Tom claimed he was one of the last Americans to be stationed in Vietnam, and taking into account the small age difference between the two men, I doubted the veracity of his statement, there again Ray made it clear that this part was apocryphal, but we both dutifully listened to his wild and wooly tales, which, to me sounded as if they had been lifted from the script of Platoon and delivered with only the slightest alterations to allow for the waning of the war.
As he was invited over several times after that and I came to know him a little better, I grew to like the man in spite of his enfabulations. At the same time, it became clear to me, that as Tom was looking for a housemate, Ray was all for getting me to consider applying for the role.

A proposition was made one night, and I took him up on it with the stipulation that it might be some time before I could pay my way. Tom was independently wealthy and said that presented no problem.
I moved to Staten Island within the week.

Now, I live alone in this big house because Tom died a month after I moved in.
He drove his motorcycle to a Seven-Eleven early one morning and on returning he swerved to avoid running into two boys with their bicycles. He was thrown over his handlebars and his skull was crushed.

After his funeral, I discovered he’d left me the house. As he had only known me a brief time, I cannot for the life of me figure out why he did so, but I did discover he was only 46 and couldn’t possibly have served in Vietnam as the war was long over by the time he had reached enlistment age. He sure could spin a good yarn, and almost have you believing him. His accounts were that vivid. I miss the man, and Raymond never calls, but I’ve reached my own conclusions on why that is.

Would I Lie?

Everything I’ve ever told you was a lie. Even my lying was a lie. That is to say, when I told you something and you believed me, and then I admitted to lying, I was lying both times. I will say anything to win your love, including ingratiating myself to have you see how fallible I am because you have made it clear that you feel a fallible man is so sensitive and therefore a good catch. That’s your one weakness, which is not to say I think you’re gullible, only that it makes you attractive, and I will do anything to have you. Am I lying to you in this moment; what do you think?

Heat

In the heat of the afternoon, a naked man walked down the street across from where I live. I couldn't believe I was seeing that. Right there on Fourteenth Street in New York City, a man with no clothes on was walking with a steady stride. I wouldn’t even walk barefoot on the streets of Manhattan with all the muck and bits of broken glass and whatnot. Where had he come from? What was his game? It was extremely hot outside, but still, walking naked in the street? I've never seen that before.
Nobody would go near him though many turned and stared. There was a wide circle of clearance.
I supposed a cop would come sooner or later to take him away and make him put something on. I turned to put a CD on the stereo to drown out the hum of the air conditioner. Suddenly, I heard a high pitched scream from outside and ran back to the window. The naked man was gone, but apparently someone had fallen from the building across the street. I couldn't see if it was a man or a woman because there was a crowd of about a dozen people gathered around the body, but I could see the victim was clothed.
There were still no police around; though a siren sounded close.
Some of the people were looking up at the building. The Fayva shoe store on the ground level was open for business, but the windows of the three stories above had been sealed for years.
I wondered where the naked man had got to and if he had been some sort of a prelude to this other person jumping or falling or having been pushed from the building. The heat makes people do strange things.

There's No Soap. Radio.

An old friend came to the other one and requested enlivening and (snap) like that there came a non-static response with all the features in place. I could stand on my head, spit the proverbial wooden nickels, and I would not get the time of day. It is precisely because I think and speak in clichés that that situation obtains, but I haven’t the wherewithal to chance beyond my preset borders. One day, and it’s coming soon; I can feel it, I will implode for the lack of gravity in my own heart. I do not mean to be parasitical, but having been born only the day before yesterday, it may take months, or years, before I can walk in the shoes purchased on spec. The greatest freedom I can endure at this time is the happiness resulting from wiggling the toes of my unshod feet, and then, only while they dangle behind the eyes of my own subconscious if such a thing exists.

Lodging

I have found lodging. A couple, Raymond and Denise, is already living in the apartment, but I manage to stay invisible when they are both at home. The other day, Raymond told me, “I can hardly see you.” Thank you, cloak of invisibility! Since I cannot afford to contribute anything to the food bill, I do not eat much, and I am growing thin as a rail. Shortly, I will no longer need the cloak.

An Early Start

Couple of sheets from a newspaper were blown across the grimy wet streets and were plastered to the gray wall between the main windows of the doughnut shop and the travel agency. Now they had found a home and the wind wasn’t strong enough to send them on a fresh journey. Chancing the extinguishing of my cigarette, I moved closer to make out one of the headlines because the word FRAUD had caught my eye, but it was the same old shit. Someone who thought he deserved more than he had earned had tried to correct his situation to his own point of view. I needed a place to stay, to get out of the cold rainy night, and any place would do if it fit within my budget. As I rechecked the number of smokes left in the crushed little packet, I asked myself again, “why couldn’t I have been born clever, and turned it into resourcefulness?”

As Safe As Yesterday

A shift places me in another realm. Here I can use nothing from my past. Here I am largely invisible. As I emerged from the unreal, many props were available for my choosing, but I was only allowed to select five. I guess I should have taken the sack of gold, but thought it was too heavy to lug around. The reason I, for the most part, cannot be seen is because I chose the cloak, which, itself, cannot be seen. Therefore, I must take care with it, lest I leave it somewhere and later am unable to find it. The other four items each have their uses. Seems I need the props as within myself I do not appear to have the resources to survive in any kind of luxurious manner.
And so my journey begins. I should not look back, but there are moments when I find reflection unavoidable.
So much family time, and myriad experiences blend in a haze of recollection. And the people. The people are as wisps of smoke. The expression “As safe as yesterday,” is cold comfort, when my yesterdays have become detached.

The Sound of a Tear

I was walking along a stone path and the sun was shining. I was walking but my feet were not touching the ground. I could hear someone speaking but I couldn’t understand what was being said and I moved in the direction of the sounds. I left the path and entered an opening in some shrubbery, and there, as if having a picnic, were Edward and Diana. She said something to him in Italian and he shook his head in denial. Then, he stood and walked away from her and she began to cry. I wanted to go to her to console her, but before I could move my double came toward her from the direction her husband had gone. This guy had a menacing look on his face as he came toward her with his hands outstretched. His shirt kept changing colors subtly through all shades of the spectrum. He put his hands around her throat and began strangling her, but rather than appearing alarmed, she was just smiling in that soft way of hers. I thought it very odd that I could hear the sound of a tear splashing on his hand, a tear which caught a glint of sunlight and appeared whiter than white.
As I started to run forward to prevent his killing her, I was awakened by the sound of rapping at my door.
It was Dario. “Hey, man,” he said, “What’s up? You’re sweating like a pig.”
“I fell asleep without the fan on,” I said, “And I had a bad dream.”
“Oh, man,” he said, “It’s hotter than hell in here. Open a window or something.” He walked to the other side of the room and started to do just that. “Do you mind?”
“No,” I said, “No, go ahead.” I went looking for a cigarette without success, and asked, “You got any smokes?”
“Man, those things will kill you,” he said, shaking his head. “Let’s go get something to eat. I feel like eating Italian.”

Incommunicado

It will come to me in bits and pieces, I know. I went away for a while. Stopped communicating.
I found my face on a sculpture, so realistically portrayed I knew I was looking at myself, and having absolutely no relationship with the artist, I came to believe I must have passed through one of his dreams.
Maybe my thoughts were running out of control and I was taking a series of coincidences way beyond their logical conclusions, but this is the kind of thing I do. I take odd circumstances and make fiction out of them. And what I believed I saw happening here was something that was making a fiction out of me.
Now, I’ve been here three months and I’m feeling more lost and helpless than ever.
Late last night I swam in a deserted pool trying to plan a course of action when it occurred to me that if someone who looks like me is moving into my life, he might be working at my job and spending time with my friends and I might not even be missed. Or if I am going mad, surely someone somewhere wonders where I am.
So, I thought I would write this to catalog what is happening, but truthfully, I’m not certain that I am prepared for any response concerning what has occurred during my absence.

Doppelganger

I don’t know why I’m writing this to you or if I will actually send it. I don’t even know what I hope to accomplish by writing this all down.
By now you may or may not have realized that I haven’t been in town for a few days, but now a sense of loneliness has crept up and taken hold of me and I guess I am trying to reach out and see if anyone remains who will help me, or even recognize my “problem.”
If, up to this point, you haven’t noticed my absence, then things are as I suspected they would become and my double has taken over my life in town.
I am in one of the hotels our group had traveled to in the past (I prefer not to say which one, and in any case, I don’t intend to stay here for very long.), but I am getting fidgety thinking that perhaps I was rash in running away from the situation.
When odd things started happening and I mentioned it to you, you seemed to take it very lightly. I tried to make a fiction of it because that’s what I do, but as I took notes, events became more serious, at least to me, and I could not figure out how to deal with them.
Rather than rehash my uncomfortable experience, I quote here something I found on the Internet in hopes that you may understand why I ran away.
“Responsibility assumption is a doctrine … holding that each individual has substantial or total responsibility for the events and circumstances that befall them in their life. …the doctrine of responsibility assumption posits that the individual's mental contribution to his or her own experience is substantially greater than is normally thought. "I must have wanted this" is the type of catchphrase used … when encountering situations, pleasant or unpleasant, to remind them that their own desires and choices led to the present outcome.”
I am not crazy, and I don’t want people thinking I brought this “condition” on myself. Someone is out there impersonating me, and I think I need help.