Hindsight

By Greg Richard Bernard

____________________

In my defense, I'd never seen either man naked. Not that it would have helped, I suppose, what with my eyesight the way it is. But you never know, right? A birthmark here, botched circumcision there. Something. Anything. One tiny frame of reference. One little sign that would have kept me from opening my mouth.

But no.

Anyhow, I'm getting ahead of myself. What you have to understand before we go any further is that, though exceedingly rare, there are indeed non-biological twins inhabiting this earth. Hell, maybe it's not so rare. Maybe we each have one. It's a pretty big world, after all. I remember once when I was in tenth grade art class this girl sitting next to me came across a picture of some Victorian chick in one of those reference books art teachers have lying around. Emily Doubich, that was her name. The girl in my class, not the dead chick. So Emily comes across this painting and lets out this scream that nearly set off the sprinklers. And then she faints. Swear to God, faints and falls off her stool. They took her to the nurse, and I guess she got to go home for the rest of the day. I got a good look at that picture too. Uncanny. I'm not saying I'd lose consciousness over it—Emily was in drama, as I recall—but I can understand how looking at your dead twin you didn't even know you had could freak a person out.

Okay, so I guess I wasn't as surprised as you might think I'd be to discover that my optometrist, Dr. Bressard, and my college psych professor, Dr. Leach, were non-biological clones of one another. After all, the odds two people who are dead ringers for each other are alive in the same time period, let alone living in the same town, must be mathematically insane (Note to self: I should ask my college math professor, Dr. Sanderson. She kind of looks like my Aunt Trudy, anyway, so that might be sort of interesting.). But thanks to one Emily Doubich—who recovered quite nicely, I might add—I guess it didn't phase me too much.

I mean, it's not like these two gentlemen truly share me in any communal sense of the word. It's been more of a happy Venn diagram. Fall semester, 10:00 Abnormal Psychology is reserved for Dr. Leach. And every six months or so I pop in and have a good chat with Dr. Bressard. You know, check out the old 20/20.

Only I don't have 20/20 vision. In fact, in addition to needing prescriptive lenses, I have been diagnosed with a slight retinal detachment. That's why I need to go in to Dr. Bressard so often. If this thing progresses, I could go blind. And that's some scary shit, am I right?

Speaking of scary shit, I think most guys would agree with me that public locker rooms are a bit nerve-wracking. It's not our fault, mainly. I mean we're raised in this almost aggressively homophobic culture. Totally stupid. Until we're standing naked next to one
another, that is. Then the imagination takes over. And every prison joke, every dropped bar of soap, every rat's tail expertly wetted and flicked against our buttocks in junior high comes rushing out from some deep recess in our collective consciousness and we panic. Panic.

So I'm at the university's recreation center getting some exercise. (Yeah, yeah, I'm getting to the point. This isn't the easiest thing in the world for a guy to admit, okay?) Anyway, I have an okay game of racquetball. I need to work on my serve, and my backhand definitely sucks, but I hold my own. My girlfriend's really good, too. So it's not like I have anything to be ashamed about. We share some water from one of those ludicrously large bottles, and agree to meet at the car after we shower. I'd rather shower back at my apartment; there's something about walking around barefoot on wet floors that freaks meout. Honestly, who hasn't taken a leak in the shower at home? And if you're pissing in your own bathtub, what's gonna stop you from draining the lizard all over the institution that's raping you with student fees, tuition hikes, and parking passes? But my girlfriend wants to go grab something to eat, so I oblige.

The locker room is actually empty when I undress. I head to the shower, do my thing (and yes, for the record, that includes pissing), and head back to my locker.

And that's when it happens.

I'm toweling my hair, so I don't see him until I'm right there. It's Dr. Bressard. And he's in the locker right next to mine. And he's buck naked. He turns, jockstrap in hand, and everything kind of slows way down. Panic time. We're the only two dudes in a public locker room, we're both au natural, and we have the unfortunate luck of knowing each other casually. And that's the kicker, right there. See, if we were teammates or frat brothers-hell, even if we'd slept with the same girl at some point in our lives-this would be no big deal. Likewise, if we were total strangers, we could throw each other a testosterone-laden grunt or involuntary twitch of the neck, and it'd all be smooth as sundaes on a Sunday. But me and Dr. Bressard, we're socially acquainted.

He makes the first gesture. "Afternoon."

"Hey," I say. And I should leave it at that. We've each made our requisite greeting. We are home free. But when he sits down and lifts his leg, inserting it into the athletic supporter, I'm overcome. The silence is crushing. It's like being under the ocean without a submarine or something. My mind starts fumbling for anything to say. Some safe, non-gay sounding locker room rhetoric. Then it comes to me, softly at first, like one of those candle-lit Christmas hymns. Dr. Bressard and I have recently met at his office, and he indicated my retinal detachment seemed a bit worse than before. It's not much, but I snatch at it, a ravenous dog.

"So, you think I'm gonna go blind?"

And it's not until I'm halfway through the word "blind" that I realize I'm not talking to Dr. Bressard, the optometrist, but instead to Dr. Leach, the abnormal psychology professor. And that my last conversation with Dr. Leach took place this morning in class as he went over sexual fetishisms, including as I now recall in painful irony, addictive masturbation.

Dr. Leach clears his throat, throws on a pair of running shorts, and makes a hasty exit.

***

My girlfriend has this odd look on her face when I get to the car. "You all right?" she asks.

"Sure," I say.

"You don't look all right," she says. We drive in silence for several minutes. "If you need to talk, I'm right here, okay?"

"Yep," I say. But I can't talk to her. There's no way she'd possibly understand. I am, however, suddenly wondering what Emily Doubich is up to these days. Who knows? Maybe I'll look her up.

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Greg Bernard lives in Bemidji, Minnesota, where he teaches high school English. When not writing (or making naked men uncomfortable), he enjoys running marathons, juggling, and bow hunting. Seldom concurrently, of course. His writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Minnesota Monthly, Miller's Pond, Poetry Motel, Wisconsin Review, flashquake, Talking Stick, Red Weather, Whitetail Fanatic, Lake Country Journal, Fire Ring Voices, and in the anthologies Poetry for Students: Volume 10 and Chicken Soup for the Golfer's Soul.