The Multiple One

Carl Adamson stepped up to the window of the Subway restaurant, his reflection staring back.

The smell of freshly baked bread, meat and cheese had his stomach churning, his mouth watering up. He hadn’t had a warm meal for over a week.

But if everything went his way, he just might treat himself to a sirloin steak at Chili’s tonight.

Carl ran his dirty fingers through his greasy hair. He adjusted his tie, tried his best to brush the dust off the arm of his suit jacket.

Surely, he at least looked okay? His hair wasn’t that greasy? His stubble not yet too much?

Nope, he decided. I’m fine. This is… fine.

No one would notice the stain on his tie. The fact that his jacket had ripped at his shoulder seam? Not that big a deal.

As a matter of fact, Carl even looked good. Almost, any way. At least decent enough to be taken seriously.

As long as I don’t look like those goddamn zombies down on Stockbridge I’m fine, he thought.

The restaurant manager, standing now in the middle of the restaurant, stared straight at Carl.

Carl knew this look all too well.

It was a warning, a way of saying that a 911 call was only seconds away unless he exited the premises immediately.

iPad in hand, Carl strolled over to the other end of the strip mall, an unusually chilly breeze for this time of year blowing in from the north.

No, he thought. There are no such things as omens or fate.

”Your number one choice for used electronics,” read the white sign that hung next to the entrance to the RElectronics store. ”We buy, sell, and repair.”

Carl stepped inside.

It was warm and clean here, two characteristics that had this whole environment feeling oddly exotic. The walls were white, as were the floor and ceiling. On square, pedestal-like tables, on wall mounted shelves and in (presumably locked) display cabinets, electronic appliances were kept, some still in their original boxes. All of them had price tags.

A customer stood by the counter, chatting in a friendly manner with the clerk behind it.

Carl inspected the tablet device one last time, then polished the blank black screen with a napkin.

A hundred, he thought. Fifty for Wally and my debt, fifty for me. Enough for gas, and that sirloin steak…

The man in front of him glanced across his shoulder.

”Anyways,” he told the cashier. ”Just thought I’d let you know. See you Tuesday?”

”You got it,” the cashier said.

They fist-bumped, and the man in front of Carl turned around and left empty handed.

The cashier was a mustachioed middle-aged man whose name-tag read ”Bill.” He said nothing as Carl came up to him.

Instead he sniffed, with a mix of worry and focus in his eyes, a look that soon turned to the usual kind of disgust.

”You smell that?” he said. ”Reeks like … garbage.”

Not true, Carl thought. I don’t smell that bad.

”Yeah,” Carl said and forced a chuckle. ”Must have been that other guy before. He smelled like shit.”

Bill said nothing at first. Instead he simply stared at Carl, irritation growing at an alarming rate.

”That was my brother,” Bill the cashier finally said.

Carl felt slightly dizzy, those hundred dollars and that sirloin steak more distant now than ever before. His cheeks felt warm.

”God, I’m so sorry, I didn’t know,” he mumbled, every syllable rolling so rapidly off his tongue that he tripped on every other word. ”Please mister, I didn’t mean to—”

”You looking to buy or sell?”

Mouth dry, Carl tried to swallow. He cleared his throat.

”Sell,” he said. ”Here.”

He handed over the iPad.

Reluctantly accepting it, Bill scrutinized the device carefully, without any trace of good faith whatsoever. In fact, he was instead actively looking for dents and defects, anything that could bring down the price and confirm and validate his suspicious and already poor opinion about Carl.

”Got a scratch back here,” he said, and pointed with his thick, sausage-like finger at a little mark just below the camera.

”Yeah, but the camera works fine,” Carl said. ”Besides, you should have seen that thing when I first got a hold of it.”

”Mm-hmm,” Bill murmured and pressed and held down the button at the top.

The screen turned completely white, as the iPad booted up.

”You still got the box?” Bill said. ”Charger? Anything like that?”

”Nope,” Carl said.

”It’s not stolen, I hope?”

”What? No, I—”

”You know that I can look that up just like that?” Bill said and snapped his fingers. ”All I have to do is run a check on the IMEI number and if I find out you stole this thing I’ll report you to the cops. See that?”

He pointed to something across the room, something above the entrance.

A security camera, with a 360 degree view, hung from the ceiling, right by the door.

”I’ve already got you on tape,” the cashier added.

”Look,” Carl said. ”I didn’t steal this thing. I found it in the trash and I fixed it up. I used to be an engineer, you know. As a matter of fact, I could probably pick apart anything you got in here and then put it back together again in no time and every single thing would work perfectly.”

All of this was true.

Bill shrugged and turned his attention to the screen, where rows and columns of icons had now appeared.

”If you say so,” he said and spent the next five minutes carefully going through the tablet’s basic features.

He found it all working perfectly, which seemed to annoy him.

Eventually he gave up his wild goose chase, sighed and said:

”So, how much do you want for this thing?”

”A hundred bucks,”,” Carl said, Bill handing him the iPad.

Bill chuckled, an expression of genuine amusement that, once the cashier realized that Carl was serious, quickly shifted to a kind of surprised disbelief.

"You really want one hundred bucks for this piece of crap?”

”Uh-huh,” Carl said

He pointed to his right.

”You got an older model there, on sale for one-eighty. If you give me a hundred you’ll still make almost a profit of one hundred percent.”

”Fifty,” Bill said. ”I’ll give you fifty for it.”

”Come on,” Carl replied. ”Why don’t we stop with the lowballing?”

”Well, good luck selling that thing on eBay,” Bill said. ”Now, is there anything else I can do for you today, sir?”

”Fine,” Carl said. ”I'll sell it to you for fifty bucks. Happy?”

”No,” Bill said.

”No? What do you mean no? Fifty, that’s the price you offered.”

”That was before. I changed my mind since then. Now I’m offering you twenty-five.”

”Okay, twenty-five dollars.”

”Deal,” Bill said, smiling.

He opened his register and handed over twenty-five dollars in wrinkled fives and ones.

As soon as he had this cash in hand, Carl’s disappointment evaporated and an almost nostalgic feeling, like happening upon an old friend for the first time in decades, took the place of the initial letdown.

At least I’m still making a profit, he thought.

Outside, the air was still brisk and the afternoon sky lay covered in clouds.

A jacket or a coat would have been a worthwhile investment, had he not just been majorly screwed over. A meal or two, or some gas for the car—that would also be wise purchases at this point.

Unfortunately, none of his newly made money would be spent on luxuries such as these, as all of it would have to go to Wally now.

Still, even with nothing left to burn on food or fuel or anything even remotely fun, Carl would at least be one step closer to paying off his debt.

And with the car out of gas, he’d have to walk all the way out to Conelly’s Green.

Maybe that was also a positive, all things considered.

People never drove out to Conelly’s Green. Not if they wanted to keep their cars.

Carl didn’t even make it to the edge of the sidewalk before a voice from the past called out to him.

His body halted its movements. His muscles tensed. The hairs on his arms stood up, and the skin there prickled.

His ex-wife. The very woman he’d lied to, over and over for months.

She had divorced him after his near fatal car crash, the collision that had left him scarred for life and had functioned as the culmination of six months of him pretending that he went to work every morning, despite having been fired from the Hudson Automobile Company. He’d spent those damned days of deceit in the cafés and libraries of neighboring towns, taking out loans to have it appear as if he was still working, still bringing home the bread.

”Carl!” she said and waved, sounding both surprised and genuinely pleased to see him. ”Carl, it’s me!”

She had her new husband with her. Mike or Mitch or something like that.

Together they had a son of about six, a kid named Liam who was now hiding behind Amelia’s legs, clutching his mother’s right hand while suspiciously eying Carl.

Carl, too, wanted to hide. Run away somewhere. Anywhere, really.

Couldn’t. His body still refused him any kind of motion, any kind of control of his muscles, and so instead he remained in front of Amelia and her new family, bolted to the stripmall footpath.

”How are you?” Amelia said. ”How you’ve been?”

She smiled, but as she eyed him from top to bottom, her expression changed.

The smile was still there, but it looked forced now. Regret, at striking up a conversion with this ghost of her past, appeared to be taking root inside her now.

”Hi,” Carl mumbled, nodding courteously toward her and Mitch or Mike or whatever his name was.

”Hey kid,” he said to Liam, who withdrew further behind his mother.

”Look,” Carl said to Amelia, ”it’s nice to meet you, but I really gotta go, I… I’m in a rush, I…”

And just like that he was already halfway across the parking lot, the sound of his hurried footsteps bouncing off of cars much cleaner and less damaged than him.

In another world, he thought as he turned a corner and was finally out of Amelia’s view, that would have been me and her. Still together. And in that other reality, that would have been our kid, and I would have been living in that McMansion north of town, making eighty grand a year like Mitch does.

He sighed, because here, in this universe, he barely had enough to eat. Here, he slept in his car and nearly froze to death last winter.

Here he was a loser, a dirty bum. And it was all his fault.

On the other hand, he thought, unlike Amelia and Mike I have nothing, which means I have nothing to lose.

No matter which way he cut it, for all its numerous downsides and all the stresses and dangers of the life he led, there was an undeniable freedom in not having anything to lose.