"People are Strange, When You're a Stranger" (Jim Morrison)

I do forget names but almost never a face. Many light years ago in my mid-twenties and dating Jack, I saw a couple walking to their car at Jack’s apartment complex. “Excuse me,” I called out. Aren’t you Jim Foxx who came to Knollwood Elementary in the seventh grade?” Totally befuddled, he answered in the affirmative. We had actually never talked back then and he moved away after a few months. Of course, he had no idea who I was. Why would he? I simply remembered his face, and in this case, his name.

While working at Emory University Clinic, I saw another elementary schoolmate. Isn’t your name Craig Pye and didn’t we both go to the Methodist Church retreat when we were about eleven years old? He was amazed. I didn’t tell him that I remembered when we were walking on a hiking trail with the church group. I was eavesdropping and heard him mention to a friend that he wished he were walking with a girl. A particularly mean teenager yelled, “You wouldn’t know what to do with one if you had one!” That was uncalled for especially since Pye was at a somewhat porky stage at the time.

Not long ago, Jack and I were at Sam’s and I got that someone-is-looking-at-me feeling. I turned and saw an Asian woman quite a distance away staring intently at me. She waved. In this case I felt very happy to see her. I walked the distance and we stood facing each other. She seemed reciprocally happy to see me. “How are you?” she asked. “I’m good, how are you?” I said. “Fine, fine,” she answered. We both seemed puzzled, but still glad to meet. When I returned, Jack asked, “Who was that?” “I have no idea,” I answered.

I also have long conversations with strangers. People I’ve interviewed for business or technical articles have told me intimate details of their relationships, cried on the phone about a pet that passed away, and have even sent me presents: homemade jam from a real estate magnate, a stone oil lamp from an international stone supplier, and a cooler full of deli meat from a sausage manufacturer. And just strange interchanges: Once passing my newly wedded boss on an office stairwell, I casually asked, “How are you?” “Oh my God, my wife is such a bitch! I think she’s actually insane,” he answered and proceeded to expand on same. “Wow,” I thought. “I usually just answer that question with ‘I’m fine. How are you?’”

Last night the phone rang and the caller ID simply said Atlanta, Georgia. “Who is it?” Jack asked. “The entire city of Atlanta,” I answered.

Actually it was a solicitor from the Georgia Vietnam Vets. I always try to give to the veterans, so I readily agreed to buy a pepper spray key chain that also sprayed the hapless perpetrator with a dye so that he could be quickly apprehended. “Sounds like fun. I’ll take one!” I told the woman. With the transaction over, we soon discovered that we shared the same first name and that we spelled it the same way. Then we discussed the spelling of her chiropractor’s name and the origins of certain spellings. Next she told me about having her pepper spray confiscated at the airport because she forgot she had it and having ridden MARTA there had nowhere to leave it. We laughed it up about asking a criminal to stand downwind before we sprayed him in the face and she shared the fact that she had used her canister on her ex-husband. “Let me tell you! It took that sucker down!” she exclaimed. After about half an hour we shared Happy New Year wishes with one another. “Who was that?” Jack asked from his chair. “Oh some lady with the Georgia Vietnam Vets,” I replied. “She once sprayed her ex-husband with pepper spray. Said it worked really well.”

At times I wonder when my eyes briefly meet a strangers’ and a sharp pang of recognition seems to hit us both as we silently pass, if we really did know one another in some alternate universe. Or, when we communicate with someone almost intimately and then never speak to them again—how did our paths cross? I’ve heard that everyone has a doppelganger, a ghostly counterpart or alter ego. (Oh, I pity the fool!) Wouldn’t it be strange, though, if we all came face-to-face at once? What if everyone could go to a certain bus stop at a certain time before the world ended and meet their own doppelganger for just a few minutes?

Just recently, while standing in line at the grocery (yes, I’m always at the grocery) the woman in front of me openly stared. “Hi,” I said. “Do you mind if I ask your name?” she queried. “You look so familiar.” I didn’t tell her that I hardly ever forget a face. Her name was Maggie something and ultimately we concluded that we’d never met. “Maybe I knew you in another life,” she pondered. “Good Lord!” I said. “You mean I’ve looked like this for at least two lifetimes! That simply isn’t fair.”