The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold Read Free Book Online

never have to be alone again. You’ll always have me. I’ll always have you. It makes more sense this way. I don’t like being alone either. This way I can share the things I like with somebody I know who likes them too. I don’t have to try and impress you, you don’t have to try to impress me. There’s perfect understanding between us. There’ll never be any of those destructive little games that people play on each other, because there can’t be. I like me, Danny; that’s why I like you. You’ll feel the same way, you’ll see. And I guarantee, there are no two people in this world who understand each other as well as we do.”
    â€œUm—” I said. I studied the pattern of bread crumbs on the tablecloth. Don’s intensity scared me. All my life I had been a loner; I wasn’t very good at talking to people, and when they tried to get too close to me, I backed away in a hurry.
    (Uncle Jim had arranged for me to visit an analyst once. It hadn’t worked. I wouldn’t even open up for him. The most I would admit was a feeling that I wasn’t living my life, only operating it by remote control.) So now, when Don opened his thoughts to me—
    â€”but I couldn’t reject him. He was me. How could I put up a psychological barrier between myself? I couldn’t, of course, but it was the candidness of Don’s admissions which made me uncomfortable.
    Abruptly, he was changing the subject. “Besides, there’s another
advantage,” he pointed out. “With me along, you’ll never be taken by surprise. Whatever we do, I’ll have been through it before, so I’ll know what to expect, and you’ll be learning it at the hands of an expert guide. Whatever we do.”
    â€œI’ve always wanted to try skydiving,” I offered.
    He grinned. “Me too.” Suddenly he was serious again. “When you go, Dan, you have to take me. I’m your insurance so you can’t be killed.”
    â€œHuh?” I stared at him.
    He repeated it. “When you’re with me, you can’t be killed. It’s like the check this afternoon. If anything happens to the earlier one, the later one won’t be there beside it—it won’t exist. It’s more than me just being able to warn you about things—my sitting here across from you is proof that you won’t be killed before tomorrow night. And I know that nothing happens to me”—he thumped his chest to indicate which “me” he was talking about—“because I’ve got my memories. I’ve seen that nothing will happen to me tonight, so you’re my insurance too.”
    I thought about that.
    He was right.
    â€œRemember the automobile accident we didn’t have last year?”
    I shuddered. I’d had a blowout on the San Diego Freeway while traveling at seventy miles an hour. It had been the left front tire and I had skidded across three lanes and found myself facing the wrong way, with traffic rushing at me. And the motor had stalled. I just barely had time to restart the engine and pull off to the side. It had been fifteen minutes before my hands stopped trembling enough for me to attempt changing the tire. It was a mess. For weeks afterward I’d kept a piece of it on the dashboard to remind me how close a call I’d had. I still had nightmares about it: if traffic had been just a little bit heavier . . . the sickening swerve-skidbumpety-bump-screeeeeeech—
    I figured I was living on borrowed time. I really should have been killed. Really. It was only a miracle that I hadn’t been.
    I realized my hand was shaking. I forced myself to take a sip of my drink. I looked at Don; he was as grim as I was. “There’s too much to lose, isn’t there?” he said.

    I nodded. We shared the same memory. There was a lot we didn’t have to say.
    â€œDan,” he said; his tone was intense, as intense