Crossroad

Gregory Smith

I was driving home from work late one night. I was a few minutes later than usual because Ralph, one of

my co-workers, struck up a conversation about pro football as we were punching the time-clock. We

separated in the rainy parking lot around twelve minutes after midnight. I had a country music station

on the radio in my truck, and I was singing along to Randy Travis as I approached the intersection of

Henderson Road and Lakeland Lane. The rural two-lane highway was lined with cornfields on each side

of the road. There were no streetlamps or sidewalks, only dark farmland all around me.

 A drizzling rain was falling as I approached the crossroad. I slowed to a stop when I noticed a wreck

ahead. I grabbed an umbrella and got out, my headlights illuminating the scene, as I sprinted to the

mangled black SUV. It was crushed on the driver’s side and the windshield was shattered. Blood was

splattered all around the highway, along with millions of shiny fragments of glass. I looked in the vehicle

just in case the driver was trapped inside. No one was there.

As I assessed the situation, I heard a voice calling nearby. “Please help me! Hey, buddy, won’t you help

me?”  

 It was a young man laying by the side of the road. I knelt beside him, holding the umbrella over his

head. His face was bloodied and his eyes were swollen shut.

“Tell my wife I love her,” he said. It sounded like the proclamation of a dying man. I got the chills right

there and then, not from the cold rain, which was coming down heavier, but from his heartbreaking

words.

He looked young, maybe in his twenties. There was blood all over his face and shirt and dripping out of

his mouth. His face was full of cuts, gashes and glass. He must have crashed through the windshield,

ending up here, his back against a wooden fence. The poor fellow was lucky to be alive, let alone

conscious. I noticed he was wearing a wedding ring.

“Mary, where are you?” he sighed.

Who was Mary? I wondered. He must have friends, friends from work, maybe teammates from high

school or college, drinking buddies. He must’ve had family. So why me- a stranger- why was I there to

hear his last words? This guy lived through childhood, adolescence and now into early adulthood, only

to end up here, at the end of his life with nobody else but me?

 I grabbed my phone and called 9-1-1.  I almost had the notion to throw him in my truck and speed to

County General Hospital, but I didn’t know what kind of injuries he had sustained.

 “Hang in there, buddy. Ambulance will be here soon,” I encouraged. 

 Keep him talking, I thought. He was drifting in and out of consciousness. He started to shiver violently so

I took off my leather jacket and wrapped it around him. It was September and the rain was cold. I was

afraid he was checking out on me.

“What’s your name, pal?” I asked.

“Jeff,” he groaned.

 Funny, my name was Jeff too but I thought nothing of the irony or coincidence at the time; my only

thought was to keep him talking. 

Ok, Jeff…What’s your wife’s name?”

“Laura,” he answered in a whisper.

“Have any kids, Jeff?”

“Two.”

 “Two, huh?” I replied. “Do you remember their names?”

Our limited conversation kept going on like that until the ambulance finally arrived. It had been only a

few minutes since I had called 9-1-1 but it felt like an eternity. They loaded him in the back and took off,

their siren piercing the lonely, rain-soaked Iowa night. Then the cops asked me a few questions. They

stayed on the scene, closing down the road until a tow truck could arrive.

Did I know how it happened? No, I must’ve missed the accident by only a few moments. To think, that

could’ve been me. I was just being a Good Samaritan. I had nothing to do with the wreck.

 There were skid marks on the highway, almost as if another vehicle swerved to avoid contact- a large

vehicle. The ambulance’s siren was fading into the empty darkness with each passing moment as I talked

to the police. No, I didn’t smell alcohol on his breath. Did it matter? Did anything matter at this point?

 I was still shaking when I got back in my truck and pulled away. After witnessing the aftermath of the

accident, I just couldn’t forget it. I mean, I wanted to go home to my wife and kids.  I wanted to hug

them extra tighter in the morning. But all I could think of was a state trooper or the local police going to

this guy’s house and breaking the news to his girlfriend or wife or mother, news that Jeff had been in a

serious accident. 

 Instead of going straight home I made a quick detour to the hospital. It was a spur of the moment

decision. I just had to know if Jeff survived.

I got back into town and trudged through the steady rain into the Emergency Room of County General. I

saw the same ambulance that had transported Jeff parked near the entrance, its backdoors wide open,

the motor running. I could see inside and it was empty.

I asked about Jeff at the receptionist desk. I understood about confidentiality but, damn it, I was the

only one there and I needed to know how he was doing. The nurse on duty in the ER told me that Jeff

didn’t make it. I went home, still stunned by the events that night.

                                                            ********

Upstairs, Mary was sleeping. I sat on the edge of our bed, thinking. That could’ve been me. If I had been

on time getting out of work things might have been different. A different outcome and Mary would be

at the hospital right now, trying to come to terms with the accident on Henderson Road.

I crawled into bed, wrapping my arms around her waist, laying my head on her back, breathing deeply,

trying to calm down, still frightened from what I had seen, frightened of what could have been.

“You’re home?” Mary mumbled, still half-asleep.

“I’m sorry to wake you, baby,” I replied softly.

“It’s ok,” she said. “How did it go? How was work?”

“Work was ok. Saw an accident on the way home.” 

“Oh, no. Was it bad?”

“Yeah, pretty bad.

“Anybody hurt?”

“Yeah, a guy died. I was there as he was dying.”

“Oh, sweetie,” she replied, waking up and turning over to face me. “I’m so sorry. Are you ok?”

“I’m ok,” I said.

I never lie to my wife.  But that night I did. I wasn’t sure if I was ok. I just kept thinking about the wreck.

I kept thinking about how life can be extinguished without warning. Everything you work for, all your

dreams and plans…gone, within a matter of seconds. I kept thinking about how short a time we have to

live and to love and to do good. Before I fell asleep, as Mary lay cuddled in my arms, I made a vow.

“You know we’ve been talking about going with the kids to Disney?” I whispered.” I know money has

been tight since we needed a new roof. But now I’m thinking we should go. We keep putting it off and

putting it off. Always an excuse. Well, guess what? Not anymore. Life is too precious to waste. Let’s start

making plans tomorrow…”

Mary never heard a word. She was sleeping peacefully, like a soft kitten curled in a warm ball. I smiled

and started to doze. Before I closed my eyes a thought crossed my mind- as he was dying, why did Jeff

ask for “Mary” - even though he had a wife named “Laura?”

                                                           ********

Later the following day I found Jeff’s obituary online. There was his picture.

“Looks just like you,” my wife commented.” Same name too. Freaky...”

It was true- we were the spitting-image of each other, doppelgangers, only he had a nicely-trimmed

beard and I was clean-shaven.

 I decided to attend Jeff’s gravesite memorial service a few days later. I wanted to give his wife Jeff’s

message. I wanted her to know that, right up to his dying breath, he was thinking of her.

“Tell my wife I love her.”

The service was dignified, with an assortment of Jeff’s family and friends speaking. They told stories

about what a great guy he was with a few humorous remarks about his quirks and his lively sense of

humor. By the end of the brief ceremony, I felt like I had known Jeff for a long time, like we had some

sort of bond, something which tied us together. In reality, I had never met him until the night of the

accident.

Jeff’s ashes were in a gray urn which sat near a plain marker in St. Francis of Assisi Cemetery. It had been

a while, thank goodness, since I attended a burial there. But I knew the graveyard like the back of my

hand since I had cut grass there one summer while I was in high school.

At the end of the service those in attendance gathered around Laura, his widow, offering condolences.

This was my chance to express my sincere condolences.

“Mrs. Walker, I’m so sorry,” I started. “My name is Jeff and I was there when he…What I mean to say is, I

came upon him, I came upon the accident. I was the one who called nine-one-one. I’m so sorry for your

loss. He seemed like a great guy.”

The strangest thing happened. I was standing in front of Mrs. Walker and expected her to answer me

but she walked right by me, greeting another guest, as if she ignored me. It soon became apparent that

everyone at the service, all the guests, were either ignoring me or didn’t know I was there! It was as

though I were invisible.

On my way home I tried to process this entire thing. Why did I feel so close to this guy? It had to be

more than just being there when he died and sharing the same name. Something else was pulling at me,

something I couldn’t explain. And then the unusual circumstances at the memorial service. What is

going on here? I wondered.

The notion that I was in some sort of alternate universe or was leading a “mirrored life”, that somehow

our lives had blended, a mixture of my world and his, did cross my mind. That’s when I heard the voice:

“Let it go, man,” a voice said. “Some things are just meant to be.”

                                                    ********

A few days later, on a bright and sunny Saturday afternoon we walked over to our local Pickleball court

for our weekly game. It’s where Mary met a new friend while waiting for a court to open up. Her name

was Laura. She had just moved to the area a month ago from Ames when her husband got a promotion

and was transferred.

“Here he comes now,” Laura remarked, greeting her hubby with a soft kiss on the cheek. “Honey, this is

Jeff and Mary. They’re looking for a game too.”

“Sure,” the guy replied, shaking hands. “I’m Jeff.”

We ended up playing Pickleball with the same guy I came upon only a week earlier, the guy who

supposedly died at the local hospital. And here they were, kicking our ass at Pickleball, all the while

looking tremendously health and fit, with no mention of an accident. In fact, we set up a rematch for the

following week.

I didn’t say a word to Mary. How could I ever explain it? Stress from work?

The following Monday night I was driving home from work, like usual. It was a clear night, a perfect

Autumn Iowa night. A full moon was shining brightly over the rural landscape, throwing an eerie, buttery

glow over the cornfields. I stopped at the Henderson Road crossroads. For a brief few seconds my truck

sat at the site of the tragic accident. I thought about Jeff Walker and what had occurred there.

Before I could precede through the intersection, lightning flashed before my eyes and I found myself

out of my truck, lying on the side of road. My clothes were soaked with cold rain as a torrential

thunderstorm raged around me. There was my truck in the road, turned over. I couldn’t believe what I

was feeling, what I was seeing, what I was experiencing.

 It was almost as if I had switched places with Jeff! He was alive!

Jeff Walker got out of his truck at the crossroad, running up to me, shining a flashlight in my face. I was

experiencing labored breathing and I had excruciating pain in my chest. I was certain a number of ribs

were fractured, among other broken bones, lacerations, bruises and cuts I was suffering. Blood ran from

open wounds in my scalp and forehead. I felt weak and delusional, as if every bit of energy and life was

painfully dripping out of my broken body, one drop of blood at a time.

 “Tell my wife I love her,” I begged him. Jeff opened an umbrella and held it over my head as he

struggled to call 9-1-1, the slippery phone almost dropping onto the road. I sat there, numb,

mesmerized, in complete shock. One moment I was perfectly safe in my truck; the night was beautiful

and clear, and the next…

They say, when you are dying, your life replays before your very eyes, like a movie. I saw myself again as

a young boy, fishing by a local creek during summer. There I was with Mary, sleeping beneath the stars

and breathing in the vast universe until dawn, something we did often in the summer when we were

young. But here I was in the middle of a stormy night, the rain pelting Jeff’s wind-blown umbrella, which

he struggled to maintain, thunder booming overhead, mixed with relenting flashes of lightning.

“Where is Laura?” I asked. I didn’t know why I asked for Jeff’s wife, just as I was confused about why he

called out for “Mary” when he was in my situation.

“This is the way it was supposed to be,” Jeff said. “YOU were meant to die in the accident, not me. “

Am I going to die? I wondered. Or am I dreaming? I wasn’t sure what was real and what was an illusion.

All I know was they were loading me into the back of an ambulance. That’s when everything went blank.

From darkness I saw a bright white light shining before me. I wasn’t afraid anymore; I felt peace in my

heart and soul. A voice was gently telling me I had to “go back,” that I “wasn’t ready” yet.

Is this what it’s like to die?

I didn’t want to go back at first. I wanted to stay in the light, feeling this immense peace and love. It was

then I remembered my wife and kids and immediately made the decision to go back. Yes, I want to go

back to my wife and kids.

I opened my eyes and there I was, instantaneously transported back to my truck, sitting in the middle of

the intersection once again, all alone.

I started up my truck, gradually pulling away from the crossroad, when I saw the flash behind me: an

enormous, runaway 24-wheeler rig roared by me, just barely missing my truck by inches! I stepped on

the gas and got out of there as fast as I could.

                                                  ********

Jeff and I had our individual destiny. His was to sadly perish in the accident, while mine was to live, to

raise my family and move on in life. I never did figure it all out but I surmised that somehow our cosmic

signals got crossed. Somehow our lives had blended into each other to the point of throwing fate out of

whack.

The following Saturday I decided to pay a visit to Jeff Walker’s grave. There was only one problem as I

approach the gravesite- There was no grave.

I was positive that I had remembered where Jeff’s gravesite services were held. I looked all around the

cemetery for a marker or tombstone, anything to identify where Jeff was located. No matter how hard I

looked, I couldn’t find a thing.

I pulled the internet up on my phone. I tried finding his obituary. I remembered the funeral director, the

same guy who buried my Uncle Henry back in the day, the date of the services- everything was clear and

fresh in my memory, as if it happened yesterday.

Only there was no obit. It was as though Jeff had never died.

********

Perhaps there was no grave because Jeff never really died. Or he really did die, was allowed to return,

just like me, thanks to an error in cosmic record-keeping? Was Jeff Walker an illusion? Maybe the

accident itself was an illusion. “This is the way it was supposed to be,” he said at the accident scene.

“YOU were meant to die in the accident, not me.”

He knew! He knew that he was the Jeff who had died in my experience- but how?

That’s when a terrifying thought occurred to me: Was my life reality or the illusion? Was my “reality”

based in a parallel universe? What was real and what wasn’t?

Our wives had exchanged phone numbers after the first Pickleball match. They seemed to be hitting it

off quite well. Meanwhile, I continued to have my suspicions about Jeff. He’s not what he pretends to be.

No, I told myself- you’re being paranoid. Get a hold of yourself. I wish the girls hadn’t set up dinner plans

for after the rematch on Saturday. I would be friendly, as always…guarded but friendly. My preference

was for Jeff to just disappear, never to be seen again.

I secured a small amount of satisfaction when we were victorious at Pickleball, evening the score one-to-

one. The wives laughed it off as mere fun; I could tell it rankled Jeff to high heaven when he lost the

match-winning point to me. He takes this game way too seriously, I told myself.

“You’re going to think I’m crazy,” he confided over pre-dinner drinks, “but I have this sneaky suspicion

that we met sometime in the past. I found you on the side of the road one rainy night. You were in

pretty bad shape. I checked on you at the hospital. They told me you had died. Isn’t that strange?”

“We did meet,” I replied, “but you were the one who died.” I was surprised he was bringing this up in

front of the wives.

“You had the same dream?” he asked.

“It wasn’t a dream,” I countered. “It was real. One of us is alive while the other is living in another

universe.”

“And you think that I’m the Jeff who died?” he replied. “But it can’t be me. I went to your funeral.”

“As I did to yours,” I retorted, getting angrier by the moment.

“What on earth are you guys talking about?” Laura broke in, laughing. “All of this talk about dying and

funerals!”

“Yes, what’s up with that?” Mary chimed in. “I think it was fate that we met. Laura and I are already

planning a shopping excursion next week. You guys can sit home and baby-sit the kids.”

I had nothing against Jeff. In fact, I was glad he was still alive (along with myself). Why couldn’t we both

be alive? Why did anyone have to die? Still, there was something about the guy that made me feel

uneasy.

********

Several weeks later I was driving home alone after work. The weather was unusually icy for the middle

of October. An early season storm made driving slick from sleet. I had intentionally avoided using

Henderson Road, taking the longer way home on the highway. There would be more traffic on the

highway and the roads would be treated with salt, compared to the country backroads. Only when I

attempted to take the exit to the highway, I found it closed down. The only detour in this miserable

weather was to take Henderson Road into town, so I turned around.

Approaching the crossroad after midnight I couldn’t believe the scene that greeted me: a dark SUV was

sprawled diagonally across the wet asphalt, still upright, its headlights on and its blinkers flashing.

“Not again!” I whispered to myself. I must confess, after what happened with the other Jeff, I did

consider just veering around the wreck and continuing on. But I didn’t have the heart, not in this frozen

weather. So, I got out of my truck and ran to the scene, just like before.

“Damn,” I mumbled, clicking on my flashlight, “it looks like Jeff’s vehicle.”

Sure enough, there was Jeff, lying on the side of the road on his back, eyes wide open, peering into the

icy sky, his face a lifeless pale-white. Was he already dead?

“Jeff? What are you doing out here? What happened?” I yelled. “Hang in there. I’m calling nine-one-

one.”

Unlike last time there was no sparkling glass on the street, no blood to be found anywhere. Jeff’s winter

blue parka was fully zipped and clean. His eyes did not move and I bent down to check for a pulse and a

heartbeat when I felt a tearing, sharp object rip into my abdomen. Blood gushed from the open wound. I

felt an intense, hot burning in my stomach as he pulled the knife out. I rolled on my back, in shock, every

drop of life oozing out of me.

The next thing I knew Jeff was standing over me, holding a bloody serrated blade.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” he started.

“Waiting for me?” I gasped.

“Only for a few moments,” he replied. “I knew the weather would close down the highway. No one

would be crazy enough to be out driving at this time of the night in this weather. So much for fate and

destiny. This time, we make sure you will die.”

He kicked away my cell phone which lay nearby. “There’ll be no calling nine-one-one this time,” he

announced.

“Why?” I asked. “Why kill me?”

“You were wrong, Jeff…Somebody must die. It wasn’t going to be me,” he said with a smirk.

“My wife…my family,” I groaned, visions of Mary and the kids passing through my mind.

“Sorry, no final messages this time,” he answered. “I came to realize that YOU are the illusion, my

friend…not me. Your family will fade away when you die. It will be as if you never existed, as if we never

met. Life will go on without you…and I will be the one left alive.”

“No!” I protested, raising myself up on one elbow, conjuring up hidden strength. “YOU are the illusion!

You long to be reality. You plan to take my place but it won’t work. I KNOW who you are!”

With that he pushed me back to the cold, wet ground. “Game, set and match!” he proclaimed.

Exhausted, my mind swirling, my eyes almost shut, I saw Jeff run to his SUV, climb inside and start the

engine. And as he pulled his vehicle straight on Henderson Road I could just about make out his face. He

looked so shocked, so stunned, his eyes bright and wild, like a deer in headlights.

Roaring unexpectedly from his right came a huge 24-wheeler, blowing its horn, unable to brake in the

icy conditions, smashing into Jeff’s helpless SUV, crushing the vehicle into tiny pieces, the haunted truck

proceeding through the intersection like a runaway train, bound for…nowhere.

In that instant, the illusion he was and always will be, Jeff and whatever was left of his SUV evaporated

into the night. I found myself back in my truck, the heater blowing, the radio playing an old country

song, dry and no- worse for wear. I drove away, leaving the crossroad behind for good.

I often thought about that time in my life. Playing a deadly game of tag with Death itself. It’s only fair to

warn you: don’t stop if you come upon a wreck on a lonely Iowa crossroad after midnight. Consider

yourself lucky that you didn’t come face-to-face with a certain entity that goes by the name of Death.