It took an hour for the various emergency services to assemble themselves where George’s car had gone over the rail. First a CHP officer, then a second, then the firefighters, a ranger from the Forestry Service, and then finally at the top of the hour, the ambulance arrived. George had been told wait in the cab of “his” truck by the officers while they “extracted the passenger from the other vehicle”. He sat in the big, dark cab of the pick-up, his hands on his lap while staring wide-eyed at the scene before him. He already knew the car was a loss; the men were setting up a rope to help them get down the hillside. George watched as one of the firefighters and an EMT descended the line and disappeared behind the hill. The Ranger followed behind them. George could only sit and watch the scene unfold in shock and utter disbelief.
The car wasn’t going anywhere, he knew that; it took about twenty minutes, but finally, George saw flashlights beams waving from over the hill as a man scampered up over the edge, turning around to help another man carry a long, black bundle strapped to a body-board. He watched as the other paramedic rushed to his partners side and helped them carry the body into the ambulance. George only caught a glimpse of the body before it was shunted into the bay of the ambulance; blond hair stained with dirt and blood, a hairless chest red and bruised from the EMT’s compressions, a lot of wound-packing near the abdomen. The rest was obscured by tubes and gauze and busy hands. The doors of the ambulance shut and it quickly took off down the dark, wet road. George looked from his big, calloused hands to the spot where his injured and broken body had disappeared, his eyes wide and his heart racing in his chest. He jumped when he heard a couple of knocks on his window.
Rolling the window down, he was met with one of the CHP officers; the rain had stopped, and the air was misty and fresh-smelling. “Evening, sir. We got the kid out of the wreck. The paramedics think they can hold him stable until they get him to St. Peter’s.” he shook his head. “Kid was driving way too fast on wet roads like these.”
“Is he,” George cleared his throat, still not used to his richer, base voice. “Is he gonna be okay?”
The CHP must have thought George was a man worried about being at fault for the accident, because he said, “Now don’t go beating yourself up, sir. He was driving fast, lost control. Left a pretty good dent in the side of your truck. Its unfortunate, but it happens up here. We all just have to be more careful.”
“But is he gonna be okay?” George asked again.
“Hard to say,” the CHP said in a grim tone. “Blunt force trauma to the skull, impalement of the abdomen – a tree branch broke through the window – and multiple c-spine fractures?” He shook his head. “If he lives, the kid may never walk again. Let alone do anything else. It’s a shame.” He sighed and pulled out a notebook from his pocket. “Now, I’m gonna need your name and some other information for an accident report…” He trailed off, expecting George to supply him with this information from memory.
“Uh, George,” He said, fumbling around in his pants for a wallet.
“Do you have a valid driver’s license, George?” the officer asked, sounding impatient.
“Yeah, one sec,” he reached to his back pocket and pulled out a thick leather wallet. He tried not to gasp at the five hundred dollars in cash resting in the bill fold as he dug around and extracted the ID, handing it to the officer.
“You said you’re name was George?” the officer asked, looking from the picture in the license to George’s face. “I got Jameson Barton here on the ID…”
“Oh, yeah. It’s a, uh, nickname.” He said quickly.
The officer just shrugged with his eyes and continued taking George’s statement. George answered the man’s questions as best as he could, having experienced the whole ordeal from the other side, and hoped that his questions wouldn’t veer into the personal.
“And what brings you out here so late at night?” The CHP asked, eyeing George’s truck.
Before George could fumble for an answer, he found himself saying, “Just on my way home from work. Long day,” he chuckled.
“And where do you work?” the officer followed.
“I’m an independent home contractor,” George said immediately, hoping the darkness would hide the look of surprise on his face.
“Ah,” the officer seemed satisfied as he reviewed his notes before handing back George “his” ID. “Well, we’ll keep in touch, Mr. Barton, and we’ll send you a copy of the accident report for your insurance. Drive safe, sir, and have a good rest of your night.”
“Wait,” George barked. The CHP turned around. “Do you mind…giving me a call about…the kid? Lemme know how he turns out?”
The CHP gave him a sympathetic nod. “Sure thing, sir. We have your number.” And he turned to rejoin his fellow officer at their cruisers. George rolled up his window and took a moment to examine the face and details on the driver’s license. He turned on his overhead light and held the ID up to the rearview mirror to make a comparison. The face in the mirror was the same as the one in the picture, if only aged by a few years. He ran his fingers through his thick, tousled black hair, along the humped ridge of his big nose, tracing the laugh lines at the corner of his eyes. He read the physical details on the ID under the light of the overhead. Jamesons Barton, that was this man’s name. Born 1975, six feet, four inches (damn, he was tall, George thought), one hundred and ninety-three pounds (More than that, judging by this belly, George thought as he rubbed his hand over his bulging abdomen. The address was somewhere nearby, in one of the more rural towns in the outskirts of the county.
He calmly put the license back into its slot in Jameson’s wallet and dug through the rest of the contents. He found a bunch of receipts from hardware stores, lumber yards, autoshops, the occasional fast food receipt. There were a couple pictures in there as well; one of Jameson and a happy-looking brunette woman, smiling and each holding a chicken while standing in the middle of what mut have been their front yard. Anna, a named was supplied to him from somewhere in the back of his mind; he knew this woman’s name was Anna, and seeing her and thinking her name made George’s heart race. His fingers shook as he looked at the second picture, Jameson again, seated in an easy chair with a little brown-haired boy laughing in his lap. A strange feeling of warmth and pride overcame George’s heart as he admired the photograph. Jacob, the name came to George so clearly, he’s my son. George was overcome by the feeling of love that came over him before suddenly, it was all snatched away, leaving him confused and empty.
“My son,” a deep voice from within George’s mind said. “He’s my son. And that’s my wife, and this is my body! Get out!” the voice shouted. George winced; it felt like a headache as the other voice raged inside of him. The skin on the back of his neck crawled with goosebumps and his stomach lurched when he realized who the voice must belong to.
“J-Jamesosn?” George said aloud. He winced again as the voice shouted back at him in reply.
“Yes, Jameson! What the hell kind of demon or what the fuck ever are you? Give me back my body!”
“Please, stop screaming at me.” George groaned.
“Fuck you! If you touch my family, I swear to god, I’ll…” the voice continued shouting, but George couldn’t take it any longer.
“I said shut up!” He thundered, in his mind and aloud. He still wasn’t use to Jameson’s booming, intimidating voice, and it scared even him for a moment. In his mind, the only the only thoughts he heard were his own. “Jameson?” George echoed in his head.
No response.
“Jameson, wake up! I’m srroy for yelling! I don’t know what’s happening just please come back and we can figure this out!” George pleaded.
There was a dull groan in the corner, and George suddenly felt the presence of someone else in his head, like sensing the warmth of a nearby candle.
“What the hell? Where did I go?” Jameson asked, his voice almost a bit groggy.
“When I told you to shut up, I think I…made you go away…for a moment,” George confessed inside his mind again.
Jameson was quiet for a moment, but George could feel him think, almost even sense the direction of the man’s thoughts. “Please don’t do that again, I’ll be quieter, I promise.” He said, afraid.
“I won’t, I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s happening.” George said, his mind replaying the series of events on the road that led him to here. Jameson must be able to see his mind as well, because he said,
“Wait, you’re the kid who tagged me on the road!” He exclaimed. “I can see myself in your memories, you looked right at me before you went over that cliff and…” Jameson trailed off, and George could see in Jameson’s memories that’s where he blacked out as George took him. “You were about to die…”
“I think I might already be dead,” George admitted, remembering how mangled his former body had been as it was ushered into the ambulance.
“You stole my body to save your life.” Jameson said, with a tone of disgust. George could only hang his head in shame. It was just now hitting him; Jameson was right. He didn’t know how or why it was possible, but he had fled his own death and saved his life by stealing the body of an innocent man he didn’t even know. Could he leave Jameson’s body, and if he did, would he pass on or just be a ghost or…? Was this magic, technology, aliens?
“Who cares what it is. Just give me my body back and, whatever, slip the surly bonds of earth.” Jameson demanded.
“I don’t know how,” George said. “Look, I didn’t do this on purpose. Can you just help me get us to your home? So we can go to bed and figure this out in the morning.”
“Take you to my home?” Jameson scoffed. “I don’t even know who the fuck you are! I’m not letting you near my family!”
“I’m not a bad guy, I just….”
“Motherfucker, you stole my body!”
“Bitch, I might have died!” George shouted back. He closed his eyes and took a breath. “I’m not stealing your body or your life. I’m just scared, and confused, and as desperate to find a way to fix this as you are. So, can we just work together, for now?”
After a wary moment, Jameson said, “How can I trust you?”
“Dude, I can see your thoughts, you can see mine. That’s as transparent as it gets,” George answered.
“Fine.” Jameson grunted. “But you better not do any weird shit in my home.”
“Which is, where exactly.”
Jameson sighed. “Get back on the highway, south.”
It was a half hour drive from their location to the little town where Jameson lived. George was pestered the whole way by Jameson telling him to drive careful and not put another single scratch on “his baby”.
“You already put a dent in the bed,” he grumbled as George stopped at an intersection.
“Yeah, well hopefully my fractured neck and concussed brain make you feel better,” George snapped back at him in a dry tone.
“Sorry.” Jameson said, his thoughts guilty. “Oh wait, there. Take a left, take a left!” he shouted.
George took a hairpin turn and came onto a graveled road. “A little more warning, next time?” He said aloud.
“Sorry, I can only see what you see.” Jameson shivered. “God, this is so weird. I can feel you moving my body, I can see out of my own eyes, but I’m not controlling any of it.”
George felt a pang of guilt as he came to a stop in front of a homey little cabin tucked in the redwoods. A distant light illuminated the front of a barn somewhere beyond the house. George couldn’t see much else in the darkness.
“Shit, what time is it?” Jameson wondered. George looked at the dash clock. “Damn, Anna hates when I’m late for dinner. She’s gonna kill us. Just look guilty and say what I tell you to say,” Jameson said as George stepped out of the car.
“Is she nice?” George thought.
“She’s a fucking angel and you better be nice to her.” Jameson said, but after a moment, “But she can be a little scary when she’s mad so play cool or its both our nuts.” His tone was sheepish, this time.
George chuckled. “Happy wife, happy life?”
“Maybe you’re not so dumb after all.”