The Consequence of Bad Choices
COUPE HAD ALWAYS BEEN A BIT “GIRL CRAZY” AS HIS MOTHER CALLED IT.
Having been divorced twice and escaped a less-than-stellar four-year relationship with a woman who told him on their last night "It's not that I don't like you. I like you. I just don't respect you," he decided that best path forward was to forego any and all women in his future.
He sat in the pizza place two blocks from the venue and picked at his Chicken Parmesan. He'd been celibate by choice for eight months after a post-breakup banquet of tawdry alleyway sex and one-night stands.
What he didn't know was that in less than five hours he'd meet the love of his life. He'd notice her but not quite until she piped up and told him to “Clam up, Chatty Cathy” and then lightning would strike and he would be lost.
The chance encounter would lead to a whirlwind courtship, a surprising proposal after a few dates, and a courthouse wedding usually reserved for the unexpectedly pregnant. It would be the basis of the fairy tale romance he always thought would happen and which he would tell any and everyone willing to listen. It would be like a romantic comedy of which he was the co-star.
At this moment, Coupe reflected on the differences between being alone (as he was with his rubbery meal) and lonely. He understood the concept of loneliness but couldn't pinpoint any time in his nearly five decades that he'd experienced it.
He placed his fork on the plate. He wasn't hungry. He had a show to do and the food wasn't great. He put his used napkin over the uneaten pile of breading and burnt cheese to indicate to the bus boy he was finished, paid his bill, and headed over.
He crossed the street and immediately heard the horn section opening of Stevie Wonder's Sir Duke. Right behind him as if someone was holding an eighties Boom Box three inches from his head. He spun around and saw... himself? With a baseball bat? The bat swung wide, clocked him on the side of the head and he blacked out.
✶
HE WAS TIED UP. Arms, hands, legs, and feet. Looking around, he could tell he was in some sort of basement.
"You're awake?" a voice spoke.
"Yeah. What is this? Why'd you hit me with a baseball bat?"
"You have a notoriously hard head. I couldn't guarantee punching you would knock you out. Sorry about that."
Coupe squinted in the low light. "Who the fuck are you? You look a lot like me but fucking old. Why am I here? And what was the music for just before you hit me?"
"Music? You heard it, too?"
"Of course I fucking heard it. The opening brass riffs from Sir Duke are hard to miss."
"Huh."
"What?"
"That's just curious. I heard something different."
"What are you talking about?"
"When I spun out of control and wound up here, I heard the opening to The Final Countdown. Maybe you heard Stevie Wonder because he couldn't it see coming, either."
The kidnapper strolled into the light. Coupe could see that this guy was his exact doppelgänger except with a few more miles on him.
"What the fuck?"
"Screwy, isn't it?"
"Who...?"
"C'mon. Isn't it obvious? That smack on the head can't have made you more stupid than you were three hours ago."
"You're..."
"I'm you. From nine years in your future. I'm not entirely sure how I got here but I figured out exactly why once I saw that I was in Chicago on this day. I knew exactly where you'd be. I'm here, I think, to prevent devastation."
Coupe took a long look at the (old) Coupe. If this was bullshit it was exceedingly convincing bullshit. New glasses. A little heavier. The jowls around his chin were a bit saggier and the bags under the eyes more pronounced. Otherwise, this guy looked exactly like him.
"Prove it."
(old) Coupe laughed. "What could I tell you about yourself that you haven't already told everyone? We have a big mouth, Coupe. We have few, if any, secrets. We are writers and write everything that comes into our heads. What proof can I give you?"
Coupe thought about it. He was right. Not many secrets. He was a bad and obvious liar and, as stated, did tend to simply tell anyone his stories. The story he was going to tell tonight was some deep-dive navel-gazing crap that sounded more profound than it was. It was rehashed from stories he'd already told at bars dozens of times because storytelling for Coupe was like standup comedy—a non-stop process of refinement thus constant re-telling.
"Fine. What's the plan, sport? How are you preventing, what did you call it? Devastation?"
"The plan is to hold you here tonight. I have to stop you from meeting... her. You meet her at the show. The two of you have been in the same room half a dozen times over the past year but you never noticed her nor she you. Tonight she says something and you see her. You go over the edge. And nine years later, she destroys you without even a second thought. So we sit until morning. You don't meet her, she can't fuck your life up."
(old) Coupe pulled up a metal folding chair and sat across from Coupe.
"So how does this mystery woman destroy me?" asked Coupe.
"I thought about telling you. I'm not entirely sure how this works but I know that if I told how you come to your end at her hands, you're just arrogant enough to think you could fix it before it happens."
"Oh. Like you're doing now?"
"Touché."
"Can you tell me her name or what she looks like?"
"Can't tell you that. She's gorgeous. A regular manic pixie dream girl. The less you know the better. At least I hope so. I really have no clue what the fuck I'm doing."
"This is some pretty amateur time traveling, Coupe."
"Tell me about it. I'll tell you this. After nine years together, she and I were having one of those big conversations couples have once in a while. The kind when the gloves are off and blunt, caustic honesty is in play. I was drinking pretty heavily and she confesses to wanting to change it all out of boredom. To pursue a life that I was barred from. I couldn't process it and suddenly heard the music as if it was right behind me. Next thing I knew I was standing in front of Easy Bar on Division."
"I don't know that bar."
"You will. You'll live above it for five years. I went in and ordered a beer. Got to talking to the bartender. Sitting on a bar stool was a copy of the latest Reader. I saw the date and it hit me that this was the day I met her."
"And came here to stop yourself. To prevent ..."
"Devastation. Yeah."
"Is this is how time travel works? I'm not sure what the rules are but I don't think you're supposed to come into contact with yourself in the past."
(old) Coupe laughed. "Beats the shit outta me, man. It could be Back to the Future or Peggy Sue Got Married or maybe Endgame. Hell, for all I know this shit is going on constantly with people being sucked into their past to right wrongs all over the place. I mean, if that's case, we're all pretty stupid because there are a lot of wrongs to right and I'm not seeing the positive results in my timeline."
"Endgame?"
"It's the final Avengers movie. Comes out in 2019. No spoilers but it's fucking rad."
The consequence of bad choices is frequently more bad choices. If we succeed in keeping from making this one mistake, of preventing you from ever falling in love with this one specific woman, maybe the rest of it eases up. Maybe the dominos fall another way.
Coupe cracked up. "Dude, this is nuts. How did you know I'd even believe all this nonsense?"
"Because I'm you. We believe in the weirdest shit. That's part of our problem. The end result of her revelation was completely foreseeable—everything she did or said in nine years made it inevitable—but you were so in love with her and equally in love with the fairy tale beginnings of your relationship that you refused to see what was right in front of your face."
"You're really not going to tell me the specifics."
"I'm really not."
"Can you tell me about the future that doesn't involve her? We have all freaking night apparently."
"What the fuck. First thing to know is get rid of your social media. All of it. In 2014 it still seems like a good time but, man, it gets dark fast and never lets up. You'll lose future gigs because of it and you won't handle it well. Just get out of it altogether."
"I lose gigs?"
"Yeah. Not directly but it sure doesn't help. Also, walk away from this storytelling thing. It's fun right now but soon it'll become an avenue for people desperately seeking therapy via audience. People with an axe to grind. It gets real poisonous. Oh, and your assistant at work? Do not trust him. He's a climber and you are in his way. He's a lot smarter than you as loathe as I am to admit it."
"Fuck. Do I do anything right?"
"You do. You're going to shift your blog into an online magazine with a guy who will become a really close friend."
"That's it?"
"There are a few podcasts that have merit. But mostly a string of bad choices."
"That's bleak, man."
"You have to remember that your choices naturally beget other choices. Once the dominos start falling in a direction, it's hard shift it to another. For example, if you decided to have a drink then drive home. Bad choice. You hit a kid. Consequence. You flee the scene. Bad choice. The kid dies. They strap you up and fry your brain. Dominos. The consequence of bad choices is frequently more bad choices. If we succeed in keeping from making this one mistake, of preventing you from ever falling in love with this one specific woman, maybe the rest of it eases up. Maybe the dominos fall another way."
"If it's been so dire, why'd you stay for nine years? Am I basically a masochist?"
"Fair question. It wasn't bad for most of it but what we don't know can hurt us. And what we didn't know is..."
"Yeah. I know. Devastation. Here’s the thing. You know me so I know you. We are pretty dramatic. Hyperbolic. My guess is that this might be some molehill made into mountain. What are you hoping to find when you go back? If I've been such a brutally ineffective person, you must have some kind of journey you'd like to see yourself on, right?"
"I didn't even think of that. I suppose I just want to avert the horrorshow. Just control your emotions better. Don't be so quick to anger, don't lead with your heart as much."
"And you think that if I never meet this woman, everything will just magically be better? I'll make better choices?"
"I don't know. Probably not. Maybe I'm just like that wounded bird in the Mary Oliver poem. Just flailing around violently because I'm wounded. Trust me on this. If by avoiding this one relationship, we get testicular cancer and die without a set of balls, it would go better for us."
Coupe paused to consider the weight of this statement. "Jesus Christ, dude. Who is she? Hitler? I mean, the high melodrama of it all. It doesn’t look like she stabbed you in the eye. I mean, sack up, bro. It can’t be that bad. I had no idea I’d become such a whiny bitch. Fess up, already.”
"Stop fishing. All's I'll say is that she breaks something inside you that doesn't grow back or get better. Like losing a limb, you just have to get used to it being gone. It wasn’t malicious on her part. It was thoughtless but not on purpose. It’s just who she fundamentally is. What she breaks is one of those parts of you that drives you. That makes you, if not great, at least mostly good. You really should listen to your friend, Jack. He warns you about her. You ignore him. He's smarter than you. He's the Spock to your..."
"Kirk. Yeah, that's true. Jack sees things I miss. And I ignore him?"
"Coupe, you fall for her so hard nothing else seems to matter. You need other things to matter, I think, in order to make some better choices."
“These are your—my—our choices. It takes two to tango.”
“Yup. I didn’t ask to be here but here I am. I’m winging it here. You might be 100% correct—I might be overblowing all of this but I figure it must be significant. You’ve been through two divorces and Allyson for four years and, as far as I know, you never came back in time to change it. Maybe that’s it. I have nine years on you and I’m no smarter than you. The single dumbest time traveler on the list.”
"How much longer? I gotta pee."
"Show's over. Reception party is wrapping up. If I did what I think I did, if I go back to 2024, my reality will be different."
"And if it's not?"
"Then you fucked it up. Again."
✶
COUPE WOKE UP, HIS HEAD SPLITTING. He'd heard the music and then nothing. He didn't think his night in 2014 was a dream but he couldn't be sure.
He looked around the apartment. It looked exactly the same. He was on the couch. The bedroom door was closed. He crept quietly to it and cracked it open. He poked his head in to see who was in the bed.
She heard him and rolled over.
He shut the door, leaned against the wall, and slid to the floor.
✶
A WEEK AFTER MISSING THE SHOW, COUPE HAD MADE HIS EXCUSES AND APOLOGIES. He certainly didn’t tell anyone—not even Jack—about his bizarre abduction. He was, however, focused on making better choices. Second chances are rare and he wasn’t about to squander this one.
Sitting at Clark’s Diner on Lincoln Ave with his group of storytelling friends, he was holding court, telling them the story he would’ve told a week earlier.
Across the aisle at a table sat two women. Both were dressed like teenagers from the nineties. Both were in their thirties. The bleach blonde kept looking over at Coupe as if his performance was spoiling her night.
“Hey. Hey! Clam up, Chatty Cathy!” she barked and pulled a mime drawstring from her chest following with “Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah!” Coupe looked her directly in the eyes.
Lightning struck. Again.
Devastation still came.
