Jacques Derrida Visits Cicely
53
the theme of the wiiite man dogged by a black double. Ann tries to repair the
damage, but to no avail; the visit is ruined and Bernard prepares to leave Cicely.
The nature of the identity crisis caused by Ann’s failure to distinguish
between the two men on the basis of what they perceived to be a significant
difference between them is articulated when Chris explains to Rolling that he
had never seen Bernard as a threat to his identity. But now they are “two halves
of a divided self” The male id, he explains, “is driven by its own sense of its
uniqueness. How can I believe in my own uniqueness ^\4len there’s a cat out
there who is exactly the same as me. The whole shebang goes right out the
window. There’s no changing it; no escape. I don’t know \riiat to do.” Without
the difference that constitutes his uniqueness, he no longer has an identity, a
sense of self Later he tells Shelly Tambo, Rolling’s mistress at the time, that he
had to ask Bernard to leave because he was “not going to live in the same town
feeling like some existential Xerox of someone else.”
The second storyline concerns Joel, who, vriiile Chris and Bernard are
coping with the disruption of their senses of identity, is also grappling with an
identity crisis triggered by an erasure of difference. Joel’s sense of identity is
rooted in the New York Jewishness that he feels distinguishes him from his
more rustic neighbors, but this difference is erased in his mind when he forgets
his wallet at Rolling’s tavern, something that as the “consummate New Yorker”
he would never have done. In twenty-eight years, he tells Ed Chigliak, “I never
lost a dime to the streets.” He was an animal, a panther. “What’s happened to
me,” he asks. “Where’s the edge? The panther?” His concern deepens when he
realizes during a conversation with a long-time resident of Cicely that he’s
eating seeds and having a conversation about winter clothing—a conversation
any resident of Cicely might have. “What’s happening,” he mutters as he retreats
to his office. Later that day he asks Maggie O’Connell, his on-again off-again
romantic interest, if she notices anything different about him. She observes that
he seems more relaxed and more involved in the community. “It’s worse than I
thought,” he replies. As an “emergency” measure, he orders special coffee,
bagels, pastrami, and other food items associated with New York Jewish
delicatessens to be flown in and takes home an armful of movies featuring the
city.
Joel whines to Maggie that he is experiencing “a complete and serious
personality meltdown.” She does not seem to understand the problem, so he
explains it to her. “I’m Joel Fleischman the Jewish doctor from New York,” he
insists. “Take that away and vriio am I? What am I?” His situation calls to his
mind the 1950s Cold War science fiction film The Invasion o f the Body
Snatchers. In this film, which treats the perceived dangers of communism,
invaders from outer space take over a small California town by putting seed
pods in the community’s bedrooms. When the victims fall asleep, the pod forms
a duplicate of them, absorbs their consciousness, and becomes an exact copy