by Gary Jonas
Table of Contents
Title Page
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
About the Author
THE LAME-ASSED DOPPELGANGER
by Gary Jonas
This one’s for Mel, who suggested it
.
CHAPTER ONE
Clues your father is a dick:
1. He says, “I’m proud of you, son,” and gives you an all-expense paid vacation to the island paradise of Fiji.
Yeah, I know that’s counterintuitive, but that’s because my father’s dickishness sometimes disguises itself so it will have greater impact in the future.
2. You come back from said vacation a few months early, slip your key into the lock on the front door and discover the lock has been changed.
Yes, I said, a few months early. Maybe that helps to underscore the depths my father will go to bend you over the barrel and have his way with you. Okay, not you. He doesn’t know you, and if he did, he wouldn’t give a shit about you. The only person he cares about is himself.
So the changed lock was a clue, but the bigger clue came next.
3. A stranger opens the door to the house you’ve been living in, and you have this conversation.
“Can I help you?” the middle-aged Hispanic woman asked.
“Hi,” I said. “Are you the new maid?”
Side note: don’t ever ask that question unless you already know the answer.
I don’t speak much Spanish, but I knew the cuss words, and evidently, so did the Hispanic woman.
“Lo siento,” I said. “Do you hablo the English?”
“I hablo the kick your skinny ass. Get off my porch, pendejo.”
She swatted at me with the broom. I took bristles to my shoulder before I ducked, grabbed my suitcase and raced back to my car under a shower of Spanish curses.
4. You try to call your old man and get the following message: We’re sorry; this number has been disconnected or is no longer in service. If you think you have reached this number in error, please check the number and try your call again.
Like pressing a programmed number into a cell phone to make a call you’ve made many times before is going to be helped by checking the number again. Yeah, yeah, that’s for the stubby-fingered folks who stab the wrong numbers when they actually have to type them in, but that wasn’t my situation, so there was no reason to check the number or to assume it had been reached in error.
No. The son of a bitch had changed his number intentionally to avoid me.
5. You call your cousin, and she says, “Hey, there. Are you slipping back to your old ways?”
“Huh?”
“I mean, you could just walk across the hall.”
“What are you talking about, Sabrina?”
“Oh, did you step out without telling me?”
“Where are you?”
“Across the hall, silly. Oh my God, the masseuse has amazing hands. I owe you big time.”
Across the hall? Masseuse? “Um, this is Brett.”
“No kidding. Talk to you when my session is over. If I can walk.”
She hung up. I stood there on the sidewalk in the East End Historical District of Galveston in front of the house I used to live in, and stared at the damn phone after talking to my cousin who used to live in the same damn house, and she thought I’d set up a massage therapist for her? Had she found my secret stash and smoked it all?
6. You stop by Something’s Brewing, a metaphysical bookstore run by a witch your father is paying to train you in magic, and she stares at you dumbfounded, and you have this conversation.
“What happened to you?” she asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You tanned overnight. Is that a magic thing or did you use one of those creams?”
“Uh, this is weeks of lying in the sun on the beach.”
“And what’s with those clothes?”
I looked down. I wore tennis shoes, shorts, and a Paradise is Fiji T-shirt. “What about them?”
“Oh, honey, don’t tell me you’re backsliding.”
Her black cat, Isis, raced out of the back, but hit the brakes when she saw me. She growled and hissed.
“What’s the matter, Isis? It’s just Brett.”
The cat hated me, so the growling and hissing was normal, but Lakesha being surprised at that hissing was new.
I looked around for the ghost of Rod Serling. He had to be here somewhere providing voiceover for the real life Twilight Zone I was trapped in.
“Are you all right, Lakesha?” I asked.
“Of course.”
“Your reaction to Isis hissing is freaking me out.”
“She hasn’t hissed at you in ages. I don’t know what’s gotten into her.”
“Uh, maybe it’s because I haven’t seen her in ages.”
“Oh no,” she said. “Did you start smoking weed again? I thought you gave that up.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Are you running a fever?” Lakesha asked. “You’re not acting like yourself.”
“Acting? Hell, I am me. Why would I need to act? I’ve been gone for months. Has everyone gone crazy?”
“You were here last night.”
“I was on an airplane last night. I just got back to town this morning.” I pointed to my T-shirt. “Exhibit A, my Fiji shirt. Gifted to me by a lovely young woman who gives a lot more than clothing, if you know what I mean.”
“Show me your arm.”
I grinned because this would settle it. She wanted to see my Tarot tattoo. I turned my arm so she could see the card depicted among the flowers and leaves on my right forearm.
“Not that one,” she said, and pointed to my left arm. “Roll up your sleeve.”
“You’re acting weird, Lakesha.” But I turned and rolled my sleeve up over my shoulder.
She approached me and stared at the unblemished skin. She stepped around to face me and her eyes narrowed. Her hands swept in circles, drawing from the sigils she had worked into the ceiling.
“Begone, demon!” And she blasted me in the chest with a magical force. I staggered backward.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“Begone, I say,” and she blasted me again.
I left the bookstore, rubbing my chest and hoping it wouldn’t bruise.
I glanced back, and Isis reared up in the glass door as though trying to scratch me from a distance.
I flipped the cat the bird. But not a bird she could eat. Wow, I hated that cat.
7. You go to an ATM, slide your card in to get some cash, and the machine eats the damn card and flashes a message: You are a thief! Your image has been taken and sent to law enforcement agencies! You will be arrested!
Had things changed that much in six months?
Fortunately, I was at a conv
enience store, and the clerks there were anything but heroes, and likely had no clue what the machine had just told me. I also realized later that ATMs don’t call people thieves. That was a spell cast by my father to fuck with me.
Fine. I went to another store, pulled out a different card, and used it to get some cash. My old man didn’t know about this card or this money. It was an account I set up for royalties from my hit single last year, “Napping My Life Away.”
I wished I could nap my life away right now.
8. You swing by to visit a friend at work only to have this weird conversation.
“Is Teddy here?” I asked the manager.
“Why would Teddy be here?”
“Uh, because he works here?”
“Not since you hired him away from us, Mr. Masters. I must say, your manner of dress has diminished.”
“Blow me.”
Something was seriously wrong in Galveston.
9. You drop by the storage unit where your vampire friend spends his days in a coffin waiting for the night. You open the door to reveal the coffin, as you expect, along with wardrobes filled with a variety of expensive clothing. You close the door to keep the sunlight out, pull the drawstring to light the bulb hanging from the top of the unit, then rap on the coffin, and have this little exchange.
“I’m trying to sleep here,” Michael said as he lifted the lid a bit to peer out.
“Hey, Michael.”
“Why are you dressed like that?”
“Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
Michael sat up. “Brett?”
“Who the hell else would I be?”
He studied me in the overhead light. “Oh, shit. I should have known.”
“Known what? Dude, what the fuck is going on? There’s some Hispanic woman in my house who fires Spanish cuss words the way an AK-47 fires bullets. Lakesha seemed surprised that Isis hates me. Sabrina thinks I got her a massage at some swanky spa. I could go on.”
“What time is it?”
“Two thirty in the afternoon.”
“The swanky spa is on Seawall down by the movie theater. New place. It’s called The Brand New You. If you swing by there before three, I think all your questions will be answered.”
“Why don’t you save me a trip?”
“Not a chance. I only wish I could be there.”
Which leads us to this little ditty.
You go to the swanky new spa with the stupid name and when you walk in, the cute blonde receptionist says, “Mr. Masters. How did you get outside? How did you get so tan? Why are you wearing those clothes?”
Of course, I ignored her and went right into the spa.
A muscle man in Speedos stepped out of a room and nodded to me. “Hello, Mr. Masters.”
“Where’s my cousin?”
“Third door on the left, but you’re supposed to be right across the hall.”
“Right,” I said. “Thanks.”
I walked down the hall. I could have checked on Sabrina first, but something told me my questions would be answered by opening the door across the hall.
So I did, and that takes us to:
10. You walk into a massage therapy session where a naked version of you is getting a rub and tug by a cute topless Asian woman, and that version of you sits up with a big smile and says, “You’re early.”
“You look like me,” I said. I glanced at his dick in the hands of the cute topless girl. “Only smaller.”
He pointed to his shoulder. He had a tattoo of a pentagram in a circle surrounded by fire and beneath it was the word, “Genuine.”
“I’m the real you, Brett.”
“No,” I said, “you’re a lame-assed doppelgänger created by my dick of a father.”
“He let you run around long enough so people wouldn’t suspect the truth, but six months ago, I was ready, so you’re now superfluous. Sorry you had to learn it this way, but there you go.”
“What the hell are you saying?”
“I’m the real Brett Masters. You are a surrogate created by my father to throw off the Magic Council while I finished my training. It worked a little too well because somewhere along the way, you started to think you were the real me. Sorry about that. If you’d stayed in Fiji a few more months, you’d have gone back to the sand from which you were first assembled.”
“That was a lot of talking. Can you give it to me in six words or less?”
CHAPTER TWO
Brett 2: the Sequel met me at a fancy restaurant at 7:00 that evening. He didn’t have reservations, but as a high-level wizard, his magic guaranteed us a table. The service was excellent, as always, and the salmon I ordered was magnificent, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
Brett and Sabrina were already at the table when the hostess escorted me over. “We don’t get many identical twins,” the hostess said, “but for the record, I can tell you apart at a glance.”
I grinned at her. “I’m the better looking one, right?”
She pointed to the Sequel. “Your brother has a certain style that shines through, though you have more … personality.”
“How very diplomatic,” I said and sat down.
The doppelgänger was better dressed, in spite of me buying some new clothes for the dinner.
Sabrina sat smiling in an elegant blue dress that suggested high class. Her glasses made her look more intelligent, but women in glasses always looked smarter to me. Silly? Sure. But I had librarian fantasies. Not about my cousin, of course. But about anyone else’s cousin. I’m an equal opportunity fantasist.
The restaurant was busy, but the tables were spaced to allow privacy while still filling the room with the sounds of conversations and the occasional tap of silverware on plates.
“The real Brett explained the situation to me,” Sabrina said. “I think I have a few suggestions for you.”
“The real Brett? I am the real Brett.”
“Don’t be silly,” Sabrina said. “Brett here is sophisticated, talented, intelligent, kind, capable, confident—”
“If you can get out of Superlative City, we can have a conversation. I get it. You like him more than you like me.”
“Don’t feel bad,” the doppelgänger said. “You were set up to be a placeholder. That’s all.”
“Bullshit,” I said.
“Please don’t use profanity,” he said. “This is a nice establishment, and there are children at the next table.”
“I don’t give a shit.”
“Now, Brett,” he said as if placating a child. “There’s no need for that.”
Sabrina took a sip of wine. “Shall we get to my suggestions?”
“Perhaps we should order first,” my double said. “I recommend the escargot. It’s simply divine.”
“I’m not eating snails,” I said.
“High in protein, low in fat,” Sabrina said.
I opened the menu. “No snails for me. That’s just gross.”
“Regardless,” twin boy said, “the meal is my treat.”
The waiter came by, fawned over my doppelgänger for a few, welcoming him back and thanking him for some small kindness then complimented Sabrina, who glowed in his praise. The waiter glanced at me. “Welcome, sir, you bear a startling resemblance to Mr. Masters here. Would you like to hear about our specials?”
“Not especially,” I said. “I’ll do the salmon with habanero sauce.”
“An excellent choice, sir.” He asked a few questions, as waiters do, then focused on Sabrina and gave another special smile to Mr. Masters. Either my doppelgänger was having the guy for dessert or he tipped well. Or both.
After the waiter bowed and departed, though at least he didn’t click his heels, Brett 2 gave me a nod. “This is your first visit to this fine establishment.”
It was a statement, not a question.
“Oh, I always meant to come here,” I lied. “I just never found the time.”
“It’s one of the finest restaurants in the entire country.”
“I don’t know what that means,” he said.
“Neither does he,” Sabrina said as she rolled her eyes.
The waiter came by with appetizers. He refilled our drinks and stole away to assist other tables.
“Dude,” I said, “can we just cut through the crap? I’m the real me. You’re an imposter. You need to give me back my house and get the hell out of Galveston.”
“I sold the house,” he said. “Well, Father did.”
“Father? Like he’s some kind of priest?”
“It’s a more respectful way of referring to him than ‘Dad.’ But it seems respect is something he forgot to inject into your core operating principles.”
“My core operating what? Dude, speak English.”
“My apologies, Brett. Your humor doesn’t appeal to me.”
“Try that again,” I said. “This time with a British accent. Everyone sounds smarter with a British accent. It adds thirty IQ points no matter what you say.”
He turned to Sabrina. “Is he always like this?”
“Yes,” she said.
“I’m so sorry you had to endure him for so long.”
“That which does not kill us,” she said.
“I’m sitting right here,” I said. “I can hear you.”
“Yes, well, I was merely telling her that it’s a shame she had to suffer through several months of your company while I was finishing my training.”
“Uh, yeah. I heard you the first time.”
“I thought I’d offer a more detailed explanation.”
“I like shorter explanations. And I don’t need an explanation when you’re insulting me while I’m actually sitting here.”
“That’s not the impression you give off,” he said.
“Wait, is that an insult?”
“Would you appreciate a lengthier explanation to elucidate the full range of my observation?”
“Now you’re just being an asshole,” I said.
He grinned. “A trait I understand you possess in great measure.”
“Them’s fightin’ words,” I said.
“Ah, your intellectual capacity has now been exceeded and the digression is in full force.”
“What?”
“Boys,” Sabrina said, touching each of us on the arm. “Let’s all remain calm.”