Chapter 30
JAYDEN
The Boston airport had some kick-ass bars. The Irish really know how to drink. We were both sloshed during our two-hour layover from drinking at a high altitude on the flight from Philly to Boston. We nursed a couple of beers trying not to fall off the high stools at the Legal C Bar at Logan International Airport.
“So, what’s Vanessa like?” Brad asked.
“Vanessa Rathburn, sexy blonde with a high-pitched giggle that grates on your nerves after a week. We have purely a sexual arrangement although Vanessa would like more. She is persistent in believing that we are a couple. She lasted longer than I expected but then Vanessa does have a great body. I have been trying to break it off with her for a month now. She invited me to meet her parents this week, but the medical conference came in handy as an excuse. I should have confessed to never wanting to see her again, but I have always run instead of confront. My stomach gets tied up in knots so I lie rather than tell the truth or chicken out and keep quiet.”
Brad pulled off his wedding ring and dropped the gold band on a bread and butter plate. “Ronni will be clueless if we switch places.” He pushed his wedding ring at me.
Did my identical twin brother just offer me his wife? “Switch places? You mean pretend to be each other. Are you messing with me, bro?”
“How else do you expect me to break up with your girlfriend except to pose as Jayden Tremblay?”
“You have a wife, Brad.” I pushed the ring back.
“Don’t worry about Ronni, dude.” He slid the plate back to my side of the table. “Our impersonation will fool everyone. We prefer the same wine and whiskey. We even order the same food, etcetera, and etcetera. We can trade patients with no one the wiser. Come on, man, it will be a riot. Very few people can ever have the experience of changing lives with someone else and actually becoming that person. It will only be for a couple of weeks and then we change back and no one will ever find out.”
I could never fool friends, neighbors, or family on Halloween. I flunked acting class in college. “What about your parents?” I said.
Brad was silent, his face annoyed.
“Oh, I forgot, your parents sent you to boarding school from the time you were six.”
“It’s true Viola and Ethan never missed me when I was at school,” he coolly countered. “They would never notice our deception. What about your folks?”
“You might fool them.”
“Might fool them?”
“You have a bit of a Texas twang, Brad.”
“I can speak like a Canadian. You sound just like Americans. God save the Queen!”
“Ha-ha, you sounded British. Just talk like a normal American with no accent.”
He spoke without a Texas accent. “Now your turn,” he said.
After a few sentences, I copied Brad’s accent perfectly.
“My parents will laugh when I later confess what we’ve done,” he said.
“Yeah, we’ll play a real practical joke on our loved ones,” I said with sarcasm. I should be having a twinge of guilt, but am not really taking this conversation seriously.
“Loved ones?” He raised an eyebrow.
“Sorry, I forgot about your dreaded wife.”
Brad had been married nearly seven years, a record these days. He had a six-year old daughter for Christ’s sake, a strong bond between husband and wife yet one of his other reasons for trading places was, “I’ve always wanted to live in Canada. You said you always wanted to live in the States.”
He was tempting, like the devil begging me to commit adultery with my brother’s wife. Whoa, hold on, Brad could not possibly mean that I should have sex with his wife. The way Brad spoke about, what’s-her-name, Lonni, Bonnie, whatever, she was a demanding dragon.
He grabbed his wallet and yanked out his wife’s picture. She seemed so tired and worn out in the photo. How did Brad ever hook up with her?
“Ronni screws around on me,” he said, sounding hurt.
Spare me from ever taking the plunge into the cesspool of marriage. Brad eyed every woman who walked into the bar as if he was a hungry wolf, like a married man, like a husband who has not been laid in a year. Yeah, Brad really looked like he needed a vacation from his wife.
“Come on, man, we’re like matching bookends. This will make up for all the birthday presents you never sent me, Jayden.”
“I don’t think so, Brad.” Maybe…if there was no wife in the picture.
“Just think, dude, it will be like a vacation from ourselves. We will switch for just two weeks, nothing permanent, of course. Think of it as twisted lives. Vice-versa. Flip-flop. Then we go back to being ourselves. Flop-flip. No one will ever know the difference. We’ll have a big laugh over the masquerade, like all the Halloweens we missed out on.”
“Thanks but no thanks. I’ll pass on switching lives.” And being married, if only for two weeks.
Brad sulked into his wine glass for several minutes, and then he slapped my back, rubbing my shoulder. “I feel like I’ve known you all my life, Jayden, as if you were right there when I broke my ribs. You are my missing rib, you know sort of like God took my rib to create you.”
Or vice-versa, I thought, wondering which of us was older, not that it mattered. There had always been a piece of me missing. It took two of us to feel whole for the first time in our lives.
“Trading identities will be like a prank we never got to play since we were robbed of growing up together,” he added.
I chewed my lip, picturing the idea of sitting across the dinner table from his wife, a sister-in-law who was a complete stranger, a fallen woman, an unattractive female.
He lifted his glass in a toast. “I love you so much, Jayden, I’m offering you a once-in-a-lifetime deal a man can’t buy at any price.”
I laughed uncomfortably and scratched my neck. “Yeah, right. Is it hot in here or is it just me?”
“It’s you, old man. I will let you in on a secret, Jayden. I would love to lie back in a full-body machine, an Identical Machine alongside of me, and watch Brad 2 come to life. Then, I could run off and play while Brad 2 listens to Ronni nag.” Brad’s voice went up in pitch and he mimicked his wife. “Why don’t you make time for Traci and take her to the park, and push her on the swings? Quit acting mean all the time!” He then lowered his voice. “Take responsibility for once in your life, Ronni. For crying out loud, I do not have time to play with a daughter; the girl is your job. You know how stressful my job is. I am responsible for life and death, for breath. I am like God.” Brad threw back his head and guzzled the rest of his wine.
“So what? I’m supposed to trade places, be you, and let your wife nag me?”
He shrugged his shoulders and laughed self-consciously. “I’m just letting off some steam. Ronni leaves me alone. We sort of live separate lives.”
“Separate lives, huh? So you don’t sleep together?”
“With that frigid broad?” He snorted.
“You said she screwed around.”
“Except with me. Ronni would not expect sex from you posing as me. Oh, I see, you were thinking about banging my wife?” His eyes narrowed in a possessive way. Brad may not love his wife but she was his property.
“Of course I’d never sleep with your wife. You are my brother. She is my sister-in-law. Do you think me an animal?”
He lifted his glass. “Salud! You are me, Jayden, you lucky devil, so yes; you are a hound dog as this past week has proved.” He tapped his finger against the table to stress his point. “You and I are the same. No one will unmask us, especially a dumb-sounding broad like Vanessa. I promise, when you come back to Canada, things will have changed between you two.”
Ah, to be rid of Vanessa. The idea of passing as Brad was intriguing. The switch would be ironic because my brother would spend the next two weeks running away from the man-hungry Vanessa, but at least she looked a helluva lot better than Brad's wife who, thank goodness, did not sleep with Brad.
I grinned and toasted to our misadventure.
On the flight to New York City, our heads were together for most of the trip, hiding behind water bottles, catching up on each other’s past lives, every memory we could ever recall, not so we wouldn’t get caught in our deception, but because we were really interested in how the other half of us lived. We were so engrossed in each other neither noticed the flight attendants until one stuck her rear in Brad’s face when she helped the man across the aisle.
Brad proposed she share a quickie with him and his brother. Brad offered to drag her into the bathroom with us so we could ravage her. How would she like to double the fun like an ancient chewing gum commercial? I about choked on my drink, especially when the woman purred as if interested. She even half-turned and sort of raised her tail so we could get a whiff.
Yeah, we had a few orgies this past week, but on a plane with a flight attendant, in a crummy little bathroom, the three of us jammed into the toilet? “No, my brother is kidding,” I hastily said, imagining the plane wrecking and us three naked in the bathroom, along with a snapped photo that goes viral on the internet. My God, would Brad ask his wife if she would like to sleep between us?
“Remember, Ronni is your wife for the next two weeks.” Brad said this as if he was saying, Take her. You can have her. We now sat at a bar at Kennedy Airport in New York City, reminiscing about the past week and how crazy fun our time together had been. We were practically crying into our beers.
My flight to Victoria, I mean Brad’s flight was announced. We exchanged bags and identifications, hugged, and wished each other luck. We planned our masquerade down to the smallest detail. We exchanged maps on how to get to each other’s homes and offices. We passed information on surrounding businesses, hospitals, favorite restaurants, etc. We discussed parents, friends, and co-workers. All the maps we retrieved from the internet and saved to our tablets. We exchanged keys, driver’s licenses, cell phones, and wallets.
Brad grinned and said, “Don’t be nervous. Everything will go as planned. For a hangover, the Germans eat raw herring with onions and a pickle. Or you could chew the dried penis of a bull like the Sicilians do.”
“Thanks for the image of a bull shoving its phallus in my mouth.”
He laughed and took my bag complaining about it being heavy. “The old switcheroo will work. Trust me,” he said, winking. “I really love you, brother for doing this.”
“Yeah, same here,” I said, but meant the love part, not the favor part.
“I love you so much that you have my permission to sleep with my wife,” he said laughing but his eyes were cold.
“I would never have sex with your wife, Brad.”
“That’s right. Good man! We respect each other’s property.” He rubbed my back, like a creepy jokester.
Was it too late to change my mind?
Brad was already walking in the opposite direction.
Oh, well, the deceit was just for two weeks.
I walked with slouched shoulders, my face hid beneath a baseball cap purchased at the airport so I could get into a sneaky mood.
I boarded the plane and wrote on a prescription pad that had the name Dr. Brad O’Boyle embossed on top.
Note: Remember, I am supposed to be the kid’s daddy.
My stomach twisted in knots at the thought of acting like a father. I did not even know how to be an uncle. The thought of assuming Brad’s identity ever working ravaged my stomach. I was paying for a miniature of whiskey with another man’s credit card, which was a crime. Posing as a different doctor could lose me my medical license. The worst part about impersonating my brother was living with his wife. Judging by her picture, she was a woman with the sex appeal of a suckerfish. To have to look at that face over breakfast, well playing her husband was going to be hard duty, like scrubbing toilets.
His wife attending college and her blooming independence embarrassed Brad. It was a shame that my brother with his first-class upbringing hooked up with such a low-class woman. We were maybe hypocrites because our real mother likely never married our father, whoever the man was. Hell, maybe she had no idea who our real father was.
Brad spoke harshly about his wife and his resentment of her. His dislike had been palpable, but his unhappiness was no excuse for offering his wedding ring to me with an attitude as if he could hardly wait to get rid of her. Brad had two heavy pieces of baggage, a wife and kid, yet he suggested we change lives, on a lark. Brad did not respect his family but I vowed to. (Okay, posing as Brad was dishonorable, so shoot me.)
I refused to think of my brother’s wife by her name, which I could not remember anyway. A first-name basis seemed too intimate, especially while pretending to be her husband. I practiced, “Good evening, Mrs. O’Boyle. We’re going to have a bumpy ride.” The bumpy was inspired by the plane ride.
During tornado season, a storm could mix a Bloody Mary to perfection. Statistically speaking, drunks usually came out of accidents without a scratch. If the plane crashed on the way to Austin, I vowed to walk away from the burning rubble like the Terminator; my arms bulged into muscles. I work out! I work out! With miniature wine bottles clutched in each hand, nine reps would do it, baby.
After the sixth miniature whiskey, my eyesight improved to x-ray vision. Oh, yeah, I can see the flight attendant’s panties. I grabbed Cookie’s hips (Every plane has a flight attendant named Cookie, right?) and shoved her onto my lap.
“Any time you want a lap dance, Doctor Big, I am pleased to oblige,” she whispered, “only not in front of 200 passengers.”
She actually scribbled her phone number on a cocktail napkin while the flimsy paper was lodged deep in my pocket. She jiggled a pointy pen around the nutsack, but alcohol was like a vegetable home remedy when poured on an open sore. Mix the alcohol with a celery stick, olive, and pearly onion to dull the pain—Dr. Tremblay’s prescription.
“Be careful on the way home,” Cookie whispered while pouring a Vodka miniature down my throat.
A few drinks tucked below the belt would help me face what’s-her-name. I needed to get drunk to fool Brad’s wife. Besides, Alcohol was a liquid grain and like vegetables, might be healthy.
Bonus: the sugar in alcohol made booze an energized food item, except for the morning after, when you felt as if you were dying.
Alcohol was both a life and death product—even the California liberals could not say that about vegetables, except for the hottest chili on the planet, the Ghost Pepper which had burnt holes in intestinal tracts. Ghost Pepper was the devil’s diet.
Yeah, the devil was a vegetarian.
I sipped my veggie drink while reading the ebook How to Be a Good Husband for Dummies Whose Wives Are Clueless blah, blah, blah.
I looked at my watch and the date, May 23rd. The masquerade would only be until June 6.
I yanked out Brad’s wallet and made a face at his wife’s picture, a woman so forgettable that I could not remember her name. I said to the photo, “Good evening, Mrs. O’Boyle. Get lost, Mrs. O’Boyle.”
August 27, 2015
A CRAZY JEALOUS MAN LEFT BLOODY FOOTPRINTS LEADING TO MY MASTER BEDROOM and enough DNA evidence to hang me, along with a murder video. The police claim I am the star of murder shot by a camera on a tripod. I’m facing down officer big boobs and detective pencil dick. I did not kill that woman! These two numbskulls do not believe me that my chemistry is getting in the way of my innocence.
Oh, the web we weave when first we practice to deceive. Breathes there the man with soul so dead.
Who said that, Sir Walter Scott? Or was it Brad O’Boyle and Jayden Tremblay?
My brother and I are both broken. Our mother conceived us and then cracked us in two.
Jayden and Brad sat on a wall.
Jayden and Brad had a great fall.
All the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Could never put Jayden and Brad together again.
Thou shalt not murder, not even for a broken promise.
Can you
believe killing is only Commandment Number Six on God’s playlist? The first three commandments are all about Him. Do not worship anyone else but Him. Do not paint or sculpt anyone but Him. Only say nice things with His name and do not gossip about Him so forget about free speech.
Yeah, God is a jealous egomaniac, but do not tell Him I said so because I may need God to keep me out of the electric chair.
* * *
Part Three: Promises Broken
May 24; Austin 11 Weeks Earlier
Chapter 31
JAYDEN
I never in my life stole a girl’s undies, even in high school or college—underwear was private shit, right? My excuse for stealing Ronni’s panties was to quickly get to know my sister-in-law. How much closer can a man get to a woman than walking his fingers through her panties?
My nose was running and there was no tissue. I blew my nose in the middle of Ronni’s panty crotch, inhaling fabric softener, which started a sneezing fit.
Yeah, I think I might be allergic to my sister-in-law. Sex with her might just make me sick so just cool it, Jayden. Stay away from Ronni! Crap, she ended up being attractive. The picture in Brad’s wallet was a bad photo of her.
The phone rang and it was Brad hissing and spitting like a tiger. “Why are you answering with your own name? I asked to speak to Dr. O’Boyle.”
“I’m alone. Oh, I see, Brandy may be listening to see if any of your other lovers are calling you.”
“Well, I think you’re having an affair with your receptionist,” he countered.
“Irene is 64 years old, Brad.”
“I can see you doing that wrinkled cherry.” He laughed.
“Very funny. Have some respect.” While he jabbered on, I was having sexual thoughts about his wife.
I suckle her breast breathing as if my lungs pain me.
Oh God. Ronni removed her hand from my crotch. Why does she do that? Why is she torturing me?
Then she grabs my hips and starts humping against me, actually humping like a bitch in heat. She is begging for it, wanting it badly.
Dishonor Thy Wife Page 11