Miss Misery (13 page)

The doppelgänger looked around with amusement at the staring faces.

“It's OK, everyone,” he said in an affected basso-profundo voice. “We're just working out some differences between us.” He winked at me again. I wanted to punch him, but I bruise easily.

Slowly the diner began to hum again as people looked away from our table and back to their own. In the mirror behind the doppelgänger, I caught a glimpse of Bluto at the counter shaking his head sadly, mouthing the word “brothers” to himself.

“Look,” I said as calmly as I could manage. “Where did you come from?”

“From you,” he said, sounding bored. He hefted the dripping burger again and waved it at me. “You sure you don't want a bite? It's really good.”

“Yes. I'm sure.”

The doppelgänger shrugged. “You don't know what you're missing.”

The waitress returned, dropped a glass of Coke and a straw in front of me, and stomped off in the direction of hungrier tables.

“What do you mean, from me?”

“Look, I don't know how to explain it, buddy.” He paused as he chewed and swallowed. “All I know is that if you start creating a better life in your free time, someone's got to hurry up and start living it.”

“You mean the diary? My diary?”

“Actually,” said the doppelgänger as he reached for my straw, “I think it's more
my
diary.” He ripped the straw open with his teeth and positioned it over my Coke. “Do you mind?”

“Go ahead.”

“Thanks, chum.” He dive-bombed the straw into the glass and drank half of its contents in one long pull. “Ahhh,” he said. And belched.

“This can't be happening,” I said.

“Oh, but it is.” He sat back and smiled smugly. “How's Amy, by the way?”

I felt my blood boil. “Shut up about Amy.”

“Why? You certainly have.”

“Look, what do you want?”

The doppelgänger crossed his arms behind his head. “Oh, lots of things. Money, power, respect. Clubs to stay open past four a.m. Stalls with more privacy at the Dark Room. A paying DJ gig. Nothing that you can really offer me, though.” He gestured at the windows facing the street. “Looks like it's gonna get nasty out there.”

He was right. The street—so sunny when I had arrived—had grown dark and ominous. It was not yet one p.m., but it looked like the tail end of a winter evening.

“Good thing you brought a jacket, David.” He grinned. “That's the thing about you that I really envy, you know? You're so responsible.”

“I wish you'd just leave me alone,” I said quietly.

The doppelgänger ignored me and kept talking. “You know? Like you're
so proud
of the fact that you always ‘just say no'—like they give an award out for being boring! Or how you've had the same girlfriend since college and never once thought about cheating on her or even trying something new! That's ridiculous! How can you know you're happy with the prize package if you've never even tried for door number two?”

“And what you do is better?” I tried to reign in my temper. “You go out all night, every night? You do whatever drugs exist? You have no purpose, no job, no friends?”

He laughed. “I'm not perfect either, David. But at least the mistakes I make are intentional. Plus, you have to admit I'm having a lot more fun than you are.”

I had nothing to say to that.

“Besides, I'm not doing anything that you wouldn't do. Believe me.”

“And why's that?”

“Because I'm you!”

“You're not,” I said, but I didn't even believe myself.

“I'm you, David. Except I'm the you who does all the things you're too scared to be doing. Like going out. And taking chances. And fucking Cath Kennedy.”

“Jesus!” I yelled again. “You're disgusting.”

“Am I?”

“Leave her out of this,” I said. “She's just a kid.”

“Oh yeah,” he said, his voice harsh and ugly. “Like you know her all that well.”

“And you do?”

“Who do you think she called last night after you bailed on her, David? Who do you think she spent the night with?”

I felt nauseous and sank backward in my seat.

“She likes you fine, David. She told me so. But she
wants
me.”

I rubbed my face. Steadied myself on the table. Outside, the street was lit up by a strobe of lightning. People oohed, and the baby behind me resumed shrieking.

“Maybe you should stick to girls on the Internet—or in Europe.”

“Fuck you,” I said, and slowly stood up.

“You leaving?”

“I'm going to the bathroom. Eat your fucking burger. When I get back, we're going to settle this. Enough is enough.”

The doppelgänger laughed and resumed eating. I walked as quickly as I could to the bathroom and locked the door behind me.

When I was a kid growing up in Providence, the upstairs bathroom had been my sanctuary: the one place in my liberal household that had a lock on the door. When I was sad or upset or just seeking some privacy, I would rush into the bathroom with a comic book or a magazine, twist the lock, and spend an hour or so sitting on the floor, leaning against the bathtub, reading. Recharging. This bathroom, however, offered no such relief. It was dank, unair-conditioned, and smelled like Pine-Sol. Half of the ceiling was missing, and pipes and bright pink insulation dangled low above my head. There were fruit flies buzzing lazily around the trash can, which was piled high with discarded towels. I leaned forward against the white sink, ran some cold water, and splashed my face. I looked in the streaky mirror and was half surprised to recognize myself in it. The old me. The real me.

I let the water drip off of my face as my heart throbbed a Rush-style drum solo in my chest. I hated confrontation. I hated fights of any kind—hell, polite disagreements in movies made me uncomfortable. And now I had this in my life? A Freudian breakdown over burgers? What were the possible outcomes of an episode like this? Would I have to arm-wrestle myself for my sanity? Had I lost some sort of galactic bet?

I just wanted to go home.

But the home I had wasn't the one I was imagining. I had three sets of locks on the door of my apartment, but they weren't doing a very good job of keeping me in or the world out. Up until six weeks ago, I had had stability. A life. A partner. But I had frittered it all away. And now I was left with…what? A vibrant answering machine, an uncommunicative pigeon in a planter, and a psychotic id rampaging around the city seducing twenty-two-year-olds with my face?

Hell, no.

I reached for a paper towel and rubbed my forehead dry. I needed to put a stop to this. I needed to be the strong one. I glanced in the mirror and almost surprised myself with how tough I looked. Almost.

I took a deep breath, unlatched the door, and crossed the room to the table in long, determined strides.

“Listen,” I said as I slid into the seat. “You can't…” I stopped.

The other side of the booth was empty. I exhaled and sat back. Where could he have gone? I looked around the diner and didn't spot him. I glanced outside but the rain was pouring down in great diagonal sheets of gray, obscuring everything.

It was then I spied the note on the table. In my own handwriting it said: “Thanks for lunch, pal. Don't get in my way. Oh, and try to stay dry!”

I reached frantically around the bench and then under the table.

The bastard had stolen my rain jacket.

And then my heart leapt up to my throat.

My wallet had been in that jacket.

Fuuuuuck.

I think this is the saddest song I have which is just awesome because this is the saddest I've ever been. ::cries::

If I ever have a child I'm never going to yell. Or scream. Or hurt. Because what's the point?

All I did was words and all they said to me was words–so I guess we're even. But I wrote something that tried to be beautiful. ::still crying:: And all they did was try to hurt me.

When my mom yells her voice gets all scratchy and high like a chipmunk record and she throws her hands up over and over like ‘how could you have done this to me' like she's so great and perfect and flawless (ha!). And when dad got home from work he started too. He's so big that when he yells he's scary–this vein in his forehead bulges out like he's gonna have a heart attack and he turns purple like the Hulk (no wait the Hulk was green, his pants were purple !!–::laughs a little then keeps crying:: )

Tonight I was supposed to be seeing Senses Fail and My Chemical Romance in SLC but now I'm not. Apparently now I'm not doing anything except sitting here for a long long time. I HATE THEM SO MUCH!!!

How can you not know your own daughter? Why can't they just let me be who I really am? I can't be who they want. They have one daughter like that already–Jessie is so perfect it makes me want to puke all over myself. I should probably just leave and let them get on with raising their real little angel. All I do is take things that are perfect and make them ugly. And everything that I find beautiful makes them sick. ::sobs:: I used to hate myself but now I know better. Now I just hate them.

I just threw a thing of lip balm across the room but it didn't shatter. I think I just dented the perfect white wall instead.

I don't fit in here. I tried. I'm going to be EIGHTEEN FREAKING YEARS OLD and it's still not good enough. No matter how much I try to bend and hide something always ends up sticking out and breaking something. Ruining everything.

I have to change: me, my life, my world. Anything, really. I have to see what it's like on the other side of this screen.

I think I have to go away.

I was sitting in my apartment with all of the lights out, staring at my computer screen, at the window where Miss Misery had just been. I was in my underwear, as my clothes were still completely drenched from my miserable post-lunch journey home. The thunderstorm had been ferocious, with rain that hammered the pavement like hailstones, leaving scores of people huddling under bus stops and awnings, flinching with each deafening clatter and roar that came booming from the sky. I had tried to stick to the sides of buildings, but the wind was blowing the rain at impossible angles; I was soaked through before I had even crossed the avenue. To get on the subway, I had had to borrow sixty-five cents from a red-haired girl with freckles and a Hello Kitty umbrella. Look on the bright side, I kept saying to myself as the water in my hair dripped down my face: At least you always keep your house keys in your pants pocket.

The storm had ended now and the sky was clearing, but I could still hear sirens in the distance, ferrying able men to trouble spots where they would soon be hard at work picking up the pieces of trees that had been forcefully removed from their rightful perches—no doubt restoring electricity and cable service; restoring order.

I wished that one of the sirens could have rushed to my aid, but there was no knock at the door, no helpful call from the street below. In that numb moment, I would have settled for that infuriatingly chipper painter from earlier in the summer, or that damn bird in the herb garden. Heck, I would have even answered the phone.

But for once it didn't ring. I was alone, outdated, replaced. David Gould 2.0 was out running the streets now, taking over the city in a way I would never have dreamed. He had my money, my ID, my momentum. Heck, he even had the fantasy girl I wasn't even sure if I wanted. It was, in the words of Ben Grimm, a rather revolting development.

In the ghostly half-light of my dim office, I wondered if this was the end of the me that I had known. I felt my anger fading, along with my resolve and maybe the rest of me as well. I felt shimmery, indistinct. What if my boring, insignificant life was in the end no different from
Highlander
, that stupid movie with Sean Connery in a ponytail? What if there really could be only one?

Just then my laptop chimed like a bell, saving me from further self-pity or marginal film comparisons.