The Doppelganger

[Foxy Methoxy]

One of my least favorite acquaintances in high school was a guy named Brian. He was one of those people I just never liked and the feeling was mutual. We shared several friends in common, but the two of us always clashed. Brian wore his hair long, almost waist length, and this ridiculous looking Rastafarian style woven beret. His favorite hobbies were role playing games, pretend sword fighting with fellow nerds, and dating women nearly twice his size. The image of him making out on the steps of the main building at our school with both hands buried under the enormous stonewashed denim butt of his long time girlfriend is something I’ll probably never be able to un-see.

 

 

 

A friend of mine at that time was a guy named Will who I’d known since elementary school. Will was probably 5x the nerd Brian was. He wore his hair in a bowl cut, wore glasses 2 times larger than necessary, had the fashion sense of what one person once described as “Urkel on crack,” and had possibly the most irritating, whiney voice I’ve ever heard which came with a Northeastern accent as he was originally from Rhode Island. Unlike me and Brian, me and Will got along for the most part. Will was the last guy in our age group to lose his virginity. Even the religious guys like me who swore a vow of chastity until marriage were getting pussy on accident before he ever got some on purpose. We even had a secret betting pool going on whether or not it would ever happen for him.

 

 

 

One day, me and Will are walking through the mall and we run into Brian who has a new chick named Chelle around his arm. This surprised me as she was a very small, petite girl, and I’d never seen Brian with anyone other than big girls, really, really big girls. So naturally, I assumed they were related. There was something eerily familiar about this girl. Could it be her bowl cut? Maybe her and Will shared the same hairdresser. Could it be her glasses that were two sizes too large? Maybe her and Will shared the same optometrist? Could it be her bizarre fashion sense which also resembled the same shit Will would pick out? Gah! Then she opened her mouth and told us she was from Boston. She had the same accent as Will, too. Holy crap! This girl IS Will.

 

 

 

Starting to feel dizzy, I excused myself from the conversation and walked outside to smoke a cigarette. A few minutes later, Will caught up with me and asked me what I thought of that girl who Brian was hanging out with.

 

 

 

“I’m surprised to see him with a girl who isn’t big enough to bodyslam him.”

 

 

 

“I think she’s beautiful!”

 

 

 

“Really?”

 

 

 

“And her and Brian aren’t together. She just gave me her phone number. I’m going to ask her out.”

 

 

 

“Really? Wow, dude. Congrats.”

 

 

 

The possibility of the two of them reproducing scared the shit out of me, but I was still happy for my boy. That girl was as close to a sure thing as I’ve ever seen. Will was finally going to get laid.

 

Later that day, I get a call from Will and he’s excited. He has a hot first date with Chelle tonight. Then he asks me to go out with them.

 

 

 

“Dude, no. You don’t take your friends with you on a date. You need privacy.”

 

 

 

“Come on. Please? We’re just going to Einstein’s. You don’t have to hang out with us the whole time.”

 

 

 

I ended up going along with it and rode up to Einstein’s sitting in the back seat listening to the geekiest flirting in the history of nerd mating. At one point, I nearly threw myself out of the vehicle. I couldn’t get over how much these two looked alike and sounded alike when they talked. It blew my mind.

 

 

 

Within a short time, they were an item. They went everywhere together. They did everything together. There was no doubt they were made for one another. However, on the rumor mill, several guys were claiming Chelle was cheating on Will with several other dudes. I couldn’t believe it. If two totally unattractive nerds walking around looking that happy couldn’t be faithful to one another, what hope does that give the rest of us? It made me sad. Not really sad. But maybe a little sad. OK. Actually, I wasn’t sad at all. Just perplexed there existed a female Will and not only was she fucking Will, but she was also fucking around on Will. This also blew my mind.

 

 

 

One place that was popular with the Orange Park High School alt crowd was the Civic League. Local bands could put on rock concerts for cheap and it attracted a large crowd every time. We didn’t do high school dances. We didn’t care about football games. Our get togethers were Einstein’s A Go-go, The Milk Bar, The Fusion Café, and The Civic League. One night, I’m at the Civic League hanging out with my usual group of friends. The music was loud. The place was as packed outside as it was inside. A car pulls up and it’s Will, Chelle, and Tim. Will walks up and says hi and asks me to go inside with him. Chelle and Tim stay outside. I walk in with him into the Civic League and Will confides to me that him and Chelle are having problems and he thinks she’s cheating on him. Normally, I would have told someone to not worry about it. There are plenty of other women out there. But this was Will. There weren’t plenty of other women out there. Not for him anyway. And certainly not ones who could pass as his clone. So I encouraged him to stick things out. Maybe she was cheating on him, but that’s no reason to break up. No way. Life’s too short. Live for the moment. And all that other stuff.

 

 

 

At some point, I got tired of hearing Will whining about his relationship woes, so I walked outside to see what everyone else was up to. There was this big crowd. Gathered around a van in the parking lot. Linc, the homophobic, douchebag bully of our crowd is telling people:

 

 

 

“I just saw Will and Tim get in a van together and Will’s in there right now sucking Tim’s dick! When they come out, let kick their ass!!!”

 

 

 

At that moment, Will walks up and asks what’s going on. Realizing it’s not Will in the van and trying to protect Will from finding out where his girlfriend / doppelgänger is, I tell him “Linc’s just being a douche. Eh . . . Let's go back inside and check out the music.” Unfortunately, his curiosity got the better of him and he insisted on finding out who was in that van.

 

 

 

So, yeah. Chelle was, in fact, cheating on him.