Double Date

                                             By Jeff Baker     

            We’d been sitting in the diner (one of those cool ones made up to look like the ‘50’s) for about an hour and he’d been laughing when Doris walked up to our booth. Doris! I’d come to this side of town with Mickey so nobody would recognize us.

            “Hi, Mike,” she said. She’d been sweet on me in High School before she’d realized we were both crushing on the same guy on the basketball team. Just friends since then.

            “Uh, hi Doris,” I said.

            You never told me you had a twin brother!” Doris said. “He looks just like you!”

            I figured I’d better come clean.

            “Doris, this is Mickey.” (He grinned, raised one hand and gave a half-wave, half-salute. He could be cocky like that, like a fighter pilot in a movie.) “Mickey is my…”

            “Mike and Mickey!’ Doris interrupted. “Oh, I think it’s cute! My cousin named her twins Donald and Donna, but of course they were…”

            “Doris, Mickey isn’t my twin or my brother. He’s a Replicated Genetic Construct. And he’s my date.”

            Doris stared at me. “You’re dating your own clone?”

            “Mike says I’m perfect for him,” Mickey said. “And we know each other so well.”

            “Mickey has all of my memories, from right before the time he was, uh, grown a couple of months ago,” I said.

            “Yeah,” Mickey said. “Like I remembered when Doris asked you if you’d go to the senior prom and just ‘fake it.’”

            Doris and I just stared at Mickey.

            “Now, I would have gone to the prom with her and I wouldn’t have to have faked anything.” Mickey said. “We could make up for lost time.” He grinned again. His teeth were whiter than mine and I thought his voice was deeper.

            “You’re supposed to be my date,” I said.

            “Aren’t you, you know, interested in the men’s basketball team?” Doris asked.

            “I’m versatile!” Mickey said. I was about to point out that I’d spent a lot of cash for Mickey and he was obligated to do what I said, but that made me sound like an actor in a bad porn movie about gladiators. One who couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag.

            “Sure, sure, you can go out with her,” I said, waving a hand dismissively. They grinned again, this time at each other, and left.

            Holding hands.

            I sat in the booth for a moment. Then the jukebox started playing an oldie; “My Clone Sleeps Alone.” That was when I pulled one of the prop electric guitars off the wall and started smashing the jukebox.

            So, that’s how I ended up here in jail. How about you?

                                            —end—