Miss Misery

by Andy Greenwald

  Zaina! That was it! I turned to face Screwie Louie on my right.

  “I don’t,” I said. “I mean, I just met her outside. I think she thought I was someone else.”

  Screwie Louie giggled. “Who’d she think you were?”

  “Oh…,” I said, mind racing. “I guess she thought I was some guy named David!” We both laughed.

  “The thing about that girl,” said Screwie Louie lasciviously, “is that from what I hear she’s…” He leaned in close. “She’s mad docile.”

  I paused. “Docile?”

  Screwie Louie leered at me. “Yep. She’s real docile.”

  I scratched my face, ran my tongue along the smooth fronts of my teeth. “You mean, like, obedient? She’s obedient?”

  Screwie Louie frowned. “No, man! She’s docile. Look at those legs! She’s docile.”

  I stared at him. He looked confused.

  “Doesn’t that mean, like, flexible?”

  I laughed harder. “Nope!”

  Screwie Louie’s wrinkly face fell. “Damn…I’ve been telling everybody that.”

  I shook my head. I couldn’t seem to stop laughing. There was a strange incessant ringing in my ears and a cottony thickness in my throat. Pedro gave my shoulder a push.

  “You’re not even listening to my story!”

  “I’m sorry, dude,” I said. “I’m just…all over the place.”

  “That’s OK,” he whispered. “I’m fucking high out of my mind right now!”

  I laughed. “Is that what it is?”

  “See what you’ve been missing? It’s fun to leave the house sometimes, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It really is.”

  And I believed it. It was fun. It was, in fact, better than fun. It was fucking fantastic. The heat. The sweat. The volume. The shouting. The drinks. The girls. All of it seemed to make sense now—it was as if I had been living at the wrong rpm. Sped up as I was, I finally got it. So this is why people went out all the time. This is what it felt like. I could barely catch my breath for smiling.

  A new song started then, a familiar rhythm and vocal line. It was the beginning of “Temptation” by New Order. Drugs or no, this was absolutely one of the two or three best songs of all time. I turned to Screwie Louie to make sure he knew it too.

  “Holy shit,” I yelled at him. “I love this song!”

  Screwie Louie stopped talking to a girl twenty years his junior and put his arm around me. “I love this song too!” he yelled.

  “Wait, wait.” I scratched my head, rubbed my nose. “Someone else loves this song too.”

  “I love it,” said Pedro. “What about me?”

  “No, no,” I said, darting my eyes around the room. “Not you. Someone else. Someone important. She’s always talking about it.”

  I looked around more. The song was building and people around us were starting to hoot in recognition; some stood and began to dance. Heaven. A gateway. A hope…

  And then I saw Cath Kennedy bearing down on me from the other side of the bar.

  “Her!” I shouted excitedly. “This is her favorite song too.”

  Pedro looked up. “Her? The chick you were with the other night?”

  Cath was wearing a white tank top with a red bra underneath. Her jeans were black and extremely tight, almost melting into her high-heeled boots. Her hair was swept up from her face and she was wearing giant hoop earrings that made her look like she was playing dress-up in her mom’s closet. She looked ravishing. And she was headed straight for me.

  When she arrived, she yelled.

  “There you are! Where the fuck have you been?”

  I smiled happily. “Hi, Cath.”

  “Don’t fucking ‘hi, Cath’ me, creepo! I can’t cover for you forever. This is your DJ night, remember?”

  Something lurched in my chest. “Oh, yeah,” I said. “I remember.”

  She leaned forward across the table and grabbed my arms.

  “Come on!” She pulled and I let her lift me up off the couch.

  I turned to Pedro and Screwie Louie.

  “Bye, guys,” I said. “I’ll be in the other room. I’ll be DJing.”

  “OK,” said Pedro. “Bye!” Screwie Louie giggled.

  Cath put her arm around me and cut a swath through the crowd toward the other side of the bar. She was taller in her boots; her head pushed against my shoulder. I liked the way her arm felt around my back, too; its pressure, warm and constant, reminded me of something, of someone, but I didn’t have time to figure out what or whom. We kept walking; we kept moving.

  “Cath,” I said. “You totally love this song.”

  She laughed. “I know I love it, creepo. Why do you think I’m playing it?”

  We ducked under a crowd of meatheads near the entrance and cut left.

  “I love this song too!” I said.

  “Well, I also love it because it’s six minutes long, and that gave me enough time to scour this entire fucking place for you. Where the hell have you been? You left me there like forty minutes ago!”

  I laughed. This was hilarious!

  “Don’t be a jerk.” Cath slapped my side where her arm was resting, but it only made me laugh harder. “Seriously! God, I hate it when you do that.”

  The other side of the Madrox was much like the one I had been in, only darker and slightly more mysterious. The entire middle of the room, however, was filled with dancers—gyrating kids twirling, touching, jumping up and down to the beat. Oh, you’ve got blue eyes / oh, you’ve got green eyes / oh, you’ve got graaaaay eyes. Cath led me back to the DJ booth against the far wall, but I stopped her before we got there.

  “Wait!” I said, giddy. “Dance with me!”

  “What?” She turned red. “Are you high?”

  “Maybe!” I yanked on her arm. “Come on! We’ve got like two whole minutes before we need another song.”

  I pulled her close to me and started dancing. She was shy at first, barely acknowledging the rhythm, just watching me, shaking her head. Then, slowly but surely, she started swaying. She danced precisely, almost behind the beat, with no wasted motion. Moving her waist and shoulders in different directions. Lifting her arms high above her head.

  And I’ve never met anyone quite like you before…

  She grabbed my hip and twisted her body into me. I ran my hands through my hair, then rested them on her hips. We slid into each other, mouthing the words. Her hair tickled my nose. Her face was resting on my shoulder. I felt her small breasts against my chest. We were dancing way too slowly now, our bodies tangled up tight. I felt a stirring in my lap. Her hand was on my thigh.

  No, I’ve never met anyone quite like you before…

  Her mouth moved up to my ear. “Hey,” she said.

  Then she stopped dancing altogether.

  “Hey!” She pulled back. “When did you change your shirt?”

  “I didn’t,” I stammered. “I didn’t.”

  She looked confused. “Yes, you did.”

  “No, I didn’t.” I grabbed her by her bony shoulders. “Cath, it’s me. David.”

  She shook her head. “I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about your shirt.”

  “No,” I said. “It’s me, David. The real one.”

  She slapped me in the chest, pushing me backward. “Oh fuck, not this Freaky Friday shit again.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Shazam.”

  Then the song ended and the entire bar fell silent.

  All around us, people stopped dancing. Bottles rattled and clinked. Someone coughed. The quiet was punishing.

  “Shit!” Cath squeaked. “Shit!”

  She scrambled away from me, behind the DJ booth, and began flipping through a large book of CDs. Someone nudged me from behind. “Hey,” said a voice. “Aren’t you, like, the DJ?”

  Oh yeah, I said to myself. I guess I am.

  I walked quickly over to Cath, who was, quite literally, freaking out. “Fuck,” she chirped. “Shit!”

&n
bsp; “Just put something on,” I whispered, feeling strangely calm. “Anything.”

  She flipped through more pages of discs. “You’re going to get him fired. He’s going to kill me.”

  “Don’t worry about him,” I said. “Here, play something off this.” I handed her my iPod.

  “Music!” yelled someone on the dance floor.

  “One second!” I yelled back. “Technical difficulties!”

  Cath was furiously spinning the click wheel. “Jesus,” she said. “How much Fleetwood Mac can one person have?”

  “You’d be surprised,” I said, smiling.

  “Here,” she said. “Thank God.” She jammed the connection wire into the headphone jack and suddenly the opening notes of Bloc Party’s “She’s Hearing Voices” filled the Madrox. The beat was thundering, paranoid, and inescapable. A sarcastic cheer went up from the crowd; then people began dancing again, quite unsarcastically.

  Cath let out a deep breath. Then she punched me in the chest again. “Your battery better not fucking die, creepo.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said, my smile bigger. “I get all charged up before I see you.”

  She hit me again.

  “What?” I started laughing again. I couldn’t help myself. This time, this excitement, this music, this girl—it was all exciting and electrifying and there was a taste in my mouth like biting through steel.

  Cath’s lips were frowning, but her eyes weren’t. I kept laughing and watched her face melt like an ice cube. Soon she was laughing too.

  “See?” I said, wiping tears from my eyes. “It’s funny.”

  “Fuck you,” she said, but she didn’t mean it.

  I gestured toward the dance floor. “The secret is, you’ve got to make them wait for it. That way they want it more.”

  “What the hell has gotten into you, creepo?” She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I thought you were the responsible one.”

  “Yeah, well,” I said. “Nobody’s perfect.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Maybe he won’t come back,” I said, more to myself than to her.

  “Oh,” she said, “he’ll be back.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You think he’d let you steal his night?”

  “Cath,” I said. “Where did he go?”

  She shrugged. “He said something about going off to score some drugs. I told him it wouldn’t be that hard in this place.”

  “I think you’re right.”

  Cath cocked her head to the side. “There’s really something different about you tonight.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah.” She grabbed my chin in her hand and turned my head left and right, inspecting me like she was on an archeological dig. “You look more like…him.”

  “Him.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I look more like him.”

  “That’s what I’m saying!”

  “Cath, we’re supposed to look alike. He’s a doppelgänger.”

  “He’s German?”

  “No…no. He’s—never mind.”

  She let her hand fall down to my chest. I tensed for another smack—one more and it’d definitely leave a mark. “It’s weird, but it suits you.”

  “Cath, you have to stop seeing him. We have to make him go away.” I heard the words come out of my mouth, equally sanctimonious and desperate, and I would have done anything then to have grabbed them and shoved them back in my mouth. To have grabbed her and just started dancing again. But I couldn’t. I was still me. And I was strangely jealous. “We have to do something.”

  “Mmmm.”

  “Cath.”

  “Start laughing again, David. You’re easier to deal with that way.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “So am I. Whatever—here come your friends.”

  I turned and waved to Pedro and Screwie Louie as they cut across the dance floor, drinks in hand.

  “Interesting technique,” Pedro said when he arrived, cackling with glee. “DJ John Cage performs forty-five seconds of silence.”

  “Shut up,” I said.

  Pedro handed me a vodka. “And don’t look now,” he said, “but this song’s almost over too.”

  “Shit,” said Cath, and resumed spinning my iPod.

  Pedro leaned in. “She’s hot!”

  I leaned back. “She’s twenty-two!”

  Pedro held out his hand. “Well, then,” he said. “Congratulations.”

  I stared at his hand.

  “Don’t be rude!” He waggled his hand in the air impatiently.

  I took it to shake, then felt him slide the small plastic bag into my palm. I looked up in surprise. Cath let out a squeal of excitement as she found what she was looking for, and “This Is Our Emergency,” a song by Pretty Girls Make Graves, started up over the speakers.

  Pedro winked at me. “Come on, baby,” he said. “You’re in it to win it.”

  I felt what was in my hand; it seemed hotter than the room, forbidden. Exciting. I was in. I did want to win. But it was more than that: I was the DJ now. This was my party. I could do what I wanted.

  “Cath,” I said. “I’ll be right back. I’m just going to the bathroom.”

  Pedro winked again. “Don’t worry about her. We’ll keep her company.”

  Alone in the bathroom, illuminated under the harsh light, I felt, for a moment, insane. I didn’t do things like this. I didn’t want to do things like this. And yet here I was, ready, able, and poised to do them. I was free-falling now, miles away from the comfortable life I had scripted for myself. No girlfriend. No wallet. No control.

  But then I thought of that other version of me updating the diary I had started, and I remembered something else: I was the writer here. I had scripted this life. If not for myself, then for whom? There was graffitti written across the streaked and filthy mirror: “KILL ME DEADER.” I opened my palm, leaned back heavily against the locked door, and looked down. OK, I thought. Let’s play.

  I had just taken a bump up my left nostril when someone started pounding on the door.

  “Just a second!” I yelled, fumbling with the baggie and my keys, trying to make myself presentable. My heart hammered in my chest. The person kept hammering on the door. Stupid. So stupid.

  “Jesus!” I shouted, louder now. “Hold on to your…”

  The door pushed inward and the lock gave way with a flimsy click. My doppelgänger walked into the bathroom and shut the door behind him.

  “…self,” I finished.

  “Hey,” he said, taking two steps toward me.

  “G-give me my wallet back,” I said, rubbing my nose.

  “Is that cocaine in your hand, David?” The doppelgänger took another step closer. “Did you just snort cocaine? I’m shocked!”

  The doppelgänger had changed his clothes since lunch but hadn’t showered; his hair stood at angles that did not exist in nature. His T-shirt was the same color green as mine, but more form-fitting; DETH KILLERS OF BUSHWICK was emblazoned across the front. His jeans were skintight and artfully frayed. They were also clearly brand-new. His shoes were bright orange with an argyle pattern dotting the sides.

  I put my hand out to keep him back. “How much did those shoes cost, asshole?”

  He stopped. “What, these? Don’t worry. They were on sale.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “I’ll lend ’em to you sometime—something tells me we’re the same size.”

  “Fuck you.”

  He smiled. “You really need to keep more money in our checking account, David.”

  “I’ll take that under advisement.”

  “Testy, testy!” He reached forward and snatched the baggie out of my hand. “Where’d you get this anyway? Did Pedro come through? I’ve been looking for him everywhere.” He pulled the baggie open and dipped a finger into it, then ran it across his gums thoughtfully.

  “I’m not going to give you my keys, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  The dopp
elgänger laughed. “I wasn’t—but that would have been good, wouldn’t it?”

  I took a step back. “Hilarious.”

  He reached into his jeans pocket and removed a silver sugar spoon. “Nice, isn’t it? I stole it from the restaurant at dinner tonight.” He dipped the spoon into the baggie and scooped out enough powder to improve ski conditions in the Poconos for a week. “Well,” he said. “Bottoms up.” With a Herculean snort, he Hoovered up the contents of the spoon, then repeated the action three more times, twice in each nostril.

  “Jesus Christ,” I said. “You’re going to give one of us a heart attack.”

  The doppelgänger wavered on his feet for a second. “Hooo,” he said. “Whoa.”

  I watched him warily. “Get a hold of yourself.”

  The doppelgänger balled up his fists and pounded them on the sink. “Yeah!” He yelled. “I love doing what I want to do!”

  “Look,” I said. “Get out of here. Get out of my life. Give me my wallet.” The drugs were in my veins now too, and I felt lightheaded and bulletproof at the same time.

  He shook his head and turned to face me. “Look at yourself. You’re not in your life anymore, little man. You’re in my life. And I think it’s time I asked you to leave.”

  “You!” My voice was shrill. “You don’t have a life without me. You don’t exist!”

  “Au contraire,” said the doppelgänger. “I was doing just fine tonight until you showed up, sticking your big nose in things that don’t belong to you.”

  “We have the same nose!”

  A timid knock came from the other side of the door.

  “Go away!” My doppelgänger and I shouted in unison.

  “Look,” I said. “You’re ruining everything.”

  “Am I?”

  “There’s only one of me. There can be only one!”

  “That movie sucked. Anyway, you’re the one that did this. Don’t forget that. You locked yourself in that stupid apartment of yours and made yourself so lonely and self-pitying that you had to dream up a whole other you. And now you blame me for existing?” He took another step toward me. I could smell the liquor on his breath. “Please. You’re not cut out for this shit. Go back to reading about your precious Miss Misery on your computer screen. And I’ll go back to having sex with her.”

  I hadn’t planned on punching the doppelgänger. I had never punched anyone before. But I couldn’t help myself. My right arm reared back and connected, solidly, with his smug unshaven jaw. The noise was like the snapping of a twig. He fell backward, tripping over the toilet. I felt a fireworks of pain in my knuckles.