Dishonor Thy Wife (11 page)

BRAD

We partied hard all week like frat boys, trying to make up
for what we missed not growing up together.

The 27-ton statue of William Penn on top of City Hall was
due for cleaning so scaffolding was in place. We climbed the scaffold steps and
urinated on William Penn’s enormous bronze shoes. The cops nearly caught us. We
were both running while pulling up our pants and laughing so hard, we nearly wet
our underwear.

At Longwood Gardens, we ran through the Lily Pond naked.

We threw water balloons from the top level of a
double-decker bus.

We laughed, drank, and whored our way through the City of
Brotherly Love. There were even orgies in our rooms. It was like
if you want
my body and you think I'm sexy, come on, sugar, let me know
. We actually
sang that song to three naked girls in Jayden’s bed.

I never really had a best friend but now my brother and I
are both hung over at the Philly airport waiting for departing flights, mine to
Austin and his flight to Victoria. “Ugh! My head is splitting,” I mumble.

Jayden has a headache from some Vanessa chick. A selfie video
she sent on his cell phone irritates him, but her cute laugh makes me hard. Then
she breaks out in song and my tool goes soft. Jayden hits the
end
button
, shutting her up
. “Vanessa claims that I am
immature. She should talk. She acts like a dumb Disney princess singing her way
through life.”

“Which princess, dude? Cinderella? Jasmine? Ariel? Snow
White? Mulan? Let’s see, who else? Pocahontas?”

“Bro, that’s kind of gay.” He moves his stool further away.

I resist the urge to fling my glass at him. “I have a
six-year old daughter, numbnuts.”

“Oh, I forgot that I have a niece. Vanessa
sings her sentences
sometimes, like in
the hills are alive with the sound of music
but
off-key.” Jayden gives a deep sigh and orders another
AMF
. “I would like
to break up with her, but I have problems with personal confrontation probably
because my folks never raised their voices in anger.”

“I can easily ditch any hot babe. I am the break up artist. What
if there is a way I can break up with Vanessa for you?”

“Keep talking.”

“Let’s change our flights to spend more time together and sit
beside each other on the planes. We can plan what to do about a problem named
Vanessa.”

By the time our plane lands in Boston, I am ready to lay out
my scheme.

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.