The Lily-White Boys

This began life as a Star Trek story, but don't worry about that--all you need to know is that both characters were played by the same actor, which accounts for the exact resemblance!

Every time I think about that night, I figure I must have been drunker than I realized. I'd only had two beers, but they were the real thing, not synthehol, even though they tasted like warm weak piss. When he walked in, I didn't even notice what he looked like at first. I was finishing the second beer, and wondering if I should order another one or just start in on the hard stuff.

It wasn't a really well stocked bar; all they had was two brands of scotch and four of tequila. That kind of place. I figured I deserved to be drinking in a dump. It wasn't easy to find one this bad in San Francisco, but the cab driver had steered me right. Or wrong, depending on your point of view. A genuine dump.

So he was the kind of guy that belonged in a dump, or felt like he did. That established a rapport right away. He chose a stool two away from me, though there was no one else at the bar, and only one table occupied. The bartender had slopped a puddle on the bar when he handed me the first beer, and hadn't wiped it up yet, so the guy got his sleeve in it. I wasn't really watching, but I saw him lift up his arm and give a little sigh, then put it back down out of the puddle as if it wasn't worth the trouble to change his seat. The stool creaked as he rocked it back and forth.

"Beer," he said when the bartender finally came out of the back room and stared at him. He didn't specify the brand, which was good, because they only had one kind on tap and the bottled stuff wasn't refrigerated. Beer spoils, you know. Got to keep beer cold.

So the bartender drew him a mug of the warm weak piss, and he sat with it for a while before he drank any, watching the head slowly subside until it was just a scum on the sides of the mug, holding it like it was something that belonged to a good friend of his. I finished my beer and got a shot of the worst brand of tequila they had, and told the bartender to leave the bottle. It was half full, and I figured that would be enough.

I was pouring my third shot but hadn't downed it yet when he finally lifted the mug. Down the hatch, all at once, the way you do at parties when you're trying to impress your friends. No breaths. I looked up just to see if he would choke before he finished, because if he sprayed that shit all over me I was planning to object. I hadn't lost quite enough self-respect to sit still and let some asshole spit bad beer on my civvies.

His head was back, and the beer was glugging down his throat like he was dying of thirst. Long white throat, sort of refined-looking, a little bit of stubble showing this late in the afternoon, blond like mine. That was the first thing I noticed that was like me, besides the fact that we were in this dump when there were ten better places in walking distance. It all went down smooth as glass, quite a feat considering what the stuff tasted like, and he put the mug down with a clunk and looked at me.

It was pretty dark in there, with some of the fixtures broken and most of the light right over the bar, so I still didn't notice, not really. Half his face was in shadow. I could tell he was thin, and light-haired, and his hair was in that stupid cut the Academy barbers give you, but he wasn't wearing a cadet's uniform. This kind of place was off limits to cadets anyway. That never stopped me when I was in the Academy, but with a name like mine, you have to do a lot worse to get thrown out. A lot worse.

I didn't say anything to him then, because I had nothing to say. I hadn't come here to talk to anyone. I drank my third shot and poured the fourth one. None of it had hit me yet since I had drunk them so fast, but I could feel them waiting, kind of gearing up, like an ax hanging over my head, trembling in the hands of the executioner, waiting for the order to fall. I liked that thought. I'd been tried, and condemned, and no one had the decency to just take me out and shoot me, not in this enlightened age, so I was doing it myself with more old-fashioned means.

I had figured on getting as drunk as I could while still being able to stand and hail taxicabs, and then going out to the Golden Gate and walking to midspan. I knew they had put up a force field all along the railings years ago, but no one had even tried in so long that maybe it wasn't maintained very well. There might be gaps I could slip through.

I'm good at slipping through gaps. Slicker than owl shit in an okra dish. I like that kind of expression. My favorite grand-uncle, the one who wasn't an admiral, the one who died when I was ten, used that kind of expression, especially when he'd had a few. I liked the pursed-up look my father's face got when he heard down-home talk. I learned as many expressions from my grand-uncle as I could. We didn't see him very often. We didn't go to his funeral.

I doubted that my father would go to my funeral. I wasn't sure I wanted him there. I wanted him to sit at home while my mother and sisters got dressed in black and looked at photo albums and maybe cried a little. I wanted him to sit in his study with the transcript of the court-martial, and run it with the sound off because he couldn't bear to listen to the testimony. At least he would be looking at my face.

He did show up on the third day when they read the verdict, though he hadn't been there for the trial, and sat and listened to it, and then left. Even the reporters didn't block his way. He never looked at me. Judgment had been passed, and for once by a higher authority than him, and that was all he needed to know. It never mattered how hard you tried; the end result was all that mattered. That's a good credo for a Starfleet admiral, but it might not be a good one for a father. He knew which one was his higher calling.

So I was sitting in this dump, and I had two beers and three shots of tequila in me, and there were three voices calling me down to the water, I guess, and the guy two stools down from me ordered another beer. There was something familiar about that voice, but a little strange as well. Like the first time you hear someone you know from 'phone conversations speak in person.

I frowned, but the tequila was starting to hit me. I wasn't thinking very straight. I didn't care who he was. I hadn't come here to meet anyone. I was going to have two more shots, or maybe just one because I had lost some weight since the accident and it didn't take as much to get me blind anymore. I used to have it figured pretty well. I knew exactly how much it took to get me to each stage of drunk and keep me there. That was one of the main things I learned in the Academy.

He chugged the second beer just like the first. This time he seemed to taste it, and made a face. It reminded me of the face I had made when drinking the stuff. Weird--I had the thought that he was me, just a little delayed, a few minutes behind me every step of the way.

But he was wearing different clothes, plain civilian stuff like me, but a different color, and he had a long coat on. I had a better haircut, too. I had the pointed sideburns still, of course, because I had been Starfleet until earlier that afternoon, and I had it a little long on top to let the wave show. I hadn't had a scalp job like his in a long time. Only cadets get haircuts like that. I did begin to wonder why a cadet was in here, and in civvies, and drinking as fast as I was.

"That stuff is piss," I said, and passed him my shot. "It goes out the same way it came in. This sticks with you." He looked at me again, and I saw his brows wrinkle up, but he took the shot and tossed it back, just the way I had been doing.

"Thanks," he said. He didn't say anything else, just looked at the mirror behind the bar, and I looked at his profile for a minute, and then at the mirror. I was seeing double already. I didn't think I had lost that much weight in the hospital. But one of my reflections had on a long dark coat, and had a bad haircut, and his cheeks were a little fuller. He had my face, though.

I'm seeing one and a half instead of double, I remember thinking. I'm seeing my face on this guy. He turned and looked at me again, and I saw his profile in the mirror. Now he didn't look so familiar. I picked up my bottle of tequila again. He was still staring at me. The tequila was about halfway there now, just biting down good and hard, and I studied the label for a while until I got uneasy. What the hell is this asshole's problem, I thought, and he said, "Who the fuck are you?"

"I'm famous," I said. "I was on the news at six. I don't have to tell you who I am."

"You're Thomas Eugene Paris," he said. "Fuck."

"Fuck you," I said.

That ended the conversation for a while. Then he held out the glass, and I poured him another shot. One more, and he'd have caught up to me. He could probably hold it a little better, though, having about twenty pounds on me. But he gave me the glass back when he finished, and I poured myself another one. I didn't drink it yet, but looked in the bar mirror. There was my face again, twice. I'd know it anywhere. Kind of triangular, a little bony, pretty well put together when I was smiling, which was most of the time. Blue eyes.

"What the fuck are you doing with my face?" I said.

"That's mine," he said. We turned our stools and really looked at each other for a minute.

"I'm not that drunk," I said, but I guess I was.

"Neither am I," he said, and he probably wasn't. Still behind me on shots.

"Who the fuck are you?" I said.

He didn't answer for a minute.

"I'm not famous," he said. "My name is Nick Locarno."

"I don't know you," I said.

"I don't know you either," he said. "Not in person, I mean. I saw you on the news. I read about the court-martial."

"So did everyone on the planet. Everyone in the Federation. You don't know me any better than any of them."

"No."

We went back to staring in the mirror. I could tell he was starting to feel the tequila.

"You've got my face," he said.

"I said that," I said. "We're long lost twin brothers. You must be as drunk as I am, since you're having the same hallucination."

"I don't think it's a hallucination."

"What else could it be?"

"An omen. A doppleganger."

"A dobble-- dobble--"

"Doppleganger. It's a spirit that appears to you when you're about to die. It looks just like you. Usually it shows up when you look in a mirror, looking over your shoulder."

"You're sitting next to me. And you don't look just like me. Your haircut is worse, and your clothes are different."

He looked down at his clothes. "I just bought them. I don't like civvies."

"No shit. So why aren't you wearing your uniform? Don't want the monitors to see you in a place like this? Might get your butt kicked out of the Academy?"

He had gone white, but now he was turning red. I always flush easily, especially when I've had a few, and he had my face.

"Shut the fuck up," he said.

I drank my fourth shot. "You're two behind me," I said. "We ought to match." I handed him the bottle and the glass.

"Save it," he said. "I'm leaving."

"We won't match anymore," I said. "We ought to stick together."

"Why?" He slid off the stool. "I think you're a bad omen."

"What the fuck have I ever done to you? I've bought you drinks and insulted you. Sounds like friendship to me."

"I'm leaving." He put some credit chips on the bar and turned to walk out.

"Shit, I'm coming with you. I'm not letting my face walk around without me."

We got out on the street, and I saw it was getting dark, and there was no color left in the sky. The damp was in the air, and it was getting cold. The fog rolls in from the ocean in the late afternoon, and moves in through the Gate, and you sometimes see the tops of the towers on the bridge above the fog, catching the last light, like the crests of mountains or of tall trees, or of gallows. They still use the red-orange paint on it, though it doesn't need rustproofing since it was rebuilt out of alloys. You can't change the color of the Golden Gate Bridge. No light left on the towers, but a dark deep red in the twilight, above the fog.

"I was going to the bridge," I said. I remembered why I was going there, and looked at the guy who looked just like me, and wondered if he was there to tell me I was about to die. I didn't need telling that. "I don't want to go to the bridge yet," I said.

"Christ, make up your mind."

"I'm going to the park. I want to go down to the end, where the windmills are, and look at the ocean until I feel like going to the bridge. Are you coming, or are you worried about curfew?"

"I'm not under curfew."

"Senior, huh? Lucky bastard. I liked being a senior. But then I had to go into 'Fleet, and you know what came of that. The whole fucking quadrant knows."

"I know. Do you want a taxi?"

"Shit, yes. It's too far to walk." We waved at cabs until an empty one came along, with a woman driving. I told her to go to the west end of the park, and she smiled at me and at him. I guess she thought we were going there to hold hands or something. The windmills have been there a long time, and it used to be a hangout where men went to meet other men, in the days when that kind of thing made a difference, and it still has that association on it. Going to the Academy, you learn those little things.

I just wanted to look at the ocean. From the windmills, you look across the Great Highway, and there is a seawall and the beach below it. Beyond that is the ocean. Not the bay, which is sheltered by the peninsula and can only be entered at the Gate, but the open ocean. The Farallones are out there, thirty kilometers or so, and then it's a straight shot to Japan.

We didn't talk in the cab, so the driver didn't either, but I could see her smiling at us in her reflection on the windshield. I guess we made a cute couple, both of us with the same face. I paid her when we got there, and gave her a wink, and she smiled at me. Oh, Tommy, you still got it, I thought, and I looked at Nick, and he got out of the cab. I almost expected him to stay in the cab and go where he was going, but he got out and followed me. The driver waved at us as she pulled out into traffic again.

It was getting dark, but I could see the ocean anyway. The waves were coming in front of a stiff breeze, and the foam was breaking in long white lines on the beach. I could taste the salt in the air, and it was bitter, like cold blood on my lips.

"You want to go down to the beach or to the windmills?" I asked Nick.

"The windmills," he said.

There's a tulip garden there, to go with the windmills, because it was all a gift to the city from the Queen of Holland or something, hundreds of years ago. They weren't blooming this time of year. They rebuilt the windmills out of alloys about a hundred years ago. That salt air didn't do the originals any good. You can go up in them and look out at the ocean.

When we got up to the top of the stairs to the observation area, in the southern one, there were already about three other couples there. A man and a woman, and two male couples besides me and Nick. Everybody was pretty cosy. I felt a little out of place, since we were the only ones not holding hands, at least. Two of the men were cuddling and kissing quickly while they looked out at the ocean. One of them was Starfleet, though he was wearing civvies, and I didn't want him to see me.

"Let's get out of here," I said.

"Sorry," said Nick. We went down the stairs again and walked around the tulip garden. People pedaled by slowly on bicycles, with their lights on. I couldn't really see his face any more. He might have been just another guy, my height, a little heavier than me, a few years younger, his hairline a little lower.

Another couple came up the path toward us with their arms around each other, talking and laughing in deep voices, so I knew they were men. I stepped aside to let them pass. I was still really drunk, maybe drunker than when I had left the bar, and I stumbled into one of the flowerbeds.

A sprinkler head caught my pant leg, and down I went. I was pretty relaxed with all that tequila, so I didn't hurt myself. I had my face in the dirt before I could even think to break my fall.

"Shit, Tom, are you OK?"

"Yeah."

The guys who had been walking by offered to help, but I waved my arm at them, so they figured I was embarrassed and left. I guess I was embarrassed, but not that badly. Nick came and stood over me, and took my arm to help me up.

I was really feeling limp, like I could sleep right there in the dirt. He had a hard time getting me up to the point where he could put his arm under my chest and heave me to a sitting position. He was half hugging me, and I smelled him through his coat, and he smelled like me.

"Are you sure you're OK?" he asked.

"Fine."

"You've got dirt on your face."

"Figures." I spat some out of my mouth. All of a sudden it was funny, and I started laughing. Nick smiled, and laughed along with me. His laugh was just like mine. It was creepy.

"I can't be a ghost," I said. "Ghosts don't trip and fall." They don't smell like real people either, I thought.

"Maybe not. Maybe I imagined it."

"Imagined what?"

"That you look like me."

"You mean, that you look like me." We laughed some more. It was too dark to see much beyond the white flash of his teeth.

"Who's got dibs on the face?" he asked.

"I do. I'm older."

"Are you?"

"Sure. I've been in 'Fleet for two years. You're only a senior."

"I thought we were the same age."

"I dunno."

"Do you want to stand up?"

"Yeah. The ground is wet."

He helped me up, putting his arm under mine and draping one of my arms over his shoulders, and heaving me up. I staggered when the blood all rushed to my legs, and fell into his arms.

He held me until I got less dizzy and shoved back from him, my hands on his shoulders. "Thanks, Nick," I said. He didn't say anything. I had the feeling all of a sudden that he wanted to say something, but that he thought I wouldn't like it. What it was, I didn't know, but I had a feeling.

"Were you planning to go to the bridge?" he asked after a while. I still had my hands on his shoulders.

"Oh, yeah. Later, maybe. Let's walk around for a while."

"OK." He stepped back, slowly, as if he was afraid I would fall. I didn't fall, and we walked down the path into the trees. Practically pitch black under there. I couldn't see his face at all. I liked it better that way, really. You usually can't see your own face.

We had to go slowly, but I could see the path, very dimly, and his silhouette leading the way. We walked for about fifteen minutes, not saying anything. I kept stumbling on rocks and tree roots, and he kept turning back to help me, but I didn't fall. I was starting to work off a little of the drunk, but I was pretty far gone still.

I kept looking up at the trees when I wasn't stumbling. These were all big cypresses, very old, even older than the Academy. The park was planted three hundred years before Starfleet even existed. I liked that thought.

We got to a clearing where it was a little lighter, and stopped to rest. There wasn't anyone else around. The city lights kept the sky pretty grey, and the fog hid all the stars. I looked up where I knew they were, and so did Nick. We looked even though we couldn't see them.

"Are you going to miss them?" he asked.

I wasn't surprised he knew what I was thinking. "What do you think?" I said. He didn't answer. He put his hand on my back, and took it away.

"Do you want to keep walking, Tom?"

"Not right now." We looked up at the sky. The fog was moving in from the ocean, and the mist began to fall, and my face was wet. I tasted the salt when I lowered my face, warm this time, and Nick put his hand on my back again, and left it there. I didn't mind when he put his arms around me, or when he put his hand under my chin and started kissing the salt water away from the corners of my eyes. It was like me comforting myself, and it feels good to comfort people. When he kissed me on the lips, it felt good. He tasted like me, too. Both of us had drunk a lot of tequila.