“Good to see you my friend.”

“Robbie Robbie.”

“Are you ready for this?”

He nodded.

I went back to the van we had taken there, and took my rocket launcher out of the back. Skeeter Jr. shook his head. I aimed at the security booth first, and fired, sending the guard flying out of it. I took another rocket out of the box, flipped it up in the air, caught it and loaded it onto the launcher, aimed at the nearest wall, and fired again, the explosion creating a massive hole.

The Burger Thief, my porcine companions Wilbur and Jonas, and I all marched toward the hole and into the facility. Guards and workers were streaming at us. We were ready for a fight, when an umbrella flew past us, spiraling in the direction of our attackers, the smell of Von Dieter’s fries filling the room as the men dropped to the ground. Skeeter Jr. walked past and collected his umbrella.

“A little trick I learned from the Penguin on the old Batman show.”

“Good work man. Okay, let’s free these tragic porcine prisoners and get back on the road. We’ll use the rig out back to transport this army with us to Boston.”

* * *

We pulled into the parking lot of a Von Dieter’s in Leominster, MA. The hope was that we could make this our base of operations, and it would be far enough from the reach of Mads’s Boston friend for them to be tipped off to our coming. I went inside with Skeeter Jr., The Burger Thief, and Wilbur and Jonas. There were a handful of patrons inside, and the counter was manned by a few teenagers.

“Hey kids, we’re coming to take over this franchise. We have work to do.”

The only response we got was a collective “uhhh…”, until a tall, thin, mustachioed man in a short-sleeved button-up shirt emerged from out back.

“I’m the stoar manahgah. What can we do fohr you?”

I walked over with my iPad, and showed him a clip of the Count’s Von Dieter’s in Boston. He nodded.

“We were wondering what Skeeter planned to do about that. It’s an honuh to have you choose our restaurant as yohr base of opahraytions.”

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“Is that Mads?” Gwen said.

“It can’t be…”

As we moved closer, it was unmistakable: Mads, my Norwegian companion, was leading a tour group through Boston. He was dressed in a minuteman costume, and was wearing a backpack with a button that had a homemade note inscribed on it saying “Please don’t tip me, the tour really is free.”

“Should we say hi?”

“No, Mads already senses that we saw him, saying hi would just make things worse. We’ll discuss it when he comes back to the apartment later.”

That evening, Mads came in, sans minuteman costume and backpack.

“I guess I have some explaining to do.”

I nodded.

“It started a few weeks ago. Some Grifter Millennial was doing some ‘underground tour’ thing and charging people $20 a pop, but he didn’t know anything about Boston!—and not only that, the little shit had the audacity to ask for tips.”

“Well, the economy has recovered for us,” I said, “but for the kids, they’re not finding work like they expected. They need to make it one way or another.”

“You would defend them. Anyway, I felt like it was my duty to undercut this ‘underground tour’ market. I started offering my own tours, for free of course.”

I shook my head. Then I counted down with my fingers from three, to two, to one, and pointed at our door. On cue, there was a knock.

“I believe it’s for you Mads.”

He was puzzled, but he opened the door anyway. Two men dressed as minutemen barged in.

“Ah you tha dood out on Tremont today givin’ away free tahs?”

“What’s it to you?”

“Weyah tha Freedom Trail Mafia. No one gives tahs on ah turf withowt askin furst.”

“Yah, especially nowt free ones. What’re you, a mohron?”

I stood.

“Listen fellas, I understand you need to do what you need to do here, but I can’t have you using terms like that.”

“Sarry dood. What’re you, not economically smaht?”

“Thank you, that’s better.”

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“Man, you weren’t lying about this Von Fishwich! This is amazing!”

“I know, hence why I got two.”

“If you say ‘hence’ again Mads, I’ll kill you.”

We ate in silence for a few seconds, when we noticed the conversation at the neighboring table was getting heated. It was three young men, all seemingly of the “geeky persuasion,” if you conceive my meaning.

“Listen,” one of them said. “Everyone knows Santa Claus was a Christian saint who was imbued with super powers by the Celtic god Wodan. That’s how he came to be who he is today.”

“You’re all wrong,” another one said. “He vanquished Wodan, and in so doing, took his power and used it for good.”

“You’re both wrong,” the third one said. “I keep telling you, he descended from heaven in the Alps, where Ghosts of the Field cleared his way, and he was followed by a man with a goat’s head. You two keep forgetting the man with the goat’s head!”

Trajan leaned back over to me.

“I see what’s happening here: they’re debating the Santa Claus Canon.”

“What?”

“The history of his story. You know, like someone trying to connect Highlander 2: The Quickening with Highlander the Series, or a group of fundamentalist Christian preachers trying to lend themselves credibility by discussing the Bible so it seems like they deserve any money they get for doing pretty much nothing.”

“Ah, I see, since you put it that way. Yes, three fundamentalist Christian preachers discussing the Bible would be akin to three nerdy types debating the Santa Claus Canon.”

“Check this out:”

Trajan leaned over in the direction of their table.

“If I may fellas, Ernest Saves Christmas really covered this…”

“Ernest Saves Christmas!”

“That was an abomination!”

“How dare you!”

“You think this is funny?”

“He doesn’t, but I do,” I said.

I felt like this had gone on long enough. I dumped my Icee over the head of the first one, and gave the second one a wedgie. I turned to the third fella.

“You don’t want any of this. I suggest you leave and take your Santa party elsewhere.”

He nodded, and with his friends, they backed out of the restaurant.

“Did you really have to do that?”

“I think you know the answer to that question, Tra. Hello, garçon, can we get a mop over here to clean up the excess Icee?”

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Inside it looked just like what we saw on The Phantom Gourmet. The Count was at a table of a cute hipster couple, joking about something. The Blood Moon Man was playing “Brilliant Corners” at a piano off on the other side of the room, performing for a packed dining room of tables and booths, all upper-middle class business people and trendy kids. This was a far cry from the dreary place I saw in West Virginia. The only thing I recognized from that previous location, was the old man sitting by himself, reading the paper and eating a hamburger with a coffee.

Frida saw me come in and met me at the door.

“Hello Mads, how can we help you?”

“I think you know, but I could use a Von Fishwich too.”

She nodded. We went to the counter so I could put in my order, then moved off to the side while we waited for it to be prepared.

“You know, when I had my own Von Dieter’s, I served fois gras.”

“Yes, a self-processed ornithologist would serve the liver of a force-fed duck. Let me guess, your fries were cooked in duck fat too?”

“Sure, why put all that duck fat to waste after the liver gets taken out.”

A worker behind the counter handed me my tray of food. Frieda and I took it to a booth and sat down. The Von Fishwich came in a paper wrapper that had what looked like newspaper print on it. I opened it up, then pulled off the brioche bun and slathered some tartar sauce on the fried fish fillet, replaced the bun, and took a bite. The haddock was like butter, it was so soft and creamy; and the tartar sauce was the perfect amount of sweet and sour to compliment the fish and the fried batter.

“This might be one of the best fried haddock sandwiches in Boston. Good Christ!”

Frieda smiled and shook her head at me, then stole a few of my fries.

“He’s coming, isn’t he?”

“Yes. I mean, we have to assume he is anyway.”

Frieda looked over at the Count, and signaled him over to us.

“How much time do you think we have?”

“It’s the Baron, it’s hard to predict.”

The Count came and sat next to Frieda.

“I guess we knew this time would come eventually.”

“If the Baron is coming, it’s my fight,” the Count said. “It’s probably time we end this once and for all.”

“God, I’m not lying, I can’t believe how good this! Shit, I need another. Excuse me, garçon, can I get another one of these?”

The kid pushing the mop bucket past us looked at me funny, then Frieda smiled and signaled him away.

“Mads, this is still a Von Dieter’s. If you want more food you need to go to the counter and order it. Garçon? Really?”

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The second thought I had when I smelled that smell was that it couldn’t be, Skeeter wouldn’t have sent Junior on a mission like this, but when I saw him enter my hut, saw how much older he was, I understood. Skeeter had a clone of himself made in the early 80s, and this clone son, Skeeter Jr., was designed to be the perfect heir to the Von Dieter’s empire. I remembered him as a baby, being taught even then not to eat Von Dieter’s, but to give it to other people—for money. Skeeter sent him to the best private schools, raised him to be a machine, an old school industrial titan in the modern age. Now, here, in Skeeter’s clown make-up and a business suit, he looked just like that old Skeeter I remembered when we first started Von Dieter’s years ago, before the lawsuit caused me to be diminished and Skeeter to take over. It made me a bit nostalgic—or maybe, in my time away from Western Civilisation, I had become susceptible to the powers of the Von Dieter’s fries myself…

“I see you’ve made some friends here,” he said.

“No. No, you’re not old enough or experienced enough yet to mock me.”

“Fair enough.”

“How did you get past the tribesmen?”

He unslung an insulated backpack from off his shoulders and opened it for me. The aroma was much stronger. He pulled out an extra-large Von Dieter’s fries and handed it to me. I ate a couple and then sprinkled them on the floor for Wilbur and Jonas.

“That makes sense, the tribespeople would have been putty in your hands with these. And I’m assuming you found me through that British anthropologist.”

He nodded.

“I went to an anthropology conference in Sydney. He told me where you were.”

“You’ve grown up Junior. This was a Big Boy job your father gave you, and you’ve done well.”

He sat down on one of the green plastic lawn chairs I had in my hut.

“I didn’t say you could sit, did I?”

“No, you didn’t, but I know Baron that you also wouldn’t want to see a chair like this go to waste. Your friends seem to be enjoying the fries. There’s more in the bag if they want.”

“I’m sure they will. When I first came here, the tribe worshiped me because they felt my big hamburger head was a sign of virility. They gave me Jonas here as an offering, thinking I’d slaughter him I guess. Pigs are very sentient creatures though, smarter than dogs, so I trained him, like a dog, and he’s become very loyal. Anyway, in another ritual, they gave me Wilbur here, and when I didn’t slaughter him either, they got the hint—or rather, they thought as their Virility God that I had blessed them, and now they send their female pigs in to copulate with Wilbur and Jonas, thinking they’ll have blessed offspring.”

Junior smiled.

“I know you didn’t come here to discuss pigs, Junior. I also know there is only one reason why your father would have sent you to find me here.”

“We’re thinking of opening a Von Dieter’s in Port Moresby, and I figured I’d drop in while I was in the neighborhood.”

“He’s back, isn’t he?”

He nodded.

I stood and walked to the window of my hut. I was in a white T-shirt and a sarong one of the women made for me. After a couple weeks out here, I had developed a fungus in my crotch, and the sarong helped to get air to the area and keep it cool. I turned back to Junior.

“What were you thinking? The Count was content to run his own franchise in the Autonomous State of West Virginia. Skeeter and I had agreed to leave him there.”

Junior looked down, averting my gaze.

“You?”

“You don’t understand! He had teamed up with my Aunt Frieda. Our sources down there told us they were planning a move, maybe add franchises. When the Copyright Infringement Agency came to us with an offer, Dad said no…”

“But you saw this as your chance to be a Big Shot.”

He stood, the force causing the green plastic lawn chair to fall behind him and Jonas and Wilbur to circle around me in a defensive posture.

“We would have had them too! You and Dad would have been done with them once and for all! But some damn Norwegian millionaire aristocratic playboy swooped in and saved them, and he’s set them up in a trendy part of Boston, Massachusetts. It’s where an old Virgin Megastore used to be that my friends and I would go to when I went to Harvard.”

“Wait, Norwegian?”

He nodded.

“Mads!”

* * *

I looked out the window of Skeeter’s private jet, as we were landing in Palm Springs. Jonas and Wilbur were eating Von Dieter’s French fries out of my hands. They seemed to calm them on the plane ride. Skeeter Jr. looked at us, and smirked.

“There’s no room for condescension here, son. I’m here to clean up your mess. You should be more humble.”

He turned and looked out the window too, saying nothing.

After we landed, the steps were set in front of the door. Skeeter Jr. exited first, and then me and the boys followed him. I stopped for a second on the top step to take it all in. I was back baby.

* * *

We arrived on the set of Skeeter Sr. filming a winter-themed commercial for Von Dieter’s. He was ice skating with some kids on a quaint-looking rural pond, and the runt of the group falls. With a rush of wondrous, magical music, Skeeter turns and rushes over to the child, swooping him up in his arms and spinning him around. The director yelled “cut!”, and Skeeter all but dropped the brat on the ground, wanting to get him out of his hands as soon as possible. As he came to the camera to see how the shot looked, he saw me, his son Skeeter Jr., and Wilbur and Jonas. He gave the director a single finger, indicating he needed a moment, and then he stormed over in our direction.

“Why did you bring him here? And with these two pigs!”

“He insisted.”

“Hello, I’m here, stop speaking about me in the third person.”

“If you hadn’t decided to go off on your own, we wouldn’t be in this mess. Look!”

He grabbed a tablet from a nearby table, swiped and tapped a few times, and shoved it in our direction. There we saw Frieda and the Count yucking it up in their trendy version of Von Dieter’s.

“Now I can’t go anywhere without people asking why we don’t have humanely sourced meats and eggs, or why our Von Fishwich can’t taste that good.”

Jonas snorted at him.

“I agree, Jonas. Humanely sourced meats and eggs should be standard.”

“Standard? We have almost 15,000 locations in the US alone! How do you propose we maintain $.99 Sausage Von Muffins and double cheeseburgers?”

Wilbur and Jonas became agitated.

“That’s another thing I wanted to bring up: we need to remove pork from the menu entirely.”

Skeeter Sr. shot me a death stare. Skeeter Jr. turned and started moving me toward the exit.

“It’s okay, Dad. We’re heading to the airport now. We’ll be in Boston by tomorrow. I’ll take care of this.”

Skeeter Sr.’s expression didn’t change, he just put his hands on his hips and continued to stare.

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“Next up, Boston’s trendiest street has an interesting take on an old fast food classic.”

“It can’t be…” my Boston friend said.

But it was. The Phantom Gourmet was doing a feature on the Count and Frieda’s bizarro Von Dieter’s we’d helped them open near the Hynes Convention Center.

“Think you know Von Dieter’s? Well you ain’t seen nothin’ till you try out this unique location on Newbury Street.”

We saw clips of the Count, Frieda, and all the characters talking with patrons and working with staff behind the counter.

“This isn’t like your usual Von Dieter’s,” the Count said to the camera, his massive burger head barely fitting in the shot. “We try to make everything Von Dieter’s does, with a twist.”

“Like the Big Diablo, their take on the Big Dieter, only with a kick of heat, both in the jalapenos and spicy special sauce—and even the bun itself is spicy.”

“People come in here, and they think, ‘this is really good! No offense, but I thought Von Dieter’s was just junk food.’ We always say, ‘none taken!’ ” Frieda said.

“Other favorites include the Von Veggie, Von Dieter’s all vegetarian burger.”

“It’s a black bean and quinoa mix, with just the right amount of fresh rosemary and shallots.”

They showed a hipster guy eating a regular burger with a figure next to him, this one looked like “Tisk Mister.”

“Adults also like to come and be children for a bit.”

“Believe it or not, the Good Time Meal is a big seller. Part of it is our meat: because we’re only one Von Dieter’s, we don’t need factory farmed meat, we can get locally sourced beef from small farms, so the burger itself tastes better; but also, people seem to love our ‘Marvelous Heroes.’ ”

“He’s talking about the action figure knock-offs they include with the Good Time Meal. Our producer loved the ‘Nomar, the Sub-Mainer’ figure in particular.”

They cut to Blood Moon Man playing jazz on the piano, while Boston Hipsters ate burgers and fries in retro plastic booths.

“From great music, to great food, check out this new take on an old fast food classic.”

“Come and see us, let us change what you think fast food should be.”

The show went to a commercial of Brian Gurry selling windows.

“What do you think about that?” I said.

“You know what I think…” Gwen said. Neither my Boston friend nor I even knew she was there. “This is just like episode 16 of season 2 of Star Trek: TNG, ‘Q Who,’ in which Q puts the Enterprise in contact with the Borg for the first time, setting in motion the events that led to them trying to assimilate all of humanity later in the series. You sir, have set in motion the Baron, and he’ll be coming for you like the Borg came for Earth.”

“Shows what you know,” I said. “I already set the Baron in motion back in West Virginia.”

My Boston friend stood.

“Don’t encourage her, Mads. Gwen that’s two Star Trek: TNG references in two days. You know what that means.”

“No, do I have to?”

He nodded.

“Fine.”

She went over to our landline that was hanging off the side of the wall, and dialed a number.

“Yeah, Paulie? I want a dime on the Devils over the Rangers. No, the money line. Yes, a dime on the B’s over the Preds, and a dime on the Stars over the Sharks.” She hung up the phone. “Are you happy?”

“Hey, I don’t want to bet on hockey any more than you do, but this is for your own good.”

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Gene asked me my question. He was in a brown double-breasted suit. He spoke to me in French.

“Vieul homme Periwinkle était si vieul…”

The crowd yelled out.

“Comment était-il vieul?”

“Vieul homme Periwinkle était si vieul… il était blanc:”

I had no idea what this meant. “He was so old he was blank?” Wasn’t there more to it?

“Nous avons besoin d’une response.”

“Oui, je sais. Il était ancient?”

He went to the panel, and after he asked each one, they just kept doing what they were doing, sleeping, whacking, cleaning themselves. And each time, I got the buzzer. I couldn’t believe it.

Gwen went next.

“Stupide Dora était si stupide…”

On cue the audience responded again.

“Comment était-elle stupide?”

“Stupide Dora était si stupide… elle pensait que les chats étaient blanc:”

Gwen didn’t respond, and Gene went to the cats. One after after the other dinged correct. She cleaned up. I couldn’t believe it. Gene said he was happy to meet me, and the floor dropped out from below me, causing me to fall.

I woke up. Gwen was next to me, sitting up in bed. She was binging Star Trek: TNG while writing the next issue of her Ms. America comic.

“I just had the craziest dream.”

“I told you not to eat so much of that sous-vide rainbow trout.”

“You were right.”

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The man whose claim ticket he had lifted had checked a mint green Members Only jacket. Mads put it on, left it unzipped, and pushed up the sleeves.

“You have to be kidding me, man,” I said.

“What, this is hot!”

As we walked down the street, we passed a guy in a red Adidas track suit with a matching bicycle hat on, doing the robot on a flattened out cardboard box. There were girls around him with teased hair and acid wash jeans, clapping him on, next to guys with mullets and faint mustaches laughing. I turned to Mads, and his white dress shirt had been replaced with a pink Izod-Lacoste polo, collar sufficiently popped. This wasn’t going to be good.

As we walked further, two men in overalls and painter’s caps jumped in front of us and started dancing. We turned, and another guy was doing the worm on another cardboard box. Then a girl in a suit with a fedora on started dancing with Mads, and he danced back. A police car drove by, but it was longer and boxier than it’s modern counterpart. Two cops with no hats on got out and watched the proceedings. They were almost bursting out of their tops they were so muscular. They had on aviators, and they looked straight ahead, seemingly at nothing, before high-fiving.

I had a sense of what was happening, and ducked out while Mads was low-fiving a young kid in sweatpants and a headband who just did some breakdancing in front of him. As I moved away though, my vision got cloudy—the world had gone from digital to analog in front of me.

I ran to the nearest T stop to escape. As I went to put my Charlie Card against the turnstile though, I realized there were no readers—I needed a token! I searched my pockets for any money I could use to buy some. I pulled out a wad of change, and lo and behold, there were three tokens in among the other junk I had pulled out. I put one in the slot, and went to go through, but it jammed.

“Don’t wuhrry about it, I sawr ya put it in. Hey, you comin’ from the game? How did Clemens pitch tonight?”

I got on the train, and it creaked along, the car filled with people smoking. I kept a low profile until we made it to our stop. When I got topside, the world was clearer again, I had made it back to digital. Three days later, Mads came home, his face fully made up, wearing a white OP T-shirt and pair of ripped acid wash jeans.

“Don’t even say it.”

Gwen looked up from her work on her comic book.

“Actually, we could sell those pants on Etsy, they’d command a good price.”

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“Why don’t you have a seat here, in this chair?” He said.

“I’d prefer to lie on the couch if that’s an option.”

“It’s not. We need to get it cleaned.”

I turned to see what he meant. It was covered in some kind of oily substance.

“My previous patient thinks he’s a lobster. The couch was covered in melted butter for him.”

“Okay, I’ll just sit here then.”

“Speaking of seafood, have you tried the Von Fishwich at that Von Dieter’s over on Newbury Street?”

“No, I’ve been out of commission for a week, so I’m still catching up on things.”

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Last week…

A voice above us started to tell the audience everything that had happened before. I wasn’t sure how much more I could take. Matty was at another table with two women in black dresses and black pleather boots. I called over to him.

“You know the deal, man,” he said. “A TV show can kill at least 10 minutes with this recap, and then with another commercial, they maybe only need thirty minutes of material for this hour-long show.”

I looked across at Me Jr.

“I don’t mean any disrespect, but you must understand that this situation is untenable.”

“Why is it whenever someone says ‘I don’t mean any disrespect,’ they’re about to say something disrespectful?”

“Fine, I mean plenty of disrespect, this situation is untenable. Does that make you happy?”

“You’re upset about the Cornish pasty thing, aren’t you?”

“It was uncouth, don’t you agree?”

“You know what, you’re a fucking piece of shit!”

The other patrons in the dining room stopped their meals and looked at us.

“That was a non sequitur I think. Why would you say that?”

“You’re garbage. And you know what? Everyone knows you’re designer shit is fake!”

“What?”

I turned to Matty, and he pointed down to his shirt, indicating that I should look at mine. My tailored white dress shirt that I’d gotten at Roland Sadler’s on Savile Row had been replaced by this white, form-fitting T-shirt with “Givenchy” splashed across it. I was ready for him this time though.

“Garçon!”

A waiter off near the bar flirting with the bartender heard my call, and nodded back to me.

“Matty, I suddenly wish to leave your island.”

“I knew you couldn’t manage this.”

The waiter returned with a bespoke suit I had had Mads stash in the coat check the day before. What neither Matty nor the producers knew, was that I could communicate with Mads from the McMansion via carrier pigeon: he is a Nobel prize winning ornithologist after all.

And just like the Nobel Prize winning ornithologist that he is, Mads stormed in on his ostrich Gucci, causing people to flee in excitement. Undaunted though, my doppelgänger ate his monk fish osso bucco as I changed into my suit and Mads set Gucci at a canter over to our table and ate a piece of our bread.

“I’m going to join Matty with his women. I trust you can take it from here?”

“Godspeed my good friend, and many thanks.”

He saluted me with his first two fingers, and steered Gucci in the direction of Matty’s table.

I unbuttoned the coat I had just buttoned, and sat back down across from Me Jr. When I went to speak though, I was stopped. I heard Matty clear his throat.

“What now?”

“You can’t pull something like that and not expect a commercial break after.”

* * *

“Before you make any hasty decisions,” my doppelgänger said, “why don’t I tell you about myself?”

“By all means.”

“I’m from a small town called Brockfield in the western portion of this state. My father was a police officer, my mother a school teacher, both now retired. I have a brother. I joined the army in 1988. In the Gulf War, a scud missile landed near my platoon, and the blast gave me a head injury that caused me to have amnesia for twenty years, at which time I woke up in a mosque in Qom, Iran.”

“What does this have to do with me?”

“This.”

He took a VHS cassette out of his satchel and pushed it across the table from me. It was The Golden Horse, by Baraz Golabi-derakht.

“As a foremost expert on Iranian cinema here in the US, I imagine you know what that is?”

“Winner of the Oscar for best foreign language film. One of the greatest pieces of Iranian cinema ever made. What does it have to do with you?”

“I am Baraz Golabi-derakht.”

“But I met Baraz in 2003, while Mama’s Toshi Kalam was screening at Coolidge Corner.”

“Exactly. I don’t remember it, but I have the picture.”

He passed it across. There I was, shaking his hand. How did I not see it before? He was me with dark sunglasses, a thick mustache, and hair that he’d grown out and left messy on his head; but his resemblance to me was striking.

“So you see? I need your help to piece together the last twenty years of my life.”

“But this doesn’t explain coming to my apartment, drinking my latte, and splitting; or the Cornish pasty incident.”

“Oh that, that was mere tomfoolery, I apologize.”

“You also just called me a piece of shit.”

“Yes, I don’t know what came over me. I guess the Reality Show thing. So you think you can help me?”

Before I had a chance to respond, two large men in white, short-sleeved jump suits came to our table.

“Um, sir, we’ve come to collect you.”

“Ah yes.” He stood, buttoned his coat, and slipped on his leather gloves. “We’ll be in touch.”

He then put on his top hat, and the two men stood on either side of him as the three of them walked out of the restaurant, and into the coach of a waiting horse-drawn carriage outside.

“Damn, I guess I’m on the hook for another one of his meals.”

“It’s okay,” Matty said, “the producers will handle it. Besides, did you really think you were going Dutch to your confrontation with your doppelgänger?”

“You’re right, this whole Reality TV thing has removed any sense of decency and decorum I may have had. Garçon, can you bring me the bill?”

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Two stout Bruno-type men ushered me out the back of the restaurant, where a van waited for me. Bruno-type men ushering people into vans is not a good sign. I karate chopped one behind the knee, and as he doubled over, I threw him into the other, making fast my escape.

Back at my apartment, Matty was waiting for me.

“What are you doing here?”

“I’m here because I got a call from the Reality Show’s producers that you had attacked their security and ran off.”

“Attacked? Security? Two Bruno-types were trying to hustle me off into a van.”

“Yes, they were taking you to the safe house.”

“The what?”

“There’s a mansion you stay in between episodes so you’re not able to give away the finale.”

“It’s my finale! I concocted this whole thing! It was my idea!”

“Yes, classic you: you think the concept of something is fantastic, but when you get into the nuts and bolts suddenly it doesn’t seem so nice. What do you think, Reality Shows just put people in front of the camera and let them have at it?”

“I do, isn’t that the idea?”

“No, the whole thing is contrived, from the McMansion kitchen, to the cliff-hanger tease, to the safe house between episodes. You wanted the bull, you got the horns. Now are you coming?”

“Fine.”

Matty was right. As the saying goes, if a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.

But the “safe house” was a nightmare. Another McMansion in an undisclosed location, couldn’t get any of the food or grooming products I needed, entertainment was nil, I was forced to spend the week catching up on my Dickens.

After the week was up, Matty came to see me at the safe house.

“I must admit, I admire your stick-to-it-iveness.”

“I bet. Let’s just get this over with.”

“Well, you’re not quite there yet.”

I put my head in my hands. I knew what he was about to say.

“If you’re going to do this right, before you do the finale confrontation, you need to do the ‘best of’/‘behind the scenes’ episode first in order to push the finale back a week. Here, I got you a busy T-shirt and some ripped designer jeans from TJ Maxx on my way over. The hairstylist will set your faux hawk, and you’ll be all set.”

“I can set my own faux hawk, thank you.”

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“This looks pretty cool.”

“It’s more than pretty cool! I found it in a bin at an estate sale yesterday. It was written in 1951. The plot is, in 2011—one year from now—humans are ruled by robot overlords, but the one form of entertainment they allow us are videos of cats doing silly things that they ‘upload’ into the ‘Interweb’ so we can watch them on our TVs and—get this—handheld devices called ‘TV phones’ that act like telephones and TVs. Anyway, Gus the Tabby is a popular video cat that was created by the rebellion to organize the human race to overthrow our robot overlords.”

“Yeah, that sounds pretty cool.”

“Pretty cool? This pulp sci-fi writer in the early 50s predicted streaming cat videos!”

“Yeah, but he totally missed on the whole robot overlord thing.”

“You’re such a glass half-empty guy.”

“Speaking of which, garçon, can I get another durian smoothie?”

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“Hey, do you remember when I told you about the Porch Pirates stealing our packages from off our front steps?”

“No, and what’s a Porch Pirate?”

“Oh, a Porch Pirate is someone who steals packages off someone’s front porch after they’ve been delivered.”

“That’s enough of a racket that it has its own name?”

“Apparently, but that’s not the point. The point is, I had a camera installed to see what was happening, especially after my printer ink was stolen and I needed to go to North Conway and get more at the Staples there.”

“Yeah, that’s always a pain, and you’re all the way over on 302, that’s a hike.”

“Exactly. Anyway, to my point, we set up the camera, and guess who was stealing our packages?”

“I don’t know, who?”

“A frickin’ moose!”

“No way!”

He pulled out his iPhone and showed me. There was the moose, going up to his porch, taking the package, and walking away.

“Did you call the police?”

“Sure, but what can they do? He’s an animal, so they can’t arrest him for that. They said I could get a permit and shoot him, but the season is over already.”

“Plus, shooting someone for stealing your packages is kind of severe, isn’t it?”

“Not in New Hampshire, no.”

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Dear Me Jr.,

It appears that the two of us existing in the same city is simply untenable. With that in mind, I believe it’s time to draw this silly charade to a sensible conclusion. 150 years ago this kind of thing would be resolved through a duel, two pistols, ten paces, one shot a piece. I propose instead doing something more apropos of the times in which we live, and as best as I can tell, the 2010s equivalent to the 1850s duel is the Reality Show fancy dinner confrontation.

If you agree to my terms, I leave it up to you then to choose the time and location. You can send any future correspondence through my assistant here.

I look forward to hearing from you,

Kind regards,

Me, Sr.

“I didn’t know you had an assistant,” Gwen said.

Neither did I, but here he was, ready to take the letter to my doppelganger.

* * *

Later that day my doppelganger responded, agreeing to my terms. We would meet that night, at chef Rioma Labati’s hip new East meets West Italian-Japanese fusion restaurant Pesce-Sakana. It was a good choice, as I just happened to be in the mood for some Chilean sea bass.

As everyone knows, before any major Reality Show confrontation, it’s necessary to have a conversation with my friends in the kitchen, to discuss what’s about to happen. Mads, my Norwegian companion, Gwen, the Cappie, and Matty the Mainer, my personal biographer, were all willing to sit in with me.

“So how do you think this is going to go?” Gwen asked me.

We were all standing around the island in my kitchen, which I didn’t have before this, and we were drinking champagne with strawberries in the glasses. I took the strawberry out of mine and threw it.

“What is this doing in here?”

They all shrugged their shoulders.

“Matty?”

“Um, yes, this is a Reality Show convention, strawberries in champagne. Also the McMansion kitchen I’ve had installed in here. I’ve also given you a Louis Vuitton purse to take with you. Listen man, if a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right.”

“Can we at least do red wine? Don’t they drink that a lot?”

“Yes, but it can’t be good. You can’t be on a Reality Show and have good taste. Here’s one that costs $100 a bottle, but tastes like Mad Dog 20/20.”

Mads lifted up a bottle from off the counter.

“What is this? ‘Ace of Spades’? Why is the bottle pink?”

“That’s fancy champagne,” Matty said. “There’s a whole cottage industry out there that caters to the Nouveaux Riche with things like this.”

“I’m Nouveaux Riche, and I don’t drink champagne out of a pink bottle with a playing card suit on it. Forget that, let me get bottle of…”

Matty put his hands out. He knew I was referring to the Île en peau de mouton, an extremely limited and exclusive champagne from a small village in Montagne de Reims. We had a case set aside, and only pulled it out on special occasions.

“Look, you’re on a Reality Show right now. They see that bottle, the whole world learns about it, and next thing you know athletes are dumping it on themselves when they win a championship and rappers are spraying it all over the place in their videos. Do you want that?”

Someone with a Yankees cap, busy T-shirt, and headset on walked over to us before I could respond.

“Um, actually, if the champagne isn’t from one of our sponsors, we’ll just blur it out anyway, so no one will know. Speaking of which, do you guys mind putting on these Ed Hardy T’s?”

* * *

I was sitting in Pesce-Sakana, sipping a water with lemon, pretending to read the menu, but really looking around for any signs of my doppelganger. Also, the Ed Hardy T I was wearing under my blazer was chafing my neck a bit.

“I see you haven’t ordered us drinks yet.”

It was him. He sat down across the table from me, took a sip of his water, and stared into my eyes. As we looked at each other, there was a sound effect in the background. It was difficult to describe, almost like a short siren, or something you’d hear in a 70s TV murder mystery movie when the detective found the body. Then he picked up his menu.

“Hmm… oh, the Chilean sea bass looks good.”

I scowled at him and shook my head.

From there, things got funny. My reality was bounced around, as cameras were everywhere, then I heard a voice say “next week…”, where I saw myself saying “you’re ruining my life!” and my doppelganger responding “what, the Cornish pasty thing? Get over it!”

And that was it, everything went dark.

I heard Matty’s voice somewhere off in the void.

“You didn’t consider that the fancy dinner confrontation is always teased until the end of the episode, at which point it’s held over into next week. You’ll have to wait until then for your confrontation.”

Damn it!

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“That will be $96, sir.”

“Excuse me? I mean, I know they’re great pies, but $48 a piece?”

“Um, no, I have 12 here. You’ve already eaten ten Cornish Pasties.”

I went to argue further, when Gwen tugged on my sleeve and pointed over to a booth. There was my doppelganger, wolfing down a pie and chasing it with some Iron Brew. This was outrageous!

“You can’t charge me for his pies! Can’t you see that he’s a separate human being who just happens to look like me?”

“What are you talking about, sir?”

Gwen tugged my sleeve again and pointed. My doppelganger was gone. I sighed and handed the clerk my card, and paid for all 12.

“This guy is making my life hell.”

“I think it’s kind of cute you have a doppelganger.”

“Fine, then next time you can pay for his pies.”

“Haha so funny I forgot to laugh.”

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“Mads, can I have a word with you?”

He sighed and paused his episode of Reba. I took him aside in the kitchen.

“What’s going on?” I said.

“What do you mean? I’m just watching Reba, and Gwen is working on her comic book.”

“You know what I mean! Who is that guy sitting on the couch who looks just like me?”

“What…? Oh, yes. I figured he was a family member of yours—he had the same name as you, from the same part of Mass, there’s a striking resemblance between you too.”

“Striking resemblance? He fucking looks just like me! We’re like twins.”

He thought about it for a second.

“Yeah, you know, you’re right, one could mistake you for him. Very interesting. He seems like a nice enough guy. He had great references too.”

“References?”

“Yes, he came highly recommended.”

“To hang out with us in our apartment?”

Mads shrugged his shoulders.

“I’m getting to the bottom of this.”

“Don’t do anything hasty.”

I stormed past him and into the living room. My doppelganger looked up at me.

“What is the meaning of this?”

“I don’t believe I conceive your meaning.”

“Why are you here, in my apartment, looking exactly like me?”

Gwen held her finger up.

“If I may, a similar thing occurred in Star Trek: The Next Generation, season six, episode 24, titled ‘Second Chances.’ In it, the crew finds a second Commander Riker on Nervala IV, and discovers that this duplicate was created when a transporter beam was reflected back onto the planet, thus causing one Riker to make it back to the ship, and a second one to be transported to the planet surface. I think this explains exactly what’s happening here.”

I shot her a death stare.

“Or not…”

I put my venti chai latte down on the coffee table in front of everyone, and went to the bathroom. What insolence! A doppelganger thinking he can just show up in my house and disrupt the natural order of things like this. After splashing some water on my face and drying off with a small towel Mads had picked up at B, B and B with a 20% off coupon he got in the mail from them, I went back out to confront him.

Alas! He had split. But not before downing my latte. Insolence!

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In the first episode, he goes to vote, and is the only registered Democrat. The new girl working the polling station has no idea what to do. After a few awkward moments, an older lady shows up, says hi to Tommy, and then explains how to handle it.

“You want to go to the ‘Black Voter Policies and Procedures’ section.”

“Even though he’s not black?”

“He’s the only Liberal in our town, we’ve never needed the ‘Liberal Voter Policies and Procedures’ book that them City Slickers in Houston or Dallas have to deal with. The Black One has been here since back in the 1890s when we had blacks here, before we chased them all out.”

“Ahh…” the girl says. She turns back to Tommy. “Okay sir, do you have ID?”

He pulls out his wallet and hands his license over. She studies it.

“I’m sorry, it says here you’re registered in three other counties, so we can’t let you vote here.”

Tommy winks at the old lady.

“But I’ve only ever registered here. My whole life I’ve lived here.”

“I’m sorry, you’ll have to contact the people in Austin, and they can clear it up.”

“I understand. Ladies, hope you have a great evening.”

“See you next year!” The old lady yells as he walks out.

The live studio audience applauds, end scene.

“What makes it so funny is it’s true,” I told Mads as we were watching it.

“What I don’t get is why the Conservatives are so up in arms.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, they know they’ve been doing a great job of disenfranchising voters so they either can’t vote at all, or their vote doesn’t count. They should be proud of that, it’s very effective.”

“But that’s not democracy, every vote should count.”

Mads and I looked at each other, then burst out laughing. Boy, it was good to be rich and white.

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As we got closer, we saw that on one side of the tablecloth draped over the front, there was a drawing of two states, labeled North Dakota and South Dakota, covered by a red circle with a line through it; the other side had the two merged into one state, “Dakota.”

One of the men stood and shook our hands when we reached their table.

“Hi, how are you? We’re here today from a group called Citizens for a United Dakota, or ‘CUD.’ We believe that the fact that there are two Dakotas in this country makes zero sense.”

“Roughly how big would this new, combined Dakota you propose be?”

“I’m glad you asked, sir. Roughly 148,000 square miles. That would make it our 4^th largest state, still behind Alaska, Texas, and California, and just above Montana, which is around 147,000.”

“Wow, so if you combined the Dakotas into one state, that state would only be slightly larger than Montana?”

“Exactly, only population-wise, it would be almost 500,000 people more than Montana.”

Mads and I bought some shirts and hats and buttons, bid them Godspeed, and then went home. But that night, I thought more about their cause. This was the real deal. Ending the fatuous inanity that is two Dakotas, that was something I could sink my teeth into. Then a rerun of Three’s Company came on and I forgot all about it.

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“What do you think of this?”

It was the drawing of a woman in Army fatigues with a metal helmet on her head that had an American flag painted on it.

“It’s Ms. America. I took Naomi Hanson up on her offer, and I’m developing this character for Zora Toni Comics.”

I paused my Lifetime movie, and Mads put down his paper.

“Wait, I thought you didn’t want to do that, that you wanted to make Captain America fanfic.”

“No, I had a change of heart on the way over to that used car dealership in West Virginia. The whole Chris Evans as Captain America made me realize I’d already lost.”

“Why didn’t you tell me before I signed a contract for $2 million?”

“I tried to, but you and Mads wouldn’t let me. I was screaming ‘Noooo!’ What did you think I was screaming that for.”

“You’re right, I don’t know what I was thinking…”

She sat down next to me and went back to her sketches, and Mads went back to his paper. I didn’t want to be the only one not doing anything, so I restarted my Lifetime movie.

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“Mads!”

“Low profile my ass!”

“That’s coming from Frieda’s Von Dieter’s.”

“Frieda Von Dieter, you mean—?”

“Yes, they set up shop here a long time ago, long before we came. They needed toys for their Good Times Meals, so we came up with an exchange: we made Marvel knock-offs for them and they paid us in food. We buy the plain plastic figures from a local dollar store, and paint them different Marvel characters.”

She showed me one. “Sliver Suffer.” It was exquisite craftsmanship. It was like they took pride in making them the knockiest knock-offs ever. I could see the nipples on his chest from when he was whatever other character, and the crewcut that wasn’t even ground down, just painted silver over the whole thing.

“We’ve got to go help them.”

A round man with a ponytail and sideburns came running in, his bologna tits flopping underneath his black T-shirt with the Contra cheat code written in white across it.

“They’re here. They’ve breached the gate.”

I looked toward the gate, and saw two massive robots on tank-like tracks crash through. They each had a barrel on a turret that rotated around, shooting lasers at people and huts.

“Your video has been removed due to copyright infringement.”

“You have violated our terms of use.”

“One more violation, and your account will be suspended.”

“What do we do?”

“Round up everyone and evacuate. I’ll hold them off while you get everyone to safety. There’s a rendezvous point. Is there a car dealership in a town called Amanda?”

“Yes.”

“Meet me there.”

“How will you get there?”

“Let me worry about that. Now go!”

The robots were programmed to destroy copyright offenders, and since I’m as original as it gets, I knew they’d leave me alone if I got close. Once I was near enough to one of them, I jumped on its base.

“Search not found. Search not found.”

I though of the one person who was most protective over his work. This would create the overloaded circuits I needed.

“Star Wars. Boba Fett. Ad-mir-al Ak-bar. It’s a trap! It’s a trap!”

“Lucas Arts has the copyright. Lucas Arts has the copyright. Lucasartshasthecopyright. Violationviolationviolationviolationviolation!”

The explosion was coming, so I dove off, but kicked it at the other one, causing it to blow up both.

I heard clapping. It was the two agents who had been at my apartment in Boston. Another robot was behind them.

“Very good, very clever.”

“I’m not done yet.”

They froze.

“Star Wars… parody, spoof, joke, fail.”

“Nooooooo…!”

The robot charged it’s laser and aimed at them.

“Parody is covered under fair use. Lucas Arts Ltd. cannot have this video removed.”

The robot hit them both, knocking them out, while I ran around their left flank and took off in their car, an old Chevy Celebrity with a V-8 installed in it.

I knew what I had to do. Mads and I went out here knowing this would probably be the only way. I had hoped, for Gwen’s sake, that we could have found another solution, but this had grown much worse than we initially thought.

* * * *

I pulled into the car dealership. Mads was with the Bizarro Von Dieter’s crew, standing in one group; Gwen and her people were in another; and then there were three men in suits with long rain coats over them, all with sunglasses and mustaches.

“Took you long enough,” Mads said.

“Me? Whatever happened to ‘keep a low profile’?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

Gwen left her group and joined us.

“The Copyright Infringement guys are here. What are we going to do?”

I looked at Mads, and he nodded. Gwen shook her head.

“No, we talked about this, I’m not letting you.”

“Gwen, look at this: you’re living off the grid in the Autonomous State of West Virginia. I saw how you attacked that Russian River Pinot and gouda. You’re tired, and you just want to be left alone to make your fanfic movies.”

“No, but not like this…”

The three Copyright Infringement officers came over to us. In slow motion I reached for my cheque book, and Gwen screamed “Nooooo!” while Mads held her back. One of the Copyright Infringement officers pulled a contract out of his coat.

Things went back into regular motion.

“Eggplant Man, can you come over here?”

He waddled over, and I signed the contract on his back, then one of the Copyright Infringement officers stamped it. I then wrote him out a handsome check. I had paid for the right for Gwen to make her fanfic movies. I turned and saw her on her knees, weeping. I went to her and put my hand on her back.

“It was the only way.”

We didn’t have time to ponder this, as we were swarmed by Mountaineers, armed with AR 15s. They pointed them at Mads and me.

“We don’t like Muslims in our territory,” a younger one with a goatee said. “Do you know what we do with Muslims?”

They cocked their weapons and aimed. I looked at Mads. It seemed a horrible irony that two men as vibrant and worldly as we could be thus felled in West Virginia.

That’s when we heard the helicopters, followed by the sounds of black Land Rover SUVs. In a moment the area was further surrounded by men in black suits with black sunglasses. I recognized one as Karim Saidov, Uzbek Consulate in Boston.

“All right men, lower your weapons.”

“What the hell is this?” The younger Mountaineer who was about to kill us said.

Karim pulled out a document from inside his suit coat.

“This is now a part of the Republic of Uzbekistan. My government has just purchased the West Virginia territory from your government.”

Karim saluted us, and Mads and me nodded our heads in return.

“I told you they wouldn’t last in the old Virgin Megastore building,” Mads said.

“Actually,” Karim said, “the monthly mortgage for all of West Virginia was cheaper than the rent at our previous location in Boston.”

That made sense, the Boston real estate market is brutal.

It was a fitting end to our stay in West Virginia, and as Mads and I went through the Eastern border crossing in the Aries, I remarked that this was the first time I’d ever entered a territory under one government, and left it under another.

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