The Legend of the Ditto Twins

For John

1st edition

©2012 Bruno Gmünder Verlag GmbH

Kleiststraße 23-26, D-10787 Berlin

[email protected]

© Jerry Douglas

Cover art: Steffen
Kawelke

Cover photo: © Dylan Rosser,
www.dylanrosser.com

Printed in South Korea

ISBN 978-3-86787-257-7

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www.brunogmuender.com

"Aren't you kind of young to be
writing your memoirs?"

"Thirteen isn't young,"
Mark replied.

His brother snorted. "Geez, it
seems like really conceited to think anyone would be interested in our life.
Where did you ever come up with such a dumb-ass idea?"

"At Walgreens." Mark
climbed on his bike. "When you buy three of those spiral notebooks, they
throw in a ballpoint pen."

"Shit. Our life wouldn't fill
even one of those notebooks."

'Shit' was their favorite new word
that summer.

"The hard thing about writing
memoirs," Mark continued, pedaling away, "is where to start."

"What's hard?" his brother
asked as they headed out to watch the construction on the new highway.
"You begin at the beginning. Like, what's your earliest memory of
life?"

"My first memory of life?"
Mark thought about it awhile. "Yeah, maybe that's a good place to
start."

He had always suspected his brother
was wiser than he was.

My earliest memory?
That's easy. I am lying flat on my back on a cold, white sheet, yowling at the
top of my lungs as I peer through two sets of vertical bars at my brother. He
is yowling, too. In time, our poor frazzled mother eventually lifts me out of
my crib and tries to comfort me but to no avail.

"Twins..."
she sighs. "Why did you have to be twins?"

Peace and
quiet definitely do not settle in till she eventually puts me down in my
brother's crib. That's when he and I both stop yowling, gurgle quietly,
discover each
others
warmth, and promptly doze off.

From that
day on, we always slept in the same bed.

Sometimes,
I wonder if I truly remember that moment, or simply recall Mom retelling the
story again and again over the years. No, I'm pretty sure that I do recall it,
though I can't pinpoint the night it happened. I still wonder how old we were
at the time. I suppose it doesn't matter in the universal scheme of things, but
for me, the night that I first slept with my brother was the real beginning of
my life. Back in those days, before
in vitro
fertilization became commonplace, natural twins like us (not
scientifically engineered ones) were truly something special. A phenomenon. The
stuff of legend.

There are
other memories of our childhood, of course. Probably the most distinct ones, the
happiest ones, are of Bath Time. My brother and I loved Bath Time. We grew up
on a small dairy farm in the heartland, and as kids living in the country, we
spent most of our waking hours outdoors. Looking back, I suspect we both
subconsciously spent each day getting as grimy as possible, so as to be sure
that Mom would order us into the tub each night before we were allowed to eat
dinner or watch television.

We were
born about nine months before Reagan was elected President, but living in the
country, as we did, a world away from the fast lane of modern life, our
existence seemed—what's the word?—anachronistic. For example, we knew what
computers were, but our family did not own one. We read about drugs and
pornography but never came in contact with either. We often watched cows fuck
but never gave much thought to how people did. This was the life we knew, so we
figured we were content.

In those
early years, our mother or father would bathe us, thoroughly scrubbing each
part of our bodies—behind our ears, under our chins, between our thighs. I
always watched very closely, waiting for the day when my brother and I could
bathe ourselves, when we would be able to scrub each other, behind our ears,
under our chins, between our thighs. And of course, the day eventually came
when we were left to our own devices.

Sponging
each other quickly became our favorite game. I loved to watch the warm water
trickle down my brother's face, his arms, his chest, and I guess it's no
surprise that we spent
an
inordinate
amount
of Bath Time simultaneously soaping each other’s
"Little Fella." We were not to learn the word "penis" until
several years later, and we heard the word "dick" from other students
long before our father used the more clinical term when he gave us a brief, belated
facts-of-life lecture. I'll tell you:
He
certainly made sex seem a lot less
interesting
than it
finally turned out to be.

Mom and Dad
were not very religious. We never went to church, and yet, from an early age,
my brother and I were taught to say our prayers each night. In our matching
pajamas, we would kneel beside each other on our big double bed and perform in
unison for our parents. "Now I lay me down to sleep/I pray the Lord my
soul to keep" became the first poem we ever learned, and the prayer always
ended with us boys asking God to bless our mother, our father, our
grandparents, and each other.

"And
God bless Clark," I would say.

"And
God bless Mark," my brother would say

"Amen"

"Amen."

And then
we would kiss each other goodnight.

Once, as
he turned out the light, I heard my father whisper to my mother, "What's
wrong with them? They never fight. Ever. Brothers always fight."

"I
wish they would... just once in a while." My mother shook her head sadly.
"I don't think I can go through another..." She sighed. "Trust
me, twins are different."

And then,
I remember, Mom started to cry, and my father kissed her on the forehead.
"You worry too much, honey."

And then
they were gone. There, alone in the dark, my brother and I would snuggle close,
even on the warmest nights, reveling in the heat we generated for each other.
Soon, we would fall asleep, each with one hand resting innocently on the fly
that covered the other's "Little Fella."