Doppelgängers in Rednotebook
i.
How do I write about her without telling her story? How will she write about me without telling mine? — the risk of trauma bonding with another writer.
ii.
I wrote this for E––– on her birthday when we were English postgrads together.
iii.
Whenever my girlfriend puts up pictures of her younger self on facebook for throwback thursday, I imagine the two of them meeting on the streets of Oakland and going on a bank robbery spree.
They wear ski masks like Pussy Riot. Neon green and hot pink, respectively.
Neon green leans tall in a fitted black suit and black tie. Hot pink glows in a thrift store white dress and white sneakers.
Hot pink proves herself to be a prodigy: shoots a fat man in the eye before he can even get close to the cute red panic.
Nice shot, says neon green as they run to the getaway car, handguns hidden beneath pea coats, dead presidents trailing behind in a cloud.
I know, says hot pink, blowing smoke off the tip of her gun.
Neon green pays off the owner of a shady motel, where they lay low, watching HBO, picking up McDonalds from two blocks away (and Slurpees from 7-11). Neon green smokes weed with the cute dealer next door, while hot pink talks to the working girls. Trina takes a liking to the Emily Dickinson book that hot pink carries around.
One of them, usually hot pink, stays in the room to keep watch over the over-sized Gucci bags.
Hot pink and Trina develop a friendship.
Trina starts coming into their room more and more while neon green is away.
I think I got one of them poems memorized, says Trina.
Let’s see, says hot pink.
We play at Paste —
Till qualified, for Pearl —
Then, drop the Paste —
And deem ourself a fool —
The Shapes — though — oh no I forgot the rest.
Let me see that book again.
They search around the bed. Hot pink looks through the empty drawers. Trina looks in the closet and slips a hand into one of the Gucci bags — as hot pink says no don’t — and takes out a stack.
Hot pink swears Trina to secrecy. Trina goes to bed dreaming of Gem-Tactics — Practicing Sands — and running away with hot pink. The next morning they begin whispering of Miami where all things are beautiful.
Two detectives come around asking questions.
Neon green says they need to do one last job before leaving town.
Someone should stay in the car, says hot pink, because response times and I'm good going alone.
No way, says neon green, softly pinching hot pink’s bubbly cheeks, you wait in the car.
Neon green walks into the bank. Hot pink drives off.
Neon green gets twenty to life.
Neon green does 500 push ups a day in her cell.
Neon green plots her escape.
Neon green contemplates the world-ending consequences of slicing open her doppelgänger’s throat, while her cellmate tatts up her arm in foreign dialect:
Fuck the Paradox.
iv.
Am I your girlfriend? E––– asked me.
Yea.