Twin

by Julián Martinez

—for Ben Niespodziany

***

Ben Niespodziany has a twin brother named Ken Niespodziany. Ken is seven inches tall, a tan plastic doll who Ben feels jealous of and tortured by. His parents, Ren and Len, never see what it is that Ken does that makes Ben burst into tears and call for them between sobbing thumb-sucks, and why it is that, when they offer to get Ben a new nicer toy, Ben gets panicked, more antic than before, trying to say, “No, no, no, you can’t take my brother, don’t take my brother, please.” He tries but can’t get the words out of his sob-sore throat so they throw Ken out of his hands and into the trash. But Ken always turns up in the morning, Ben snugly asleep beside his toy brother’s impenetrable smile.

***

Ben Niespodziany has a twin brother named Oen Niespodziany. Oen doesn’t wear glasses and Ben does. Oen doesn’t have a beard and Ben does. Oen doesn’t have a wife and Ben does. Oen doesn’t have limbs and Ben does. Ben would always chase Oen like a zombie to tease his limbless brother. When Ben gets drunk, he won’t stop saying sorry about it and Oen’s like, Jesus Christ, we were just kids. That’s not who you are anymore. Ben doesn’t have a thirst for bloodshed and Oen does. Ben got it out early, Oen tells his analyst. Oen’s analyst has a twin brother who is a panelist. Name a panel, he’s on that. Always running for mayor, Oen’s analyst tells Oen, who finds comfort in his analyst’s contempt for his fellow kin. Ben has a good life and Oen doesn’t. Ben doesn’t have a clue, but Oen’s analyst does—about what’s coming next, but Oen’s analyst lets it happen. He doesn’t want it to happen. He does.

***

Ben Niespodziany has a twin brother named Xen Niespodziany. Xen is Greek and Ben is not—Ben’s Polish, bu Xen and Ben never met their birth parents. They were taken in by Mexican pelicans. Ben and Xen don’t know what Greece or Poland are. They don’t know what to do with their hands. They know bread. They know wind carrying their weightlessness. They know the silvery shine of sun on black sand beaches. An investigator in Child Services tracks them down after years of department heads calling it a cold case, ready to call himself a hero until he watches them. Brothers running in circles with their mouths outstretched to the sky, naked and fearless, shitting while standing. The investigator, for the worst first time in his life, thinks, God, I wanna try.

***

Ben Niespodziany has a twin brother named Shen Niespodziany. Nothing weird in this world. Move along.

You wanna know the secret?

There is no Ben, not in this one. Only Shen masquerading as two identical people. He puts astonishingly little effort into it. His friends are clueless. He takes offense after four or five times of saying, “Hey, I’m Ben, Shen’s brother,” and no one bats an eye, they just laugh and say, I love this guy.

Do they not love Shen? Only Ben? Confusion curdles into hatred. Shen tends to forget Ben until friends send texts asking for Ben’s number. Shen says Ben doesn’t have a cell phone, to which they say, Zen Master Ben.

Shen is in his mother’s den and asks his migraine-pained mother, do you ever wish I had a brother? One who wrote poetry collections and microfictions and put together literary readings around the Chicago area with extensive knowledge of outsider music and media?

Shen’s mother asks him to wash and cut up an apple for her.

The space-time continuum bends. He asks again, this time asking if he ever had a brother in the womb, one he cannibalized, like Elvis did.

Shen’s mother asks him to wash and pick off a bowl of grapes for her.

The space-time continuum does not bend. Shen had his one chance.

He should’ve stepped on a leaf and made dinosaurs come back, at least then Shen could get something fun out of this fucked-up mess.

An unsaved number texts and says, “hey this is Ben”

Shen says, “Ben who? I’m Ben.”

The unsaved number writes and writes and writes their follow-up message, but it never sends.

***

Ben Niespodziany has a twin brother also named Ben Niespodziany. One is Benjamin, the other is Bennett. Bennett Niespodziany is also a writer of poetry and microfictions and puts together literary readings around the Chicagoland area with extensive knowledge of outsider music and media. Bennett looks nothing like Benjamin. No one confuses them. They are always at each other’s events, mad that the other booked the venue when they should’ve instead. When one looks into the audience, he is always looking for his twin Ben. They both write for an audience of one. They attempt to outdo each other’s surrealism. They succeed and share the spoils of their envious, avaricious, and wrathful success with each other, having their releases stocked and sold side by side, autographing the other’s title pages at signings, each whining about their style being jacked by another writer in the scene, no one knowing who they’re talking about, no one noticing the obvious because they’re thinking, ‘is it me?’

***

Ben Niespodziany has a twin brother named Nguyen Niespodziany. Nguyen is a private detective. Ben writes detective novels. Whatever happens in Ben’s novels later happens in Ben’s real life. For instance, Ben included a sex scene in his first novel between the detective protagonist, Julian Martinez, and the femme fatale widower who hires him and turns out to be the ring leader of the crime syndicate the series of novels unravels, her fake name in the first novel being Gwen. When Nguyen started going out with the woman who would become his wife, Ben was astounded to learn, shaking her hand at an outdoor sports bar playing ‘Private Eyes’ by Hall & Oates on the speakers, that this kindergarten teacher’s name was Gwen. She was exactly as he had written her, so much so that he was half-convinced he himself was falling in love. Her toothy grin, her greenish eyes, her favorite drink—gin gimlets. Nguyen had never read his brother’s work, always finding Ben’s pursuit of detective fiction too derivative of him. Ben knew this but felt he had to warn his brother about the drop dead, sweetness-of-the-earth seeming crime boss Gwen. In the bathroom hallway, Gwen stopped Ben and said she was harboring a secret—she loved his work. Ben said, “What do you mean? The Martinez stuff?” Gwen said, “No, mister detective,” slowly pushing him into the dimly-lit corner where all they could see was each other, and barely even that. “I love the way you search for clues, all over me,” her breath in his ear, his brother’s girlfriend’s tongue on his. He knew he should try to say something about him not being Nguyen. This is just like in the book, he thought, remembering Martinez and Gwen’s first kiss. The Hall & Oates poured in and Ben lost his senses in sin, feeling himself the evil leader as Gwen whispered the name of his twin.

______

Julián Martinez is the son of Mexican and Cuban immigrants and is from Waukegan, IL. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in HAD, hex literary, Little Engines, X-R-A-Y and elsewhere. Find him online @martinezfjulian or martinezfjulian.com or IRL in Chicago. For this story, he made sure to get the express blessing of Ben, his pal and, if you squint hard enough, nearly identical twin.

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