Doppelgänger

It’s 1:57 p.m.

There is roughly one hour until we fight.

You should have known better though you had no idea that, on my inside, there is a fire that burns white hot.

White hot. The anger is beyond anger. It’s rage. A rage that burns deep in the core of my being. A piercing light and heat that shocks like an infant’s inconsolable screech. Give that fire oxygen, and it ignites into an incandescent blaze.

At 2:03, I reflect that you may not have intended to anger me by smashing the fly on my workbook. It was an impulse. A very human moment. The kind of thing to be expected from a nine-year-old boy. Innocently sadistic. Reflexive.

I might not have been so overcome with rage if there had been a flash of contrition in your eyes. There was none. Quite the opposite: your casual laugh was a slap across my face. Seeing the mess of blood and guts smashed on the cover of my workbook, you laughed. It was not derisive, but you laughed.

It’s 2:15, and I’m going to rip your fucking head off. I feel the heat build once again. Now, I have no more considerations. I have no more reflections. You will have to pay. I will make you pay. Let us see what kind of laugh you will make with teeth missing.

At 2:27, I breathe. I have not heard a word that Mr. Waters has said for at least the past thirty minutes or so. I only see red. Am I really set off because of a stupid fly? Might there be anything to the fact that you are the first Colombian that I have ever met? Not only that, but you and I have almost the exact same skin and hair color. Your hair is straighter, mine curlier. Your eyes are darker. We are pretty much the same height. Our teachers often get us mixed up. You are my doppelgänger, and I’m not okay with that. How could we both exist? I have known of my Colombian origins from my early childhood, but have never had the opportunity to know another Colombian. I was a unicorn. And, now, your fleshy presence and my budding sense of self do not jibe. I refuse to integrate the possibility of you. I’ve got to beat your ass and make you want to return to the green, misty mountains of that mythical homeland that exists in the recesses of my mind. Our homeland.

It’s 2:38, and I am starting to get anxious about meeting you on the playground. We will fight in the front of the school in a tire structure that encloses us so that the adults don’t see what we are up to. The structure is not very big, but we can stand up inside of it. It will be like a cage match with our friends watching in from the outside. Kind of like Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Are you going to show up? Are you going to chicken out? Do you have the balls to face me even after you saw the flame of rage jump out from my eyes?

After you laughed, I pushed you. My expression must have been one of murderous rage. That is how it felt. Red hot. White hot. You looked confused when you saw my rage. What could cause that kind of light and heat? How could anyone know? It would not be surprising if you did not show up. But you are Colombian, and from what I hear, Colombians are pretty spicy.

The clock reads 2:43, and I remember that you have been a close friend. I have enjoyed sleeping at your house and staying up late to play video games and boardgames with you and your older sisters. Once, they took us to go see the new Indiana Jones movie at night and we walked all the way from your house the next town over. We walked next to the babbling brook that runs through our suburban New Jersey town, enjoying the moonlight and talking about God. It was a magical, spiritual conversation that warmed my heart; a communion of the kind I have never had with any of our peers. At times, my heart’s fire warms me and, at others, it burns.

An adoptee friend recently asked me if the rage that is imprinted on us adoptees at a pre-verbal stage in our development ever goes away. I looked at her, laughed, and replied that I don’t think it does. I am learning how to live with the rage, and, with guidance and support, I am finding ways to direct that fire towards construction rather than destruction.

It is now 2:57 p.m. I gather my things and ready myself to show you my wrath.

Are you ready? Am I?