The Real McCoy

Paul Bowers

Jack spun around uncontrollably, searching desperately for him. It was the horrible “him” that was always there, always lurking around the corner to destroy him. This “him” must die. He seethed with anger, longing to destroy this unseen man. Suddenly, the room stopped spinning, and Jack’s eyes focused on the face of his enemy. The hated face was his own.

Jack McCoy sprung up in his bed, cold sweat drenching his body as he gasped for air. He reached over and turned on his lamp to reassure himsel0f that this darkness was his room, and he was back in reality. He shakily stumbled onto the carpet, then headed for the kitchen.

He looked at the clock. 2:00 a.m. He groaned and filled a glass with tap water. Jack sat down slowly, his knees wobbling uncontrollably as he sipped the chlorine-infested water. He nervously scratched his stubbly chin, trying to calm himself.

It was the same dream that haunted Jack most nights. He couldn’t explain it, and he could never remember it once he woke up. He rubbed his eyes, then crawled back to bed.

Joe McCoy rubbed his temples wearily, trying to rid his mind of the horrible dream. He gazed out his porch window at the dark, frothy Pacific Ocean. The moon reflected off the water, shimmering eerily in the night. Joe sighed, knowing he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep again. He slipped into his sandals, then stepped out on the porch.

He tightened his night robe, shielding his body from the frigid wind. He strolled out onto the beach, enjoying the familiar feeling of the sand between his toes. Breathing the salty air deeply, he tried to remember the dream. It slipped away from his memory like the tide slipped away from the shore.

What was that dream? Why did he always feel so paranoid after it? Why was he walking on the beach in the middle of the night? Thousands of questions rushed through his head, none of which he could answer.

Joe walked on, staring at the water as if it held the answers.

Jack skidded into his usual parking spot, then grabbed his suitcase and sprinted toward the office.

“Late again?” a coworker greeted him cheerfully as he tried to speed up the revolving door.

“No dip, Sherlock,” Jack muttered as he ran up the escalator. He rushed through the maze of cubicles, hoping his boss wouldn’t notice. Finally arriving at his cramped workstation, Jack moaned as he found Mr. Steinberg waiting in his office chair.

“G’morning, Mr. Steinberg,” Jack mumbled, leaning against the entrance to the cubicle.

“I’ll be very direct with you, Mr., um, McCoy,” Steinberg said, looking down at a clipboard for his name. “You’ve been late to work eight times in the past month. This kind of behavior is unacceptable at a great corporation like Positron Technologies.” Jack pretended to nod thoughtfully as his boss launched into the well known “teamwork is essential” speech, which Jack had practically memorized. Mr. Steinberg wrapped it up with the usual, “Consider yourself lucky, because I’m going to give you a chance to redeem yourself as an active member of this company.” That’s what he said every time.

Jack shook his hand, then watched his boss leave the cubicle. To Steinberg, Jack was just another meaningless underling in the mass of cubicles.

Jack plopped down in his chair, spinning around to face his computer. He checked his e-mail inbox, finding one message titled, “the answers.” Figuring it was just an annoying junk mail “forward this to everyone you know” things, but having nothing better to do, he clicked on it. The message was concise:

“I know the answers to the questions you don’t know. Office 192. 10:30 a.m. Be there.” Jack glanced at his watch. It was 10:00. He knew he had to go there and find the answers. Maybe it was some strange sense of destiny that told him to go. Maybe he was just curious. At any rate, he had to go to office 192.

He took a sip from his insulated coffee mug, then headed out to the hallway, taking a stack of papers to pretend he was going to the copying machine.

Joe woke up with sand on his face. As his eyes slowly opened, he realized he had fallen asleep on the beach again. He spat the grit from his mouth, then picked himself up and stumbled back inside.

He wearily took a shower, then wolfed down a bowl of Fruity Pebbles with no milk. Joe slipped into some flip-flops, then headed out the front door to his old Volkswagen Bus.

Arriving at Rockport Jet Ski Rentals, Joe ran through the front door, pretending to be out of breath and in a huge hurry.

“Late again, Joe?” came Fred Sanchez’s voice from behind the counter. All Joe could see was his boss’s bare feet propped up on the counter.

“Um, yeah, sorry, sir,” Joe apologized. “I can explain. You see, I kinda overslept this morning ‘cause-“ Fred cut him off.

“I’ve had it up to here with you, man,” Fred interrupted. His hand marked a height in the air over the counter. Joe snorted, then Fred started cackling.

“You really had me going there, dude,” Joe chuckled. Fred grinned. There wasn’t much of a demand for jet skis at 8:00 a.m. in the small town of Rockport, California. Joe usually came early to jet ski alone before all the tourists came. He enjoyed the solitude and peace of the morning. It also helped wake him up like coffee does for most people.

He was starting to pull on a life jacket when someone knocked at the door. He answered it to find a UPS box on the doormat. All it said on the box was, “FOR JOE MCCOY’S EYES ONLY.”

“What is it?” asked Fred. Joe shrugged, then ripped it open, hoping it wasn’t a bomb. The only thing inside was a note reading, “I know the answers to the questions you don’t know. Ezekiel Rockport Fishing Pier. 8:30 a.m. Be there.” Joe scratched his head.

“Hey, Fred, you think you could cover for me if I leave for a couple hours?” Joe asked.

“Yeah, I think I can handle it,” Fred answered, looking around the deserted shop. Joe mumbled a halfhearted thanks, then headed out the door.

Jack arrived at office 192 and checked his watch. He was a little early, so he decided to wait a few minutes before he knocked. He sat in a nearby chair for a while, trying to look official whenever someone came down the marble hallway.

Jack suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder. His head whipped around to his left, where he saw a tall man in a gray suit. Jack nodded and followed the stark man into his luxurious office.

Ancient-looking paintings hung on the walls beside bookcases full of dusty, brown books. A massive, mahogany desk dominated the center of the cavernous room. Jack looked around almost reverently, making sure not to touch anything.

“Please, have a seat,” the austere man offered, gesturing to a burgundy leather chair. Jack nodded and sat down. The man lowered himself into a high-backed chair behind the desk. He thoughtfully scratched his neatly trimmed goatee.

“What I am about to tell you may disturb you,” the man in the gray suit started. “You may not believe it. You may think it’s all just a conspiracy and I’m lying to you.” Jack swallowed nervously, sweat beginning to form on his forehead. He felt like he knew what the man was about to say, like he had somehow known it his whole life and yet always seen it just beyond his grasp.

“You were cloned, Mr. McCoy,” the man told him emotionlessly. “You are part of an experiment. Somewhere out there, there’s a copy of you. You were separated at birth because the scientists feared you would try to kill each other.” Jack buried his face in his hands. He wanted to say he didn’t believe it, but he knew he did.

“Why would I try to kill my clone?” Jack inquired, trying to remain calm and businesslike.

“It would be something like an identity crisis,” the mysterious man explained. “You’d constantly compete with each other, trying to show the world that you are better than your clone, that you are a human being. Basically, you’d try to prove that you, not your clone, is the real McCoy… so to speak.” Jack smirked.

“So… my clone…” Jack replied. “Where is he?”

“Other side of the country,” the man answered. “In a little town called Rockport, California.”

“My parents…” Jack mumbled thoughtfully.

“Foster parents,” said the man. “When you were cloned, the donors wished to remain anonymous, so we don’t know who your real parents are.”

“So why was I cloned?” Jack asked mechanically.

“That, my friend, is a whole other story,” said the man in the gray suit.

Joe looked nervously around the pier, checking the letter he had received. This was the place: Ezekiel Rockport Fishing Pier. The waves lapped steadily against the algae-covered poles holding up the rickety dock.

Joe had been here a couple times before, when he went fishing with his dad as a child. It was also considered the most romantic spot in Rockport, and he often saw lovers sitting on the end of the pier watching the sun set together.

But today, there was nobody out there. Joe looked around for whoever he was supposed to meet, but he saw nobody.

After waiting about fifteen minutes, he finally noticed a wine bottle with a piece of paper rolled up inside it a little way down the beach. A message in a bottle, Joe thought. Just like in the movies. He walked back down the pier toward the street, took off his sandals, and stepped out onto the sand. He grabbed the bottle, yanked out the cork, then pulled out the rolled-up paper. Joe noticed that the bottle didn’t seem to be wet and looked a little too new to have gotten there by the ocean. He suspiciously unrolled the note and began to read.

The message was typed on a computer by someone with impeccable grammar.

Dear Mr. McCoy,

I am an important businessman at Positron Technologies. I cannot reveal my identity, for what I am about to tell you is privileged information. If it is discovered that I told you the said information, I could be killed.

You are the result of an advanced cloning project that was secretly performed by Positron Technologies. There is a duplicate of you going by the same last name living in Chicago. You were separated at birth and given to foster parents. Neither of you is intended to meet the other. Neither of you is intended to know you are a clone.

As I said, I am putting myself in great danger by telling you these things, but I felt it was my duty to inform you of your situation. What you do with this information is entirely up to you.

That was it. No closing, no signature, just the chilling message. Joe scratched his head, wondering if it was just some twisted joke that Fred was playing on him. He slowly folded the note and crammed it in his pocket, then headed back to his Bus.

Arriving back at Rockport Jet Ski Rentals, Joe stared suspiciously at Fred, hoping to get a confession.

“Dude, whatever it is, I didn’t do it,” Fred stammered, putting up his hands in surrender. This was his basic outlook on life. Suddenly, something clicked in Joe’s head.

“Hey, y’know that dream I told you ‘bout that I keep having but can’t remember?” Joe asked. Fred nodded uncertainly. “This thing, it… it has to do with that… somehow.” Fred continued bobbing his head, still not understanding. Fred asked him something about what was bugging him, but Joe was zoned out. The mysterious dream flashed once more before him. Somehow, he knew exactly what was happening, and yet it seemed just beyond his sight.

Jack stepped briskly onto the Delta passenger plane. He strode down the narrow aisle to his seat in Coach, then plopped down in it, putting his small briefcase in the overhead compartment.

Because it was the middle of October (not a huge tourist season), the non-stop flight to Los Angeles was practically deserted, and nobody sat beside him.

Jack couldn’t explain to himself why he was going halfway across the country to meet his supposed “clone.” It just seemed like the right thing to do.

Leaning back in his seat, Jack grabbed his Walkman, put on the headphones, and hit “PLAY.” A Beethoven symphony drifted into his ears, soothing him to sleep.

Joe pushed an old Led Zeppelin tape into the Bus’s old-fashioned tape deck. Most of his music was on CD’s, but the ancient vehicle didn’t have a CD player.

The obnoxiously loud music practically shook the car (the volume knob had broken off at the highest setting). That’s how Led Zeppelin’s s’posed to be played anyways, Joe thought cheerily.

The way Joe saw it, this would be like an adventure. Driving across the country searching for someone he’d never met sounded like the coolest thing he could possibly do. Besides, he was bored. There was practically nothing to do in the tiny town of Rockport in the tourist off-season.

Joe’s fingers tapped the steering wheel to the beat of the music, and his head bobbed back and forth slowly. The middle-of-nowhere road was practically deserted, and he sped up to eighty miles per hour, pushing the Bus to its limits. This was going to be fun.

Jack’s eyes snapped open as the voice of the pilot came over the intercom.

“As you can tell, we are experiencing some minor turbulence. Ladies and gentlemen, please remain calm and in your seats.” Jack could tell the pilot was nervous, and the thin veil of reassurance in his voice did little to cover it up. He looked out the window, watching the dark, ominous clouds rush by. The plane rattled as thunder rumbled nearby.

Jack shakily buckled his seatbelt, preparing for the worst. “Please put your tray tables up and your seat backs in the full upright position. In the case of emergency, parachutes are located in the overhead compartments.”

The engine stalled for a second, and people began to scream as the nose of the plane tilted downward. Jack grabbed the parachute and strapped it around his shoulders.

The plane dived steeper and steeper, plummeting toward the corn field below. Jack unbuckled his seatbelt and pulled himself to an emergency exit by holding on to the seats around him. The door was already open; some other people had jumped just seconds ago.

Chaos, panic, and confusion surrounded him. Parents clutched their screaming children to their chests; others bowed down and prayed. Some panicked and desperately banged on the door to the pilot’s cabin.

Jack struggled to pull himself back down the aisle toward the exit. If he could just get out in time, everything would be all right.

Suddenly, a dinner cart rolled down the aisle, smashing into Jack and pushing him to the front of the plane. Pinned against the wall, he caught a glimpse through a window out of the corner of his eye. He noticed a little girl sat curled up in a ball in a corner, not moving. Tears streamed down her face, and she sobbed uncontrollably. Jack wanted to comfort her, but the ground was just so close… so close.

Acting on a strange impulse, Jack yanked the parachute’s ripcord just as the plane’s nose plowed into the ground.

The 747’s fuel tank ignited, and the plane burst into a towering fireball.

Joe grabbed a handful of Cheezy Poofs and stuffed them in his mouth, crunching gleefully away as he zoomed down the open road. He was listening to Nirvana now, trying to sing along.

“Giggguhehg uhhggggggennnnuhhhaaaadellffloooouufffff, bbbaaarggggle nnnnnnnaaaawwdddle zzzzllllloousss,” he mumbled, pretending to know the words. His fingers drummed on the steering wheel as he tried to imagine what a Nirvana concert was like. He’d never seen the band; they were from his father’s generation. Unless they were planning on having a concert in a nursing home, Joe figured he would never get to see Nirvana.

Man, you gotta love the oldies, Joe thought. His windows were rolled down, and the wind blew his hair back. His eyes watered a little as the wind rushed through the Bus. Seeing that there wasn’t another car on the road, he stuck his head out the window, dog-like, and let his tongue hang out.

His nose suddenly detected a whiff of greasy cheeseburgers, and he realized a small restaurant was coming up on his right. All right, lunch time! Joe thought as he slowed down and pulled into the parking lot.

He stumbled out of the car, his legs wobbly from hours of driving. As he stretched his weary muscles, he noticed dark smoke coming out of his car’s exhaust pipe. Stupid car, he thought.

Joe finished stretching, then pushed open the squeaky, wooden front door and stepped into the diner. It was a Waffle House-style restaurant, with maple syrup and ketchup puddles covering the tables, flies swarming around the food, and the stench of cigarette smoke everywhere.

There was one other customer, a man in a flannel jacket sitting on a stool in front of the counter. The cook was a woman, about fifty years old, with brown-gray hair in a hair net and a vicious scowl on her weathered face.

“I’ll have a cheeseburger… Gloria,” he said, glancing at her nametag. She glared at him.

“You wanna drink with that?” she retorted, her voice sounding like she gargled mud and gravel every morning.

“Um… yeah,” Joe answered, trying his best to be polite. “Dr. Pepper.” She grumbled something under her breath, then turned around and started to grease a skillet. “By the way, d’you know of anywhere I can get someone to look at my car?” Joe asked. Gloria ignored him, but the other customer spoke up.

“I’m a mechanic,” the man told him gruffly. Joe looked at him. Beneath the flannel jacket he wore a grease-stained, blue-collar shirt with “Southfield Auto Repair” on the front.

“You think you could check it out?” Joe asked.

“Sure,” the man answered. Joe handed him the keys and smiled, thanking him politely. He nodded and headed out to Joe’s car.

Joe walked to the cleanest table and slid into a booth seat, waiting for his lunch. He stared out the window, watching the mechanic start the Bus’s engine. Joe waited for the man to get out and open the hood, but he didn’t. Instead, he slammed the door, revved the engine, and skidded out of the parking lot.

Joe leapt from his seat and ran furiously out the front door. But it was too late. He groaned as he watched his car swerving out onto the road, a cloud of smoke following close behind.

“Aaaaauuuggggghhh!” he groaned, tugging at his hair in frustration. “Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid!” He dropped to his knees and punched himself over and over again. He screamed and ranted for a few more minutes, then headed back inside.

Joe rubbed his face to regain his composure, then walked up to Gloria, who hadn’t turned from her griddle to see what happened.

“What state are we in?” Joe asked her calmly.

“Kansas,” she muttered indifferently, coughing directly into the frying pan. Thinking back to the map he’d used in the car, Joe figured he was nowhere near Chicago. Grand, he thought. Just grand.

“You gotta phone?” he inquired. Gloria nodded, then pointed a thumb to her left. He looked and saw an ancient telephone with wood trim and a dial on the front.

Joe wasn’t sure how to use a dial, but he figured he’d give it a whirl. He picked up the phone, then started spinning the circular mechanism. It spun freely and didn’t seem to be doing anything. Joe also noticed that the curly wire was disconnected in the middle.

“Is this like a weird retro-wireless thing, or what?” Joe muttered sarcastically. Gloria snorted, then hocked a loogie onto a nearby frying pan. Joe cringed.

“Thanks for the help,” he muttered, slapping a five dollar bill on the counter and heading for the door. “Oh, yeah,” he remembered, turning around, “Where’s the closest town?” Gloria concentrated and scrunched up her face.

“Well, there’s Junction City,” she told him. “Ain’t much of a place to look at, but you could prob’ly hitch a ride around there. It’s ‘bout twenty-five miles down the road.” Joe nodded, then pushed the door open. “Have a nice trip, stranger,” Gloria mumbled glumly. Will the kindness never cease? Joe thought.

Jack rubbed his eyes as he slipped back into consciousness. He was surrounded by some kind of strange, orange material. Was this heaven? Or…

Jack shakily reached out and nudged the orange around him. He uncertainly lifted it off his body, then looked around.

The orange thing was apparently his parachute. He brushed some ash off of it and read some small, black words: “Fire Retardant.” The parachute had saved his life.

He vaguely recognized the corn field the plane had crashed into. About a hundred yards away, smoke rose from the wreckage. He tried to get up, only to realize that every limb of his body was sore. He felt like he had just run a marathon with lead weights strapped on his back.

Stumbling, sometimes crawling, Jack worked his way through the rows of corn, trying to get to the plane. His legs burned, his lungs ached as he inhaled the thick smoke, and his head throbbed unbearably.

Finally, he arrived at the crash site. The enormous passenger jet was an unrecognizable heap of scrap metal, like a crushed Coke can. Small fires burned all around, and the whole area seemed desolate and hopeless. Just beside the wreck there laid a small girl. Jack recognized her as the girl he had seen just before the impact.

He did his best to run over. Her picked up her limp wrist to check her pulse. Nothing. Jack pitifully bit his lip, doing his best to hold back the tears. He brushed the soot off her face and stared at the girl. She was burned from head to toe. He didn’t know her, but he was filled with guilt.

He should have saved her. Why had he survived; why did she die? Was it all just a matter of chance? Was it some kind of cosmic destiny beyond his control? What was going on?

Jack had never considered himself a huge believer in God. He had always sort of thought of religion as something people did to make themselves feel good.

But this seemed far beyond coincidence. No, this was bigger. He had no idea whether this was God, fate, or some kind of bizarre conspiracy, but he knew he would have to find out.

Joe trudged along the side of the road. It was a sizzling hot day, especially for October, and his clothes were drenched with sweat. He miserably watched the road move backward to his left. The cracked asphalt was melted in some spots; he sometimes thought it was boiling.

Great job, genius, he thought. C’mon, you couldn’t have seriously thought that piece-of-junk car would get you halfway across the country! Nobody else was around, so he started talking to himself.

“You idiot! How could you be so stupid?!” he screamed at himself. “No, wait. I see how it is. It was that stupid message in a bottle thing! Why the heck did I believe that? I have a clone! Yeah, right!” He moaned and kept on walking, wishing he had worn some real shoes instead of his flip-flops. He walked on for another fifteen minutes or so, thinking silently. Suddenly, he started talking again.

“Maybe I do have a clone,” he rasped, his throat dried out from lack of water. “Yeah, so let’s say I do. So this stupid clone dude in Chicago is the one who caused me all this pain and trouble. That punk!” He seethed quietly for a couple minutes, then started thinking out loud again.

“Besides, he’s not even a real person, right? That jerk’s out there pretending to be me! Man, if I could get my hands on him…” He glared at the ground, plotting how he’d beat the snot out of that scumbag.

He almost ran into a metal sign: Junction City- 5 miles.

“Hey, you over there!” a voice with a light country accent called from behind Jack. “You a’ight?” Jack painfully turned his head around, seeing a tall man in jeans and a heavily stained undershirt.

“Yeah,” Jack answered, heaving a miserable cough.

“You sure don’t look it,” the man commented, walking toward Jack. “Why don’t you come inside with me, an’ let me check that wound out.” The man pointed to Jack’s forehead. Jack’s hand shot up and felt his head, discovering the gash as he pulled it down and saw the blood dripping from his fingers.

“Yeah,” he said again. The farmer supported him on his shoulder and helped him walk shakily to a nearby farmhouse. Once he was inside, the kind man called his family to help out.

“Sweetie, go get the band-aids out of the closet, Mary Beth, go in the bathroom an’ fetch the rubbin’ alcohol, an’ Jimmy, get a glass of water from the sink.” All three hurried around the house, bringing what he had requested.

The man, who introduced himself as Frank, cleaned the large cut with the stinging alcohol, then wrapped it with as many bandages as he could find.

“We’re gonna need to take you to town an’ get this checked out,” Frank advised. Jack nodded. He hadn’t spoken a word since he had come inside. He was in some kind of zombie-like state.

Frank led Jack out of the house to the red Ford pickup. He helped him into the passenger side, where he sat down and buckled his seatbelt. Frank got in the other side and started the noisy engine.

“I’ll get ya’ there as fast as I can,” Frank told him as they bumped down the gravel driveway.

Joe stumbled up the steep exit ramp. Here it was: the magnificent town of Junction City. A couple cars whizzed by him as he struggled up the incline.

He had tried to hitch a ride on the way there, but the people in the few cars he’d seen just looked at him with disgust. But he couldn’t blame them. He hadn’t shaved in weeks, he was drenched in sweat, and he was in a lousy mood. He probably looked like a bum.

Joe decided he would stop at the first restaurant he came to and get one of those 64 oz. “Big Gulp” things. Oh, yeah. That would be nice.

As he reached the top of the entrance ramp, he gazed around at the small town. Apparently, Gloria had given the town too much credit by calling it “not much to look at,” but Joe didn’t care. A few rickety little shops littered the side of the nearly empty street, and the main feature of the town seemed to be the Wal-Mart. Joe figured it was probably the only Wal-Mart left in the world that hadn’t been “supersized” yet, but it seemed to be the center of this town’s society. It was the only place with cars parked in front of it. What a dump, Joe thought. For the time, though, Junction City was the greatest place on earth.

He spotted a Dairy Queen to his right and tried to run to it, tripping on his leaden feet every couple steps. He burst through the front door, then rushed to the cash register.

“Welcome to Dairy Queen, what can I do ya’ for?” the zoned-out teenager behind the counter asked flatly.

“I’ll have the biggest jug of Dr. Pepper that can legally be sold in a restaurant and- what the heck- one of those new Choco-Cherry Blizzards,” Joe rasped, his words flowing together faster than he knew he could talk. He reached into his back pocket and slapped a wrinkled twenty on the counter. “Keep the change, buddy.” Joe drummed his fingers and tapped his fingers impatiently as the kid got his order.

Joe thanked him profusely as he handed the drink and ice cream over the counter, then wrapped his right arm around the tremendous cup of Dr. Pepper. He hastily blew the wrappers off six straws and stuck them through the lid. He slurped away furiously, feeling the bubbly drink tickling his throat.

He grabbed the Blizzard with his other hand and pulled out five huge scoops with the biggest spoon he could find. Then he dropped the two cups on a table and clutched his forehead.

“Ooooooowwwww!” he screamed. “Brainfreeze!” He waited a couple seconds for the pain to subside, then continued slurping and scooping away.

The bored teenager stared blankly. “Thanks for eating at Dairy Queen; please come back soon,” he droned.

“Don’t worry, I will,” Joe assured him between gulps.

“You’re cut up pretty bad on your head,” the doctor told Jack blandly, “but other than that you’re alright.” Jack nodded, and pain shot down his neck. “So you said you were in a plane crash?” he asked. Jack nodded again. “Wow. Well, I guess either you’re really lucky, or someone up there’s looking out for you, huh?”

“Yeah,” Jack answered, laughing halfheartedly. “Someone.”

“Well, have a nice day,” Doctor Crabtree said, patting Jack on his sore back. He cringed, then headed for the door.

“Thanks, doc,” Jack muttered. He met Frank in the waiting room.

“So, are you okay?” Frank asked anxiously.

“Yeah, I’m good,” Jack replied. Frank asked if there was anything he could do, and Jack considered the offer.

“Is there anywhere around here I could get some ice cream?” he asked.

“Why, of course,” Frank said. “Junction City has one of the finest Dairy Queens in the world.” Jack chuckled.

“Sounds great.”

Joe had settled down at a table but hadn’t slowed down. He furiously worked his way to the bottom of the Dr. Pepper; he had long since devoured the Blizzard. He noticed a red pickup pulling into the parking lot but paid no attention to it.

Two men stepped through the door. He nodded a brief hello, then got back to his drink. He noticed one of them- the one with band-aids on his head- made the same order as him: a Choco-Cherry Blizzard and a Dr. Pepper. The stranger didn’t order a zillion-ounce one like him, but it still seemed like a weird coincidence.

The two men got their orders, then headed toward a booth. Joe caught a glimpse of the bandaged guy’s face and suddenly stopped slurping.

“Hey,” Joe said, getting up in front of him. “Where do you live?” The man looked at him curiously for a second, then he realized what was going on.

“Chicago,” he answered. “You?”

“Rockport, California.” The two stood staring at each other for a while. In a rush of understanding, it all clicked. The dreams… the cloning… everything.

Neither one looked like the other, but somehow, they could tell. There was something deeper going on here; they both knew it. Joe suddenly realized that this journey across America wasn’t to destroy some imitator of himself. No, something bigger was planned.

Jack’s hand reached shakily forward. Joe grasped it firmly and shook it.

“So we meet at last,” they said in unison. Neither laughed.

“How ‘bout we sit down and figure all this out?” Jack offered.

“That’ll be great,” Joe answered. “But first,” he said, glancing at the half-empty jug of Dr. Pepper, “I gotta pee.”

Jack and Joe McCoy sat at that table for hours, figuring out their lives. They talked about their families, their jobs, and everything in between. During the course of the discussion, Joe managed to drain two more Big Gulps.

They argued about the ethics of cloning, which neither one of them really understood, destiny, and the mysterious conspiracy going on around them.

After all, what are the odds they would journey across the nation and finally meet each other at the Dairy Queen in Junction City, Kansas?

They never figured out who was the “real McCoy,” and they didn’t care. They saw each other as brothers, equals, not enemies.

After talking for a while about the seemingly random events that led to their meeting, they decided that God was looking out for them. They both moved to Junction City, where they started a church that soon had the most members in town.

Jack and Joe McCoy were finally at home in the middle of nowhere, right where they knew they were supposed to be.