Dr. Identity by D. Harlan Wilson Read Free Book Online

ran into him. He stumbled to his feet and groggily began to complain about his job and his wife and the taste of his breakfast.
    I made a fist and struck the Beesuppie on top of the head. He crumbled. I removed his clothes and threw him into the dumpster.
    “Here.” I tossed Dr. ——— the clothes.
    I walked to the far side of the alleyway where a gang of other Beesuppies was taking a collective nap. I sized them up. I selected one. I hit him and removed his clothes: short-sleeve Gatsby mercerized shirt and white no-wrinkle Van Rotten dress pants with pink pinstripes and forgettable leather sandals.
    Taking off my Saussurian suit felt good. I was tired of being preyed upon by other people’s fashion statements. The suit struggled in my grasp as I ushered it over to the dumpster and deposited it inside. It jumped out and tried to put itself back on me. I punched and kicked it and returned it to the dumpster. I placed the body of a Beesuppie atop the dumpster’s lid to insure the suit wouldn’t escape again.
    I stood naked and watched Dr. ——— wriggle into the golf shirt and khakis and put on the boat shoes.
    “The shoes are too tight,” he complained. “And my pants are wrinkled. And I hate the color of this shirt.”
    “They’re fine. You look fine. Relax.”
    “I don’t want to relax.” He adjusted and readjusted his shirt collar and waistband. “I need a belt.” He cursed loudly. “My voice hurts.” He cursed softly. “I need a doctor. I’m in agony.”
    “Jesus. Hold on.” I put on the clothes…
    He tried to shoo me away when I reached out for his neck. I told him to grow up. He told me to eat shit. I asked him why he was acting like a child. He said I had no business comparing him to a child as I was a machine and a monster and lacked the ability to conceive of human behavior in its primitive form not to mention its adult form. I told him not to be unfriendly. He told me that unfriendliness begets unfriendliness.
    I clutched his windpipe.
    He barked and gasped and ordered me to unhand him. I waited until my fingertips had secreted enough fluid…
    “You son of a bitch,” Dr. ——— said. He rubbed his neck. “Now it feels worse.”
    “No it doesn’t. Of course it doesn’t.”
    A nearby Beesuppie pushed himself to his feet and drowsily began practicing his golf swing. He had on a Gila monster-skinned Crocodile Dundee hat and a buttondown flywing shirt and Damascus driving gloves and an Isle of Skye kilt and bleached white kneehigh socks. He didn’t have on shoes. Dr. ——— and I stared at him. He swung too hard. He got tangled up in his own limbs. He fell back down.
    Dr. ——— said, “Corndog University wasn’t so horrible. The English department wasn’t so horrible. I’m the horrible one. I’m the asshole. If people don’t agree with me, if they don’t think the way I do and place value on the things I do, if they aren’t as good-looking as me—I condemn them. I sentence them to Worthlessness. Without due process.” He started to pace back and forth and quickly achieved an impressive speed for a human. “That’s why I don’t have any friends. That’s why you’re my only friend. My ’gänger. My Id . And what does my goddamn Id do? Fucking kills the whole world.”
    “Isn’t that what Ids are supposed to do?”
    He ignored me. “I’m going to miss that place. I really am. Dostoevsky—he wasn’t a bad man. A bit eccentric, but who isn’t? I liked Petunia, too, when they weren’t all over each other. We once had an excellent conversation about the short stories of Nikolai Gogol, and that android could make a mean cup of Kool-Aid. I often catch myself thinking about its Kool-Aid. I was just thinking about it a moment ago, in fact. I even liked Lucille. I liked her a little anyway. If nothing else she spruced up the social climate of the office. And Hemingway had his admirable qualities. He once allowed me to take an extra fork without saying a thing about