From Melody:
I’ve met my clone. He’s an eighteen-year-old boy who reminds me of myself when I worked at MacDonald’s fifteen years ago. I’ll call him Brian. He works in one of those expensive delis that sell brownies the size of tablecloths.
I go in there a lot. Brian rang me up very pleasantly one day. Then I said something. I don’t know what. One of my obscure references that I think everyone will find funny or at least good-natured. Usually people just smile, nod or laugh. Not Brian. He said something just as quirky back to me. Sweet quirky. Smart. He mentions astronomy and something philosophical in the same breath. I have no doubt he’s thinking deeply and constantly.
Brian has one of those adorable faces, easy to smile at. I see him doing those tasks that fall to young adults: making salads, mopping the floor, and ringing up long lines of business men who are in a hurry. I remember selecting tomatoes for my own batches of salads. I used to stand in front of those long lines of businessmen and imagine impossible riches falling on my head, finally giving me a perfect life.
It’s odd to see part of yourself repeated. Every time I talk to him, he overflows with that positive desire to live a packed life. I worry about him. How long will Brian work for eight dollars an hour? I stayed at MacDonald’s for two years, all that time wondering if I had what it takes to make something of myself. The world seemed so big and I just didn’t know the rules.
I’ve given Brian some advice, bugged him to use the resources at the library, and told him a few things about getting a job in the corporate world. Talking to him feels like I’m mentoring my own eighteen-year-old self.
But Brian isn’t going to listen to much that I have to say. I know I didn’t listen very well when people tried to help me. Brian’s so busy: being alive, being ridiculous, thinking he can figure it all out on his own. Part of me wants to protect him from all the stupid things he’s going to get himself into, and the other part of me stands in the line to his cash register and imagines the impossible riches that may fall on his head in his future.
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