The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

Strange Acts, Anticipated and Done

Previously: "The Raid" 

You and your replacement look at each other, then look at Caleb. "Use the masks?" you ask. "How?"

"I dunno." Caleb avoids your eye. "Maybe you should forget I said anything."

"No, I see what you're saying," Will says. "You're saying we should use those masks of Huber and Mitchell to get back at the guys, like Prescott said we should'a done at the party. But that's not what I want," he instantly adds. "The whole point of a beat down is the fuckers know who beat them down and why. Can't do that with the masks."

He rambles on about what he wants to do to Huber -- and to Ratliff, Nieves, Walker, Johnston, McElroy, Palendech, Mitchell, Schmitz, Russo, Ash, Arjis, and Ansell -- but you stop listening. You're absorbed in Caleb's comment about the masks. And slowly it comes into focus: How to use them to give those cocksuckers the punishment that Gordon and Chelsea and their friends are all demanding.

"Bait. Or a lure," you say. "That's how we use the masks."

"Huh?"

"We can't take those guys all at once. There's too many. We gotta get each one alone, one at a time, where Steve and Jason and me can take 'em apart."

"Sure," says Will, all uncomprehending. "We should -- "

"We should use the masks for it. Think about it. Ratliff gets a call from Huber. Or better, Huber stops at his place, says, 'Let's go chuck rocks in the river,' or whatever. Ratliff goes off with him. Or they agree to meet somewhere. But it's not Huber, it's one of us, maybe it's me, and it's you and Steve and Seth waiting down at the river, or wherever."

"That'd work," Will says.

"Better than that. 'Cos what happens when Ratliff, or whoever, sees Huber again, and he's all, like, 'What the fuck, man, where were you? Those guys jumped me,' and Huber's all, like, 'I don't know what you're talking about, dickweed, I been spoonin' with my girlfriend all day'. That'd be like the pranking we were talking about doing, but it's on top of the beat downs we'd be giving them."

"That's great," says Will in an awestruck voice. "That's fucking -- Hey, where you going?" he calls to Caleb.

Your other friend has been sidling away. "I don't wanna be a part of this."

"Who says you have to be?" Will retorts. "You haven't wanted to be part of anything since -- "

"I'll talk to him," you interrupt. "We need to get back to his place anyway. I still got some homework to do. And you've got a date."

"That's right!" He chest-bumps you, with much the same results as when he tried chest-bumping the tree.

* * * * *

You follow Caleb back to his place, and you follow him into his house, and you follow him into his bedroom. He doesn't say anything. You don't either, until you've closed the door. "So, what's the deal, man?" you ask.

He shrugs.

"I can't help you out if you don't tell me what it is."

"It's nothing, Will," he says, stressing the name. "If you and Gordon want to get all up in Cameron's grill, that's your business. Actually, it's Gordon's business, but since you're all mixed up with him -- "

"Are you feeling left out? Because I keep trying to involve you."

"I know," he sighs. "But I don't think I can fit in. Not with what you guys are doing with the masks."

"So what do you want to do with them? I know you wanted to prank people with them, but now that you got a chance -- "

"This isn't pranking, Will, it's revenge. Gordon's revenge, and the only reason you're doing it is because -- " He points at you.

You grit your teeth, and ignore the implication. "Well, who do you want to prank?"

"Look, don't worry about me, okay? Do your thing, and when it's done maybe the three of us can figure out something that all three of us would like doing."

You waver. He's giving you an escape hatch from this very awkward talk, but you don't want to lunge for it. "It might take awhile. There's a dozen guys in need of a beat down."

"Then that'll give me a lot of time to think about what I want to do."

You grimace, and leave him alone in his room.

* * * * *

Steve and Jason stop by your work the next day, and since you're busy stocking shelves you're able to talk to them as they pretend to shop nearby. Naturally, the conversation is about how to deal with Huber's raid. "Do we start at the top, or start at the bottom?" Patterson asks. "Start with Huber, or start with one of his fuck buddies?"

You understand exactly the nature of the question. If you start with Huber, it will look like you're just punishing ringleaders, and only as you start working your way down will it occur to the assholes that every single one of them is going to be in for pain. On the other hand, if you start at the bottom, with someone like Danny Russo, it will be instantly obvious that you're targeting the whole crew, which will give each of them something to dread. The downside is that then they'll start taking precautions.

But precautions won't matter if you've got masks and magic on your side.

"Bottom up," you mutter as you slide some jars of pickles on the shelves. "Start with McElroy. He's low enough down they'll get the message, and it won't look like we're not trying to get hurt."

"School or outside of school? What kind of treatment?"

"We'll grab him at his locker before third period, take him out to the portables. We'll start small, give the rest of those -- " There's a fat lady nearby. She probably can't hear you, but the word "cocksuckers" might stand out. "Give the rest of them something to look forward to as we start ramping it up. We'll strip him and leave him the tutu."

Jason sniggers. "Great, 'cept there goes the tutu and then we'll have to get another."

"We'll tell him he can have his clothes back in trade for it," says Patterson. "After that?"

"We'll improvise. But keep your phones on. If I see any of those guys hanging out somewhere outside school by themselves, I might call you to come in for a strike."

That's the best you can think to do to prepare them for the kind of ambush you and Gordon are planning for the masks: Lure the victims someplace, then call Steve and Jason to the same spot.

Chelsea has been doing her part too, using her social contacts not only to nail down the identities of the perps but also where they work or hang out, and who with. You already know how to get at Huber and Mitchell, but her texts give you solid leads on Ratliff, Nieves, Palendech, Schmitz, Russo, and Ansell. During your breaks you text back your gratitudes to her.

But when work is done, you race off to see Gordon. You're dying to know -- but dreading, too -- how last night's date with Cassie Harper went.

* * * * *

"Oh, we talked," Will says nonchalantly. "She talked. You know how she is. So she talked, a lot. Until I grabbed her hand."

You're sitting in the backyard of you old house. You're tired of having to meet at the elementary school, so you'd gone straight to the house and given your uncomprehending mother the excuse that you needed to talk to Will about a school project. Will played it very cool when he came down the stairs in answer to her summons, and you have the impression that you looked a lot more nervous than he did.

Something in the way he was walking bothered you, too. He didn't just saunter with you out into the yard. He strutted.

"You grabbed her hand," you repeat with a gulp. "Like how?"

"Oh, she just had it on the table in front of us -- "

"This was at Panera?" That's where he said he'd taken her, for fancy coffee and scones. Someplace where it could be date-like without the pressure.

"At first."

"At first?" That one comes out as a gasp.

"We didn't spend the whole time there. How about you shut up and let me tell you about it?" He leaned back with the weary sigh of one who was vaguely bored by it all.

"So she spent most of the time talking, and I listened. Not super close, you know, but I picked out what was important to hear."

"You've got practice at that," you retort. He's driving you nuts with this too-cool-for-old-school act of his.

"Uh huh. And I listened and looked at her, and around about that point that she started to look like she was losing steam, I put my hand on hers."

"What did she do?" Maybe Cassie could have survived it, but just the telling is making you faint.

"She got all pink and stopped talking. So I told her a few things about what I thought of what she'd been telling me. You know, so she'd know I'd been paying attention. I rubbed her hand while I did that."

"Like what you do with Chelsea, except she doesn't shut up -- "

"Will you stop bringing my girlfriend into it?" he says. "So I used what I know, so what? So I knew how to snuggle up close to her while walking out to the car, then pushed her up close to it and give her a little kiss at the side of her neck."

You roll onto your back and groan.

"Then we went out to the river. You want a play by play of what happened then?"

"No," you squeak, and hope that he'll give it to you anyway.

"Okay. The highlight is we were out there for an hour. We didn't take anything off, and we didn't touch anything that wasn't already hanging out in the open. But I let her feel how big and stiff she made me, and we got tangled up a lot in the mouth regions. She's been dreaming about you so hard for so long, you know."

Next: "The Surging Seas of Indecision" 

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"