The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)

Fugue for Two Minds

Previously: "Sonata for Six Hands and Two Faces" 

It's dark and it's cold when you open your eyes. You're lying on a hard, flat surface that is even colder than the frigid air that whispers over your bare skin.

This is what you've always imagined it's like inside a tomb.

Your brow furrows. When have I ever imagined myself inside a tomb? you ask yourself.

The question, you find, has two answers: Never and Sometimes, vividly. You draw in a deep breath, and exhale.

There is no surprise in having two answers to that question. If you probed you could find two answers to most questions. Birthday, Social Security number, home address, name of first grade teacher.

Awareness of this duality steals over you very calmly, because your instinct is always to examine a situation carefully before getting excited.

Wait— Is that your instinct? Well, it's somebody's instinct.

Yes, you calmly reflect: It's Preston David Spinks's instinct. And you don't have to touch your face or feel your hair to know that you are Preston David Spinks.

Being somebody else. You probe at the sensation, like feeling at a cavity with your tongue. It's an interesting sensation, you reflect as you stare at the dark ceiling, and one you feel undecided about. Not that it matters much what Preston Spinks thinks of the ethics of it matter. It only matters what Will Prescott thinks of them.

And he apparently has decided to throw ethics to the wind. You rub your brow.

"So you're finally fucking awake," a voice sounds. You look over sharply. There's a dark silhouette showing against one of the windows. "About time," Chen continues. "I was about to go. I still got work I have to get to, you know."

"So go to work," you reply. "I can lock up. Where's Yumi?"

"Sent her home. I figured you could call if you had anything to tell her."

You only nod. No point in wasting words. Not even the words So I guess you got Preston's mask done and put on me before I woke up, which is too obvious to need stating.

"So I'll take off now," Chen grunts. "Am I gonna see you tomorrow?"

"Are we rehearsing the Brandenburg? Maybe."

"You gonna have his memories and shit by then?"

"I think so." You go back to staring up into the dark.

* * * * *

But you don't spend a lot of time on that slab-like table after Chen has closed the door behind him. It's too cold, and as soon as you hear him drive off you lever yourself up and feel about for your clothes. Boxers. White undershirt. The size-Large heavy cotton white shirt that looks like a dress shirt from a distance but is far more comfortable because it is baggy and it breathes. Khakis with a belt. Dark wool socks and the broken-in casual loafers.

And the tie. It's so much a part of Preston's standard look that you doubt it attracts much notice anymore. Chen only loosened it when taking it off the original, and you slip it on now, like a noose, and cinch it only partway up, just below the second-from-top, unbuttoned clasp of the shirt. The baggy sleeves are already rolled up to just under your elbows.

The look of a white collar worker who has unbound himself so he can bend seriously over his job.

You take out the phone and study yourself on the screen. That one troublesome curl of dirty-blonde hair has broken free and is dangling across the top of your forehead, like Superman's spit-curl. You push it up and hook it back in place. Your skin is clear and tight. Your eyes ... Well, there are two of them, and they are the expected hazel color. You drop your phone into your breast pocket and shake yourself into your new ensemble.

After locking up you turn toward the car. Now you feel your face tighten. No, it isn't Preston's preferred style. He might not know what his style would be—probably a Honda Accord, something efficient and invisible and modestly graceful, not this ... box. Well, his mom does listen to NPR and she does work at the university in the bursar's office, and this was the family car before they finally bought a new one and passed this ten-year-old heap to Preston. But it gets him around, and the mileage is decent. Other than that, he prefers not to think of it at all.

Not until you have put the keys in the ignition do you stop to raise your hands and examine them.

Your hands. The reason you are even here.

They look like ordinary hands. You flex them. They feel like ordinary hands. But the fingers, as you grip and rub them, are very powerful. So are the hypothenar muscles, the ones on the outer edge of the hands, the ones that control the pinkie finger. They bulge outward, and are as firm as rocks. You waggle your right pinkie and ring finger, as though executing a high trill.

That's new. That's something you didn't have as Will Prescott.

Okay, it's not a fastball or high jump or anything that would look good on a gym court. But it's one set of muscles where you're sure you outclass everyone at school.

But will they work?

* * * * *

"Mac and cheese are on the stove," your mom calls from the living room, where she and your dad are eating in front of the TV. "Did you help your friend?"

"I guess so," you call back as you cross through the dining room into the kitchen. "We were both pretty happy when we left." Preston had given his mother no details when he texted that he'd be a little late for supper, so you don't add any more now. From the cupboard you fetch a bowl, into which you spoon some very orangey, very cheezy Kraft macaroni. Chopped up hot dogs bits float inside it. The Friday night special.

You take it down the short hall to your bedroom, which you close it behind you. Then through the other door in the bedroom, closing it as well, into the "conservatory." That's what your mom insists on calling it. To Preston, it's just the practice room.

Half the space is swallowed up by the Steinway, and after flicking on the light you lean past the padded bench to fiddle shut the Venetian blinds that hide a floor-to-ceiling window. Scrunched up on the other side of the room is a drafting table, which can be tilted at an angle or lowered flat. It's flat now, and you set your bowl on it and pull up the stool, and crouch over your meal while flipping idly through a book on Renaissance art. Preston has lately decided to try broadening his artistic interests. He's learned a few things from the book, but for now it's still just a lot of pretty pictures.

The way music for so many people is just "cool sounds."

You try not to think about the piano two feet behind, and the music book sitting on it.

Because what if it doesn't work? (Preston's talent on the piano, that is, not the piano itself.) Yes, sure, you had Yumi's ability to play the viola, and to execute a triple somersault off the top of a pyramid, when you were wearing her mask. Surely you will be able to execute at least some of Preston's skill on the piano.

But what if the masks only copy so much, or so deeply? What if Preston's talent reaches a depth or a subtlety that is beyond the power of the mask to copy?

You chew your mac-and-cheese very slowly.

He's technically superb, Dr. Giers said when you showed him the video your mother had sent you, and he fluttered his fingers in the air. Look at them dance! Like two little octopusses! So fast, not a slip, not a fault! He's like a little typist. But that's all he's doing. Typing on the piano.

He gently grasped your wrist and pulled it to him, your little hand turned palm up and opening like a flower. He traced a path from one of your finger tips to the wrist.

That, he said, is where the little boy is good. But here—he traced his fingernail up your forearm and past your elbow up to your shoulder and neck and to your temple—is where a real musician is good. All the way up, and most of it—he tapped your temple gently—is in there!

He dropped your hand. You have it, Davey, he said, using the nickname your parents still sometimes use. I close my eyes and I listen, and I don't hear typing. Not like him. Clickety-tap, clickety-tap!

You grip the fork in your right hand, and turn your left hand palm up. Is it a little five-limbed octopus, and that's all? Will you type, even with Preston's hand and brain? Clickety-tap, clickety-tap?

And will you be able to tell if you can't? Preston has recorded himself, and studied the recordings, and he knows that what feels beautiful in the mind and supple under the hands can sound stilted and mechanical in the objective ear.

This isn't just you worrying. Preston has worried about it too, worried that whatever gossamer-fine wires Dr. Giers traced from his fingers to his brain, that allowed Preston to make music and not just musical typing, might one day snap or melt.

What if this is the day it happens?

You scrape the bowl clean and even lick up some of the cheese sauce with a fingertip (manicured, with a strong, shining nail). You take it back into the kitchen, to rinse it and put it in the dishwasher. You pack up the rest of the mac-and-cheese, too, for leftovers, and run hot, soapy water into the pot. You scrub it.

"Are you procrastinating?" your mom calls over the muffled din of the TV.

"Yes!"

"I thought so! Stop cleaning up the kitchen and practice!"

I don't "practice", the irritable thought forms. I play.

But will I?

Next: "A Little Nightmare Music" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 3)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 3)"