The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

The Temptation To Be Another

Previously: "A Stolen Life" 

"I got some homework I gotta finish too," you tell the guys. It's a lie, but it's a convenient lead-in to your followup, to Caleb: "So, if you got some stuff to work on too, I guess you can bring it over to my place." You don't want to give Gordon the impression that you and Caleb have something special going on that excludes him.

"Or we could bring it over to mine," Kirkham counters.

"Might be weird?" you suggest. "If someone comes over to your place, and—"

"Fine, I'll follow you out." He turns to Gordon. "Or we could all head back to my real place, and we could make it a party."

"I got my shit done already," Gordon says. He sounds distracted. "I'm just gonna go online, watch some games probably. See you around." He shuffles off.

After he's out the door, Kirkham punches you between your shoulder blades.

"Gordon'll be fine," he assures you. "He's just got stuff to think about. He'll let us know what he's thinking when he's ready. And maybe we got stuff to talk about t0o."

You glance at him, but his expression is inscrutable behind those tinted glasses.

* * * * *

David Kirkham saunters into your living room with a panther-like grace. It feels very weird having him in your house, and you have to fight to keep the quaver from your voice as you introduce him to your folks, as a friend from school come to work on a project together. He greets them with great politeness, and even tells them, "Will's been doing all the work, told me I had to come over and help finish it or he'd mess me up." Your folks laugh a little uncertainly at that.

Then, at the top of the stairs, you bump into Robert, and make another, more hurried introduction. Kirkham calls your brother "champ" and invites him to do a high-five, which Robert quizzically returns before squeezing past into the bathroom.

"Who are you acting like?" you ask after you're in the bedroom with the door closed. "Yourself or Kirkham?"

"I thought I was acting like myself," he says as he dumps his backpack on your bed. He tilts his chin back. "Why, does it seem like I'm acting like him?"

"I dunno." The weirdness of it: even knowing it's Caleb, having the face and form of David Kirkham in your house makes you feel itchy all over. "Maybe your just looking like him is enough"

"Yeah, I've wondered about that." He launches himself onto your bed with a grunt, and stretches out on it on his side. "Wondered if we even really need those metal mind strip things to go in the masks. I mean, we do need them if we're supposed to know what these fuckers know. But as far as fooling other people, I'm almost thinking ninety-nine percent of it's just how you look."

And, in his athletic shorts and t-shirt, with his strong legs, and his flat, gnomic expression behind those glasses, under that thatch of dark hair ... Yeah, you'd totally buy it was David Kirkham stretched out on your bed, regardless of how he acts.

"Well," you sigh after settling at your desk, "I don't actually have any homework I have to do, I finished it all when I was in detention."

"Yeah, by the way, how'd you manage to forget you had that?"

"Did you remember I had detention?"

"No. Else I wouldn'a told you to meet me after school up on the weight deck. But how come you—?"

"What was the deal between you and Lynch?"

"What do you mean, what was the deal?"

"I mean, why'd you go after him?"

He snorts. "Lynch is a fuck-faced cocksucker with a tiny dick. What part of what happened don't you understand?"

"Well, it kind of put me in a tough place. I'm trying to be friends with him—"

"You don't need friends like fucking Lynch."

"Well, I am his friend already. Sort of. I've got a key to the loft now."

"No shit? When're you gonna take me up there to look around?"

"I'm not. Patterson's already telling me he's gonna fuck me up any day now, and if he catches me with you up there—"

"What the fuck you wanna be friends with guys like him and Lynch for?" he snorts.

"Why the fuck do I wanna be friends with David Kirkham? I mean," you lamely add when his expression freezes, "aside from the obvious fact that he's really you?"

"That's what makes the difference. I hope."

"Well, Lynch and Patterson are friends with Gordon," you riposte.

He sighs.

"You know," he confesses, "I've actually have kind of forgotten that Gordon's friends with them. Can you believe it? I mean, I know you've been shitting yourself about him and me getting along, worrying like you think I'm be like a jealous girlfriend or something. But," he continues, ignoring your frown, "I think we're getting along fine since he moved in. He's almost human, so I don't really think about who he is and who he's friends with, I guess."

He sighs again. "But yeah, I guess I did kind of fuck things up for you today. But you can handle it. That thing was just between me and Lynch, you didn't have anything to do with it."

* * * * *

You change the subject, and ask what he thinks of that new spell.

"I dunno," he admits. "It makes things interesting, you know? Maybe too interesting."

"Like how?"

"Like how?" he snorts. "Like, look at me now. Only reason I'm doing this is because we accidentally flash-froze the real ass-sucker. But if I'd wanted to be him, I'd'a still had to do something to get him out of the way. And you know," he adds, as he lifts his hand and studies the palm, waggling his fingers gently, "getting someone out of the way ... Well, that ain't something even David Kirkham's ready to do."

There's a pause as you both contemplate what it would be to "get someone out of the way" so you could assume their identity.

"But," Caleb continues, "with this new spell." He mimes pushing a mask onto someone's face. "You just pop a copy of your old face onto the fucker, and put a copy of him onto yourself. And then when you wanna change back, you just pull the masks off, and you and him go back to being yourselves. No one's gone, not permanently. At least, that's how we're figuring it works, right?"

"We might be wrong."

"We aren't. Though maybe we should test it. Or maybe not."

"Why not?"

"Because what if it does work that way? Then you don't gotta worry about hurtin' someone when you want to, you know, switch with them. It's a lot easier than the flash-freezing method. And a lot more tempting, you know, since you're not ... putting them away permanently."

He falls silent, to regard you from behind his shades. You return his gaze with an unblinking one of your own.

You ask, "Are you thinking about someone you might want to switch with?"

"I already switched with someone. I could switch back. Just hang this mask on that thing we made."

"But after that, there might be someone else you want to switch with."

"Yeah," he confesses. "And I'm thinking about how easy that could be."

Another awkward silence falls. You shift in your chair, and look everywhere except at him.

"Well," he finally says, and sits up. "Maybe this is something we should think about before we talk it over some more, talk it over with the three of us. Oh," he adds as he gets to his feet, "you should skip Walberg tomorrow, come hang out with me at the portables. We'll hang out with some of the guys, start making it look like it's not weird, you and me hanging out."

"It'll always look weird," you retort.

He gives you a sidelong look. "Then maybe you should switch with someone who it won't look weird with?"

A chill settles over your shoulders. "Like Mendoza? Chen?"

"Fuck, no, not with them cocksuckers. Specially not Chen. Fuck me, that's a dude with some heavy shit in his life. No, but out at the portables tomorrow, you can run your eye over some other guys. Justin Roth'd be a good one. Perfect one, actually. Dude's usually so baked he doesn't know if he's coming or going, you could switch in and out of him and he'd never know anything's going on."

You shrug, and he shrugs too. You accompany out of your room and as far as the front door.

"Your friend didn't stay long," your mom observes after he's gone.

"Turns out we didn't have that much to talk about." You go back upstairs.

* * * * *

As Caleb said, you now have a lot to think about.

He's right that switching with someone else would be an easy way of keeping close to him, so long as he's being Kirkham. But how long does he want to play Kirkham's part? You wonder if your switching with one of Kirkham's friends would be such a good idea, if it tempts Caleb to keep up this impersonation. Maybe it's best to stay as yourself, if for no other reason than to give him a reason to return to being himself.

Also, wouldn't it feel like a confession of weakness or even self-contempt if you switched identities with someone else? Since returning to your own identity, you feel stronger and more confident in your own skin. It would feel like a setback if you hared off to be someone else.

As you settle into bed, though, another thought disturbs the encroaching sense of slumber. You "tamed" Kirkham by switching Caleb into him. There are other people who could stand some "taming." Gordon, you are sure, would never stand for Patterson and Lynch being so tamed.

But what about some of the others? The Molester, Seth Javits, some of the football players. If that's what you did, you could still feel comfortable in your own skin while still wearing theirs. Because you'd be doing it for the sake of other people—other victims—and not yourself.

Or maybe that's just another rationalization.

That's all for now.

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