The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

A Favor and Its Follow-Up

Previously: "Tricksie" 

"Listen, don't feel bad," Trixie says as you stagger under the blow of her confession. "I had fun, I liked hanging out with you, I'd like hanging out with you some more. I just don't want you getting the wrong impression. So—"

She glances down at your phone.

"So if you have to go," she finishes, "don't feel like you'd be running out on me or Justine. We'll probably see you around again, even."

Her confession has knocked the wind from you. But it has also stiffened your spine. Fuck'er if she thinks she can just get rid of me, you think.

And aloud, you say: "I'm not going anyplace." You shove your phone in your pocket, and plant your feet in front of her.

Trixie breaks into a grin

* * * * *

You dance some more, then camp out in the saloon with some of her friends, whom she introduces you to. Their names blend into a blur, but you like them because they're friendly and seem interested in you, asking you where you go to school and if you know certain other people who go there. It turns out that many of them know Patrick and Tiffany and Lacie, and they ask if they are going to show up. You have to shrug. "I came out here with Trixie and Justine," you explain.

"You came out with Joe and Frank," Trixie corrects you.

That elicits gasps and guffaws from the others. "And you made it out here in one piece?" one of the girls giggles.

"Uh—" You look at Trixie for support but she only smile enigmatically at you.

Then: "Yeah, bruh, Prescott, right?"

You look around, and jump. As naming the devil is supposed to cause him to appear, mention of Joe seems to have caused him to materialize at your shoulder. "Borrow the keys to your truck?" he asks.

"What?" You glance between him and the rest of the table.

"Your truck, bruh," he says, and holds out his palm. "Can I borrow the keys?"

"Uh, why?"

"Just for a little while. Promise, I'm not takin' it anyplace, I just—"

His lips twist into a couple of very unnatural shapes as he stares intently at you. Then he bends to speak hoarsely into your ear: "I got a chance, man, but I don't got any money!"

This explanation mystifies you. But his eyes are wet and burning with a pleading look. "You're not taking it any where?" you ask as you pull the keys from your pocket.

"Won't even stick 'em in the ignition," he promises as he snatches them from your hand. "Well, not your truck's ignition. Thanks, man!" He slaps you on the chest and kisses the top of your hat. "I owe you heaps!"

He hops high in the air, punching at the ceiling, and flies away across the saloon.

The rest of the table seems as flabbergasted as you; but flabbergasted at you, not Joe. "You guys are friends?" someone asks.

"Well—"

"'Cos you gave him your keys!"

"He's not taking it anyplace," you reply, though doubts are starting to assail you now.

"No," one of the guys chortles, "he's just taking someone else someplace!"

"Oh, come on!" Trixie exclaims. It sounds like she's taking your side. "Will's just doing Joe a solid." She turns to you. "Aren't you?"

"I guess."

"'I guess'?" a girl shrieks. "Don't you know what he's gonna do in your car?"

That's when the penny drops.

"That was real nice of you, what you did for him," Trixie tells you later, after Joe has returned you your keys. "At least someone got some use out of your truck tonight."

You stare at her. "Um—"

"Don't think it," she warns you. "Not nearly yet."

* * * * *

Of course you get in trouble when you get home late—your mother is asleep on the couch—and you catch only a few hours sleep before you have to get up for church. Your father gives you a very stern lecture, and doesn't seem to believe you when you claim to have gotten caught at someone's house outside the city without your truck and phone, and with no one willing to give you a ride back to get them. Convenient, he snorts, and grounds you for a week.

But it was worth it.

Back home, after lunch, you sit on your bed, trying to work up the courage to call Trixie. You jump when your phone buzzes in your hand.

It's not Trixie, though, but an unknown number. "Yeah, hello?" you answer.

"Hey, is this Will? From the Warehouse last night?" an unfamiliar voice says.

"Uh ... Yeah."

"Oh, fuck me, I hope you've got it! Did I drop it in your truck?"

You blink. "Um ... Who is this?"

"Gyah! It's Joe! Joe Durras! From last night? You gave us a ride out to the Warehouse? Yeah, I can't find my freakin' wallet, and the only thing I can figure is I lost it in your truck. I hope that's where I lost it, 'cos—! Shut the fuck up, Frank, no one likes it when you say 'I told you so'!"

"Uh, lemme go look," you tell him. "Hang on." You drop the phone on your bed—his voice, clear as bell, carries on even outside the room when you're in the hallway—and go downstairs and outside to look. You do find a strange wallet in the floorboard of your truck, and carry it back inside and upstairs.

"Yeah, it was there," you tell him. "I got it now—"

"Whhhhhoooooooooo!" Joe shrieks. "In! Your! Face! Frank! In! Your! Three-point shot! Where do you live, man, so we can come by and pick it up!"

"Uh—" You stammer out your address, but then, to your own semi-surprise, you add, "But where do you live? I can come by and drop it off."

"You don't gotta do that, man!"

"Well, I'm gonna be running around anyway. It won't be a problem."

"Could you come by? Awesome! We can have a party! Lemme think of someone who can score us a keg— Don't be such a fucking killjoy, you—!"

"What?"

"Oh, not you, man, I was talking to my lame-ass brother. But anyway, our address is—"

You tell him you'll see him in a bit.

* * * * *

You show Joe's wallet to your mom—your dad has fallen asleep on the sofa—and ask permission to take it back to him, which she gives you on condition that you be back within the hour. That's fine with you. You weren't planning to spend any time with them—they're not your kind of people—and only offered to bring the wallet to Joe because it would get you out of the house.

But also—if you were being honest with yourself—you'd admit you want to see them on the off-chance that Justine's or Trixie's name will come, and you can leverage it into a chance to somehow see them again without your having to make a move.

The house Joe and his brother live in is small and cramped and squeezed between other small and cramped houses a little ways from the university campus. The front lawn is neatly mowed, and the flower beds look well-tended. But the house is afflicted with the same seedy feel as the neighborhood as a whole. It's a street where the cars are parked on the street; where old furniture has been dumped in the yard or onto the porches; and where the trees, in addition to being old, look tired and a feeble. There is a white pickup truck parked in front of the garage, and if it isn't quite the twin of yours, you can see how they would mistake yours for theirs in a dark parking lot.

The front door bangs open when you're only halfway up the walk, and Joe, a manic gleam in his eye, comes hurtling out. You brace yourself as he charges you, and he knocks all the wind from you as he sweeps you up in a crushing man-hug, and swings you around so hard and fast that your feet come off the ground.

"Here he is!" Joe cries out exultantly. "Fuck me, you didn't waste time getting out here! You live around here? Where do you live?"

"Uh, Acheson," you gasp.

"You must'a left right after you hung up! Well, come on!" He drops you, but hangs a friendly arm over your shoulder. "We didn't get a keg, but I can give you a Coke, pretzels, a hot dog—" He pushes you the rest of the way up the walk and through the front door.

The house feels dark and small as you step inside, but it brightens up after Joe has closed the door. His arm still on your shoulder, he pushes you through a dining room, whose table is covered in books and papers, toward a sliding glass door before steering you leftward into a tiny kitchen. The lights are off and the only illumination is from a narrow window over the sink, but the room feels surprisingly light and airy.

"Yeah, I was so fucked when I found out my wallet was gone," Joe says as he rummages inside the refrigerator. Without looking back, he holds out a soda bottle to you, which you take. "I went out for my morning jog, and after I got back and showered I was moving my shit into a fresh pair of jeans, and that's when I— You don't like boiled eggs, do you?"

His face upside down, he peers at you from inside the refrigerator, under his own arm pit.

"Uh— I—"

"'Cos we don't got a lot of snack food, and unless you want a dill spear, boiled eggs is all I can offer you."

"I don't need anything, I just had lunch."

"Well, offer stands. Anyway—"

Brightly he prattles on about his panic at not finding his wallet, and of tearing up the house looking for it, and of getting in a fight with his brother when said brother "fucking lipped off at me for being careless." Then he realized he might have dropped it in your truck, and he called around to everyone he knew to try to get your number.

"Took me three hours, till someone finally remembered your name is Prescott."

His smile sharpens.

"Does your dad work at Salopek?"

Next: "A Jock's Gratitude" 

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 5)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)"