The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

Booting Up a Legend-Worthy Night

Previously: "Fröhliche Momente mit unbekannten Menschen" 

Two more people have joined the party by the time you get back to the table. One is a small, slim girl who wears her dark hair in a short bob. The other is a grinning, brown-haired scarecrow who bobs and weaves in his seat like it would kill him if he tried to sit still.

"This is Bree," Kristin tells you, indicating the girl. "She's Lacie's sister. And that's Jonas. This is Will," she adds for their benefit.

"Hey man," Jonas says. And that's all he says before ducking his head to put his face close to Bree's. They grin and titter at each other.

And you feel yourself getting very stiff and very spongy and very sparkly all over. It's not a feeling you like.

So here's Lorenzo with his arm around Kristin, and this Jonas guy flirting so hard with this Bree girl that they have to be going out together. Tiffany has been badgering you about which girls you're into. This is, in a sense, what you came out here for—to hang out where you have a chance of hooking up with a girl or two. So why are you feeling ill?

It's just your fucking nerves, you tell yourself through gritted teeth. And jealousy. Just ignore it and stick to these guys.

So when things start breaking up, with everyone going home for a real dinner, you lend an ear to Tiffany when she asks if you're going back out again this evening. "What are you all doing?" you ask her.

"Well, I think we're going out to Legends," she says. "Though if you want to go out to the Warehouse, I bet you can get Patrick and Dean to go with you. Don't let Jonas or Bree go too, though," she adds more darkly.

"Nah, I'll just go out to Legends with you guys," you tell her.

"Great!" She grins. "We'll probably meet up there around ten. See you then." There's a warm dimple in her cheek as she leaves you. It gives you a kind of chill.

* * * * *

You hear from Patrick first, though. He texts at around eight, to tell you that he needs to "pick up some new threads," and that if you want to hang out a bit before hitting Legends, he and Dean will be at Second Pickins—a thrift shop—in a little while.

You hit your mom up for fifty dollars—she's a softer touch than your dad—and head out to meet them.

Second Pickins is a general thrift down by the university, with lots of second-hand furniture and used appliances and tools. It has a large clothing section, though, with jeans, shirts, sweaters, blouses, skirts, shorts, and most everything else (except used socks and underwear, of course) that anyone could want. A musty smell—a mix of dust, old sweat, and weed, you deem—hangs in the air.

You beat the other guys out there by almost thirty minutes, which gives you plenty of time to pick through the clothing and wonder if you got sent on a snipe hunt by Patrick. But they show up in due course.

"Hey man!" Patrick greets you with another upraised hand, and he clips you on the back of the head—as he did Keith—after you slap palms. "You picked anything out yet?"

"Still looking." In truth, you're not sure what you should be looking for. You don't go out to dance clubs much.

"I'm gonna get me an earring, or a chain or something. Something I can dangle." He points to his left earlobe as he peers about the store. "An' a new shirt or something."

You don't want to admit that you never really go out to clubs or anything, so you just follow him and Dean as they paw through the same piles of vintage clothing that you already looked through.

"Yeah, whaddayu think?" Patrick asks Dean as he holds up a purple-green-and-white tie-dyed t-shirt. "Yeah, I don't think so either," he says before Dean can reply, and drops the shirt. "I need some stylin'!"

"Yeah, you don't wanna go lookin' like you're at school," Dean agrees. He looks at you, and you can see the thought behind his eyes: You don't want to go to Legends dressed like Will.

"Yeah, I need something new!"

"What do you wear when you go clubbing?" you ask Dean.

"This, basically," he replies with a shrug. For the first time, you really give him a good look.

He is short and slim, with short brown hair that looks like he combed it last with a pencil. He has large but sad eyes, and a serious mien. Add some glasses to his face—like Lorenzo wears—and he would look like an RPG nerd. Without the glasses, though, he just looks like a fairly nondescript high school senior.

As for his "club clothes" he is dressed in nothing fancier than a black, short-sleeved polo shirt and black Levis.

"What do you wear to school?" you ask.

"Oh, this," he says. "Yeah, but I got a leather jacket out in the car." He cocks his head sideways to study you. "Just get you something dark, and you'll be good to go."

Not sure it'll make a difference, you ruefully confess to yourself. But I can try.

You follow Dean's lead this far: you pick out some black Levis that, though a little big for you, look and feel nice. For a shirt you feel yourself drawn to a soft, silk, button-up shirt that Patrick picked up and eyed critically before discarding. It's a light gray but with silvery threads running through it, which gives it a kind of spectral quality that entices you mysteriously. It is very soft against your skin, and it makes you feel about two years older when, after putting it on, you study yourself in a mirror.

Dean approves of it, though he quickly follows up by pointing to your head and saying, "You're gonna have to ditch the ball cap, it doesn't go with it." He doesn't look any more impressed after you've swept your cap off, adding, "You're gonna have to wear something" in a very dry tone. He looks around, and finally passes approval on a battered straw cowboy hat, even though it's a little big and sits low on your forehead. "You'd look better at Vaqueros," he says. "But fuck it, it's only Legends, no one takes it seriously what anyone wears out there."

Patrick, meanwhile, has been pawing through and over every table in the place, snorting like a buffalo. He finally puts together an ensemble of red track pants and blue track jacket. He looks like he's dressed for PE class until he adds a thick metal chain about his neck and a backward-turned ball cap, and then you realize he's gone for a "suburban white rapper" look. In fact, he's rapping under his breath and flashing signs with his hands all the way to the front register and then out the door.

But he turns very serious after you've met up again in the Legends parking lot, where the night air burns with the acrid light of the street lamps, and the whir and grumble of traffic on the nearby boulevard is like a murmuring counterpoint to the thumping bass that sounds dimly from out of the club. Dean has wandered off to a dark corner of the lot, muttering that he needs a cigarette before heading inside, but Patrick is still punching the air with those cryptic hand gestures, and muttering rhymes to himself, when he catches himself and jabs you in the shoulder.

"You're gonna be my wingman in there, right?" he says. "If I hook up with some girl, and she's got some friend with her, you're gonna take her friend off her hands for me, right?"

You're taken a little aback, but agree that you'll help him if it looks like he needs help.

"Awesome. I usually got Dean helping out, but tonight he's here to score. He didn't get any action all summer. You ever go more'n three months without gettin' any?" He shakes his head without bothering for your reply. "Fuck me, August was rough, man."

You can't help it, you feel the blood draining from your face. All these guys, including Dean, are getting laid? Like, regularly? The thought that you might pick up some of their action both excites and unnerves you.

* * * * *

Whether he knows them or not, Patrick greets everyone who passes him on the way in with a "Yo!" or a "Hey!" as you wait for Dean to rejoin you. His shoulders are hunched, and his eyes darting when he comes back out of the shadows.

"Okay, let's do this," he says, in the manner of a man steeling himself for some dreadful but necessary job. Together, your trio plunges into the club.

"You go look on the dance floor for everyone!" Dean shouts to Patrick over the rumbling murmur of the crowd and the music. "Me and Will'll check out the bar!" Patrick nods and saunters off for a set of double doors on the other side of the saloon. But Dean plucks your elbow and pulls you into a corner.

"Listen, man," he says while glancing keenly about the room. "If it looks like you're gonna get some action, you know, don't wait around for anyone. We just walked in together, you know. But if, you know, she's got a friend—"

He breaks off, and turns a wet, worried glance at you. You don't need to be a telepath to understand what he's asking you silently.

Jesus, you marvel to yourself as you assess the accumulated weight of the afternoon's evidence. Everyone just assumes I can pick a girl up if I want to!

* To try to score: "Every Chance You Take" 
* To just float through the evening: "The Cork on the Current" 

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