The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

Carson Serves a Swerve

Previously: "The Real Rescuers" 

You don't want to talk to Lacie—or any of her friends—ever again, probably. But you don't want to be rude, so you text her back to tell her that she's welcome, and that you'll have to take a raincheck on the lunch at her restaurant, as you've already got lunch plans with your family.

You don't especially want to talk to Carson either. But you never get invites from him to do anything—he's much tighter with James (and Caleb, for that matter)—so this text from him is of the rare kind that you think you shouldn't blow off. You text back and forth with him while waiting for lunch, and settle on playing tennis. He will be by to pick you up at around two.

* * * * *

"So," he says after you've settled into his car, exchanged pleasantries, and driven a couple of blocks. "You don't get to sit there without you answering a couple of questions for me. First off, what happened after O'Brien frogmarched them two out of the Warehouse last night? And second of all, where'd you get the Western duds?"

You make a face at him. You were sure he was going to ask about last night, but that doesn't make the topic any more pleasant. You answer the last question first. He snorts and asks if you're going to start taking that look with you to school.

"I dunno. Probably not. I'm not a cowboy. I only dressed up like that 'cos the guys I was with wanted to dress up, and I went along with them."

"Well, you'd get noticed if you did, and not in a good way. You wanna give Javits and the Molester another reason to pay attention to you?"

Point taken, and you tell him you likely will be sticking to your usual look.

"Smart man. Would'a been smarter not to get mixed up with those guys at all."

"Dean and them? What's wrong with them?"

"Nothing wrong with Hudgens, except he hangs out with the others. McGehee's only a goofus, but the others, I wouldn't piss on them if they were on fire. Might shit on 'em, though," he adds in a thoughtful tone.

"What's wrong with them?" you ask. "I mean, I don't really know them."

"You found out last night, right? Those girls. Buncha bossy-britches."

Bossy-britches? you think, but don't comment on Carson's choice of phrase.

"Well, I'm not planning on hanging out with them anymore," you say aloud.

"Smart man," he repeats. "Well, no, because you hung out with them to begin with. But at least you learned. Now, my other question. What happened after O'Brien hauled whats-their-nuts outside and handed 'em off to you?"

So you tell him. You don't expect any sympathy—you expect a lot of chortling and I could'a told you so's. But to your surprise Carson takes it in a rueful spirit.

"Fucking childish," he says. "I mean, I don't blame them for being mad. But taking it out on you that way, that ain't cool. Especially since they know it would'a been their sister's friends that were behind it all. And they know you didn't know better than to get mixed up in it."

"How would they know that? That I didn't know better?"

"Because they told you! Didn't you say that kid told you that the other guys—that Hudgens and the others—would have told those bitches to go sniff a cock?"

"Well, he didn't put it like that—"

"But he said it. 'They'd'a told the bitches to fuck off.' You didn't. Because you didn't know any better. What a fucking child!"

"I think he's a sophomore," you say.

"Doesn't make any fucking difference. You made a mistake, that's all, man, because you didn't know any better. You do now."

You agree that you do. Or you hope that you do.

* * * * *

You play two games of tennis, which Carson wins handily, though you do think you make him sweat a little during the second set, then drive out to a nearby burger place to get some sodas and fries. Carson says it's his treat.

And once you're settled in, he reveals that he's got a lot more on his mind than the shenanigans you got mixed up in last night. In fact, the talk of those, and the tennis game, seem to have been only a pretext for the real topic.

"So, you got help from a girl last night," he says, in a kind of distracted way. "I mean, it wasn't just O'Brien's help you got."

"Yeah," you say, wondering where he is going, because he is clearly leading somewhere. "She's the one who went and got him, told him about it all. I wouldn't have known what to do."

"Yeah, that would've been a mess if you'd just gone in," Carson says. "Ten to one you'd got your face broke if you tried getting them out yourself."

"I don't think that kid could've broken my face," you protest.

"It wouldn't have been him," Carson retorts. "It would've been O'Brien, or one of them, who broke it, for making trouble, and you still wouldn't have got those two out of there. You owe that girl a lot."

Where is this going? you wonder.

"Do you know her?" Carson asks.

"No."

"Huh. Her name's Emily. She goes to Westside."

"So she told me. She said we might see each other around. I'll thank her again."

"Uh-huh. We know her already, James and me. Slightly. She hangs around with people we know."

He turns to give you a direct, almost accusing look. "Do you hang out with anyone except Johansson and Tilley?" he asks.

You can't help flushing a little. "I don't get into trouble with them."

"Touche. I guess that's why you don't try hanging out with me and Lamont more. But anyway, yeah, we know her slightly from some other guys we know. Knouse and them, a few others."

That would be Christian Knouse, who you know best as an intense and devoted player of RPGs.

Carson takes a long, meditative suck on his soda straw. "We wound up hanging out with her a lot last night, after you were gone. She saw us, came over, we talked. We talked about you."

He gives you a fixed look, and you feel the skin on your back starting to crawl.

"And we talked about other things," Carson continues. "I danced with her. James danced with her. We had fun."

"That's great." There is still a heavy sense in the air that he is leading someplace.

He slides the straw in and out of his cup in a way that makes the lid and the ice squeak.

"How much do you really want to know about what we did?"

Now your skin really does start to crawl. "I ... don't know," you say. "Is it any of my business?"

"No," Carson says bluntly. "But just because something isn't someone's business, doesn't mean that people don't want to know about it. Or that they might not talk about it in front of the wrong people." He holds your eye.

You can take only so much of this. So you lean back and say, "Well, maybe you should tell me what I think I need to know. So that I don't say the wrong thing in front of the wrong people," you add, because it's clear he's talking about you specifically.

Carson gets a sour look for a few seconds.

Then he says, "What you need to know, Prescott, is that Jenny Ashton doesn't need to know that me and James were out at the Warehouse last night. She also doesn't need to know that Emily Sparks spent a lot of time with us.

"Not," he adds after a pause, "that it would bother her, or anyone, that we spent time with Emily. I'm not even sure that she knows Emily, and Emily wouldn't bother her and Emily being with us wouldn't make her think twice, or even once, probably.

"But—" he continues, holding your eye with an intense and unwinking gaze. "But if you should happen to start hanging out with Emily, and Jenny should happen to be around when Emily starts talking— Or if Emily should blurt out something in front of you or someone else— Not that I'm saying you should be responsible for what she says, or for everyone she says it to or in front of—

"What I'm saying, Prescott," he says after seeming to rally himself to a final push, "is that it would be very awkward for everyone concerned if it got around and got back to Jenny that Emily gave James a fat and juicy blow job last night in the parking lot of the Warehouse."

* * * * *

After you have (figuratively!) picked yourself up off the floor, where Carson's confession has (figuratively!) dropped you, you ask for details. Carson doesn't seem surprised.

The gist is that James Lamont's devotion to Jenny Ashton—the puppy-like way he follows her around, and his obvious pining to go out with her—has its practical limits. Yes, he wants to go out with her, and he would be her monogamous boyfriend if they did. But as long as he has needs, and as long as she is ignoring him, he has to get a release, and he gets it ... Well, not at the Warehouse every weekend, and he doesn't get it every weekend either. He doesn't get it very often, in fact. But when he just can't take it anymore ... Well, things like last night happen.

"I don't know what Emily's going to say, or who to," Carson concludes. "I'm hoping she's not the type to go around bragging about giving guys blowjobs. The point is, if you hear anything, I don't want you being so scandalized by it that you have to share it with everyone. Keep it under your hat." He glances at the ball cap you're wearing. "That one or or the cow-fucker cap you picked up last night."

You promise that you will.

Though it is going to be a hard promise to keep, as the urge to share it with Caleb, at least, is almost overpowering.

Next: "Another Encounter with Emily" 

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