The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

Carson Ioeger Explains It All

Previously: "A Short Way with the Warehouse" 

Was at church, you explain to Carson when you turn your phone back on after services. Where want meet?

* * * * *

He's at a Starbucks, which is not your favorite place, as you don't much like their coffee, and everything costs too much. You cite the latter factor when he asks if you're getting anything, but Carson says he'll spring for yours "as long as it's not stupid expensive." You thank him as he slides out of the booth, and again when he returns with a basic blend for you.

"Don't thank me too much," he says. "I got it gratis. Don't you remember Justin?" He chucks his chin toward the barista, whom you give a more direct look at now. He smiles briefly back at you, but has looked away by the time you recognize him as a senior who graduated last year.

"So I saw you squirting away when the whistles started blowing," Carson continues as he hunches over his own mug. "Did you take off after that?"

"I had a curfew anyway."

"Good thing. Or not, if you're thinking of making the Warehouse a regular hangout from now on. What time is your curfew?"

"Eleven."

"Jesus. Though maybe I shouldn't take the Lord's name in vain if you just got outta church. Anyway, eleven is no time to be leaving the Warehouse, not if you really wanted to go."

"I just never been," you start to say, but you're interrupted by a text. It's from Patrick, asking if you want to hang out today, but you ignore it for the moment. "How long have you and James been going out there?"

"Since our sophomore year, but we didn't start going out regular until last year. I seem to recall we asked you to go out with us once, and you gave us some bullshit excuse about why you couldn't."

You have a vague memory of that, though it's no more than the bruising recollection that you chickened out at the chance. Carson adds, "There's no shame in it not being your kind of scene."

"Just all the stories I've heard about it," you mutter.

"Most of them are true. But you probably make them out to be worse in your head. As long as you don't try to make yourself one of the characters in one of those stories, it can be a fun place, no worse than school."

"Someone took a swing at me last night."

Carson pauses with his cup at his lips, and frowns. "When?"

"Right before those whistles started blowing."

"That was you started that?" Carson's eyes widen. "The fuck did you do?"

"I just started dancing with this girl—"

"Oh, probably the wrong one, then. Yeah, the dance floor's where a lot of the problems usually start. Guys strutting. Who were you dancing with?"

"I don't know her. Who were you dancing with?" Your eyes dart, despite yourself. "Last night, did you or James ... Um—?"

"Ask a direct question, why don't you, if you want a direct answer," Carson says.

"Did you get what you went out there to get?"

"None of your fucking business," he retorts. "But we wound up hanging out with some girls we know. No, nothing happened." He scratches his chin, and his glance turns meaningful. "We knew them. Nothing happens unless we don't."

Despite the spreading chill in your bowels, you ask, "Has anything happened before, with you guys?"

"Yes," he answers in a tone as cold and heavy as an iceberg. "Just never with anyone who might come around when Jenny's around, to fuck things up."

"Oh, Jesus." You clasp your hands on the table. Though Carson is being very cold, you press on. "Why doesn't he just ask her out?"

"He has."

"And if she said no, why doesn't he just look for someone else?"

"Why are you asking stupid questions, Will?" Carson demands. "He's got it for her bad, and he's not going to give up for as long as she's willing to talk and smile at him. Did you give up just because a girl turns you down once? Oh, wait." His tone turns sarcastic. "That's exactly what you did when Lisa—"

"Leave Lisa out of this, that was—! She didn't even turn me down, she just flushed—!"

"Calm yourself. Point is, you just don't know what stick-to-it-tiveness is. James is the opposite, he's more like Velcro."

"But he still goes to the Warehouse."

"It's not cheating. It's called 'taking what you can get until the real thing comes along'."

You roll your eyes. But you know the real disdain is for yourself, and your inability both to fix on a girl, the way James has, or to have a good time in the meantime—again, as James apparently does. You suddenly, ardently, wish that someone would show you how to do either one. But that makes you feel even worse. Surely no one showed James, or anyone else, how to do it.

But Carson seems to have got the wrong idea, for he turns angry.

"Look, I don't know what you think you've got to be so judgmental about," he says. "Maybe church has filled your head with ideas about how guys shouldn't act, or maybe you're just hiding behind them because you don't have a freaking clue yourself what to do with a girl. Or a boy, if that's your real taste. But I told you none of this is your business but I told you anyway, and if all you can do is—"

"Hey man," a voice interrupts, and you look up to see that Justin has appeared at your table. "My shift's about over, you gonna want anything else?"

Carson is flushed, and spares him only a brief, sidelong glance. "No. Thanks."

"Well, I'll be here for another fifteen minutes or so if you change your mind. Also—" He leans over to say, more quietly, "Keep your voice down." He then turns back for the counter.

Carson glowers at you.

"I'm sorry," you say. "I didn't mean any of what you think I meant. I just— I dunno." You tense all over. "Just I got frustrations too, you know. Listening to another guy's frustrations, when his frustrations are—"

"Just shut up," Carson says. "Everybody's got them. And I'm not surprised you're acting so shocked and amazed, or that you can't resist getting your fingers dirty with a lot questions that don't concern you. You don't know half of what goes on right under your own nose, so when it blows up in front of you, of course you're gonna squawk and shit yourself."

Half of what goes on under your nose? The fuck does that mean? So you ask him. "You saying everyone else knows that James— That he—?"

"Oh God, I'm sorry I said anything," Carson fumes. "Yes, Prescott, everyone knows. Except, God willing, Jenny. At least we hope not."

"Caleb and Keith?"

"Well, Caleb I don't know about, he might be as clueless as you, but he's said a few things that make me think he knows the score. But Keith—" Now it's his turn to roll his eyes. "I think he knew when James popped his cherry even before James did!"

* * * * *

He refuses to amplify on that very fantastical (and very gross) hypothesis, and only tells you that Keith, far from being the dumbass you've always taken him to be, is much more perceptive than just about anyone else that you and your friends know. And apparently (he adds) Keith is also a lot more discreet than anyone would have guessed, as he seemingly shares none of what he sees, guesses, or knows about.

All in all, it has been an afternoon (and an evening, previous) to upend a lot of your assumptions about your friends.

So you can't resist texting Keith after you and Carson have parted.

"What's up, man?" he says when you call him. He texted back to tell you that, yes, it was okay to call him, but it sounds like he's stifling a yawn. "Hmm?" he says when you ask if you woke him up. "Mm, not really. Was just laying down for my Sunday siesta."

"I didn't know you took those."

"Oh, sure. Sometimes. When I've had a bad night's sleep."

"You have a bad night last night?"

"I was out late with some of my home boys. Then I woke up early. So, 'sup?"

You feel him out cautiously, first by asking who his "home boys" are—turns out it was Carlos Montoya and Michael Hollister, who were hosting a marathon of horror movies at Michael's place—and then by casually letting drop that you were at the Warehouse last night.

"Dude, no!" He laughs. "Don't be shitting me."

"I was!"

"Fuck me," he gasps. "I ain't been out there since, like, Christmas, and I ain't goin' out there again!"

"I didn't know you'd ever been out there!"

"Wasn't none of your fuckin' business."

People keep saying that to you, and it's beginning to grate. "So all the times me and Caleb ever talked about it, you just didn't say anything about your ever being out there?"

"In the first place, ay," he says, "you and Johansson never talk about the Warehouse, so when'ld I ever get a chance? And bee, in the second place, I wasn't gonna talk about it 'cos I got my ass kicked the one time I went, and that ain't somethin' I wanna talk about."

"What happened?"

"Javits happened, okay? So I'm allergic to that place."

And that clears it up. Seth Javits, basketball player, is one of the worst bullies at Westside, and he has a special vendetta against Keith.

"Well, maybe it was lucky for him that he wasn't out there last night," you say with studied casualness. "'Cos Carson and James were."

"Oh really?" Keith says, and he doesn't sound surprised. "Did James get lucky?"

"Dude!" you now explode. "Carson says that you know all about that! About James—! Behind Jenny's back—! And—!"

Keith sniggers. "Well, I guess everyone at Westside's know about it now, if you finally figured it out."

"Am I the last to ever find out anything?" you demand.

"Yeah. 'Cept in this case it's gonna be James and Carson who's last."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, last to know Jenny knows all about James's trips out there, and what he's on the hunt for. Shee-ut, and they think they been keeping it such a stinking secret from her!" He laughs.

Next: "The Hidden World" 

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