The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

The Hidden World

Previously: "Carson Ioeger Explains It All" 

"Wait!" you gasp. "Jenny knows all about, uh, James? And the Warehouse? And—?"

"Jeezum, Will," Keith retorts. "How d'you think she couldn't?"

"Well, Carson says he and James have been real careful—"

"Oh, Christ! D'jyu see how many people must'a been out there last night? Lots, right? What, did them two think they were invisible, think they're invisible every time they go out there? Dude, I thought they were naive, and then I talk to you!"

"Alright," you grumble. "But Jenny knows all about it? Hey, is this how come she won't break down and, you know, go out with James?"

"I 'unno, you'd have to ask her. But she ain't goin' out wi'ch anyone, not before she graduates, not with anyone. You can smell it off her!"

"Smell what?"

"No interest. I ain't sayin' she's a dyke, 'cos I don't think she is. She's just, you know." You can hear the shrug in his voice. "Not in'rested, not right now."

That jibes with the impression you always got off of Jenny. But instead of asking about Jenny, you ask about James. "So who has he hooked up with? At the Warehouse, and around?"

"Dude, I don't go tellin' tales!" Keith sounds shocked. "Well, not about guys I know. Now, you wanna know somethin' about Dean Stratton and Molly Shaw, or—"

"But you know who James has, um—"

"Pretty good idea, yeah. So'd you if you wasn't blind!"

"I won't tell anyone if you tell me," you protest.

"Doesn't matter! This just ain't cool stuff to talk about, Will, you know?"

This is a very surprising side of Keith, and it leaves you feeling peevish and excluded. Maybe that's why you say, "So you wouldn't tell anyone about me, what's going on with me?"

"You ain't gettin' any!"

"Well, if I was. What about when I was with Lisa? You didn't talk about me and her—?"

"You wasn't gettin' any!"

"But you didn't talk about us with other people?"

"Sure, when other people was talkin' about you!"

"So what were you saying about me, about us?"

"I ain't tellin'!" is his prompt reply.

This is about the point in the conversation where Caleb or Carson or someone would be telling you to shut up about it, but Keith never does. When you sigh in exasperation, he only says, "I don't ask you what you guys say about me behind my back!"

Which makes you wince.

"It's all just a surprise," you grumble, "finding out about all this stuff."

"Don't know why you're so interested. 'S'not like I am."

"Then why do you pay attention to it?"

"I don't pay attention to it!"

And with that protest, you give up.

* * * * *

And yet you find that you can't stop thinking about it. It's like an hidden world has opened up to you. A world populated by people you thought you knew, but it turns out that you didn't.

You've been taking everything around you at face value, you now realize. James has a crush on Jenny, and quietly moons at her like a love-sick puppy, keeping himself chaste and unattached against the day that she reciprocates his crush. Your nerdy friends Carson and Caleb and Keith (and you) all shake their heads quietly over him and wait for something there to break one way or another. Keith is a dumbass who can't stop talking about sex, and whom no one would trust with a secret because he's a dumbass blabbermouth who'll clumsily drop bombshell secrets all over the place while being oblivious to the explosions he would cause. And you're too cool to trouble yourself over any of this stuff, because it's drama and it's boring drama at that.

And what is really going on?

James, with Carson's help, is lurking almost every weekend at a dangerous party spot so he can relieve his sexual frustrations by getting laid. They think they have kept this a secret from Jenny, but she knows all about it but seemingly doesn't care. Keith is the best keeper of secrets at the school, because he sees all, understands all, and yet gives no hint that he does. And no one tells you anything about it because—

Well, you helplessly conclude, because they think you are an oblivious idiot who notices nothing and would say exactly the wrong thing to the wrong person if you did.

You thought you were the character in one show, but it turns out you were a very different character in a very different show. It's pretty goddamned depressing.

Your only hope is that there are positive aspects of this story that you don't know about. Like, maybe there's someone who crushes on you the way James crushes on Jenny, but no one has bothered to tell you. But is that hope? As you finger it in your imagination, it feels a lot more like cope.

Then, the next morning you find out that you are a lot more oblivious about other things as well.

* * * * *

"I thought you got something last week!" Caleb cries out after you confess your inadequacy as a high school student at lunch. "Didn't you—? Last Wednesday or something, I wanted to do something after school, but no, you said you had to—"

"Yeah, I did go out and get something," you interrupt. "But I changed my mind about it."

"Well unchange your mind and give to Walberg," he fumes. "You can't unfuck yourself, but you can at least— I don't know!"

It's that time capsule assignment. You wandered heedlessly into first period that morning and fell into your desk with your phone, and didn't remember that today was the deadline for submitting something for the time capsule until Walberg made his "last call" for the assignment. You almost threw up on the spot.

He was very kind about it, though, at least by his standards. When you confessed to him—at the start of lunch, because you were too much of a chicken-shit to talk to him right after class—that you'd forgotten your submission at home, he only barked at you for your incompetence and growled that he'd take a full letter grade off your final grade, but that he'd accept your submission if you got it to him by five o'clock.

Now, having joined Caleb and Keith behind G wing, you tell them how fucked you are, because you still have no ideas, even when up against this deadline, about what to give him.

"So what were you gonna give him?" Keith asks. He's chewing a sandwich with his mouth open, and regarding you from under heavy lids.

"A book I found. But come on, guys, give me some ideas!"

"What was wrong with the book?" Caleb asks.

"It was just a dumb thing."

"Then why were you going to give it to him?"

"I wasn't! I mean, I changed my mind. It was just a brain fart on my part. I was at the bookstore and I saw this book, and I was all, like, fine, I'll just him that."

"So just give it to him," Keith says. "It sounds like a dumb fucking assignment anyway."

"'Cos he's gonna give me a D if I give him that book!" you yell. "And then he's gonna slice a letter grade off and flunk me! Ideas, guys! Ideas!"

But they give you nothing. Caleb is too disgusted with you to help, and Keith is too lazy.

But then Keith does get an idea, which he suggests to you after final bell, when he stops to lounge at your locker as you're frantically changing out books.

"So," he says, "how about you give your teacher a bottle of wine? For your whatsits assignment you forgot about," he adds when you whip around to stare at him in astonishment.

"A bottle of wine?" you exclaim.

"Sure. Something that'll— You said the thing's gonna get buried? So it'll age inside the box, underground. That's what wine does, doesn't it? Or—" He shrugs, and runs his tongue around inside his mouth. "Your teacher'll steal it for himself, and he'll give you a good grade because you gave him a bottle of booze."

"I don't have a bottle of wine!"

"You don't got one at home you can lift? So we'll go buy one."

"I can't buy spirits!"

"Then I'll buy it for you, I got an ID. Dude," he reproaches you. "I'm trying to help you out."

He is being helpful, you'd have to admit, especially after he agrees to front you the money because you won't have enough. So you agree.

Reluctantly, but you agree.

* * * * *

You've got cold feet the whole time, though, so you insist on stopping by your house first. Keith, who is riding in the truck with you—he's going with you, as he'll have to do the buying—asks how come.

"In case this doesn't work out," you tell him. "I'm going to get that thing I was originally going to put in. That way we've got a back up if your ID doesn't work."

"Dude, you're gonna jinx it," he says. "But I dunno, maybe that's smart. I don't know where it is in my room. Oh yeah, forgot to mention, we're gonna have to stop at my place too."

You could strangle Keith sometimes.

He slouches in his seat with his feet on the console, and studies the book you picked up after you are on your way to his. He flips through the open pages in a desultory way; tries prying the other pages open; holds the book up to sniff it; and finally asks, "The fuck is wrong with this thing?"

"I dunno, it was like that when I bought it."

"Then why'd you buy it? I don't even think it's a real book."

"It was cheap. Arnholm's had it marked at two hundred dollars, then dropped it to two when I pointed out the pages were stuck together."

Keith whistles.

"Well, it seems kind of an interesting thing, on that account. So why don't you turn it in to your teacher?"

"I thought we were going to get a bottle of wine?"

"Dude, do whatever you want. Though if you really don't want this thing, I can take it off your hands."

"What do you want it for?"

"I dunno. I'm just saying I'll take it off your hands."

* To let Keith have the book: "A Double-Cross from Keith" 
* To put the book in the time capsule: "A Premature Resurrection" 
* To keep the book for yourself: "The Mystery of the Evaporating Spirits" 

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