The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

Breaking a Habit You Never Had

Previously: "The Place Where the Monster Lives" 

Gordon Black's family lives in a small brick house on a shady street in one of the older neighborhoods. That doesn't mean it's a nice house or a nice neighborhood. It seems shabby and worn, and the moddish architecture on some of the houses -- glass bricks and whimsically sloped roofs -- give it the air of a "community of the future" whose time came and went thirty years ago. But it's a good neighborhood for the lower middle class, you suppose, and people probably like that there's a prowler parked every night in front of the Black residence.

You, though, are terrified by the cop car, and by the cop who drives it.

Gordon Black's dad isn't short, though he seems short to you, since you're wearing a copy of Gordon Black's body, and Gordon is six-and-a-half feet tall. But Mr. Black has a barrel chest and meaty arms, and if that weren't bad enough he's got a pistol on his belt.

But none of that is as bad as his eyes, which are dead and flinty. His buzz cut bristles. And his face is almost black with anger.

He is pissed at you about something, and he hasn't even been home for more than three minutes. He has just told you to fetch the "switch" from the "shed."

That would probably be around back.

There's a wooden fence around the side yard, but there's a gate in it, and on legs that shake you go through it into the back yard. In the far corner is a metal shed. The walk to it seems infinitely long, and but you make it in a horrifyingly short amount of time. Long before you're ready to face what comes next, you close your fingers on the door handle and tug it open.

Inside is a lawnmower and lots of gardening implements. Only now do you realize you've no idea what the "switch" will look like. Will it be a stick, or will it be a strap?

You look over each item in the shed, ruling out trowels and shears (and the lawnmower) until nothing plausible is left except a bamboo cane. You shudder as you grasp it. It is hard, but flexible. Your ass tightens in anticipation.

You slide the shed door shut and turn around. Gordon's dad, with hands on his hips, is in the yard, looking around at the grass. As you approach him, you're terrified that he'll tell you it's the wrong thing, but he accepts it when you hold it out.

"Do you know why we have to do this?" he asks you quietly.

"No sir." You'd say "yes" but you're afraid he'll ask you the reason, and then you'll get an extra whipping for lying.

"That's why you're getting an extra stripe," he says. "Do you know why you're getting the first stripe?"

"No sir."

"And that will be good for a third. Then I'll explain it all to you, and you can meditate on your failings."

Three whacks. This is insane.

Make yourself more trouble than you're worth. That voice sounds again.

Gordon is eighteen years old. He's an adult. You know this because you looked at his driver's license while stopped at a light.

"Turn around."

You oblige. He's bigger than his dad. Why does he accept this abuse?

"Bend over."

You bend over. What can his dad do? Kill him? Gordon can surely take any physical blows his dad can dish out. But can you?

"Drop your shorts."

You freeze. His dad is going to break the skin if you do that.

Make yourself more trouble than you're worth.

"I said -- "

You straighten up and turn around in time to see the switch swinging toward you. Instinct -- crappy instinct, maybe, but instinct nonetheless -- takes over. You catch the switch at its base.

For a moment you and Gordon's dad stare at each other.

Then you wrench the switch from him.

Hardly knowing what you're doing, you break it in half. It's like snapping a piece of dried spaghetti.

The older man's eyes go very wide.

By now it's like an out of body experience: You take a step forward and stare down unblinkingly into his face.

There's a buzzing in your brain, but you don't back down, for you are also intensely conscious of just how big you are, and though Gordon's dad is also big, you can sense how hard it would be for him to break you physically.

He stares back, and you can sense the intense willpower as he tries to daunt you. But this isn't your dad, and you don't even have to remind yourself that he has no hold over you, except that of physical force. And you're willing to gamble he doesn't want to try that.

But if it comes to a fight, could you overmaster him? You clench your jaw as you weigh the thought.

And maybe that very tiny flash of determination is what ends the battle. You see it in the older man's eyes, and in his lips, which whiten: Fear -- terror, even -- comes into his face.

Someone is breathing heavily, and you realize it's him.

Little ropes of saliva show in his mouth when he opens it. "I told you to mow the lawn."

"No you didn't," you reply. It's God's own truth -- he's never seen you before -- but you're sure either Gordon or Caleb would have mentioned it if he had.

"I told you to mow the lawn," he growls again.

"No you didn't," you repeat, this time with contempt.

Then he surrenders: "You should have known to."

"How? Am I psychic?"

And he blinks. And blinks again, hard. He turns abruptly away and walks stiffly to the sliding glass door in the house. He opens it and goes inside.

For a minute you pace the back yard. Your muscles are tense, but your joints are quivering. You wonder if you've actually won or just gotten a reprieve. But it seems best not to throw away the advantage you seem to have won. Besides, it comes to you how you can win some protection and also continue your defiance.

So you follow him in. He's standing in the small living room, staring at a bookshelf. He doesn't turn at your entrance, but you feel his eyes on you as you pass him, and go down the short hallway to the room where you'd earlier dropped the book bag.

Against the rules Gordon had outlined, you shut the bedroom door firmly.

* * * * *

For thirty minutes you work on homework, then when you're hungry venture out into the house for food and further acts of small but telling defiance. Gordon's mom -- Gordon told you -- is off visiting her sister on the other side of the country, so it's just the two Black men. His dad is in the kitchen at the sink when you come in, and he raises his head fractionally at your entrance. You ignore him and take a platter of cold chicken from the refrigerator. You pile a few pieces on a plate, adding apple sauce and pickles and a few green onions. Gordon's dad stands frozen at the sink as you prep this meal with the refrigerator door standing wide open. You leave it open, and you leave the food on the counter with the lids off, as you take the plate into the living room, where you turn on the TV and eat on the couch. You ignore him when he comes into the doorway to glower at you. Eventually, he gives up and leaves.

He's sitting at the bar with a plate of his own and a book when you bring your empty plate back in. Instinct tells you not to push things too far, so as he watches you wash off your plate and put it in the dish washer, and you clean out the sink. You rinse and squeeze out the sponge. You soap and wipe down the counter. You dry it with a paper towel.

Then you crumple up the paper towel and drop it on the countertop. Neither you nor he speak as you return to your room and shut the door again.

* * * * *

Around eight o'clock you get a text from Jason Lynch: waht we doing weekend?

You text back: figure out later

An hour later you get a text from Steve Patterson, asking if you can talk on the phone about team business. You reply: no. talk tmorrw practice.

He texts back: someone break your thumbs? but you don't reply.

At ten o'clock your phone rings. It shows Will Prescott's number, so you answer. "How are things going out there?" he asks.

You're not sure what to tell him, so you only say, "Okay."

"My dad pissed at you?"

"I think so, but we haven't talked since he got home."

"You following those rules?"

"Pretty much."

"That's not good enough, Prescott," he says, and he would sound frightening except in your voice it comes out as a whine.

"It seems okay for right now. How are things at my place?"

"They're good. Your brother's getting on my nerves -- "

"Then that's normal. By the way, do you have any kind of social life? I've only heard from two of your friends."

"Funny, I haven't heard from any of yours. Do you have a social life?"

"Well, if we haven't got anything to tell each other, I should -- "

"We got one thing to talk about," he says. "That book. You know, the one you showed me yesterday."

Your heart flips. "What about it?"

"Well, who's going to keep hold of it? Because it occurs to me that whoever is big enough and strong enough will probably grab it anyway. You know who that would be, right?"

That kind of boasting sounds very funny in your voice. "That would be you," you say dully.

His reply startles you: "If we were fighting about it tonight, it would be you."

That's true.

"So here's what I'm thinking," he says. "Whoever's wearing my mask gets to hold onto the book. So if you want to keep hold of it, keep wearing my mask, filling my spot at home. Or, if you want out after tonight, you can let me have it."

Next: "A Brief Return to Normality" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"