The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

Dark Talk on a Dark Night

Previously: "The Mother of All Suggestions" 

You don't want to get between Jamie and his mom's mask. But the way he keeps pushing it at you, he might get offended if you keep pushing it away.

"Okay, I'll go as your mom," you reply with what you hope sounds like casual indifference. "That'll be simpler than—"

But his eyes are already lighting up.

"Awesome!" he exclaims, and he leaps off the table he's been lounging on. "So, gimme one of them brainy-bandy things, and some summa that glue, I'll fix the mask right up for you! Oh my God!" He bounces around the basement on the balls of his feet. "This is gonna be so cool!" He chest-bumps you, knocking you back into your supplies, and the two of you have to spend the next ten minutes cleaning up the mess.

* * * * *

You schedule that shopping trip for Saturday, but there is one vital item on the list that you won't be able to purchase: four hundred pounds of earth taken from a graveyard. Jamie tries to wriggle out of helping you get it—he says there's some parties he wants to hit instead—but you insist on his helping. So, on Friday night, you meet up with him at a little before nine behind the Masonic cemetery on the west side of town. He's brought a box of sand bags to use in hauling the dirt away.

It's nasty, sweaty work, and it's particularly ugly because you've decided it's best not to take any chances, and break open the turf over a grave. Jamie has no more stamina than you, and soon you're both puffing hard as you dig. But it's not as spooky as you'd feared it might be—the swish and rumble of road traffic dissipates whatever sinister mood manages to gather—and not even Jamie's stab at a clumsy, improvised ghost story gets a rise out of you. If anything, it just makes you giggle, which sets him off giggling, and pretty soon you're wheezing away like a couple of asthmatics.

You pack the bagged dirt in the bed of your truck and transport it back to the school basement. Jamie had said he was planning to hit a party after helping you move the dirt, but now he says he's too wiped out to move. But he has the strength to go up and bring down a bottle of vodka from his car. Each of you takes a swallow, then you both settle atop the old conference table to nurse your aching muscles.

It's almost pitch dark in the basement, and the stuffy air smells of dank and dirt. Here, you feel, you could get spooked by a ghost story. The only sound is the scratch and scrape of your jeans as you and Jamie stretch your legs out and shift to get comfortable. But if the darkness could, with a little effort, be charged with menace, it is also conducive to intimacy and confession. If Jamie asked you a personal question, you almost might be relieved to answer it.

So you ask him a personal question. "Your dad wasn't home when I stopped by your place the other night," you say. "Was he working late?"

"I dunno," Jamie says. "Maybe. He lives on the other side of the country, though."

"Oh. Is your mom divorced?"

"Neh. Just not married." The vodka bottle gurgles.

"She never married your dad?"

"Nn-nn."

"So where's he live?"

"California, but he comes out to visit sometimes."

Jamie relates this without enthusiasm, but he doesn't sound resentful either, so you push on. "What's he do?"

"Teaches English at a university."

"So he's a professor?"

"I guess."

Seems kind of weird, you think. It's hard to square your stereotype of college professors with this picture of a guy fathering a child and letting the mother move thousands of miles away.

But before you can figure out a tactful way of asking more, Jamie jumps in with questions of his own. "What about your family? Who's in it?"

"Just me, my mom and dad, and my little brother. He's in junior high."

"Huh. What about your mom? Is she hot?"

You almost jump out of your skin. "Dude!"

Jamie snickers. "Come on, man. You gotta know if she's hot or not."

"I try not to think about it! Jesus!"

"Well," he says with a note of resentment in his voice, "thing is, I don't know any guys whose moms are hot."

"Well, don't go looking at mine!"

"So hat about your friends' moms? You got some friends, right? How come I not met anyone you hang out with?"

Because they wouldn't believe I'm hanging out with a guy who hangs out with psychotic freaks like Jeff Spencer. "'Cos I've been hanging out with you, working on this stuff."

"So how come you not shown 'em this stuff?"

"You want me to?"

"I 'unno. Who's your friends?"

"Caleb Johannson, Keith Tilley. Carson Ioeger and James Lamont," you add when the first two names elicit no recognition.

"Oh yeah?" Jamie's voice lights up. "I know them. They hang out with Jenny Ashton." The bottle gurgles again, then you feel him nudging you in the shoulder with it, so you take it. "You met their moms?"

"What's your deal with moms?"

He snickers again. "Ain't you never heard of MILFs?"

"Sure." You shift uncomfortably.

"So you know any? 'Cos I don't."

You suppress a sigh as one affirmative answer comes instantly to mind, and cover your discomfort by taking a pull on the vodka. "Yeah."

"Who?" Jamie's question sizzles with electricity.

"My friend Jeremy. Former friend Jeremy," you correct yourself.

"Yeah?" If the word came inside a word balloon, that balloon would probably glow like neon. "So tell me about her."

"I dunno. It's been a couple of years since I seen her."

"But you remember her," he urges.

"Sure. She was just shaped nice," you stammer. "All I remember is— Oh, fuck."

"Yeah?" Now Jamie's voice is charged with hysterical anticipation.

You sigh. But the darkness makes it easier to answer. "The first time I ever felt funny about a girl was over at his house, looking at her."

The darkness rings with Jamie's shrieks of laughter. "That's awesome! And you don't talk about MILFs?"

"Not with my friends! Do you?"

"Sure! It's one of the things we're always talking about. Who's got a MILF and how you'd like to fuck her!"

"But you said none of them have a MILF for a mother! So who do you talk about? Do they talk about your mom?"

Instantly you regret it. Why the fuck did I ask that? you yell at yourself. Now he's gonna think I want to fuck his mother! You brace yourself against being punched in the head.

But when Jamie speaks again, he says, "Well, yeah! 'Cos I got one! I know she's hot!"

You're staggered, and the only reply you can make is, "Well, I guess your dad thought she was hot, too."

Okay, maybe that was the wrong thing to say, because there's a chill in his voice when he says, "Sure, I guess. Everyone thinks she's hot."

And maybe you did put your foot in it, because when you say that you need to get home, Jamie with a short sigh says that he's going to try making it to a party. "See you here tomorrow around eleven?" he suggests. You grunt an affirmative, and together you trudge up and out into the cool night air.

At home, you pass your mom in the living room, where she's watching TV. You do your best not to notice if she's hot or not. But you have the feeling that Jamie would put her in the former category if he saw her.

* * * * *

Jamie is thirty minutes late getting to the elementary school the next morning. But what he lacks in promptness he makes up in cheerfulness. "Got all the kit you'll need," he chortles as he hefts a gym bag out of the cabin of his car. "Mask, clothes, everything!"

"Your mom's not going into town, is she?" you ask as you take the bag from him. "We don't want to run into her."

"Nah. Saturday afternoons she's got spinning classes and shit out at the gym." Jamie jerks his chin at you. "So you gonna go get changed so we can get started?"

You turn toward the basement door, but turn again at the top of the steps to stop him following you down. "Give me some privacy, okay?"

"Dude! I know what she looks like! I put the danged thing on myself!"

"Yeah, well, that was you. This is me." You ignore his groans and cusses, and pull the door shut behind you. But even though he stays outside, you hunt around for a dark corner out of sight to make the change.

You start by emptying the bag. Besides the mask it contains a sports top, spandex shorts, ankle socks and running shoes. You have to wipe your brow. Despite your reservations about this whole thing, you are getting excited, and your fingers are stiff and numb.

Next, you strip off your own clothes, and with trembling hands neatly fold them all up and lay them aside. Last, you lower your bony ass into a cold, dusty corner, and raise the mask. The name MEGHAN MARIE RENNERHOFF floats above the inner surface.

You suck in a deep breath, and pull it toward your face. Its curves seem to latch onto yours—there's a moment everything hangs—then like a living thing it seems to open a mouth and suck you inside itself.

Next: "Sons and Lovers" 

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"Table of Contents (Vol. 1)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)"