The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

The Coming of Gary Chen

Previously: "Change for a Chen" 

You rise from sleep like a shark breaching the ocean surface. Someone is shaking you, and the side of your fist--did you swing your arm?--connects with something hard but a little yielding. You sit up and look around.

You're parked next to the old elementary school; Caleb is rubbing the side of his jaw and giving you a wounded, reproachful look. "So, does this mean you're Gary Chen now?"

"Ungh." You put your face in your hands, but it doesn't help. Your clothes crawl all over your body, like they're made of insects. You brush and pat and pull at them, trying to get comfortable.

And then you're hit by that wave of nausea and dizziness, like you had yesterday when waking under Caleb's mind-strip.

It wells up and spills over you, over the crown of your head, down your limbs, and into your lungs and guts. You bend double, first with sickness and then with fear, for his approach is awful. He's dark and shrouded and baleful as he creeps up behind and wraps himself around you like a full-body veil. Your mind unravels, and you reel as new threads entwine with old; you turn and fall and twist; but when the sense of motion ceases you find yourself standing again on firm and familiar ground, though with a new horizon about you. You open your eyes, and are enveloped by an overpowering sense of something like déjà vu—a sense that you're looking at and remembering things twice over. Briefly you are of two minds about where you are and what you've been doing, but with only a tiny spasm of willpower you bring them into alignment. You suck in a deep breath, and exhale. "Yeah I'm here. Let's have a look at our shit," you say, and get out of the car.

You're sharply aware of Caleb's movements as he follows you to the basement door, though you only watch him from the corner of your eye. Fucking stupid to let them make that play back in the portable, you can't help feeling; but you also can't help feeling glee at having bested Chen. You kick the ground impatiently as Caleb fumbles the key into the lock. "Snap it up there, Johansson," you say.

"Don't be an asshole, Will," he replies. His tone is quieter than the one he usually takes with you, you notice.

"Hard for me not to be under the circumstances, you know?"

"Don't overdo it. You're just playacting, and you're with me."

The dizziness hasn't completely faded; maybe that's why you feel not quite in control of yourself. "If this is playacting, I'm doing a pretty good job convincing myself," you retort, and push past your friend once he's got the door open.

You pause halfway down the interior steps, and blink away a distressing portrait of home life you'll be returning to. Mnh, that's not gonna be fun. But Chen's dealt with it before, and you're sure you can too.

Because as you test the wooden stairs under your boots, everything firms and tightens up. This feels natural, you think to yourself. This feels right. "Is the shit still in that desk?" you ask. "Get it out while I make sure I got my gear on right." Caleb makes a face, but you ignore it to shove your way to the back where the full-length mirror is.

And there he is; or, there you are: Chen Guangli, or "Gary Chen," as the Americanization has it. Grandfather didn't come to the United States from China, he came via Indonesia, but there's still the pressure to conform to the old ways, even in these days of the old father's physical and mental decrepitude. Not that the form staring back at you has anything like an "old ways" stamp to it. You shift about inside the jacket, resettling it; you adjust the belt and pants; and who the fuck put your boots on that way? You undo them and start over again, getting your cuffs just inside the tops before lacing them up again. And the cap: You pull it off, sending straight dark hair falling over your brows and into your face, over your ears and down the back of your neck. You slide the cap back on, pushing your bangs inside it as you pull it down to your eyebrows; but you tug the hair on the sides of your head and the back out further, so that it frames a face that narrows from wide-set eyes and high cheek bones down to a tapering chin.

One more pass over all the clothing gets it all in place and comfortable. You hike your shoulders, and realize you're tense all over. But you don't relax.

"Are you done yet over there, Confucius?" Caleb wearily calls.

Something taut and heavy, like a piano wire, snaps inside your head. "Confucius" is almost as bad as "fortune cookie" or "fried lice." Inside of four steps you're in Caleb's face and inside his defenses before he can bat feebly back. You jam him back against the wall and punch a hole in his gut; and since you've got a fistful of his hair in the other hand he can't bend double to cover the sudden pain.

You're about to deliver a second blow when you catch yourself; and though your muscles blaze with undischarged flame, you force yourself to release him, and your best friend sinks to the ground, groaning and puffing.

"Okay, I'm sorry about that," you say, but your tone is clipped, for that wave of anger is still receding; and you're also mortified at having let yourself be carried away by it. "But don't call me shit like that, okay? Instinct kind of takes over, I guess." Caleb glares up at you from under his eyebrows. "But, uh, I guess that's one reason Chen is such an asshole. Because for as long as he can remember people have been calling him names like that, thinking it's funny."

"No, I think he's just an asshole," Caleb retorts.

"Yeah, maybe," you admit. You flex and relax your fist thoughtfully. That sense of bifurcation is back, now that Chen has receded. You doubt he'd ever say it aloud, but you say it aloud for him as you retake control: "When you're always in a bad mood, it doesn't take much to set you off, you know? Anyway, yeah, I'm all set now." You look down at him, and can't help grinning. "Think I could pass as Chen now, you pudding-faced little shit?"

Caleb doesn't reply as he struggles to his feet. You step back, keeping out of range, tensing for a blow that you doubt will come, but you never know. Caleb gives you a sidelong glance as he returns to the desk where he's got the stuff set out.

You tch over the busted lock, but carefully study the contents. It looks like everything Dwayne promised, and he's never cheated his customers yet. But of course you'll have to double-check it. And after that?

"What are you going to do with it?" Caleb's question is your own.

And you let Chen answer for you: "I got my customer list, I can clear ninety percent of it by Wednesday, rest by the end of the month."

"Who buys that much?"

"Mostly morons at the college who don't know they could get it faster and cheaper from dealers on campus. Rest at school, one eighth at a time. 'Cept for one big customer there. Fuck me, but you'd never guess who buys fifteen ounces of this shit a month."

"Who?"

"Gardinhire."

It sounds like Caleb is trying not to swallow his tongue. "Gardinhire? Martin Gardinhire?"

"That's right, Mansfield's best butt-boy. I get five thousand a month from him."

"Ho! Lee! Fuck!"

"That's right. He's gotta be buying for his friends, you know, Mansfield and Kirk, prob'ly for some of the girls too." You laugh. "Fuck, I bet Kelsey's getting high with Hennepin every time they get together."

Caleb's brow crinkles. "What's this about Kelsey and Hennepin?"

"Oh, that's right, we didn't know about that." You grin. "Hennepin is fucking Kelsey, and they think they're doing it in secret. Or Kelsey thinks it's--"

"This is Blankenship we're talking about?" Caleb gasps.

"That's right. They're doing it in motels, and Kelsey thinks it's all a big secret between her and Keith, and maybe Amanda, I'm sure Kelsey's telling fucking Amanda about every sweaty little orgasm." Every orifice in your body clenches at the thought of those two cunts, an opinion on which you and Chen would be at one even without this merger of minds. "But every fucking one at Westside knows Hennepin's slipping his sausage between her buns and leaving a squirt of mayo behind. Everyone except you and me and Tilley, of fucking course." You spit on the floor.

You're dismayed by the wave of contemptuous bile that sweeps over you at the thought of Caleb Johansson, Keith Tilley, and Will Prescott. You're not the only three losers in the school--worms Chen and his gang can stomp without fear of trouble or retribution--but that's what you are.

"Anyway," you continue when Caleb maintains a thoughtful silence, "Gardinhire pays out five thousand a month, every month, for a portion of this shit, which is way more than he can be using himself."

"How long has this been going on?"

"With Gardinhire?"

"No, with Chen, how long has he been—"

"Since he was a fucking freshman. Dwayne, Dane's cousin? He was a senior that year, and he got Chen dealing it down in that class." The thought comes like a pang of conscience: I need to find a dumb little shit down there now, someone fucking stupid like I was, to start dealing it down there, so I can keep this up for the next few years. "Matthias acts as go-between, so there's nothing to directly connect Chen to Dwayne."

"How much does he make off this trade? How much can we make?" Caleb adds with undisguised cupidity.

You don't immediately reply. Given the situation, you could sell the whole stash, split the money with Caleb, and leave Chen's operation totally bankrupt. Crushing the asshole that way would be a sweet pleasure.

But you also know the facts behind his operation. And if you're going to spend any time playing this part--and you might have to--it might be better to keep things running the way they're supposed to be running.

Next: "The Operation" 

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