The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

The First Day of Another Life

Previously: "Where the Money Comes From" 

Your "mother" won't like seeing you go out again, not with Physics and Marketing homework hanging over your head, and she especially won't want you going off to see a guy whose clothes smelled like burnt marijuana. Besides, Chen could try calling his old cell if he really wanted to find you.

As you settle into the living room with a padded writing table in your lap, you wonder why he hasn't tried calling. Probably because he doesn't know there's a fake "Gary Chen" walking around, you decide. Asking for himself when he stopped by was probably only an excuse so he could test his parents' reaction to his new look.

The homework is boring, but Gary's got some pretty good powers of concentration when he needs them. You find yourself distracted a couple of times as you notice his neat handwriting flowing out the pencil you're guiding. I'm Gary Chen, and I'm doing "my" homework, you think to yourself. When you were dealing with Evans and Kirkham and the others you were too intent, and too lost in the guiding flow of Chen's intelligence, to feel self-conscious. Now, though, you've more opportunity to touch and rub the sense of change in your position and circumstances. You separate more fully from him, in a way that leaves you feeling slightly disoriented.

You work until nearly one in the morning--for you've also the grimoire to study--then pull out the bed and quickly fall asleep. The alarm is set for six-thirty, for you've morning medical chores to help with.

* * * * *

You sleep in a pair of track pants, and that's what you're wearing the next morning as you help your mother move the old man to the toilet, and wipe him down afterward. If Gary weren't so inured to it, you'd probably have thrown up. Luckily, the old man is in a docile mood, and only mumbles a handful of feeble curses in Chinese instead of throwing his arms about, as he often does. And as you handled the tissue paper needs, you're immediately excused thereafter to shower and clean up. Then comes a quick breakfast with the whole family in the sickroom. Mr. Chen asks his own perfunctory questions about school work, and you give your own perfunctory answers.

School ought to be a relief from the home life, but it isn't. Not usually.

* * * * *

As you glide across the front quad of the school, alert for trouble from any quarter, you've cause again to marvel at how much easier it is to play someone's part when you've got that someone with his chin on your shoulder and hands over yours (as it were), guiding you along. Take what you're doing now, for instance. You enter the library by the side door, and after making a cursory, pretend search on the catalog terminal, pull down a book from a top shelf in a back corner: Aspects of Ancient Persian Life, a book that Chen had carefully researched not for its content but for its lack of popularity. Not once, he found, had it been checked out in eight years; probably he's the only one who has ever opened it. You open it now and furtively slip a baggie holding sixth eighths into its back pages. You return it to its shelf, and peruse a few more titles, just to make things look proper; then you head out behind the music wing for a quick, lonely smoke while plotting out the day's transactions. You think you can get most of today's supply placed, since it's the start of a new round, and some of your best customers have been without for a few days.

Take the prospects in first period English, for instance. Adrian Semple and Keith Hennepin are regulars; if they've enough on them today, you could drop all six on them, maybe. There's also Justin Roth. He has his own supplier someplace--maybe he knows and gets his shit from Dwayne direct--because he swallows shit you don't dare traffic in. But he sometimes picks stuff up from your network.

There's also the sports teams. Patterson tries to keep the basketball team clean, but Luke Bennett, who represents the squad in first, dresses like a thug and would probably take some. A better gamble is the football team, though they get their supply from you know not where. Better not try dropping any on their representatives in first period, though: Cameron Huber or Marcus Johnson are pretty square.

Then there's Molly Shaw, who's sulking in the back as you enter the room. She's a talker, so you don't like that she knows she can buy from you; so with her you pretend you only use the stuff but can be persuaded reluctantly to part with an eighth at cost. She's the very definition of "casual user," but she's looking stressed (apparently she's had another baby scare), so she might be looking for relief. Mm. If you play it right, make her feel good while sharing the experience with her, maybe you can give her grounds for another scare?

But if you were looking for that kind of play and that kind of playdate, you'd set it up with a girl who's not in the class, but who, toward the end of class, walks past the window every day, to the delight of every guy in the room: Andrea Varnsworth. She's the captain of the swim team, and she has been smoothed and sculpted by the water into a form that begs for caressing by something other than the waves. She's tall, with large, firm breasts that she always keeps covered in school; a tummy curved just the right shape for clasping with two hands; wide hips; and strong, tapering legs. Summer has been good to her, so that she has an evenly bronzed tone, and her tawny hair has streaks of light gold in it. The killer, though, is her face, which is a little pinched and a little wolfish, maybe, but which she keeps raised and turned from all comers. If her body is the prize, her expression--and the attitude of ethereal disdain it wears--is the challenge to be overcome.

Chen has never dared talk to her, but you've got guts he hasn't--didn't you go on a couple of dates with Eva Garner under another guy's face?--and between you and Chen you know at least how to approach her, even though the chances of making any kind of a score are so small you'd need to start dozens of places to the right of the decimal to measure them.

Today, as always, heads swivel when she appears outside, walking slowly down the sidewalk that runs between C and E wing. You stare with watering eyes, forgetting the teacher droning on at the front of the room, and hunch over in your desk, nursing the erection. After she's gone you catch Fred Hildown staring at you. "Fuck are you lookin' at?" you hiss at him, and he looks away. No point trying to talk the track star into sucking some smoke into his lungs.

* * * * *

English is boring: If you wanted to know how the Trojan War turned out, you could rent 300. (They both got Greeks in them, right? Must be the same story.) When the bell rings, you let the evergreens Semple and Hennepin go in one direction while you trail Roth out. "Yo, didn't you got a more fun place to be last period," you murmur at the back of his neck. "You run outta fun times?"

"Sometimes you gotta go to class," he rumbles in reply.

"Not you, man, you're too cool to school, right? If you're running a little short on fun I got some I can lend you."

"Lend?" he asks skeptically as the crowds jostle you. He doesn't have to ask what you're inviting him to borrow.

"You got any dimes on you?" you ask, drawing up close so you can speak directly into the side of his head. "No biggie if you don't, I know you're good for it. Pay in installments. Or get your friend Small to cover for you. Get some for him, too."

It's not Chen's style to let people pay later for stuff now—except, of course, with the first few purchases—but Roth has never come to Chen, and always let Chen come to him; a gentle manner is about the only way to get him to pay. "Tomorrow, maybe," he says.

"Collect now, pay tomorrow," you say. "Bring me fifteen, twenty dimes tomorrow, the balance over the rest of the week. Today I'll give you--" You scratch your cheek with two fingers.

Roth hesitates, then nods. "When?"

"Meet me back of A-wing fourth period, we'll share some baloney."

Someone bumps you in the shoulder, and you turn with a snarl, but it's only a sophomore. When you turn back around, Roth has moved on. You don't pursue him, though, for Gordon Black is looming up ahead. You pause.

That's definitely not the Gordon Black that you or Chen or anyone else is used to seeing. Usually he bulldozes through the halls with a lowered head and a glower. Today he's bulldozing through, but more carelessly than forcefully, as though he doesn't realize he's knocking people around. His countenance is bright and open, and his eyes are shining with a kind of innocent wonder. Hasn't Matthias gotten used to his new position yet? you wonder with some irritation. It can't be such a novelty anymore, being so tall and powerfully built.

You press against the side of the hall as he passes. You don't need to dodge him particularly, for Matthias wouldn't be stopping to talk to Chen anyway: Dane had no idea who was picking up and returning that briefcase every month. But you feel very shy around your victims.

Even the indirect victims. Jason Lynch, looking a lot more surly than his friend, trails in Black's wake, and his face still bears the marks that "Will Prescott," to everyone's astonishment, put on it.

Next: "People Who Won't Lay Down ..." 

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