The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

Whose Life Is It Anyway?

Previously: "Jujitsu" 

It figures that a fucking Oriental like Gary Chen would know how to jujitsu you: If you don't do as he demands, he'll stick the responsibility for his old life onto you permanently.

And now you know why he picked Chelsea's face yesterday: He can force you to do all that work for him; he doesn't have to lift a finger; and he'll be happy where he is if you decide to "punish" him by leaving him where he is. Fucker.

But the worst part is the way Chen is now trying to rope Caleb back in.

"It's Kirkham or Johansson," Chelsea continues. "I'm being really fucking nice, like blow-job-with-Chelsea-Cooper's-mouth nice, by giving you Johansson as an option. I figure as long as he knows all about this shit, you can use him. If you don't use him, you'll have to tell Kirkham about it all, and how we can use it to suck trust fund money out of the rich twats."

"How long do I have to decide?" you ask thickly. You just want this interview to be over with.

"You can say 'yes' anytime. I'll still be here." She smiles sweetly. "And you can say 'Fuck you sideways, asshole' as many times as you want, right up until the moment that you say 'yes'. I won't hold it against you, as long as you say 'yes' eventually."

You groan and writhe in place. How the hell did you manage to fool yourself into thinking you could outfuck Gary Chen?

"You can do that someplace else, Prescott," she says. "Right now I've got a fucking cheerleader squad to run, and a boyfriend everyone thinks has blown his brain on goof weed."

* * * * *

Everything is blown on goof weed, you decide as you stumble back downstairs. You want to get off someplace by yourself, unscrew your head from its shoulders, and let the world spin about without you for a little while.

Your passage back to the portables is like a review of all the crazy shit that's happened to you since finding the grimoire. As you exit the library you almost run into Lin Pol, and feel a sympathetic stab of Chen's anger at the way she treated him last year when he asked her for a date. In front of the cafeteria you spot Gardinhire in the company of Mansfield and Kelsey Blankenship and Anthony Kirk and others from the AP gang. Dane Matthias, incongruously, is only a few feet behind them, following them toward the cafeteria, and behind him are Kevin Hall and Erik Carstairs. Hall is a football player, but a junior, so you're helpless to dodge the thought: if Chen wants to set up a network in a lower class, Hall would be an obvious recruit. As you pass the office: "Hi Gary," a female voice calls, and you look over to see Molly Shaw, Faith Becker, Mindy McAdams and Elle Moore. They grin and giggle at you. You lower your head and press on.

Then comes the worst, after you charge out the front doors: On the quad between the office and the library are sitting six figures. Four of them are Jenny Ashton and Yumi Saito and Paul Davis and Keith Tilley. The fifth is Caleb, which causes a hard enough twinge.

But it's the sixth figure that stops you short.

It's Will Prescott.

He's in a long-sleeve shirt and jeans, wearing your cap, hunching forward and hungrily devouring a sandwich while listening intently to the others. No one seems to be paying special attention to him, though Caleb might be leaning in to talk to him more often than to the others.

During the last week, while he was suspended for pasting Jason Lynch in the face, you had gotten very used to the idea that you were both yourself and Gary Chen, that you could pretend to be Chen while not losing your own claim on your own identity. But the sight of someone with your face, sitting with your friends, occupying your space, now rocks you on your heels. This is what Dane Matthias felt when he saw that other Dane in the classroom; it's what Gary Chen felt when you pulled him from under the Jeep on Monday.

Bad enough that you feel your own claim to your own self weakening. But after your talks with Chen this morning, it feels as if both the identities you've been sporting for the last week have been challenged and usurped. How can you be either Chen or Prescott when both of them—in spirit or body—are so obviously manifesting?

You stumble, and almost sprint backwards toward the main doors of the school. Steve Patterson—another unwelcome reminder—looms, but you dodge him at the last moment. You rush down the hallway and explode out the entrance between the Vocational and Music wings. You're heading toward the portables, and are just passing the first, when you hear voices.

You're exhausted, more mentally than physically by now, and can't resist their siren call, though you recognize them. So you fetch up helplessly in the company of Jeff Spencer, Joshua Call, Jamie Rennerhoff, Jonas Martin, Luke Bennett—

And David Kirkham.

* * * * *

No one says anything as you slide into their circle. Maybe they're preoccupied by the subject of the conversation.

"That's why you keep that shit under control," Kirkham is saying in his soft, sneering baritone to the two basketball players. "Ain't no one gonna cross Black over what he done, but either of you cost us a game 'cos you're gettin' baked—" He's fiddling with something, but you don't recognize it until he raises it to his lips and seals it with his tongue: a joint. He holds it out to Martin, who takes it and hands back some folded bills in return. "You blow a game, and me and my friends—" He jerks his head at the cluster that includes Spencer, Rennerhoff and Call. "We'll take you out to Suffolk Wilderness and take turns folding each of you up into a dildo and using you to ass-fuck the other. That right, man?" he says, turning slightly toward you.

"Fuckin'-A," you reply. "We talkin' about the way Black's popped his screws all over the place?"

"And who was selling him this shit," Martin asks. He stares hard at you as he tucks the joint into his sock.

"Not me. You think I'm a dumbass," you reply. "I caught Patterson out here a day or two back, trying to beat some kind of sense into Matthias." You take a cigarette and lighter from your backpack. "My bet is it was him."

"Fucking Dane, there's another one's lost his shit," Rennerhoff says with a laugh.

"Why the fuck would Black be hanging out with Matthias?" Bennett asks. "They're same planet, different worlds types."

"Because that's who he was looking to score from," you reply. "If you're lookin' for bash and don't know where to get it, who do you go to?"

"You?" Bennett says.

"I said if you don't know where to get it. Matthias stinks of weed from ten miles away. Me," you say as you suck down a lungful of tobacco smoke. "I wouldn't put that poison to my lips if Chelsea Cooper stuck one up her cunny and told me to pull it out with my teeth."

A deep, reflective silence falls over the group as every guy—you included—visualizes the image you've just delivered. When Bennett speaks, his voice briefly cracks. "Funny to hear a salesman run down his own product."

"Eh, some people like it," you shrug. "You guys, Matthias. Some people can't handle it. That'd be Black, apparently. I don't especially like it, but the thing is I can't afford to get mixed up with it, even if I can handle it. I wonder if you assholes can afford to get mixed up with it either." You peer narrowly at them through cigarette smoke. "But I'm willing to bet I'm wrong. And I'd like seeing you prove me wrong. Anyways," you add as you pat your pocket. "After the pasting Patterson gives you during the week, everyone needs a little recreational shit to dull the edge."

"You know what pisses me off," says Kirkham. He plucks the cigarette from your fingers and takes a drag. "Cunts like Kelsey and Kirk, and the way they look down on— You should try placing some there," he tells you.

"Those fuckers won't even jam on Pop-Rocks," you snort.

"Kelsey does it with Karl," Rennerhoff sniggers. "That's what I hear. Does with some of the stuff you've been selling him, too," he adds with a sly wink at you.

"Yeah, well, I can see that," you mutter.

"I heard Anthony Kirk got caught with a joint," says Kirkham, turning to you. "Remember Connor Hutchison? You know him, he caddied at the country club."

"I remember him, but I never see him out there."

"He's working at a Starbucks now. Anyway he told me Kirk got busted out there with a joint. That's why I say—"

"What happened to him?" Bennett asks.

"Kirk? Nothing, of fucking course. It was only half a joint anyway. But that's how come I'd like to see you them set up. Think what you could take offa them rich fucks." He snaps a finger in your face; you brush it away. "I'd fuck 'em over too, extra surcharges, lots of loose stuff, make it hard for 'em to hide it, they'd lose a lot of it trying to roll it, pile up so much on them they can't keep track of it, so when you slip a little more into their locker and leave a tip in the office— Bam!" He claps his hand, and the bang of it resounds. "They can't deny it 'cos they think they did leave it there. 'Course I'd wait till I'd sucked as much cash off 'em as I could."

That settles it, you're not bringing Kirkham into Chen's plot.

Next: "Taking Care of Business" 

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