The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

Making New Made Men

Previously: "Chen's Boyfriend Trouble" 

You wrestle with the idea of talking to Gordon Black—the guy you've trapped in the role of "Will Prescott"—for you wonder what he's been thinking and how he's been adapting to his role. You wonder if Chen has said anything to him, about the masks and who victimized him. You're tempted to sound him out.

But you decide to leave well enough alone. Bad enough that "Will Prescott" got suspended for a week for beating the crap out of Jason Lynch; you don't want him suspended for a month for doing the same to you if you got him pissed at you.

So you return to the job that was interrupted by lunch: making some brain bands. If Chen wants to put Evans and Thomason and Mendoza under some other faces, you can oblige. In fact, you've figured out a way to do so that won't disrupt things too badly. It'll be tricky, but—

Actually, the trickiest part is that you have to work at home. To save money, you have to play nurse on Saturdays to your grandfather. Back at the house, you sit by his bedside and hunch over a metal strip, carving runes into it; the old man makes gabbling noises, and his arms sometimes flail, but he's mostly quiet, being distracted by the TV and the Chinese tele-dramas playing on the DVD player. Your mom asks you at one point what you're doing; you tell her it's for Marketing class, a fake product you have to invent and develop an ad campaign for. That wins her approval, though she plainly has no idea what kind of product you think you're developing.

It's long and tedious work, and by five o'clock you've only got two of them done. You text the three motherfuckers who help you deal, and tell them you're postponing the meeting until tomorrow afternoon. Your dad relieves you of nursing duties after supper, and you grab up homework—so the excuse of a study session looks legitimate—and race back over to the elementary school. There you're able to finish the third band and to make and buff three masks before knocking off at eleven.

Kirkham calls at one point, interrupting you while you're still carving runes into the last brain band. "The fuck are you doing?" he asks. "Thomason's on his way over here."

"Then what do you need me for? You think my cock's tastier than his?"

"I don't want this fucker over here. Come hang out here too, or take him off my hands."

"I'm busy."

"So'm I. I'll come over and we'll get our shit done together."

"Sorry, this is solo work."

"How long does it take you jack off?"

"Longer when I've got your voice in my head. This weekend is shot for me, man."

"You got time for chollos like Mendoza. He told me you're supposed to hang out with him tomorrow, were supposed to hang out with him today."

"That's business, and what I got going on is kicking my ass so hard I had to put it off. Next weekend I'll have a chubby you can blow, promise."

He signs off, grumbling.

* * * * *

Thomason and Mendoza, believe it or not, have church the next morning, so you won't be able to set up the meetings with them until two. You put the time to use, though, with another trip to the elementary school. Your heart leaps when you see that the fire is out, but the grimoire warned that it might need to be relit: the spell won't be complete until the pile doesn't relight. You toss a match onto it, and to your disappointment purple flames bloom off it. They continue to burn for the next five hours as you make and polish three more masks.

Then it's time to meet with the dipshits.

You'd staggered the meetings times in half hour increments, so that Evans arrives at two o'clock, thirty minutes before Mendoza is due, and an hour before Thomason. You're lurking by the corner of the gym when Evans pulls into the lot, and with a jerk of the head you lead him back past the tennis courts toward the portables. "So, what's the deal?" he asks.

"We're changing the network around, gonna set you guys up with some new markets."

"I already have a good market," Evans says.

"You're only selling six eighths a months," you tell him. "You're gonna start selling three ounces."

He gasps. "I can't!"

"Sure you can, when you see how I've got it set up. In here." You open the door to the infamous portable for him. He goes inside.

You follow, and when you're over the doorstep you catch him from behind with a brain band.

* * * * *

You catch Mendoza the same way at two-thirty, and Thomason at three. In Evans's and Mendoza's cases, after they recover to glare confusedly about, you tell them to "go get a shake or a blow job someplace" and to be back at three-fifteen. They're punctual, banging on the door to the portable just as Thomason is sitting up on the teacher's desk and looking around groggily. They look at you suspiciously as you beckon them inside.

"Shake it off, fuckers, and sit down. You're about to have your minds blown," you tell them from the front of the room. They look at each other, and shuffle into some desks.

"Never mind where I found this stuff, or how I figured out how to do it," you continue. "You ask me any questions like that, I already got an answer. The answer is 'Fuck you'. Understand? Your job is to do what I tell you, to fuck who I tell you, to fucking deal and roll like I tell you. You're gonna have fun, but you're working for me. I own your fucking souls now, with or without your permission."

Their eyes narrow, except for Evans, who just looks confused.

You hold up a brain band. "You see this? You fucking see this, Mendoza? What is it?"

He glowers. "A metal strip?"

"That's what it looks like. Check out the other side." He catches your toss, and his eyes widen as he looks down at it. The other two, who flank him, lean in. Soft murmurs go up, and they take turns trying to touch the name GEORGE EDUARDO MENDOZA that floats in blue letters above its surface.

"You know what that is?" you ask them. "That's your fucking brain, Mendoza, what there is of it. It's every memory you ever had, from the first birthday party you remember to the last time you jacked off, all the way up until two-thirty, when you walked through that door. That's what I did to you when you came in, I slapped that little motherfucker on your head. It's like a fucking memory stick, and it sucked up everything you got inside here." You point to your temple. "It's a portable installation of George Eduardo—nice middle name, by the way, asshole—Mendoza. And I got one of you, and one of you, too." You toss brain bands to Evans and Thomason. Thomason hangs on to his. Evans drops his on the desk, and recoils from it.

"And that's not all I lifted from you ass clowns." You hold up a mask, one of three that you made when you had them. "Check it out, pretty cool, eh? Take a close look at it. You see a face inside it?" You hand it to Mendoza, and the other two scoot in close to peer into it too. When their expressions change, you speak again. "That's right, it's Thomason. I put a copy of his face in that thing. I put a copy of his whole body inside it. I'm an artist. Except I'm not.

"This is magic, you faggots. What you're looking at is a magical disguise."

* * * * *

So then you explain it to them, in broad terms, and answer the good questions you care to answer, and the bad questions with "Fuck you, that's what." You explain that the brain bands copy brains and the masks copy bodies; that you can put the two of them together to make a perfect disguise; and you let Mendoza, who's the smallest of the trio, put on the mask of Thomason, who's the tallest. "Go on, touch him, feel him, rub him, like you want to, you homos. Feel yourself up, Thomason, give yourself a blow job." They all look very green, but also fascinated.

"Now here's what we're going to do," you tell them. "These brain bands, they're only good up until three o'clock. They don't got any of your memories after that, which means they don't got any memories of what I just told you. Now, what we're going to do is, we're going to put Thomason's brain band and Thomason's mask together, and we're going to put it on someone else. Not one of you faggots, but on another poor asshole at this school. And he's gonna wake up and find that he's got Thomason's body and Thomason's brain, and he's gona have no choice but to go around jacking off like he's Joseph Terrence Thomason. He's gonna take your place, fucker, and for lack of anything better to do, he's gonna act like you."

You poke Thomason in the chest. "And you are going to take his place, because we're going to make a mask and brain band of that poor fucker. We're going to turn you into him. You're gonna replace him, and you're gonna start dealing as him. Dealing more than you ever did, because he'll be in a better position to make us some serious cash."

"Who?" Thomason says in a voice that is very weak. "Who am I—?"

"Part of that's your choice." You gaze around the room. "One of you is gonna transfer to Eastman, turn himself into a fucker over there named Chris Trantham. Another one of you is gonna move down to the junior class, take over for Kevin Hall. The last one of you—"

You haven't quite decided, for you're torn by two choices. One is Justin Roth, who you'd already identified as a good potential dealer. But if you can get away with it, you'd really like to turn the third guy into Andrea Varnsworth.

Next: "Mystery Date" 

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