The Book of Masks (Vol. 1)

Friday Night Follies

Previously: "The Double-Dog Dare" 

You sold Andrew the book in order to get it out of your life, but you feel your nose—and your spine—almost your entire body—quivering with curiosity. The thing looked like a book of magic, you think. Could it really turn out to be one?

So despite your earlier trepidations, you nod at Andrew's suggestion.

"Sure thing," you tell him. "Later tonight?"

"Let's make it tomorrow. We'll have all day, and we can do it in the daylight."

"Okay, that'll work. So, you think— Um—"

"Let's go talk to your friend." Andrew pushes himself forward, and you jump back before he can run over your toe with his wheelchair.

* * * * *

You run Andrew's money back over to your house, and find your family eating dinner. (You had texted your mom to say that you and Caleb would be getting something to eat on Andrew's dime.) You give your dad the receipts and Andrew's envelope of cash; he tells you to wait while he adds the amount up and makes change for Andrew. That leaves you loitering by the dinner table with your mom and little brother.

"Umeko stopped by," Robert tells you. There's a light jeer in his tone. "You missed her."

You affect a shrug. Umeko is your cousin, a Japanese orphan adopted by your Uncle Scott and Aunt Mary. She's in college, and you and Robert each have an ill-disguised crush on her.

"She and Robert are going to see a movie tomorrow," your mother says.

"Yeah, which one?" Now you're feeling stung.

"Rat Race," Robert says. His expression now is undeniably smug.

You feel your jaw clench. Almost you are tempted to horn in and say you'll go too. But you've got that project with Andrew. So: "That's a kid's movie," you say.

"Umeko's not a kid," says Robert, "and I'm not either, and we're going!"

"Well, have fun."

Your dad returns before Robert can retort to your retort. "Oh, I told Andrew I'd help him with some stuff tomorrow," you tell him as you take the change. "If that's okay."

"That's fine with me." He settles back down to his dinner. "What's he working on?"

"Something with his garden, I think," you improvise.

"Andrew's putting in a garden?" your mother exclaims.

"I ... don't know. I just know he had me go by a greenhouse to pick some stuff up."

"I wonder what he'll be putting in." Your mother looks very intrigued.

* * * * *

Caleb is ready to go by the time you're back at Andrew's. It's Friday night, and once you're in your truck he asks if you want to go do something. "We could pick up Tilley," he suggests. Keith Tilley is another good friend of yours—you and he and Caleb make a kind of "Three Musketeers of Loserdom" club.

You grunt, for you're preoccupied with thoughts of Robert and Umeko, and the job to do with Andrew tomorrow. When you don't answer, Caleb pulls out his phone and says he'll see what Keith is up to.

The upshot is that you wind up picking up Keith at his place. "Wassup, hoes?" he drawls as he crawls into the truck with you and Caleb. Though is white and scrawny, for some unfathomable reason often tries to talk like he's ghetto, and it always comes out wrong and embarrassing. "Wanna try go scoring with some chicas?"

Well, that would be an idea. But you and your friends being who and what you are, your trio wind up at the miniature golf course by the mall.

Okay, it's not that much of a comedown from what Keith suggested. The Monte Viso Minigolf and Go-Kart complex has kind of a sketchy reputation. At least, it had a sketchy reputation when you were in elementary and middle school. It was the kind of place that your Sunday School teachers cautioned you against, because bad kids—the kind who smoked and drank beer and necked—hung out. So you grew up with visions of muscle-shirted thugs guzzling cans of Miller Lite and leering at skanky girls in skimpy shorts and halter tops, swapping cigarettes and doobies and giving each other giant hickies. It was all very enticing, and made Monte Viso a very cool-sounding and exciting place to hang out, which was the very opposite of what the church ladies were trying to do, and right up until the day you got your driver's license you anticipated having the freedom to sneak out to there to ogle those girls in their skimpy clothes and hang out with the cool guys who were trying to score with them.

Then, the first time you got out there, you discovered that it was full of high school teenagers who looked and dressed and acted just like you.

And they all looked mildly miffed and disappointed, just the way you felt.

Take the pack of kids who are at the eighth and ninth holes when you and your friends stroll out to the first. They look a lot like the kind of kids you imagined hung out here when you were in middle school. Four guys with sloppy, tangled hair, in sloppy shorts or dirty jeans, and a dozen girls in hip-hugging shorts and halter tops. One of the guys wears a white t-shirt that reads "I Hate My Parents and I Do Drugs." It looks like it was hand-written with a permanent marker.

They would hard core if they also didn't look like and act like sophomores.

You and Keith and Caleb try to ignore the jeers and the curses and the loud talk about pussy this and dickface that. Not that you and your friends are prudish. You all talk like that too. But it sounds so much worse coming from someone else, and so loudly. There's a middle-aged couple, fat and casually dressed, down near the sixteenth hole, and you can't help noticing how uncomfortable they look.

Eventually your group and the other kids converge when you're at the fourth hole and they make the turn at the eleventh. Up to this point it's been easy to pretend they're not there, but now it's very hard to ignore them, especially when you hear one of them jeer loudly to another about "those three dateless fucks."

You're lining up a shot, and after you make it—banking the ball off the side but missing the hole by a good three inches—you look up to see Keith giving you a very steady look. His face is reddening. Then the same voice calls out, loudly, "Yeah, I'm talkin' about you guys." You look over.

The speaker has a hard, ugly face with strong bones and a "come fuck with me stare" under a ragged bowl cut. His t-shirt is tight enough that you can make out the well-shaped pecs beneath, and veins stands out in each bicep. Instantly, he puts you in mind of some of the behind-the-school assholes you do your best to avoid at Westside: Joshua Call, David Kirkham, Brophy Maddox, Joe Thomason, Tanner Evans ... It's a depressingly long list.

Two girls, skinny and pink, loiter next to him, and smirk at you. The rest of the girls are also eyeing you, though not with the same contempt. The other guys—except for "I Hate My Parents", who just looks disgusted with you—exchange sly, knowing grins.

You don't know what to say, and neither do Caleb or Keith, obviously. You're stuck in an awkward silence until one of the skinny girls says, "You guys got any weed? I'll give you a blow job for some weed." Her grin is sallow, nasty.

"She will, too," hoots one of the guys. "Dude," one of his friends asks him, "so how come she's never blown you?" That sets off lots of giggles and a little fistfight.

But "Come Fuck With Me" keeps glowering at you. "You guys dickless or s'methin'?" he demands. He grabs one of the skinny girls by the waist and pulls her close. She giggles.

Caleb is looking at you when he says, "I'd have to fumigate anything you touch," but "Come Fuck With Me" hears it. "Wha'd you say, cocksucker?" he calls. He drops his hand from the girl and strides halfway to you. "You wanna say that to my face?"

It looks like a really bad moment, but "Come Fuck With Me" falters at the sight of something behind you, and with a black look steps back. "You just keeping fucking each other," he mutters as he rejoins his group. "Jerkwads." More giggles from his friends, but they are nervous giggles, and they turn your backs on you.

You turn to squint back at the low-slung hut where you got your clubs and balls. The guy who rented you the clubs—fat and bald, but bulging with muscles—has stepped out and is scowling at you all. You and your friends duck your heads and resume play. You take it very slow along the course, giving "Come Fuck With Me" and his friends plenty of time to finish their game, though they hang out in the clubhouse afterward, talking and cursing loudly among themselves as they shovel away the popcorn and play on the vintage arcade machines.

You and your friends hurry through to leave, and part for the evening soon after.

* * * * *

You're up by ten the next morning, for you made an early night of it, and are eating breakfast when Andrew texts to ask if you're ready to come over. You're about to reply Gimme thirty min t shower when it occurs to you that Caleb—with his interest in science, and who had that talk with Andrew about his work—might be interested in coming out to watch and help as well.

Next: "Not Your Normal Cookbook" 

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