Chapter #58What the Cool Kids Are Doing by: Seuzz   You let each of them make their case. You find Joe's appeals very glib, and he looks highly irked when you snort in his face. But you'd probably find Frank's arguments compelling in any case. "They're gonna know it's you who got the Libra back from under their noses, and stole all those masks," he says. "They're gonna come looking for you. Who do you want them to find when they grab you? Flirty McFlirtson?" Joe's eyes roll so hard you think you hear them squeak. "Or a guy who can make-- What was his name? That guy shit himself?"
So you take one of the blank masks you'd found in the loft and put it to your face, and as it's only six-thirty you're able to intercept your golem with a phone call so Frank can slip into its place. You eye him critically as he comes out of Joe's bedroom, looking like you and wearing the clothes the golem had brought. "Something wrong?" he asks, and you twinge at the raspy whine.
It's very strange, but you feel a lot more hurt and abashed to see your face when it's Frank wearing the mask than when it's a golem. Or when it was Patterson. "Just wondering if you find it a trade down," you mutter.
He gives you a hard look--one you doubt Jason Lynch would shit himself over--and adjusts the dirty cap perched on his thatch of hair. "It's what's inside that counts," he retorts, and lifts his bag to his shoulder. "Catch up to you guys after school."
"Don't run yourself down, Prescott," Joe says after he's gone. "Girls don't think it's attractive."
"Is that why you're always puffing yourself up around them, bragging about--?"
"When the truth helps, why not use it?" he laughs, and goes into the kitchen. "How do you like your eggs?"
"Scrambled. Oh, thanks. And it's not just girls." You hunch on a barstool near the stove. "I was telling Frank last night about why I didn't want to stop being you guys. About how you're so much better than me at everything. You're so fucking competent, so cool--"
You break off as Joe fluffs out one of those ridiculous paper chef's hats and puts it on.
"You're almost always so cool," you resume, diplomatically refraining from jeering at his headgear.
"Almost?" he asks. From his expression, it doesn't look like he's connected your subtle shift of adverbs to the hat.
"Well, you know, you've got that whole 'dumb-dumb' routine. Though even that's kind of cool, I guess, since it's fake."
"And it's fun." He points the narrow end of an egg at you before breaking it into a skillet. "I prefer having fun to being cool. Luckily, I can pull off both."
You bite your lip, still staring at the hat. "But you're so good at stuff."
"And we worked fucking hard to be. Once you're good at something, and stop worrying about being 'cool', coolness usually follows of its own accord. You ever work hard at anything?"
You slouch deeper and shake your head.
"Sit up, Prescott," Joe barks. "First rule of being cool is to hold your head up. Everyone looks 90% less cool when they're--" He sinks into an exaggerated slump and shoves his hands in his pocket and kicks mopily at the floor. "If I went around like this all the time," he says in a whine that you recognize as a perfect imitation of your voice, "it wouldn't matter that I'm big and blonde and good at basketball and wrestling and math and music, or that I look like--"
"A dork in that thing," you mutter.
"--the lucky first-born of Apollo and the Venus de Milo." He straightens up again. "I walk around like this, and everyone says, 'There's a guy who's got his shit sewed up tight'."
"So you're saying that if I walked around like that--"
"Nah, you'd still look a baby ostrich pretending to be a T-Rex. You also gotta have something you know you're good at. It's not just mind over matter. Matter matters, substance matters." He puts his hand on his hip. "Attitude just magnifies what you got, and when you got nothin', even a million times nothin' is still nothin'. Come on, you're good at something," he says, and sounds very earnest.
You try not to slouch again, and do feel a little bit better for having your chin up. But it's no use. "No. I've never found anything I'm good at, so--"
"So you just gave up. Brilliant. Life handed you a million Lego bricks, and you just said 'I can't do anything with these' and went off to sulk." His face lengthens. "So what do you like? That's the first step in getting good at something, finding something that you like."
"I dunno." You're feeling hounded now, like he's just going to keep yelling at you. "Girls," you say desperately as he continues to stare at you.
"Yeah, well, good luck there," he says. "You can't control what they like, you can only throw everything you've got at them and hope they like something that sticks to them. We're talking skill sets." He stirs the eggs. "You show a girl you got skills, and hope maybe she'll like them."
"And you and Frank have a bunch of those," you retort. You're not keen to return the subject to them and their advantages; you only want to get it off yourself and your lack of the same.
"And like I said, we worked hard for them. Mind you, we were also born with certain aptitudes, and-- And speaking of attitude and how you hold yourself," he interrupts himself. "You know why Frank can't get laid? Because of his attitude. He's got a fucking force field around him, and they just bounce off, usually with a broken nose. So what I'm saying--" He slides the eggs onto a plate and hands it to you. "Is that it's complicated, and you gotta think about what you need before you start trying to get it. After that, you just gotta work for it." He stands back with a triumphant smile, as though he's proved something very deep and important.
"Well, I know one thing I need," you say.
"First step in the process of self-improvement," he says. "Self-knowledge."
"I need a fork."
His cheek twitches, and he calls you a bad name while yanking open the silverware drawer.
* * * * *
He gets cleaned up while you eat, and then you get cleaned up, and you find him in the garage sorting through masks. "We'll have to figure out how to destroy these," he says. "They don't break easy." He whacks one against the edge of a work desk. "Is there anything in the Libra about--"
"I don't know. Caleb and I didn't find any way. Maybe Patterson did."
"Well, maybe we can recycle them some other way if Nash can't figure it out." He holds one up thoughtfully. "I know someone who might find disguises useful in his line of work."
"Who?" You remember what Frank said last night about Joe's playacting proclivities.
"Oh, no one you know. One of our colleagues. You remember the name Rick Bredon from your time in--?" You shake your head. It's almost all gone; only a general knowledge of them and their "colleagues" remains. "He's good at his job--a lot better than me and Frank are at ours--but even he could do better if he had-- But that's for Dad to decide." He turns a piercing eye on you. "Speaking of abilities and proclivities, come with me. I was waiting for you to get out of the bathroom."
He leads you into a small living room, plops next to you on a ratty sofa, and puts a big sketch pad in his lap. "You're an artist too?" you ask.
"Only of cute, naked, big-boobed manga girls. You're not one of them, so-- No, I thought I'd do a chart for you. Help you find something you're good at."
"A chart? Like a horoscope?"
"Kind of, but for real. Our Dad used these to find out what Frank and I would be good at. They don't work as good on, well--" He shifts in his seat. "On regular people," he stammers. "No offense meant, I can't think of a better word--"
"How about 'normal'?"
"That's right, hate on the mutants." He whaps you with a throw pillow. "But maybe I can steer you somewhere."
There follows a very long list of questions. Some are simple and obvious--birthdate, number of siblings, favorite colors. Some seem random: "How do you cross your legs, left over right or right over left?" Some are nonsensical: "Coke or the square root of 42?"
He grows quieter and quieter as he works, and finally grinds to a halt. "Can't be," he mutters, and rips the sheet out. He starts over with completely new questions.
"Impossible," he says thirty minutes later, and starts afresh.
"You're doing this on purpose!" he yells at you after a third, hard, hour-long session. "Stop it!"
"What am I doing?"
He glares at you, and stalks from the room. When he returns, he's got a little golden disk in his hand. He manipulates it carefully, glancing between you and it, his tongue sticking out between his teeth. When he stops, his knuckles are very white, and he hurls the dingus away.
"What's wrong, Joe?" you ask, for you are now feeling very frightened.
He runs his tongue over his lower lip and takes a deep breath. "Okay, Prescott, one last question, for all the marbles." He fixes you in the eye. "Speak quickly and be brief. Do you want to stay here in Saratoga Falls, or do you want to go home with me and Frank and train to be like us?"   indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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