Chapter #9And You Come Back a Star by: Seuzz   "Fuck," Mike sighs when the movie is over. "That was awesome."
"Fucker!" Carlos slams a hard fist into Mike's arm, and his friend yells. "You fuck!" Meaty blow after meaty blow rains on him as Mike yelps and laughs. "Where the fuck did you get the fucking idea we should—?"
"What are you bitching about?" Mike squeals. "It was great!"
"It sucked!"
"Keith, tell him it was great!"
"That was the worst movie I ever saw," you retort.
Mike giggles. "Sure. That's what made it so great."
"It" was some monster film made in the late 60s with a lot of English actors you never heard of, including one woman who was supposed to be sexy but looked like a man in a bad wig. The plot didn't make any sense—it started with a cruise ship being caught in a hurricane, then graduated to it being attacked by killer sea weed, before ending up in a pitched battle with giant crabs and scorpions and pirates dressed in conquistador helmets and KKK robes.
You're able to kick back and grin without risk to your cover as Mike and Carlos argue the merits of the film. Carlos thinks it's stupidity was incompetence; Mike thinks it was genius. Comparisons to other monster movies get bandied back and forth. All of it goes over your head, so you wind up concentrating on the guys.
They're a real contrast: Carlos is Hispanic, of course, but of a thoroughly Americanized sort. And even with his muscles—which are solid but not bulging—he radiates a geekiness that is closer to your kind of style than to any other. His grin is wide and easy, and even his faux-hawk has an endearing goofiness. But his voice is deep, and just the sound of fist-against-flesh tells you he can pack a powerful wallop when he wants.
Mike, meanwhile, has a more Irish look. His pale-red hair is chopped short, and his face is very ruddy. He also has a bright grin, and pale blue eyes that stare. He's a little more awkward in his gestures than Carlos is, and he stutters and stammers and spits when he starts talking too fast.
You wonder how Keith got to know them, and why he never mentioned them to you.
Then you wonder why he's apparently never mentioned you to them.
* * * * *
While the argument is still raging, your phone bleeps. It's a text from your mom: Are you coming home for dinner?
Shit. You got so wrapped up you forgot about the time. "Hey guys, I need to get home," you announce.
"Sure, thanks for hanging out," Mike says. "What?" he adds when you don't move.
"Can I get a ride?"
He stares, then jumps up. "Sorry. Where's your car?"
Up at the Silver Cineplex, of course. "You can just take me back to the Carl's Jr. I'll text Will, get him to meet me there."
"Right, that reminds me," Carlos says, and from the desk drawer he takes a fat envelope and pulls out a ten; your mouth waters at the sight of a batch of twenties it was keeping company with. "Here's paying you back for the other day."
But Mike slaps your hand back as you reach out to take it. "Dude, he owes us for his part of the fries and burgers."
"That's not ten dollars," Carlos retorts.
"He still needs to pay!"
"So how much do you think he ate?" Carlos nods at you. "What kind of change you got for a ten?"
"Uh, look, forget it," you say. "We'll just call it even. Uh, cheaper than going to a show, you know, and I still got a movie out of it."
Carlos shrugs and drops the envelope back into the drawer. Mike claps you on the arm. With a careless wave and a chuck of the chin back at Carlos, you follow him out.
But he stops before getting into his car, and turns back to the door. He cusses under his breath as he taps in the code again.
For whatever reason, you're focused on the keypad when he does so, and can make out the 4-digit code: 1776. Easy to remember, you reflect. But why would I need to?
Maybe on account of all that money you saw in there, comes the disconcerting answer.
* * * * *
It's a mostly silent drive back to the Carls Jr. until Mike pulls up next to your truck. "So what movie you want to talk about? For your audition video?" he asks.
"Oh, uh, I dunno. Somethin' with boobs, you know. Big old balloons." You mime fondling a pair, as Keith is wont to do. "I'll think about it."
"You want something with boobs, talk to Josiah, he's got a fucking database."
You nod vacantly as if the remark made sense to you, thank Mike for the afternoon, and lever yourself out of the car. You exchange a wave as he pulls out, then saunter into the restaurant.
Josiah? You shake your head over the unfamiliar name. It's like Keith has a whole separate secret world you never even suspected existed.
You don't need to use the head, but as long as you've got a moment, you want to check yourself out in the mirror again. An employee is washing his hands when you enter, so you busy yourself at a urinal by pretending to pee. When you pull your zipper down, you discover, to your amazement and horror, that Keith's schlong is almost as ginormous as he's always bragging about.
Fortunately, the guy doesn't take long at the sink, and you quickly zip yourself up and lean into the mirror after he's gone.
You've still got Keith's face, of course. The spell said nothing about a time limit, or any dangers of the thing slipping off. And anyway, someone would have been bound to notice if something had gone wrong with your disguise.
So it's all still there: the crusted-over zits and the ugly freckles and the whiskers in weird places. And the eyes are more alert now, more alive, more real. The expression is a little wrong, though. More thoughtful than any expression than you're used to seeing on Keith's face.
But you pulled it off. True, all you did was keep your mouth shut and listen for Keith's name. But that was enough. No one ever gave you a funny look or suggested you were acting strange.
A little smirk creeps onto your face, and that leaves you looking even more like Tilley. You lean in toward the mirror and let the smirk widen. "Who's a bad mofo?" you murmur to yourself. "Fuckin' Keith Tilley is, that's who is, motherfucker." You dance slowly about the restroom and pump your fists over your head.
* * * * *
Naturally, you pull the mask off before going home. It's a trickier operation than you thought it would be, and you almost panic in the truck cab when you can't find the piece of paper that has the magic words written on it. (It's some weird phrase that's supposed to be chanted three times.) But you find it drifted under the truck's bench, practice it a few times, then lay back, grasp your face across the brow, and pull while repeating the words. Your fingers slip off, and you have to try it three more times, with mounting fear, before it takes.
It's like tearing the front of your skull off, and then you're unconscious, you suppose, for you're groggy when you open your eyes. You have to go back into the restroom to splash water on your face to fully wake—and also to make sure you've got your own face back. It's a relief to see it in the mirror.
Dinner is on the table when you get back, and your mom, dad and brother are already eating. Your dad glowers at you, but he must be in a relatively good mood, because that's all he does.
Then after helping to clean up, you go upstairs to do homework.
Also, to look at the next spell. It was fun pretending to be Keith, and you're eager to see how to expand on the trick.
But anticipation quickly turns to dismay. The next spell—again, the book gives instructions but no explanation for what it does—requires a lot of materials that you don't have on hand, and a quick look online shows that you'll need more money than you've got on hand in order to procure the supplies.
You lean back and drum your fingers. You doubt your dad will lend you funds. You doubt any of your friends will lend you the funds. You don't want to get a job if all you need is fifty dollars or so for a single project. What you need is a quick, one-time source of money.
You try hard not to think of that envelope of money in Carlos's "studio."  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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