The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)

Unexpected Windfalls

Previously: "A Jock's Gratitude" 

A little later, back home, you call Caleb.

"Hey," you say. "You know what you're doing Wednesday night?"

You're answered by a silence.

Then: "I believe that's the night I'll be attending a board meeting at Microsoft, followed by a formal dinner and a performance of Mozart by the Portland Symphony Orchestra. Unless that's Thursday, in which case Wednesday is the night I'll be attending a Hollywood movie premiere—"

"Yeah yeah, you're not doing anything," you retort. "Okay, then you're going to a party with me. Alright?"

"What party?" Suspicion sounds in his voice. "A real party, or one of those study things like Mansfield likes to organize?"

Funny he should have asked that. When you confessed to Joe that you were grounded and wouldn't actually be able to make it out, he told you to tell your dad it was a study session. You liked the idea. And getting Caleb to come along—and getting him to pick you up—would help sell it, you decided.

"Real party," you tell him. "It—"

"In the middle of the week?"

"Yeah. I went out last night—"

"It can't be a real party if it's in the middle of the week."

"What the fuck do you know about real parties? But this is gonna be a real one—"

"Yes, do explain, Prescott. I'm eager to learn."

You sigh deeply. Caleb must be in the middle of doing homework: that's when he waxes most sarcastic.

"I went out last night with some guys. The guys we ran into at the minigolf, that you played with? Patrick and them?"

"Lorenzo's gang? The fuck you do with them?"

"Well, we wound up at the Warehouse—"

You pause to give him a chance to say something biting. When he doesn't, you resume.

"We wound up at the Warehouse, but one of the guys I rode out there with—or he rode with me, we took my truck—he lost his wallet in my truck, and when I took it back to him today, he decided to throw a party to celebrate, and it's gonna be this Wednesday."

The silence this time is even longer. "You there?" you ask.

"Yes. Are you, though? Where'd you get the weed?"

"Huh? What weed? I didn't say anything about—"

"The weed you're smoking, because none of what you said makes sense."

So you explain it all to him again, more slowly and with a lot more detail.

"Jesus Christ," he says when you're done. "You're telling me all this happened to you last night? And today?"

"Sure." You pick at a loose thread on your bedspread.

"You went out to the Warehouse. And you met some girls. And a jockstrap from Eastman lost his wallet in the truck of your cab, and he was so grateful that he's throwing a party in your honor to celebrate."

"Well, I'm not the one who says it's in my honor, it's his brother—"

"All your story is missing, Will, is a pumpkin, some mice, and a fairy godmother."

"Hey, I can't help it! Maybe this is the kind of thing that happens, you know, when—" You glance around your bedroom. "When you don't shut yourself in your room but, you know, let things happen."

"Yeah, right," he says. "The world is just that exciting."

"Oh, fuck it, I don't wanna argue, I told you what happened, and if you don't believe me—"

"Oh, I believe you, Prescott," he says. "I just don't believe it."

Well, that's fair enough, you muse. I hardly believe it myself. "So you gonna come out?"

"Sure," he sighs. "And I'll sneak out with you early too, when you decide it's not for you. When's it supposed to start?"

"I dunno. I'm supposed to talk to those guys later, I'll tell you at school."

"School," he says, as though the word has reminded him of something. "Oh yeah. What are you giving to Walberg for the time capsule?"

* * * * *

You cuss yourself out long and hard for having forgotten about that assignment, while Caleb chortles at you unfeelingly. He does remind you, though, that you went into town Thursday in search of something to contribute, which reminds you of that crazy book you found at Arnholm's.

So after hanging up, you dump the contents of your desk onto the floor and sort through them until you find it: a book with heavy, red leather covers and a gold pentagram stamped on its spine. You open it to remind you of what you found within: a bunch of pages apparently glued shut; some crazy optical illusions of faces morphing; and some Latin text culminating in a demand for blood.

Why did I buy this to put this in the time capsule? you ask yourself. You can come up with no answer. But you've no better ideas, and neither do you want to trouble yourself over better ideas, so you shove it into your backpack along with your other books.

But what if Mr. Walberg asks why I want to put this in the time capsule? you ask yourself.

You waver for a few moments.

Oh, fuck, you think with a sigh, and decide that you'd rather make a field trip out to Arnholm's to ask them about that book than aggravate yourself by coming up with a different idea that you probably couldn't explain any better. You hike your pack onto your shoulders and trudge downstairs, asking your parents if you can run a fast errand in town for school. They give you permission.

And as you're backing out of the driveway, you almost hit a cyclist.

"Whoa there, dude!" Joe Durras pulls off his sunglasses and laughs at you through the passenger-side window after you've rolled it down. "If I thought you were going to run me over I wouldn'a come looking for you!"

"You were looking for me?" You can't believe he's here, at your house.

"Kinda! I was out riding my bike, got lost, recognized I was in your part of town, thought I'd look you up 'n see if I could talk your folks into letting you out of jail for an hour or two." He hops off his bike, tosses it in the back of your truck, and climbs into the cab. "And here you are already making a break for it. Mind giving me a ride home?"

Since he's already in the cab, you say, "Sure." But then you add, "I gotta run an errand in town first, though. It's on the way."

"Where you goin'?" He puts his feet up on the console of your truck and wags his legs—he's in shorts—violently back and forth.

"The used book store."

"Cool! They sell comic books?"

"Uh ... I think they have some boxes of old comics."

"Awesome! Frank's always giving me shit on account of I don't never read anything, but this'll show him!"

You bite your tongue, and ask, "Is one of you older than the other?"

"On account of we don't look like twins? Yeah, he's a year older than me. But we're both seniors this year."

"Did you skip a grade?" You can't keep a note of dubiety out of your voice.

"Me? Skip a grade? Ha!" But then his grin sours, and he slumps in his seat. "Almost got held back a coupl'a times, in fact. Stupid—" He cusses under his breath.

"But Frank," he continues, "he had to miss a year on account of he was in a mountain-climbing accident, was in the hospital for most of his sophomore year, had to repeat. It was bullshit, he could'a challenged it. I told him he should. Wish he had." He turns to stare out the passenger-side window. "My year this year would be a whole lot more fucking fun if he wasn't around to sit on me."

You almost observe that you've got a brother of your own who's a pain in the ass. But as Robert is younger than you, it probably wouldn't be the kind of empathy that Joe is looking for.

* * * * *

At Arnholms', he goes off in one direction and you go off in another. Ted Arnholm is in his usual corner, looking through a stack of books and making entries in his ledger.

"Hey, I was in here the other day, and I bought this book," you tell him as you extract that book from your backpack. "It was in the special collections cabinet, and you had it marked for, like two hundred dollars. But you marked it down to two, because the pages were glued shut?"

His eyebrows go up as he takes it from you.

"Oh, yes," he says in a voice heavy with loathing. "This thing."

"Yeah. I was wondering if you could tell me anything about it. Like, what it is, where you got it, what it's history is. Stuff like that."

His lip curls as he looks at you over his half-rim spectacles.

"I can't tell you anything about it," he says. "But its former owner can."

"Huh?"

"Yeah, he was in here a couple of days ago. We had a really nasty argument about it. He said it got sold by mistake and wanted it back. Two dollars, huh?"

He hands you the book back, then digs around in the shelf under his work station.

"He's a professor at the university," he explains as he hands a white card over to you. "He was talking about paying several hundred dollars for it. I would have contacted you about it," he says, dryly, "only I had no idea who you were."

You find that you are speechless as you read the card: Aubrey Blackwell, Professor of Archaeology, Keyserling School of Mining and Technology. Not until you've returned the book to your bag and pocketed the card do you remember to mumble a Thanks to Arnholm. He only grunts in reply.

Joe is absorbed in the boxes of comic book back issues, so you throw your bag into your truck and wander around the store for a bit in a daze. Eventually he comes to find you, buys the issues he pulled out, and saunters out the door with you.

"Did you get what you wanted?" he asks.

* To tell him about your good fortune: "Gone in Sixty Seconds" 
* To dismiss his query: "Pocketing the Profit" 

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 5)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 5)"