IN THIS TWILIGHT
The Mask Collector
Chapter Seven
Saturday August 2nd 2003
“Jesus buddy you look terrible,” Chad stood at the bottom of the stairwell, a thick parcel under his arm. He shook his head at the sight of Darren.
“Who were you talking to out there?” Darren knew how he looked, his beard had grown bushy while his midsection had grown mushy. He promised himself that as soon as the pins came out of his leg he'd start exercising again. Not jogging but definitely exercising. Maybe he would join a gym.
Chad met him at the top of the stairs, “You need to eat more white rice. You should try it. White rice. And cook it yourself, don’t order it from a Chinese restaurant, heck I bet half those people are illegal immigrants with SARS.”
“Who were you talking to out there?” Darren asked again.
“Some guy,” Chad started walking again, he unlocked the door to his apartment, “He was asking for directions.”
“He was in a black Trans Am,” Darren followed him, his crutches slowed him down considerably. “Did you get the license plate number?”
“You spying on me?” Chad smiled, “You should get a hobby or the Internet. It would be a lot more interesting.”
“Did you get the license plate number?”
“No. Why would I? It was just some guy.” Chad opened his front door and said, “Come on in.”
“My hit and run was a car like that,” Darren followed him. The apartment was dank and crowded with boxes, they filled every corner and were piled on every table and chair. He wrinkled his nose at the cloying odor that assaulted him.
Gah! It smells like sour milk and sweaty feet!
“I don't know how to tell you this buddy but there is more than one of those cars out there.” Chad set his newest parcel atop the four already sitting on his kitchen counter. A startled spider scuttled across the Formica, Chad flicked at it half-heartedly, “Now when I was a lad I had a black Monte Carlo. It was a great car, and a back seat big enough to screw in. These cars nowadays have no room in their back seats. I bet it’s because of all the rich white Christians running car companies.”
Darren leaned forward on his crutches, “Where was he asking directions for?”
“Galena Top Fuel Company. They have an office somewhere near the Port of Albany. He was really lost.”
“Galena Top Fuel? My f- I mean ex-fiancee works there.”
“Small world,” Chad pulled a water bottle from his refrigerator, and took a drink; the water was tinged with brown. “So do you wanna see my collection?”
“Collection?” Darren looked around, “Your box collection?”
“Very funny. These are just the things I haven't unpacked yet,” Chad led him to the next room, “these are what I'm most proud of.”
For God's sake just get out of here before this funk follows you home.
But Darren decided he wanted to see this 'collection', if for no other reason than the fact it was in the room that bordered his bedroom. Maybe now he could see what all the noise was about. The voices and rustling sounds were waking him up less and less but Darren wasn't sure if that was because he'd gotten used to it or because he'd gotten into the habit of having a few hydrocodone pills and a beer for a nightcap.
“Well...” Chad said, “What do you think?”
Masks hung like trophies, ordered rows of them stretched from ceiling to floor, from wall to wall. Grinning Guatemalan jaguars hung beside African tribal headdresses sculpted from bronze. A crinkled dime store Halloween false faces from a generation ago alternated between gas masks from the first and second World Wars. Caricatures in paper-mache and elegant, expressionless faces sculpted in ceramic and ivory leered at him. Darren said, “This is impressive.”
“Yeah. See that there? That is a first generation Humboldt, and that's the Gimp mask from Pulp Fiction, and these are Seneca corn husk masks. Oh and that one over there is a Singbonga...”
Everywhere he looked Darren saw something new, a flash of color or a strange contour of wood or metal. The collection looked like it belonged in a museum. In fact to Darren it looked bigger than anything you might find in a museum, it left him wondering about the dimensions of the wall the shared with the man.
“And of course the centerpiece is this baby. Nobody else has one of these,” Chad pointed to the shape dead center in the wall, the one Darren realized that his eyes had been shying involuntarily away from.
The mask was snout-like and pale. There was something both mechanical and bestial about it. It almost looked like a gas mask but a highly stylized one. There was something about it that suggested to Darren great age but the way the eyepieces glinted suggested it was brand new.
Isn't that... Darren blinked. Didn't I see it in my dreams?
“This is the Hierophant’s Vizard. Not the original but one of the first.”
No that's crazy. You dreamed something else. This is like deja vu. Or you read it in a book or saw it on a TV show.
“Is it some kind of a boogie man?” Darren asked.
Chad shook his head, “No, more like what you would think of as an angel but that’s only because the so-called academia of this Jesus freak country have blunted your mind.”
“Looks more like a devil to me.”
“Angels and devils are the same things. I know your dumbed down generation may have a hard time grasping that, but angels and devils are both autonomous agents of a higher power, deities that serve deities.”
“I think I understand.”
“They say the gods- the real true gods of Earth- are waiting for the Hierophant to wake them...” a wistful smile spread across Chad’s face, “All the Hierophant asks is obedience, a prayer here, a sacrifice there. No tithing, no choirboys, no life filled with repression and regret.”
Uneasy sensations started to itch through Darren’s mind. He began to wonder about his sanity. He suddenly wanted nothing more than to go back to his apartment and his TV and his pills, “Well listen sorry to bug you about that car. It just looked like the one that hit me.”
“Post traumatic stress,” Chad ushered him out the door, “you need to get some sunshine or some pussy.”
“What do you do with all those mask things? And how do you afford it all?”
“While my dissertation may be dead my work goes on, not dead but merely dreaming you might say.” Chad chuckled, “And I have a patron to help me along the way. Great potential is seen in my work.”
“And what are you doing all night in there all night by yourself with those things? I can hear you sometimes.”
“What do you hear?”
“Voices.”
“That’s just the TV I’m afraid. Just like every other spoiled lazy American I the networks numb me into complacency.”
“But-” Darren turned to speak but the door was already closed.
But there's no TV in that room.
So far so good. I'm anxious to read more.
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