In Marnie’s Arms (An excerpt from the Mask Collector)

In Marnie’s Arms

(An excerpt from the Mask Collector)

by

Al Bruno III

Darren lay in the darkness listening to Marnie’s gentle snoring and cursing himself.

What have I done?

On Wednesday he’d found the nerve to chat up that pretty nursing student he’d been drooling over for months. She told him her name was Leiko. All it had taken Darren to win Leiko’s phone number and a date for Friday night was a few sly smiles and an expensive latte. Darren had spent the next two days preparing. He’d bought a new shirt, new cologne and fresh condoms. He spent hours mentally rehearsing and preparing for the conversations they might have.

When Friday came and he met her at the restaurant he never got a chance to make use of any of his prepared seductions. All she did was talk about herself for two hours only pausing in the conversation long enough to order and hardly eat the most expensive thing on the menu. She even took a pair of cell phone calls during the date and made plans for the rest of her evening.

Needless to say, after the date was over Darren got good and drunk and stayed that way. By Saturday afternoon he was feeling woozy, sick to his stomach and miserable.

Before dusk he was blubbering on the phone to Marnie and of course she rushed right over. Marnie made him take a hot shower to clear his head. When Darren left the bathroom he caught a whiff of her cooking, somehow she had managed to put together a kind of goulash out of his Ramon Noodles and leftovers. They ate and talked, mostly about the lack of success they were having in the dating scene.

They went to bed and Darren found comfort in the old rituals of their lovemaking, even though he couldn’t help but notice she’d put on weight again. He almost lost his excitement at the realization but when he closed his eyes and imagined Leiko he found it again.

But that was hours ago and now he was disgusted with himself. One bad date and he had crawled back into Marnie’s arms?

How did she do it to me? How did she get me to cave in like that? He glanced over at her, She’s just like her food, not healthy, not particularly good for me. Just easy and comforting.

The murmuring started again, sibilant and gurgling. Darren closed his eyes and tried to make out the words but Marnie’s snores made it impossible to understand out more than the occasional syllable.

Glaring at her in the dark, Darren kicked off the sheets and walked over to the wall, it was cool to the touch, cooler than the rest of the room. He put his ear to it and shivered.

There was a sound like a windstorm, constant and shifting. The voice was faint, “…ancient …their kind …Beings from Outside”

“… Ahtu… infinity… gods… served…”

The voice, Darren realized, sounded nothing like Chad. He wondered if he was hearing Crazy Agnes through some trick of the acoustics.

What am I doing here? Darren wondered, What am I trying to prove by living in this dump?

“Baby?” Marnie’s voice was slurred with sleep, “What’s the matter? Come back to bed.”

A realization settled on him, a realization that this was his last chance to put everything back the way it was before. Darren pulled his ear from the wall and rested his back against the cool plaster surface, “This was a mistake.”

“What?” Marnie’s voice was a yelp.

“You need to get dressed and go. Now.” Darren stared down at his bare feet, his hands clutched over his heart.

THE MASK COLLECTOR (a serial novel) chapter chapter ten

IN THIS TWILIGHT

The Mask Collector

Chapter Ten

Wednesday October 17th 2004

It was almost over now, his benefits were running out, the charities and doctors he’d groveled before had lost their patience with him. He had no money for food or drugs or batteries for his second hand Hello Kitty radio. The utilities had all unhooked him last month. Darren didn’t want to think what the winter would bring. The company that owned the Kerwin Landings Apartments had sent over a representative to let him know they would not be allowing him to renew his lease and he would have to vacate the premises by the last day of May. He never went down to the mailbox anymore, it was nothing but collection notices and form letters. It had taken him a few weeks to even realize his car had been repossessed.

Three hundred and forty-three pounds. Darren still couldn’t believe it. He stood at the balcony window and watched his puffy reflection cringe in disgust, I thought drug addicts were supposed to be skinny. How could I be a fatass and addicted to drugs?

He thought about killing himself a lot, especially in the middle of the night when the voices in the wall woke him and left him with nothing but the darkness and his regrets. But he held on, even though he knew he was on his own. He couldn’t talk to his family because letting them see how far he had fallen would just confirm that Reece had been the good son after all.

And Marnie? She might take me back someday, but not now, not as long…

Voices stirred him from his thoughts, Darren stared through his reflection to see a confident and svelte Chad heading out for his evening jog.

Is he really doing my ex? Is it really her voice I’m hearing in the hallway at night?

He watched Chad jogging away and found it hard to believe that just a summer ago it had been him doing the jogging and Chad had been the one holed up in an apartment that reeked of sweat and mildew.

Of all the things he had been pondering lately that was the thought that stayed with him. Somehow he had become Chad and Chad had become him.

It sounds so crazy.

Crazy wasn’t the half of it, it was the mother of all crazy notions but it rattled around in his head day and night. It wouldn’t let him think, it wouldn’t let him rest.

When Chad had jogged over the horizon Darren started moving, heading out of his apartment and moving as quickly and quietly as he could to apartment 1668.

What do I expect to find? A Voodoo doll? A Dracula cape? Marnie’s panties?

Darren had expected to have to force the door open but he found it unlocked. With one last furtive glimpse around the hallway he stepped into Chad’s apartment, and quickly shut the door behind him.

The boxes were gone and in their place there was tasteful furniture of cherry and brass, the air was heavy with the odor recently extinguished candles and incense. Shelves occupied every wall and they were crammed with thick books with Latin titles. Sweat dripped into Darren’s eyes as he made his way to the room that bordered his.

The truth was Darren didn’t believe in Voodoo, or magic or even God, but what he did believe is that some truly screwed up shit had gone on in this room and somehow it had affected him, cursed him.

He found the room empty, except for one mask. The sight of those practically bare walls caught him like a bolt of ice in his chest. Darren stepped inside.

His life’s work? His great collection? Where is it?

The only mask that remained was Chad’s pride and joy, his Vizard of the Hierophant. The mask seemed larger somehow. Darren told himself it was just a trick of the light.

Why does it look like it’s… breathing?

The cold in Darren’s chest gave away to a familiar pain, an agony that choked the breath from his lungs and bolted down his arm. He tried to stumble back out of the room to the kitchen phone but he found the door closed behind him. The knob refused to turn in his shaking hands.

“Why are you doing this?” Darren could do now was turn back to the mask, “What do you want from me?”

A cackling roar deafened him. A flash of red blinded him. Something fluttered before Darren’s field of vision. A curved shape. He tried to catch it and failed.

It was a mask falling towards the floor in impossibly slow motion.

No, not a mask! It’s me!

Darren tried to shout but his voice was a whisper and the words made no sense.

The pain in his chest doubled and in that moment he understood that an exchange had been made. A sacrifice to an entity whose desires were as vast and inscrutable as the cold depths of space itself.

And he knew his soul would suffer in emptiness forever.

Darren’s face struck the floor. There was a sound like shattering glass.

THE MASK COLLECTOR (a serial novel) chapter nine

IN THIS TWILIGHT

The Mask Collector

Chapter Nine

Wednesday February 4th 2004

“…flesh an illusion… reality a dream…”

“…NOGGAR-DALLIEON -- the shapeless and everlasting…”

The alarm clock was flashing twelve. Darren stared at it for a good long time, trying to decide if he was awake or dreaming. Then he realized he was awake, it was the middle of the night and Chad was at it again.

“…peel back the unworthy face…”

“…Pool of the Maelstrom… Lords of the Churning Oblivion…”

It sounded like there were at least a dozen people over there, shouting and chanting over one another. Darren was amazed, this was on the second floor of a busy apartment complex. Why had no one called the police about this nonsense yet?

“…hear our pleas in this unworthiest tongue…”

“… Sacred Messenger the Hierophant… The Mask of Wisdom, The Mask of Secrets…”

Of course Darren already knew the answer, the woman that lived below Chad Lunt’s apartment worked a night job, and Darren was leery of calling the police himself.

What if the police weren’t content to speak to him in his doorway? What if they asked him to explain his empty apartment? There was no furniture, no TV, just a crappy Hello Kitty radio he’d gotten from a garage sale and pizza boxes tacked waist high. And what if they found his stash? His baggie full of pills?

“… hear this dream…”

“… The Dark Gods… The Black Pantheon…”

That would be the end of everything then wouldn’t it? The web of social welfare programs and lies he’d hidden himself behind would all come crashing down. They would realize he wasn’t disabled, just fat and addicted, they would realize that it wasn’t that he couldn’t re-enter the workforce it was just that he no longer cared to try.

“… complete the cycle you have begun…”

“…The Ancient Blood… The New Covenant”

Darren had to slowly rock himself until he could get the momentum to push himself up off the bare mattress he used for a bed. The voices echoed around his bare bedroom walls and buzzed in his ears.

“…NOGGAR-DALLIEON…”

“…Hierophant…”

He banged his thick fists on the wall, “Keep it down. Keep it down God damn it. People are trying to sleep!”

The voices fragmented, chants becoming guttural syllables and nonsense rhymes. It sounded like a restless theater audience was milling around behind the wall.

No, not behind. It almost seems to move through the walls. Is it louder at the outlets?

“For Christ’s sake!” He banged on the wall again, “Keep it down!”

“Hear me!”

That tore it. Darren struggled into his cleanest pair of sweatpants and his best fitting t-shirt and stomped out into the hallway. By the time he reached Chad’s door his fingertips and toes were tingling, he didn’t want to think about why.

When Darren pounded on Chad’s door it sounded like gunfire. He paused and banged on the door again.

“For God’s sakes what?” Chad looked half awake and he was wearing a loose bathrobe.

“What the Hell are you doing?” Chad said, “Having some kind of a party in there?”

“I was sleeping.”

“With all that noise?”

“What noise?”

“You must have the TV turned all the way up!”

Chad shook his head, “Do you hear a TV?”

“But… you woke me…”

“It’s three in the morning,” Chad explained, “I just got home a few hours ago.”

“Where…” Darren looked up and down the hallway.

What am I doing here? What am I doing?

Chad shook his head, “Good night neighbor.”

The door clicked to a close, Darren stood in the hallway afraid to move, afraid to think. Was he going crazy? He stared down at his body, so swollen and jittery and twisted out of true. Was he really losing touch with reality? From apartment 1668 he could hear a muffled, feminine voice, asking worried questions.

There was a sliver of something familiar about that voice but Darren couldn’t trust his senses anymore.

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THE MASK COLLECTOR (a serial novel) chapter eight

IN THIS TWILIGHT

The Mask Collector

Chapter Eight

Sunday October 5th 2003

Darren hadn't gotten himself back in shape because even though the pins and braces were gone the aches and pains remained. It was too uncomfortable for him to do even a single sit up. His doctor had started telling him it was all in his head, that he needed counseling and physical therapy. The bastard had even threatened to cut off his hydrocodone. Darren changed doctors as soon as he got wind of that, starting the whole procedure over again. A second opinion, a fresh prescription.

“I would have gone to the funeral but my damn leg hurts too much and I don't have any suits that fit anymore,” Darren shifted in his seat, wishing that he hadn't answered the door and that Marnie hadn't been so damned persistent in her knocking.

“Everyone's worried about you.”

“I dion’t want anyone to see me like this...” he narrowed his eyes, “...anyone important.”

She winced a little at that, it made Darren glad and guilty all at once. The sight of her made him renew his vow to start taking walks. The only problem with that was that his feet had gotten so swollen that they couldn't fit in his sneakers anymore, that and the fact he got winded making his way to the toilet sometimes.

Marnie took a moment to collect herself and then spoke again, “Look we all care about you.”

“Do you? Or is it just that you want to make sure I don't keel over until after you've had your wedding day?”

“What?”

“Oh come on, you come over here flashing that engagement ring and think I don't know what's going on?”

She pulled her hand away, “I'm sorry. I didn't think...”

“Sure,” Darren leaned forward but his belly pushed him back, “have you and Reece set a date yet?”

“Why are you acting this way? Are you so stupid that you can’t see that I’m the only person that hasn’t written you off yet?” She looked pleadingly into his eyes, “I know this isn’t really you talking… If it weren’t for all your medical problems I know you wouldn’t be…”

“For Christ’s sake Marnie. This is me talking you just won’t listen,” Darren got to his feet and poked her in the chest to punctuate each word, “I. Don’t. Love. You.”

She started sobbing.

Darren had to bite back a crazed giggle before he could speak again, “You were just persistent and then convenient. But I don't want convenient. Life’s too goddamn short. I want passion. You’re just a rut I got stuck in.”

“You loser!” Marnie slapped him as hard as she could, “You think you’re such a goddamn prize? You think you’re so goddamn special? Well you know what? I was the only person who ever agreed with you. Ask around.”

Good riddance. Darren thought as he watched the door slam, I think I’ll have a few beers to celebrate.

He drank his first beer standing in front of the open refrigerator door, his head tipped back, his head full of his own gurgling and grunting. The second beer he brought back out into the parlor with him.

May as well enjoy the cable TV now. They’ll be disconnecting it next week if my disability check doesn’t get here.

Darren frowned at the realization that before much longer he was going to have to choose between paying off his utility bills and buying food.

I should have hit Marnie up for a few bucks before I let her have it. Heck maybe I can still catch her in the …

Then he realized there were voices talking in the hall, garbled voices punctuated by snatches of uneasy laughter. Both voices sounded familiar and close. For a few minutes Darren stood there, one hand cupped behind his ear trying to make sense of what he was hearing.

“…Not the same… I thought…”

“How… can you ever… know anyone?”

“He’s so…”

“…odd duck.”

His injured leg screaming in protest Darren shambled for the door, when he opened it he found Marnie and Chad talking on the landing. For a moment he almost didn’t recognize his neighbor, the man was clean shaven and at least fifty pounds lighter.

“Oh!” Chad smiled, “Hi neighbor.”

Darren’s bad knee tried to pitch him forward. He gripped the doorframe, “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?

“I heard this lovely young lady crying out in the hall. I wanted to make sure she was all right.”

“I don’t think she is any of your business Chad.”

“From what I hear you just made it very clear you shouldn’t give a damn who she talks to.”

“I need to go anyways,” Marnie gave the other man’s hand an affectionate squeeze. “Thank you Chad, you are a gentleman.”

“My pleasure. Stop by anytime.”

Darren watched her retreat down the stairs. “No. She won’t be stopping by anytime,” He said when she was out of earshot, “Not to see me and not to see my morbidly obese whacky neighbor.”

“That’s a little harsh,” Chad stepped up to him, “and a little mean.”

What the Hell is this? Darren felt his heart drop into his stomach; Is he looking for a fight?

“Well? You got something to say?” Chad smiled.

Darren said, “… I call them how I see them.”

“Really? ‘Morbidly obese whacky neighbor’? Sounds more like you these days…”

“I- you- ” Darren turned back to his apartment and slammed the door. He half-stumbled, half-crawled to the kitchen and found the cabinet where he kept his dwindling supply of hard liquor.

He drank until he blacked out, then when he woke up he drank so more. His head hurt so much it ached, he couldn’t think, he couldn’t make sense of the voices whirring in his head.

And Darren was grateful for that.

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THE MASK COLLECTOR (a serial novel) chapter seven

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.

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