Chapter 7
Mindy looked at her cell phone absentmindedly, her attention
being constantly distracted by the dozens of monster masks displayed across
from the counter she was leaning on. The masks were of the vintage variety:
Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and others she did not
recognize. Mindy knew they hadn’t sold a single one since she started working
there, but Doug liked to have them staring at him when he was in his store.
Doug was a man with the resources to create whatever environment he chose to
inhabit—no matter how strange—and was not afraid to do so. He was an overgrown
child, Mindy couldn’t help thinking, wasting money that could have gone to more
worthwhile goals. Still, it was people like him who made the world a little
more colorful. As far as Mindy knew, Doug didn’t spend his wealth on
scholarships for poor children or other charitable deeds. But every child that
walked into his store—whether or not they had a cent to spend—was treated to
the elaborate displays that had to cost far more money than they brought in.
And flock to the store kids did, always looking for a little
amusement. At least in the summer months. This was the Wisconsin Dells, Water
Park Capital of the World! But while there were plenty of indoor water parks
and other sources of amusement available in November, there hadn’t been a
customer for the better part of an hour now. Mindy was needed here—that’s what
Doug said—but she couldn’t help thinking she could have gone with Johnny and
Dave. She really wasn’t sure of Doug’s priorities, but in the final analysis
Doug was the one who signed the checks. Dave and Mindy could work there or quit
(which was a possibility never far from her mind), those were the options. And,
for now at least, staying seemed the path of least resistance. While Doug was
resistant to questioning, there was still the chance of learning a little more
from him or one of the others. Presumably that’s what Dave was doing now as he
travelled to…what was the name of that town again? Manitowic?
Of course although there was no large throngs of vacationers,
there was other business to tend to. Doug’s business went beyond the little
store selling cheap tricks to tourists. Doug knew all the important players in
performing and collecting magic. He was always on the lookout for rarities and
investment opportunities. And so Mindy minded the store.
She stared at her phone while thoughtlessly rolling a coin
across her knuckles. It was a skill magicians prided themselves on, something
that demonstrated their manual dexterity. She could always do it more smoothly
than Dave and it had always annoyed him. There wasn’t much that provoked
annoyance in him, but he took magic very seriously and was competitive when it
came to skills related to the trade. So Mindy had kept in constant practice in
order to have that thorn to press in his side whenever he got to feeling too smart
for his own good.
She resisted the urge to text him, didn’t want him to know
she worried about him. He was with Johnny, who knew a hell of a lot more than
she did concerning such matters as they were now caught up in, but she was not
one to delegate tasks when the safety of loved ones was concerned.
She was stuck somewhere between wanting to contact Dave and
not wanting to lay bare her concern when she was startled by the opening of the
door. She turned to face it and saw Izzy, the man who had introduced her and
Dave into what lay beyond The Beyond Show. They had shared a frightening
adventure, trying to prevent a replay of a mass suicide that had occurred some
thirty years before. And while Izzy accompanied them on their quest, he did not
reveal he accompanied them at the request of Doug, did not reveal that he had
orders to keep an eye on them. He was a spinner of stories, weaving the most
absurd plots and passing them off as truths.
And yet she liked him. At least part of her did. There was
some truth to him that transcended her normal criteria, got him past her
barriers that kept many others out.
Izzy was a middle-aged man of Native American ancestry,
though of what tribe Mindy never got around to discovering. There was a lot
that Izzy was never really clear about, a lot of things unspoken despite the
fact that he was never at a loss for words. For Izzy, it was always about
stories and the details didn’t matter much. There are bigger facts than the
truth, she’d heard him say. To trust Izzy, you had to believe the stories he
told, had to want to believe them. Or at least you had to find meaning in them.
And Mindy did. Well, more or less. Maybe. She wasn’t really sure. But it felt
good to believe him, felt good to think that every unanswerable question in
life could be explained with a story.
But if it felt good to go along with his stories, she would
never let him know that. There were
still too many answers her intellect required regarding him. And the others as
well. Still, it was good to see him again, good to get her mind off of worrying
about Dave or at least have someone to talk to about it. Putting aside whatever
instinctual urge she had to be combative, she said “Where have you been?”
“Didn’t Doug tell you? I’ve been on an important mission for
him.” He was carrying what appeared to be two hat boxes and lifted them up for
her to see. Setting them on the glass counter that separated them, he opened
one and lifted from it something that Mindy for the briefest of moments nearly
mistook for a severed head. After the initial jolt of surprise, she recognized
it for what it was, yet another mask for the collection on the opposite wall.
While its appearance was entirely human, it was as frightening as any of those
that were on display.
“What is that?” Mindy asked, revolted by the fleshy face
that stared at her like an executioner’s trophy.
“That, my dear young girl, is a Tor Johnson mask” said Izzy,
rather pleased with himself, “star of such fabulous masterpieces as Beast of
Yucca Flats and Plan 9 From Outer Space.” There was a certain amount of
satisfaction he seemed to get from his triumph, as if he himself had a
childhood tie to whatever black and white B-movies spawned such creatures.
“But wait…there’s more,” he said, and produced from the
other box an even more revolting acquisition. “Behold, the Moleman!”
“That looks nothing like a mole,” said Mindy. “It looks
like…a meal worm with leprosy.”
“It’s a mole man,” said Izzy. “And look—“ he reached back
into the box and retrieved a pair of rubber hands. “The whole set. And in mint
condition!”
“That was your big important secret mission you were on for
Doug?” And here I was worried about worrying about him, she thought. She had
imagined him facing something on the order of what they had faced on Devil’s
Island, facing something along the lines of what Dave and Johnny were likely
facing at that moment.
“Well, more or less,” replied Izzy. “You see, that was the
missing piece. This Tor Johnson mask is the rarest of them all. Now Doug has
the complete set.”
Izzy carried the masks over to the far wall and reverently
placed them on the shelves. Mindy watched him, becoming disgusted with the
whole situation.
“How am I supposed to trust someone who has nothing better
to do with his time and money than acquire hunks of rubber from his childhood
fantasies? Asked Mindy.
“Oh, you misunderstand,” said Izzy, turning to her with the
look on his face turning quite serious. “These masks are more than mere
curiosities. They are imbued with the desire for the mysterious of a million young
boys now men, their sense of what is possible lost to them but remaining in
curios such as these. Each of them separately have an acquired power of
perception into realms most of us could never access without an object of power
such as these. But together they can open vast portals into worlds most humans
could never imagine. Let go of your conscious mind for a moment and see if you
can sense the potency that resides in these cultural artifacts.”
Mindy tried to relax her mind, let go her thoughts and preconceptions
in order to grasp some sort of sense of what Izzy was saying. But as she did
so, she noticed a familiar glimmer in Izzy’s eye.
“You Bastard! You’re just having fun with me, aren’t you?”
A smile spread wide across Izzy’s face, amused at having put
one over on Mindy.
“That’s not funny,” said Mindy, never at a loss for ways of
expressing her displeasure. “Dave’s off God knows where, dealing with God knows
what, and here you are screwing around. How am I supposed to trust any of you
when you don’t treat things seriously?”
Izzy had a few laughs to get in before he could respond.
“Gallows humor, Mindy. You can’t stay sane when dealing with things so far
beyond comprehension without blowing off a little steam. And besides, who’s to
say there’s not a degree of truth in what I said? Those masks, the fact that
it’s a complete set, it’s important to Doug for some reason. If it makes him
happy, makes his mind a little lighter, who knows what positive outcomes that
might effect (?)”
“You know, your time might be better served helping me
understand things a little better rather than having fun at my expense.”
“I tell stories, Mindy, it’s what I do. Hopefully you can
learn something from them, but that’s not really up to me. At any rate, I’m not
really the one to ask. I was the newest of the group until you and Dave came
along.”
“Yeah, but the rest aren’t here, and I doubt Doug would tell
me anything even if I asked him.”
“Yeah, Doug treats things on a need to know level, pretty
much. It’s not so much that he’s keeping things to himself, at least I don’t
think so. It’s like he’s afraid of sharing what he does know, afraid that his
interpretation might not be the right one. Or he needs to hear your
interpretation in order to know if it agrees with his. It’s not so much he’s
hiding something as that he’s just more concerned about seeing things
correctly. He uses everyone else as his feelers and he doesn’t want to bias our
feedback with his own. And I don’t think it’s being a spoiled rich kid,
although from what I’ve heard he’s got plenty. No, he’s reminds me more of one
of those absent-minded intellectuals always in search of answers to the point
of forgetting to eat or sleep.”
“And you’re willing to bet your life on your impressions of
Doug?”
“I’ve got a healthy sense of self-preservation. And I’m not
much of a gambler. Doug pays the bills, so I’m willing to play along. But I
don’t think he’d be too willing to sacrifice any of us. He took it hard when
Alan died. Stopped all work for a couple of weeks, supernatural and otherwise.”
“And what about Johnny? Is he okay?”
“You don’t have to worry about him. He knows what he’s
doing, or so I’ve heard. And he’s a lover, not a fighter.”
“A lover?”
“Yeah. A religious man. And he’s got a girl. A real looker,
I’ve seen a picture of her. But he happened to fall for a wild one. She wasn’t
the kind to settle down, and he wasn’t the type to stop loving her. Had every
reason to, too. She had a bit of an addiction to…well, dangerous living,
mostly. I don’t know if you can blame somebody like that, it seems to be the
way they’re wired or something. But she would leave him, go on a bender for a
week, a month, a year. Then she’d show up on his doorstep when she’d run out of
other options and he’d always take her back. See, he had an addiction to, an
addiction to her. Some people are like that, some people love completely and
never consider leaving no matter how much it cost them. So he’d always take her
back. And she’d be good for a while until domestic living got to be too much
and she’d be off again.”
“Mind you, I’m just telling you what I’ve been able to piece
together from Johnny and Doug and Al, but I’m rather talented at piecing
together a story if I don’t mind saying so.”
“Do go on,” said Mindy. She wasn’t sure how close to reality
Izzy’s stories got, but they were always of interest. And she was always able
to get insight from them. It occurred to her at that moment that what he had
was an ability comparable to Dave’s. As Dave was able to gleam truth from
dreams, Izzy seemed to gather truth from stories. Mindy was willing to gather
information in whatever way was available.
“She was an artist. Raychel, that’s her name. Truly gifted,
as you have seen.”
“What do you mean?”
“Why, Johnny, of course. That’s all her work.”
“She did that?”
“At Johnny’s insistence. Never had a tattoo in his life
until he met her. And I don’t know his full intention, but that never stopped
me from giving my own spin on things,” he gave her a smile. “I believe he
wanted to encourage her talent, to allow her to find a constructive outlet for
the urges of freedom she could not contain. Or perhaps he wanted to show his
commitment to her, to demonstrate that he was hers completely. I believe on
some level that by his choice of subject matter he sought to keep Raychel’s
thoughts fixed upon spiritual themes. They’re all Bible related tattoos, you
know. I’ve seen them all, more than I wanted, actually. Ask him and he’ll show
you too, if you’re not the squeamish type.”
Mindy hadn’t pegged Johnny as the religious type. Nor the
one woman type either. She had misjudged him, but she forgave herself for it.
“And did he win her over? Did she ever settle down.”
“Oh, she settled down, alright, but if it was Johnny’s
doing, I couldn’t tell you. She got sick, so sick that bad behavior was no
longer an option. For a while Johnny took care of her, but she got so bad he
couldn’t do it by himself. He still visits her. She’s in a hospital in Marshfield.
Johnny still regularly visits her. She’s still the only woman in his life. I’ll
have to pay her a visit with him sometime. I’ve been meaning to.”
The story Izzy told her made her stop worrying for a while
about Dave, made her worry for Johnny instead. She couldn’t imagine allowing
herself to be treated like that, but part of her respected the sacrifice Johnny
was capable of.
She wanted to get Johnny and Dave out of her thoughts for a
while, wanted to do something constructive rather than worry about others. So
before Izzy decided it was time to go, she thought she’d pepper him with some
more questions.
“You weren’t there when Doug asked us to join you guys. He
said we society is undergoing a sort of paradigm shift, that our way of seeing
life is no longer a sufficient tool for the reality of our current situation.
Is this true?”
“That’s Doug’s story, which I think is more or less true.
But the more opinions you get on the matter the closer to the truth you’re
going to get. Here’s my take: Every story starts out simple, but if it is a
good one, people add to it, make it more complicated. If too many stories are
told around the central story, it’s hard to keep the message consistent. People
lose track of the many little details. So the old gets swept away. The story
starts fresh, with the essential elements remaining, the ones that deal with
the reality at hand.”
“A reboot,” said Mindy.
“Yeah, like that. Like an animal that sheds its skin,
humanity is carrying around a big shell of dead stories.”
“But if you’re looking for a better understanding of what’s
going on,” said Izzy, as if in answer to her thoughts, “you should try talking
to Russell, then. It seems he’s available anytime Doug calls him.”
“Do you know how I could reach him?”
“No, but you could probably find him doing a little
searching. Nobody stays hidden from those amazing little devices attached to
all-seeing satellites that constantly roam the sky,” he said, staring at
Mindy’s cell phone that still sat on the counter.
“So you suggest that I search the internet for a guy name
Russell?”
“There’s got to be something around here that might give you
a little information. Somewhere in Doug’s office, perhaps. I’ve got to be
going. I just got back from Philadelphia with those masks and I’m off to Denver
tomorrow on another piece of important business. I’m earning my paycheck this
week, let me tell you.”
Izzy was already heading towards the door when Mindy stopped
him. “Why? Why send you to conduct a business deal when he could just do a deal
over the phone and have the items shipped here? Why send you all over the
place?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, I’m a bit of a story teller. I
can be rather persuasive with the right sort of people…and there was a little
more involved with the Philly trip than just a couple of masks. I’ll fill you
in on it when I get back from Denver.”
He turned his back on her and walked through the door. She
could perceive in his posture and in his gait that there seemed to be more to
his travels than the purchase of collectibles. His shoulders appeared hunched
as though he had been carrying a great weight, and Mindy found herself
forgiving him for his rather mean joke at her expense. If he was too tired for
talking then he was tired indeed. She wished he would stay longer, wished he
would share more of what he knew, but she didn’t want to keep him from whatever
rest he required. Perhaps Dave and she had yet to see the worst of what this
line of business had to offer.
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