The Kiosk

Cashier at CVS. Stockman at the local Dollar Store. Checking IDs and sales slips at Costco. Stuffing mailboxes with “Free Estimate” flyers from unlicensed, uninsured roofers. Supermarket pack-out man. Picker for an auto-parts supply chain. Box folder for Giovanni’s Pizza. Dominos delivery man. Crimson Tiger Chinese Dumpling Shop delivery man. Ice cream scooper. Office cleaner. Gas pumper. Car washer. Taxi driver. School bus driver. Uber driver. Lyft driver. Handing out political leaflets for candidates whose prospects were slimmer than his own.

Vincent Love had a thousand nondescript jobs during his forty-three years of nondescript living. He hadn’t been born with a sense of humor or, if he had been, it was small and vestigial, like the tail we lost somewhere along the evolutionary trail. Maybe it was like the gill slits in embryos that become jawbones, voice boxes, and ears. Maybe he was still a fish. It would explain a lot. In any case, he was incapable of seeing the humor or the irony in either his family name or in his most recent career choice—working twelve hours a day at the Felicia’s Face Masks kiosk at the Brixton Regional Mall.

His life, much like the cavernous mall, was empty. Empty as a third of the mall stores gone out of business. Empty as another third that would soon follow suit. Still, Vincent was required to wear a face mask. He didn’t mind. Not minding was perhaps his only real skill. Besides, his face wasn’t much to look at. He wasn’t ugly. He wasn’t handsome. Vincent was as memorable as a stick figure, as remarkable as clear plastic wrap. His boss, an unlikable man not named Felicia, forced him to wear a different mask every day.

“It helps show our wares, son.”

That confused Vincent the same way it confused him that the man speaking to him was named Arlo and not Felicia.

“I’m older than you are, Arlo.”

“Yeah, and so what?”

“Then why call me son?”

“It’s an expression. Are you all right in the head? You autistic or just a fucking idiot or something, boy?”

“Boy?”

Arlo saw that calling him boy confused Vincent even more than calling him son. “Never mind, you dummy. Just wear a different mask every day and you’ll have a job.”

Arlo patted Vincent on the shoulder and walked away, laughing, shaking his head.

Vincent had had many unlikable bosses. There was the supermarket manager who called Black people the N word but had posters of nude Black women all over the walls of his office. He liked calling Vincent his own personal ’tard. Vincent didn’t like that man, but he guessed he didn’t mind. He didn’t mind it when the manager fired him. He even understood. Vincent had caught the man pleasuring himself in his office, calling the women on his walls rude names. He’d been fired before and would get fired again. He had had to learn from a very young age how not to mind.

His high school public speaking teacher, the unfortunately named Miss Kuntzler, gave Vincent’s class an assignment he would never forget.

“For next class, ladies and gentlemen, you have to do a three-minute presentation that begins with the line, ‘My superpower is . . .’ Be honest as you can be, but also give yourselves the freedom to be creative. That’s all I’m going to say on the subject.”

Vincent remembered being excited for the first time in his life about speaking in front of other people, even those kids who’d been merciless to him. Remembered asking the social worker at the home to help him pick out clothes the next morning. Remembered raising his hand to be first to speak. Remembered the nervous expression on Miss Kuntzler’s face when she picked him. Remembered one of the few times in his life he felt joy at waking up. Remembered, verbatim, what he said in front of the class that day.

My superpower is being a punching bag. People have meanness inside them. All people do, even the nicest people like Mr. Martindale at the home. It’s an orphanage, but they make me call it the home. Whatever that’s supposed to mean. People need to have a place to put their meanness, and my superpower is that I can take that meanness in, sop it up like a sponge. I guess I don’t mind it. It is the only thing that makes me special . . .

Vincent remembered Miss Kuntzler asking him to stay after class. Remembered her telling him how beautiful his presentation had been and how terribly sad it made her. Remembered her asking him if it was okay if she hugged him. No one at the home ever hugged him. He didn’t recall anyone ever hugging him. Not anyone. Not ever. So he was more than a little afraid to say yes. He said yes because he really liked Miss Kuntzler. He remembered loving the feel of a hug. What he remembered most was Miss Kuntzler crying on his shoulder.

“Did I do something wrong, Miss Kuntzler?”

“No, Vincent. You did very, very well today. I’m so proud of you.”

“Then why are you crying?”

“Because I’ve been a punching bag, too.”

“Not you. How could that be?”

“I’m not a sponge.”

“But you’re so beautiful, Miss Kuntzler. Why would people be mean to you?”

He remembered her crying harder when he said that. She held him at arm’s length, stroked his cheek, stared right into his eyes. That, like hugging, was another thing no one ever did with him. She said, “Thank you for saying that about me. But my last name, Vincent. People were cruel to me because of my name. They still are, sometimes.”

“What about it, your last name, I mean?”

As confused as Vincent was by Arlo not being named Felicia or by Arlo calling him son and boy, he had been even more confused as a teenager by Miss Kuntzler. Confused about why her name made her a punching bag. Confused by the things he felt with her arms around him. Confused by the lemon peel smell of her perfume. Confused by the coconut scent and silken feel of her black hair against the skin of his neck and cheek.

He remembered those sensations and those smells because no one other than Miss Kuntzler would ever hug him. Even the prostitutes he was sometimes with refused to hug him. Listen, John, you want hugs, go home to Mama. Take your pants off. I don’t got all day. He didn’t understand why they called him John. Whenever he’d ask or say his name was Vincent, they’d laugh at him and take his money.

Miss Kuntzler hugged him once more, on the last day of school. His memories of that second hug were very different from the first.

“You won’t see me again, Vincent,” she said. “I’m getting married and we’re moving to North Carolina. Be happy for me, Vincent. My name won’t be Kuntzler anymore. They won’t be able to hurt me anymore. No more punching bag for me.”

His muscles stiffened. He pushed away from her. Turned his back and ran out of the classroom. Ran out of school and never went back. He remembered he felt something new that day: rage. He was feeling it again as he was reliving it.

“Yo, Vincent, what’s the matter?”

Vincent came back into the moment, staring up from his metal folding chair at the security guard in front of him on the Segue. Andre had craggy, dark-brown skin, short gray hair beneath his helmet, and smelled of too much Old Spice. Vincent liked the peppery smell of Andre’s aftershave. They had developed a kind of friendship born of shared boredom and necessity.

“Hello, Andre.”

“What’s wrong?”

“How could you tell with my mask on?”

“I was police for twenty-five years. Done this job for ten more. Man does those kinda jobs as long as I’ve done ’em, man learns to read all the signs of trouble and pain from the eyes up or from the eyes down.”

Vincent smiled. “That’s your superpower. That’s what Miss Kuntzler would say.”

“Who?”

“Never mind, Andre. Whatever it was is all gone.”

“You say so. Okay.” Andre nodded. “But you ever have any troubles, you know Andre is here to help.”

“I know. Thank you.”

“Okay, then, I’ll catch you later, my man.”

When Andre rolled away, Vincent could still feel the smile beneath his mask. That’s why he liked Andre. Not many people he encountered in the course of his vacant life could make him smile. Vincent got up from his seat and gazed into the large rectangular mirror the few customers he’d had would use to see how they looked in this mask or that. Vincent had forgotten that he was wearing the Siamese cat nose, mouth, and whiskers mask today. He barely paid the mask any mind. Instead, he ran his fingers over the fabric of the mask to feel his smile beneath it.

He sat back down and thought about what Smart Meal he would nuke for dinner that evening.

Meow

Thanksgiving Surprise was the Smart Meal he’d chosen. He read the promotional copy aloud off the back cover of the box: “America’s favorite holiday in a single dish. White meat turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, stuffing, candied yams, cranberry sauce . . . all kinds of yummy.” Vincent shrugged his shoulders because although he liked turkey, he didn’t have a favorite holiday. He had a least favorite one: Christmas. He thought of Christmas as the phoniest time of year. The time of year at the home when everyone pretended to be happy. When everyone at the home knew the rest of the world had families and they were here because they were unwanted. When they got gifts from beneath a donated tree, gifts no one else wanted. Gifts they were supposed to be happy about. That’s when it was hardest not to mind.

He didn’t want to remember. After he put the two one-inch slits in the plastic covering of the Thanksgiving Surprise tray, popped the tray in the microwave, he put his Siamese cat mask back on and thought about Andre’s kindness. He went into the bathroom of his studio apartment across from the Brixton Bus Depot and looked in the medicine chest mirror. Thinking of Andre made him smile and once again Vincent ran his fingers over the feline nose and whiskers of the mask to feel the smile underneath. He liked the feel of it and thought smiles were amazing things. When you experience so few of them, it was easy to feel amazed by them.

It was only after he removed the cat mask to look at his smile that the world wobbled. When he gazed back at the mirror, the bottom half of his face was the face of a Siamese cat. He gasped. He shook his head. Rubbed his eyes red. Still his nose was a slightly moist leathery pink triangle with two tiny nostrils. His chin came to a sharp point. Whiskers extended several inches out from his now very tapered and brown furry cheeks. He felt like he was smiling, but he couldn’t see it. Cats can’t smile. Even if they could, Vincent thought, they wouldn’t give you the satisfaction. He made a joke! That was almost as remarkable as his half-cat face. “Meow,” he said to no one and laughed.

He held his left hand over the bottom of his face and stared in the mirror once again. Above his hand, Vincent’s dull brown eyes, thin brown eyebrows, short sparse eyelashes, brown hair threaded with strands of gray, oddly furrowed brow all looked as they had always looked. The microwave timer sang its siren song of five monotone beeps. Thanksgiving Surprise was ready. Distracted, he pulled his left hand away and the half-cat face was gone. Same old Vincent. He told himself he wouldn’t have minded either way, cat face or not. If he was going mad, he guessed he wouldn’t have minded that either. At least it was a change.

Before eating, Vincent put on the Happy Freuds’ third album, Sigmund in Dreamland. The Happy Freuds were the only band he ever cared for. The irony of their name was lost on him. Of course it was. The darkness of their long instrumentals appealed to him in ways he could never have explained because he didn’t understand himself. While that might’ve bothered most people, it never mattered to Vincent. Of course it didn’t. Usually, he could lose himself in the Freuds’ ethereal mix of strings and synthesizers, guitars and Thai xylophones. Not tonight. Tonight he was interested in another way to lose himself.

Even as he ate his turkey and listened to the music, Vincent could not get the half-cat image of himself out of his head. He put down his food before he was halfway finished and went back into the bathroom, mask in hand. He slipped the elastic bands of the Siamese cat mask over his ears and stared at himself in the mirror. As he exhaled into the mask, he noticed his breath smelled of turkey. That made him smile beneath the mask. How long, he wondered, how long until it works? He left the mask on for ten minutes before he couldn’t wait any longer.

“Oh my goodness!” he said to himself aloud.

He said it because his face, from the middle of his nose down, was a blurry and bizarre conflation of the Vincent who had always looked back at him from the mirror and the cat face. It was like a bad drug movie from the 1960s with cheesy special effects. The Siamese cat face seemed to be superimposed over his own. And then . . . Poof ! It vanished, leaving only Vincent’s face in the mirror.

“I am losing my mind.”

He folded the mask neatly in half, leaving it on the rim of the sink. He turned, immediately turning back, picking it back up. He found the small white label sewn into the left seam on the inside of the mask. His heart sank as it answered none of his questions. All the label said was: Made in USA.

The Mask Maker

The next morning the mall was emptier than usual. As Vincent made his way to the locked-up Felicia’s Face Masks kiosk, the sounds of his footfalls bounced off all the hard surfaces. The Brixton Regional Mall was all right angles and hard surfaces. Even its name recalled a hard surface. The few people he passed were the masked and gloved old men and women who walked the mall for exercise. He wondered if any of them had envisioned walking around an empty mall as the way they would have been spending the mornings of their “golden years.” He didn’t see what was so golden about them.

His thoughts quickly moved on to other things, more important things, as he rolled open the kiosk, locked its wheels in place, turned on the cash register, and logged on to the credit verification system. That done, he had but one single fascination. He had worn the Siamese cat mask to work, forcing himself not to run his fingers across its fabric or peek beneath it. He supposed he was testing the limits of his sanity. It was a test to see if the cat face he had seen the previous night was in his head or in the medicine cabinet mirror.

Vincent checked his watch. Enough time had elapsed. He stood before the kiosk mirror, squeezing his eyes shut. Slowly lifting the elasticized fabric strap off his left ear, he let it fall away. He counted to three, took a deep breath, exhaled, and opened his eyes. The sight in the mirror made his next breath catch in his throat. Half-Vincent, half-Siamese cat peered back at him from the looking glass. He ran his fingers over the bottom of his face. It was no illusion. The bottom half of his face was silky brown fur and whiskers.

Then he heard it. A woman’s gasp. It came from behind him. Without panicking, Vincent replaced the mask’s left ear strap and turned.

“Amazing,” he said. “Isn’t it? Our masks are incredibly realistic.”

The woman stuttered, “But, but, but . . . I saw, I saw—”

“What did you see?”

The woman was in her midseventies. Skinny as a blade of grass, she looked as if she had hollow little bird bones that would snap like twigs beneath her loose, brown-spotted skin. She had the old person turkey neck thing beneath the bottom of her N95 mask. Her limp, dull, steel-gray hair was damp with sweat. Her faded blue eyes were full of fear and confusion. They darted from side to side as she contemplated what to do next.

“I saw it,” she said. “I saw your face.”

“Before we were forced to wear masks, lots of people had seen my face. You’re the first person who was ever kind of stunned by it. How do you think I should feel about that?”

“You . . . you can’t fool me. I saw it.”

“Yes, you said that.”

“I saw your cat face.”

“As I said, our masks are very realistic.”

“No.” She stomped her foot. “You can’t fool me, mister. I saw your face while your mask was dangling from your right ear. You have a Siamese cat face.”

Vincent laughed the kind of laugh he had only ever heard from other people: a sly, snickering, superior laugh. “Ma’am, do you realize how crazy that sounds? If I were you, I wouldn’t go around telling people that. Disorientation is one of the symptoms, and you know the mortality rates in institutions is much higher than for the rest of the population. And at your age . . .”

That seemed to freeze the woman in place. Her confusion turned to fear. Still, she repeated, “But I know what I saw.”

Vincent was too busy being startled by the language he was using, startled by his condescending laugh. Sarcasm and thinly veiled threats were very much out of character for him. He wasn’t dumb, but he had never been quick-witted or any good at verbal fencing.

Then, as the woman decided she should move on and turned to go, Vincent called to her, “Oh, Miss . . .”

She about-faced. Vincent pulled down his mask. He raised his right hand, fingers bent as claws extended from a paw. He hissed at her as he scratched the air. The woman panicked, running, stumbling as she went. Vincent laughed that laugh again. When she was out of sight, Vincent removed the Siamese cat mask, carefully folding it in half and placing it in his jacket pocket. He kept checking the mirror. Within five minutes the cat face had faded. Certain the cat face was gone, Vincent chose the beagle snout mask to replace the Siamese cat mask. He let the beagle mask hang off one ear, donning it only when he saw someone coming his way. As soon as the person would pass, he’d remove it.

Good thing, too, because ten minutes later Andre came rolling up on his Segue, the old woman in the N95 mask trotting behind him to keep up. Vincent saw them coming and put the beagle mask on at the very last moment.

“Hello, Andre.”

“Yo, Vincent. I know this sounds nuts, but this lady says you got a cat face under that mask,” Andre said, nodding his head behind him. “She says you tried to intimidate and frighten her.”

The woman caught up, panting.

“Me?” Vincent looked hurt. “You know me better than that, Andre.”

The security man shrugged. “In any case, it’s my job to check it out.”

“He’s wearing a different mask,” the woman shouted, her voice muffled by her N95. “He had on a cat mask. Now it’s different.”

“Ma’am,” Andre said, turning to face her, “he’s got about two hundred different kinds of masks there. I know for a fact, Vincent here is under orders from his employer to wear a different mask every day.”

“Check his face. It’s a cat face. Check his face!” She insisted. “He hissed at me, clawed at me.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I have no authority to do any such thing unless—”

“That’s all right, Andre. If it will make your job easier and satisfy this woman, I’m happy to do it voluntarily,” Vincent said, tugging off the ear straps of the beagle snout mask. “Only me under here.”

“See, ma’am, that’s just Vincent’s face there underneath the fabric. Same face I been looking at since he got the job here a few months back.”

“But I swear to you, officer, he had a Siamese cat face under there. I saw it.”

Andre was blessed with the patience of the Dalai Lama. “I believe you, ma’am, I do, but it’s not there now. And truth be told, even it were there, I don’t see what I could do about it. Nothing illegal about looking like a cat, far as I can tell.”

The woman scowled, first at Andre and then at Vincent. “Are you making fun of me, officer? I’m not happy about this, not at all.”

“Life is like that more often than not,” Andre said. “None of us is very happy all the time.”

“Well . . .” She wagged her finger, but was at a loss for what to say next. She retreated, still facing both men.

Andre waved. “Have a good day, ma’am.” When she was gone, he turned to Vincent. “Man, this virus has got people all kinds of crazy. I heard plenty of insane shit in my lifetime, believe me, but just lately . . .”

“I know.”

“Do me a favor, though.”

“If I can.”

“Put on that Siamese cat mask. I’d like to see how real it looks.”

Vincent hesitated. He knew he shouldn’t have, but deception and lies were never his strong suits. They never had to be. He was Vincent the sponge, the punching bag, a repository for other people’s meanness. That when he wasn’t being picked on or fired from some menial job, he was invisible to the rest of the world. In that moment of hesitation, it dawned on him that when he wore the mask and the half-Siamese cat face imposed itself on his, he felt different. That the Vincent Love he had always been would never have hissed and clawed at the old lady. He would have absorbed her accusations like a sponge. He more than looked like the cat. He had become the cat.

“You saw it yesterday,” Vincent said, reaching for the mask in his pocket.

“I know, but—”

“No problem, Andre, but that lady shook me up.” He was hoping Andre would say he understood and just drive on. He did not. “Okay,” Vincent said. He replaced the beagle mask with the Siamese cat mask, and the second he put it on, he felt the change. “Meow. Meow.”

Andre laughed. “Sorry, Vincent. People are all kinds of crazy. All kinds. Catch you later.”

Vincent quickly swapped masks, again neatly folding the Siamese cat mask and placing it in his pocket. Oddly, the beagle mask changed him not at all. He had no desire to hunt rabbits or sniff everything in sight. He didn’t want to wag his tail or play fetch or chew on sneakers. And after an hour, when he removed the mask, he was disappointed to see his own face in the mirror.

Maybe Andre is right, people were all kinds of crazy. Himself included, Vincent thought. But his curiosity got hold of him and he began searching through every box and piece of paper in the kiosk. It was nearly closing time and he had just about given up when he found what he was looking for. It was jammed in one of the kiosk roller wheel wells.

New Salem Custom Tailoring

74 Cauldron Lane

Brixton, West Virginia 24777

Amount Per Unit Description Total Due

30 12.00 USD Three Ply Fabric Masks 360.00 USD

The date at the bottom of the invoice showed the bill was long past due and that gave Vincent an idea. Problem was, Vincent often had ideas. He very seldom acted on them. As he remembered who he had always been, his enthusiasm waned. Still, as he rubbed the fabric of the pocketed Siamese cat mask between his fingers, the fire in him quietly smoldered.

Cauldron Lane

When Vincent got home that night, he broke his routine. Instead of putting on the Happy Freuds and selecting that evening’s Smart Meal, he ran into the bathroom and removed the beagle snout mask he had worn on and off throughout the day. His heart sank at the image in the mirror. It was him, just him. Then he pulled the Siamese cat mask out of his pocket and laid it on the sink ledge next to the beagle mask. The fabric felt similar if not exactly the same, but Vincent was no expert on fabric or anything else for that matter. The stitchery, too, looked similar. He held both up close to the over-cabinet fixture and could detect no difference in how the masks reacted in the light. He was once again deflated and then . . . he noticed it. The country of origin tags were different. The beagle snout mask was made in Vietnam. His heart swelled.

Suddenly, the smoldering fire of the idea he’d had earlier in the day flared up. He grabbed his keys and wallet off the nightstand. With the beagle mask on, he was most of the way out the door when he realized he had forgotten two very important things: the Siamese cat mask and the overdue invoice. Having retrieved them, he was off to the ATM outside the bus depot and Cauldron Lane beyond.

***

Cauldron Lane was on the very outskirts of Brixton, the part of town locals referred to as Hades. Hades bordered the coal mines. With nearly all the coal pulled out of the ground, the mines were dormant. Dormant in terms of mining activity, anyway. Like in Centralia, Pennsylvania, one of the old mines had caught fire years ago and whatever coal remained slowly burned beneath the earth. Acrid smoke from the fire rose up through cracks in the roads and fissures in the surrounding woods. Even the name Cauldron Lane was a kind of lame joke. In a misguided attempt to draw tourists, all the paved streets in the area, which had once borne mundane tree names or Indian names, had been rechristened with names more befitting Hades. For instance, what had once been Sachem Street was now Caldera Lane. Cauldron Lane had once been Live Oak Street. The tourists never materialized, but the new names stuck. Vincent parked his 1988 Plymouth Reliant at the corners of Brimstone and Caldera, because Cauldron Lane was in the area of Hades where only bicycle and foot traffic was permitted. The pavement was deemed too unstable to support the weight of motorized vehicles. The moment he got out of his car, Vincent was overwhelmed by the stench, a noxious cocktail of hot roofing tar and rotten eggs. The beagle snout mask did nothing to lessen the impact of the fumes.

Vincent was undeterred. He walked up the hill. Cauldron Lane’s sidewalks were mostly large chunks of rubble overgrown with vines and weeds. Little puffs of steam were visible through the cracks in the blacktop. Vincent touched his toe to the asphalt, and it was soft from the heat below. Hardly anyone lived in the area anymore. Mostly just artists looking for cheap workspace and the poor who had always lived in the area. Vincent had no idea into which category the inhabitant of 74 Cauldron Lane fit. He didn’t care because he was nearly as excited as he was that day in front of Miss Kuntzler’s class.

The wooded lot around number 74 was really eerie. The old-growth trees behind it that hadn’t already toppled were dead or dying. The newer trees were tiny and misshapen. All were covered in ubiquitous thorny vines, moss, and a hideous bloodred fungus. The house itself was unremarkable. A light-green, aluminum-sided L-shaped ranch right out of a 1950s American suburban dream. Neglected? Yes. Creepy? Not so much. The little part of the L was an attached, one-car garage with a wooden door that looked like it hadn’t been raised since the second Reagan administration. The bottom of the door was rotting away where it touched the driveway, and its white paint was peeling down to the bare wood beneath. Its windows were opaque with dust.

Vincent stepped onto the rectangular concrete stoop. The wrought iron support holding up the overhang was so rusted it seemed to still be standing only out of habit. As he approached the front door, his hands were shaking. His palms were sweating. He rubbed them against the thighs of his pants to dry them off. He raised his right fist to knock. He hesitated, turned, turned back. He knocked. A bare-bulb porch light snapped on and he turned again. This time to run, but he could not. He wanted to, tried to. His mind was running, not his legs. It was as if his feet had become part of the stoop itself. Behind him he heard the door open.

“Please, come in.” It was a woman’s voice, a voice possessing a sultry rasp that made Vincent’s legs weak. “Come in.”

His feet moved again. He about-faced and beheld an open door. He stepped through it as if he were floating. The living room was large, its worn oak flooring partially covered with Persian rugs dyed in deep crimsons and indigos. The mismatched furniture was a jumble of midcentury modern, colonial, oriental, and rococo. But Vincent knew nothing of rugs or furniture. Two things captured his attention: the pervasive, cloying scent of burning incense and the otherworldly beauty of the woman standing at the center of the room. He was weak at the sight of her raven feather black hair falling over her shoulders to the cinched waist of her flowing black robe. Her green eyes flecked in black seemed to glow. They held him in place as if he were a specimen pinned to a board. The skin of her triangular face was a flawless light brown. Her slightly upturned nose came to a gentle point above lips so plush and red that lipstick was beside the point.

As enrapt as he was by the woman’s unearthly appearance, Vincent could not get past the patchouli and clove-scented smoke from the little brass incense burner on the end table next to the sofa. Her eyes followed his. She smiled. Her smile was white neon, and he nearly keeled over at the sight of it.

“I’m sorry,” she said, nodding at the incense burner. “I’m so used to it. I can’t tolerate the smell of the burning coal and its gases. Won’t you please have a seat?”

Vincent sat as if an invisible force pushed him down onto the rough orange fabric of the sofa. He reached into his pocket and took out the past due invoice for the masks. “I’m here about—”

She stopped him midsentence. “You’re here about the masks. I have been waiting for you. Well, not you specifically, but I knew someone would come knocking. I’m very pleased it was you.” She stood very close to Vincent, stroked his hair, lifted his face up by the chin. “This mask . . . this beagle mask, it isn’t one of mine.” She gently pulled it off and tossed it to the floor.

“But . . . but  . . .” he stuttered.

She smiled that smile again. “No masks are necessary. You have nothing to fear as long as you are here with me.”

He didn’t doubt her. He wouldn’t have doubted anything she might’ve said. There was something powerful and reassuring about her voice. If she had told him to fly, he thought he would have gone up to the roof and tried flapping his arms.

She took the receipt from his hand, crumpled it up, and tossed it to the floor. “Consider it paid. What is your name?”

“Vincent.”

“Vinnnn-cennnnt,” she repeated as if it were a prayer. She stroked his cheek. “Which mask of mine did you wear?”

Again he reached into his pocket. This time he held out the Siamese cat mask to her. She rubbed the mask to the skin of her face, breathed in the smell of the fabric.

“Yes, Vincent, a favorite of mine.”

“The mask . . . my face . . . I—”

“I know, my darling Vinnnn-cennnnt.”

She leaned over and pressed her lips to his. She opened her mouth. He opened his. But instead of pushing her tongue into his mouth, she inhaled. He was frozen, as unable to move as he was on the stoop. She seemed to be inhaling him. It went on for what felt like an hour. Then, suddenly, she blew hard into his mouth. That was the last thing he remembered.

He woke up on the sofa, feeling strangely light-headed. When he stood, he stumbled. He had never been drunk but figured this was what it must have felt like. There was a noise, a droning mechanical noise. He followed it through the house like a siren’s song to a door that led from the house into the garage. He didn’t hesitate. Opening the door, he saw the woman, back to him, at a sewing machine. She paid him no mind, not bothering to turn to him. His attention was drawn to the bolts of fabric stacked on shelves pushed up against the garage door. Unlike the incense in the living room, the garage stank of acrid-smelling liquids bubbling in pots atop several camping stoves.

“Those are my special dyes,” she said, her eyes still focused on her work. “The dyes that make my masks like none other. See the bubbling white pot. That is my most special dye.”

He stepped around to face her. “You’re making a mask now?”

“For you, Vincent. My most special mask of all, dipped in my most special dye. It is the mask you need, the mask you have wanted your entire life.” She still did not look up from the machine.

“I have the money Arlo owes you and—”

“I have no need of your money.”

“But how do you know what I want and need?”

She looked up, finally. Vincent gasped because for the briefest of seconds, the woman looked not like she had in the house, but like Miss Kuntzler. “I know, Vincent, because I have tasted you. I have breathed you in and breathed you out. And now there is a little bit of me in you. I am the hands that will wring out the sponge you have always been. I will deliver the punches you have absorbed.”

He didn’t understand. The machine went silent. She handed him a large mask. Vincent looked at the mask and was more confused than ever.

“It’s blank and it’s too big.”

She got up from behind the machine and stood close. “No, Vincent, it is not blank. It’s white and perfect for what you need. Go home tonight and sleep in it. It will cover your entire face, but it will not interfere with your breathing. In the morning, take it off. Look in the mirror and see if it isn’t what I promise. If it is anything less, come back to me.”

“But—”

“Shhhhh, Vinnnnn-cennnnt.” She put her finger across his lips, removed it, and kissed him.

Once again, her breathless, sultry voice and a kiss made him forget. When he stirred, he was back behind the wheel of his Reliant, the big white mask in his right hand. He drove home to his little studio across from the Brixton Bus station. Everything was as it was when he left. Everything but him.

It Begins

He did as he was told and slept with the mask covering his face. She was right about the mask not interfering with his breathing. He had had vivid dreams of the home, the orphanage in which he’d lived until he was eighteen. Only when he got to the bathroom did he realize he could see through the mask as if it wasn’t there at all. It was when he removed the mask and looked into the mirror that he became as frightened as he had ever been. The face staring back at him didn’t belong to him. It didn’t have whiskers or a snout. It was the face of Jim McClure who had worked for four years as the assistant manager at the home. McClure was Vincent’s chief persecutor at the home, a man who took sadistic delight in making Vincent’s life miserable.

Vincent rubbed his face—well, not his face—with the tips of his fingers and the palms of his hands. His hands and fingers confirmed what his eyes saw in the mirror. One of the reasons McClure had been able to persecute Vincent with impunity was his good looks. McClure had tousled dark-brown hair, hazel eyes, and a strong chin. He remembered how all the women who worked at the home would act around him, how they would always hang around when he was there and whisper to one another after he left. Normally, Vincent would have stayed in his studio all day, waiting for the effects of the mask to wear off, but there was nothing normal about anything anymore.

He called in sick to Arlo. “Hey, Arlo, I can’t make it to the kiosk today.”

“You can’t make it today, don’t bother making it tomorrow. You’re fired.”

“Fuck you, Arlo.”

“What did you say to me, you weasely piece of—”

“You deaf, asshole? I said, fuck you. You need me to spell it for you or sound it out phonetically?”

Arlo hung up.

Vincent’s chest swelled with pride and his skin was hot with rage. He remembered rage from the only time he’d ever felt it. He liked it. He liked everything he’d said to Arlo. And now he knew how he would test the power of the mask.

***

Dressed in his best suit and tie, Vincent walked into the Brixton Regional Mall through the west entrance instead of the employee entrance. He waited by the fountain just outside the temporarily closed food court. This was where all the seniors who walked the mall liked to congregate. Oh, they socially distanced, sitting far apart, but old people needed to run in packs as much as teenagers did.

“They need someone to listen to themselves whine about their aches and pains and prescriptions, about how their children ignore them,” Vincent whispered to himself.

Goodness, he thought as he sat on the cool black granite fountain ledge, it was so liberating to feel hate. No wonder McClure tortured him. It was like a drug.

Then he saw her, the old woman, coming his way. He slipped on a blue paper mask.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said, stepping into her path. “I’m Jim McClure from the company that runs the mall.”

It dawned on him that although he looked exactly like Jim McClure, he might still sound like Vincent Love.

She twisted up her eyebrows in confusion. “What’s this about?”

Now Vincent couldn’t be sure if that confusion had to do with his voice or with what he was saying. There was only one way to find out.

“One of our security staff reported that you registered a complaint about an employee at Felicia’s Face Masks kiosk. Is that correct?”

“It is indeed, young man.”

“We’re very sorry, ma’am. We know how trying life can be during these times. We’d like you to know that employee has been let go. As a token of appreciation for your patronage, we would like to send you a fifty-dollar gift card to use at any of the stores or kiosks in the mall.” Vincent took out a notepad and pen. “Please give me your name and address and we’ll send that right along to you.”

“Why not hand me the card—”

“Rules, ma’am. I’m sorry. It’s that personal contact thing.”

“Hettie Walker, 2121 Marchand Park Street, apartment 4C—”

“I know it. Again, Mrs. Walker, we’re very sorry.”

He stepped out of her way. As Vincent watched Hettie Walker leave, he felt that rush of self-satisfaction. He really liked the new Vincent. His former incarnation would never have figured out how to trick the old biddy, but somehow he knew that apologizing and offering her something for free would do the trick. He’d passed the first part of the test with flying colors. Now, heading away from the food court fountain, he moved on to the two most difficult sections of the test.

“Excuse me, sir,” Vincent said to the barrel-chested man unfolding the sections of the mask kiosk.

“Yeah, what can I do for you?” asked Arlo, not yet facing Vincent. “We ain’t open.”

“Please, sir, I’m looking for a job and—”

“A job, huh?” Arlo stopped what he was doing. He turned, staring right at Vincent. “Can you start tomorrow?”

“But you don’t even know if I’m qualified or not.”

“Can you breathe and walk at the same time? If you can, you’re qualified. You should have seen the mutant moron you’re replacing. What’s your name?”

Vincent’s skin burned with anger, but he kept a smile plastered on his face beneath the blue mask. “Jim McClure.”

“Okay, Jim McClure, I got today covered. Tomorrow morning, same time.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Arlo.”

“Thank you, Arlo.”

“Forget the thank-yous. Just show up.”

Two parts of the test down. One to go.

He found Andre back by the fountain, giving directions to the bathrooms to some new morning mall walkers. Vincent waited until the old people were out of earshot before approaching.

“Excuse me, were you giving those people directions to the bathroom?”

Andre spun his Segue around. He stared at Vincent, but just like Hettie Walker and Arlo, there wasn’t an ounce of recognition in him. “I was.”

“I missed the last part about after turning left by the entrance to Sneaker Nook.”

“No problem, sir. After turning left at Sneaker Nook, you go halfway down the corridor and the restroom entrance is on your right.”

Vincent nodded and thanked Andre. A shame, Vincent thought, but by the same time tomorrow, Andre’s job was going to take a very ugly turn.

Victims of Love . . . Sorta

Hettie was first. He had wanted her to be second but figured she wouldn’t answer the door to him after nightfall. She died with relative ease. Even as his knees held her arms to the floor and he pressed his gloved fingers tighter and tighter around her fragile little bird-bone neck, he wasn’t sure why he was angry enough at her to want to snuff out her life. All she had done was see his Siamese cat face. He supposed that would have been all right had she not gone to Andre and made a fuss. The why was moot because he seemed unable to control his rage or to stop himself from enjoying the power surge he felt as the life drained from the old lady. The mask maker’s words came back to him as Hettie Walker stopped struggling.

“I am the hands that will wring out the sponge you have always been.”

But his were the hands wringing the life out of Hettie Walker. He just squeezed and squeezed and squeezed until there was a snap and the old lady went utterly still. No more wriggling, no more choked cries for help, no more gasping for air. Nothing. He stood, wiped his brow on his sleeve, and left without looking back.

***

Vincent watched as Arlo came out the vendors’ door at a little past ten. Before the virus, it would have been impossible for Vincent to do what he was about to do, but now, with fewer open stores, reduced hours, and skeleton crews, the cars in the parking lot were few and far between. Vincent didn’t know which car was Arlo’s, so he had to follow him at distance. Only when the Escalade’s lights flashed and Arlo turned toward it, did Vincent approach.

“Arlo!”

The squat man turned and looked at Vincent. “You! What the fuck is your name again?” Arlo snapped his fingers, trying to remember. “McClure. That’s it. I’ll see you tomorrow morning. Now get—”

Arlo didn’t finish his sentence because he was preoccupied by the black handle of the eight-inch chef’s knife Vincent had plunged into his liver.

“I’m not Jim McClure, Arlo.” Vincent pulled the knife out of Arlo’s liver and stuck it into Arlo’s belly. “I’m the mutant moron. I can walk and breathe at the same time just like how you can die and be confused at the same time.”

And Arlo was both of those things, profoundly so. Vincent made sure of the dying by sticking the chef knife through Arlo’s throat and severing his windpipe. The devil would have to see to the resolution of Arlo’s confusion. When Arlo finished dying, Vincent removed the dead man’s watch, rings, and wallet.

So Sorry

The knock was expected. Vincent had made certain to stare up at the CCTV cameras at the mall and he’d left a breadcrumb trail the police could follow to the vicinity of his apartment building. Vincent had also made sure to wear the magic mask to bed. It was a risk old Vincent would never have taken because he couldn’t’ve been sure what he would dream of or whose face would stare back at him from the mirror. That morning, perhaps for the first time in his life, he was pleased to see his own face looking back at him.

“Vincent Love?”

“Yes. Who’s asking?”

“I’m Detective Adam Martin,” said the man in a surgical mask at the door. He held up a silver star with the words Brixton Detective written across it in block lettering. “May I come in?”

“What’s this about?” Vincent opened the door and gestured for Martin to enter.

“You are employed by Arlo Wiley at Felicia’s Face Masks?”

“I was until yesterday. Arlo fired me and said he had hired someone new. Why?”

“Mr. Wiley was murdered last evening.”

Vincent shrugged. He had never been any good at lying and figured now wasn’t the time to test whether his skill at it had improved. He was sure Jim McClure would have been a much better liar.

“You don’t seem very broken up about it.”

Vincent confessed, “I’m not. Arlo was a mean man, and he fired me just because I didn’t feel well yesterday. But I didn’t wish him dead.”

Martin took out a series of somewhat blurry photos of a man with Jim McClure’s face. “Do you know this man?”

Vincent stared at the photo. “No, Detective.”

“Would you please remove your mask, Mr. Love?”

“Why?”

“Please.” Vincent removed the mask. Martin shook his head. “Thank you. You can cover up again.”

“Is that all?”

“We traced this man in the photos to the area of your building,” Martin said, pointing to the photo.

“Do you think I might be in danger?”

“I can’t say, but I’d be careful for the next few days . . . just in case. So sorry to bother you.”

“I understand. Maybe I’ll get out of town for a while.”

“Not a bad idea if you’ve got someplace to go.”

Detective Martin left without any fanfare, no last-minute, unexpected questions. Vincent had questions of his own, but was careful not to ask them. He realized they hadn’t yet found Hettie Walker. When they did, the cops might be back, and he didn’t know if he could evade suspicion as easily during their next visit. Vincent thought it was time to move on from Brixton, but he had a stop to make on his way out of town.

Hades Redux

He parked his Reliant where he had that first time. The area was scarier in the daylight. Everything, all the decay and the destruction, the vines and red fungus, the fires and smoke seeping through the fissures, were there to plainly see. In the light, he took note of several houses that were collapsing beneath the weight of vines and weeds and wildly growing vegetation. It was, he imagined, what the world would look like after man had perished and nature reclaimed the planet for its own. He didn’t generally have those kinds of “big” thoughts, but he had never been a murderer before either.

Although he was mostly his old self, looked like his old self, he was not completely his old self. Once again, the mask maker’s words came back to him.

“I have breathed you in and breathed you out. And now there is a little bit of me in you.”

The door to 74 Cauldron was open, and she was there waiting for him just inside. This time, though, her beauty left him cold. His reaction was not lost on her.

“I can be any woman or man you desire, Vinnn-cennnnt,” she said in that breathless, sexy rasp. “I know who you want, who you have always wanted.”

She turned her back to him and when she turned again to face him, she was Miss Kuntzler. She looked as she had looked all those years ago. She even smelled the way Miss Kuntzler had smelled—of citrus and coconut. He remembered the feel of her hug when she held him close. The mask maker took Vincent by the hand and led him into a bedroom.

“You’ve done well, my darling,” she said in Miss Kuntzler’s voice, pressing her finger to his lips. “As long as you leave a trail of blood, I will be here for you.” She let her black robe fall to the floor and laid herself down on the bed.

Vincent remained standing, silent.

“I understand. This can’t be easy, wanting me so badly for all this time. Let me help,” she said, turning on her side, facing away. “Come lay next to me when you’re ready. Put your arms around me.”

But the mask maker had misunderstood, because the thing he wanted most from Miss Kuntzler was not her love and affection, not an apology. He wanted her to hurt how he had hurt after she abandoned him. He reached down to where the mask maker had let the robe fall to the floor. He removed the silken black sash from around the waist. He wrapped the ends of it around his hands. He slid into bed with the mask maker, then looped the belt around her neck and pulled. As he pulled tighter, he whispered in her ear, “There is a little bit of you in me.”

When Vincent left the bedroom, he turned to see a pile of gray ash shaped like Miss Kuntzler, a black silk sash around its neck. He lit the bed on fire, thought about tossing the white mask into the pyre, and reconsidered.

With the white mask in his pocket, he drove west into the future. There were countless pores in a sponge, thousands of menial jobs to be had, and an untold number of potential victims of Love.