Authors: Thomas Pendleton
Mason
Mason
This book is dedicated to
Kristine Dikeman, a wonderful
constant in a changing world.
And, of course, JCP.
You know who you are,
and you know what you did.
Preparing the Canvas
We Learn the Shape
Palette
Outside the Lines
Creating Shadows
Chiaroscuro
Exhibition
Shades of Black
Still Life
Iconography
Focal Point
Figure in Repose
The Artist's Medium
Pastels
Muse
Grisaille
Negative Space
Dark Monochrome
Depth of Field
Animation
Abstract
Moving Pictures
Installation
Impressionistic
Diptych
Pentimenti
Opaque
Masterpiece
Perspective
Preparing the Canvas
On a cold January night, a nine-year-old named Gene Avrett walked down the hall toward his little brother's bedroom. Gene intended to kill the boy, because he wanted to see what it felt like. The idea excited him. His heart tripped fast, like he was on the first plunge of a roller coaster, and his palms were wet with sweat.
Quietly he entered the room and closed the door. As he did, several sheets of paper rustled. They were pinned to the door and each held a picture drawn with crayon, like the ones his mama taped to the fridge. The pictures were stupidâbutterflies and flowers and a little girl in a white dress. Silly kid stuff and nothing more.
Gene crossed to the bed and gazed down. Moonlight poured through the window to cover his brother's face, and a small teddy bear rested near his head. His parents
called the brat “special.” Why they couldn't just call him a retard like everyone else did, Gene didn't know. There he lay in his bed, a bit of drool dripping out of the corner of his mouth. The dummy should have been locked in the attic. Instead, he was treated like a prince.
Gene was sick of it.
Leaning over the bed with his hands outstretched, Gene moved stealthily, as if he were trying to catch a skittish toad. He pinched the boy's nose closed. Then he pressed his palm over his brother's mouth and winced with disgust when the drool touched him. Otherwise, he liked the way it feltâhis fingers pressing into the soft, warm skin. A faint pulse played against his fingers. He wondered how long it would take for the heart to stop.
Suddenly his brother's eyes shot open. Gene saw fear in them. He liked that. It made his heart beat even faster, but the thrill ended too soon.
From down the hall rose a terrible cry. The sound, muffled by two closed doors, still was enough to startle Gene. It was his daddy. Gene released the grip on his brother's face and leaped away from the bed.
He rushed to the door and opened it a crack. The hallway stretched before him, shadows on shadows. The door at the end of the hall burst open. His daddy, wearing blue boxer shorts and a white T-shirt stretched tight
over his belly, rushed out. He dashed five steps down the corridor and paused by the railing. His eyes were wild. His mouth worked furiously, though he made no sound. He ran his hands through his hair, combing it madly with his fingers.
Then Gene's mama appeared, and Gene knew that his fun was over. She'd be up all night now. She would want to sit with her “special” boy and comfort him. But first she hurried to his daddy's side, grasped his arm, and tried to console him.
Gene's daddy started screaming again, shouting at the top of his lungs. He waved his hands in the air like he was being attacked by a swarm of bees. Of course, Gene had seen his daddy in a state before, but this fit was so bad, he was getting nervous.
Just then Gene saw what his daddy saw. A flock of black birds appeared in the hallway. They came out of nowhere, seeming to form from the shadows to fill Gene's vision. The crows swarmed the narrow corridor and covered the open space above the stairs, but only for a second.
What the hell?
Gene thought. He blinked and rubbed his eyes, and the birds disappeared.
When the brief shock passed, Gene saw his daddy was still there, waving his arms and screaming, but he was alone now. His mama seemed to have vanished completely.
Gene stepped into the hall, but he stopped when his little brother began to cry. It was a dreadful noise, part tears and part choking. He turned toward the sound. Looking at his gross little brother, Gene ground his teeth together.
Tears slid down the boy's face. His hands slapped at the blankets as his cry for “Mama” rose into the darkened room. Behind Gene, his daddy called out. This time the man was forming actual wordsâsomething about needing an ambulanceâbut for the moment, Gene kept his attention on the sobbing bratâ¦.
Mama's “special” boyâ¦
Mason.
We Learn the Shape
Rene Denton sat on the block of concrete, sipping her coffee and watching students enter the school building in groups of two and three and four. Buses lined up on the left, already emptied of their student cargo. Above the double glass doors through which her friends and peers entered was a sign that read M
ARCHAND
H
IGH
S
CHOOL
. The same name was carved into the stone slab under her butt. She flipped a lock of blond hair over her ear, took another drink from the cup, and decided the sign made no sense.
High school?
It wasn't logical. There was no low school. There was elementary school and then middle school and then high school. Silly. But Rene figured language was pretty loose. After all, they called the cup of coffee she held a “tall,” and it was the smallest size the shop sold.
She spent a few more seconds mulling over the sign,
moving letters and words around in meaningless anagrams. Switched the first letters so that in her mind it read
Harchand Migh School
, and that led her to
Harsh on My School
, which she kind of liked, at least enough to spark a tiny smile.
If her friends knew how much pleasure she took in playing with words and phrases, they would write her off as a total geek. Of course when Cassie or Lorraine (who insisted on being called Lara, like the
Tomb Raider
chick) needed help in English Comp, they came to Rene. At least they had in middle school.
Rene slid off the stone sign and walked across the grass. She paused when she noticed a tall, broad-shouldered boy rushing toward the entrance.
Mason
, she thought.
Mason Avrett was a year older than Rene, but as children they had been best friends. They played tag in the park and chased toads out to the swamps past the Ditch, the rundown part of Marchand where Mason lived with his aunt.
But Rene had grown up, and Mason hadn't. He remained the same sweet kid who liked to play tag and chase toads, while Rene became more interested in clothes and hairstyles and boy bands and television stars. She had inched away from him, drawn to friends like Cassie Ferguson, who knew everything there was to know about personal style, and Lara Pearce, who
was like E! Entertainment in heels: able to quote useless facts about every celebrity on the planet.
Rene waited for the school door to close behind Mason before she continued toward the building.
Inside, the hallways were crowded with kids. Some picked through their lockers for books and pens, while others simply stood around talking, waiting for the first bell to ring. On the way to her locker, Rene said hello to her friend Susan, who was nose to nose with Mark Decouteaux. Susan gave Rene a quick glance and said, “Hey,” but immediately returned to staring into her boyfriend's eyes.
Ever since those two had met, Rene hardly saw Susan. They used to hang out all the time, but suddenly Susan only had time for Mark.
It was weird and a little depressing the way her friends had changed over the summer. These days, everything felt more intense. Talk of boys. Talk of homework. Talk of life. They were in high school now, and while Rene felt that things weren't totally differentâshe hung out with most of the same people and still knew most of the kids passing her in the hallsâshe did admit they weren't the same, either.
Rene thought she understood it. Her friendsânot just Susan, Cassie, and Lara, but all of the popular kidsâwho last year were at the top of the middle-school food chain, now found themselves a few links lower, and
the eagerness to win their place in this fresh ecosystem rolled off of them like nasty perfume.
At her locker, Rene spun in the combination and pulled up the handle. She dropped her book bag in with a
clunk
. As she reached up for her English book, loud and grating laughter drew her attention down the hall.
She turned to the noise and thought,
Oh, no
.
Mason stood in the middle of the hallway, looking confused. Three boys had gathered around him and were playing Keep Away with one of his books.
“Hey, 'Tard,” Ricky Langham said. “Catch!”
Ricky threw a notebook over Mason's grasping fingers. Lump Hawthorne, a burly kid with a flattop, snagged the notebook. He laughed and shook his head, tossing the book to the side and into the hands of Hunter Wallace, who lifted the notebook high in the air like a trophy and turned in a slow circle, showing it to the kids who'd gathered around them in the hall. Hunter's eyes fell on Rene and his gaze sharpened. He flicked his tongue at her.
Gross
, Rene thought. Hunter was such a pig. He was tall and muscular with shaggy black hair and a nasty beard. Tattoos of barbed wire snaked around his forearms and disappeared into the sleeves of his shirt. Everyone knew Hunter was a bully. They also knew he
dealt drugs. Though not the scariest guy in schoolâMason's older brother, Gene, won that prizeâHunter was a close second.
Hunter tossed the book back to Lump, who held on to it. He opened the notebook and flipped through the pages, walking backward to keep Mason at a distance.
“Nothing in here,” Lump said.
“Like his head,” Ricky called with a laugh.
Looking desperate, Mason charged after Lump. “It's mine,” he said.
Lump closed the book and cocked his arm back, whipping the notebook across the hall like a Frisbee. Ricky caught it.
This is so childish
, Rene thought, infuriated by Hunter and his gang's cruelty. She was going to put a stop to this crap. Maybe she and Mason weren't best friends anymore, but she wasn't just going to stand by and watch Hunter humiliate the kid.
She started toward them, but a face on the far side of the skirmish stopped her in mid stride. Gene Avrett leaned against the wall at the end of the hallway. His arms were crossed and he was smiling, amused by the ridicule of his little brother.
The taunts continued and the notebook soared from Hunter to Ricky to Lump. Between them, Mason shuffled desperately, trying to retrieve his pad. He looked so
distraught, Rene thought he might burst into tears.
That's enough
, she thought.
But before Rene could put a stop to Hunter's mean game, Mason did it himself. He sat down on the linoleum floor with his chin to his chest. He didn't cry the way Rene knew Hunter wanted him to. Instead he just sat there silently staring at the shining floor and the shoes of the boys who tormented him.
Rene looked up at Gene. He shrugged and stepped away from the wall. He turned the corner and disappeared.
Knowing that he wasn't going to have any more fun with Mason, Hunter dropped the notebook and led his gang down the hall. The rest of the kids returned to their conversations or their lockers. They'd wanted a morning smack down to get the day off to an exciting start, and all they got was another example of Hunter's bullying.
Once the other boys were gone, Mason grabbed his notebook. He stood up and walked down the hall with his head low.
Rene felt awful for him. Mason didn't really belong in high school. He was held back two grades in elementary school before his aunt made a deal with the school district to allow him to progress up the educational ladder. Technically, he would not graduate, just as he had not graduated from middle school, but
most days Mason seemed to enjoy coming to school.
Still, he suffered for it.
Â
“Did you and Mason ever play Show Me?” Lara Pearce asked before wrapping her lips around the straw jutting from her can of diet cola. Lara's straight black hair fell like curtains on either side of her face when she leaned forward.
“Gross and not even,” Rene replied.
They sat outside under the hot Louisiana sun, eating their lunches on the bleachers overlooking the football field. Other kids took up positions along the benches up and down the rows. Next to her, Cassie Ferguson shook her head.
Releasing the straw, Lara said, “But he's like a giant. I'll bet he swings like a horse.”
“I can't even believe you'd say that,” Cassie whispered, obviously as disturbed by the notion as Rene. “He's mentally challenged, Lara.”
“Then he'd be really grateful, wouldn't he?”
“Can we talk about somebody normal?” Cassie said, exasperated.
Rene winced at this remark, figuring Mason was normal enough. It wasn't like he was a freak or anything. He just didn't learn the way other people did. Still, she remained quiet and looked out at the sign draping the far bleachers.
M
ARCHAND
W
ATER
M
OCCASINS
.
Warchand Mater Woccasins
.
Â
Briefly she wondered if she could pronounce the name of her school's sports teams backward and figured it would be easy enough until she got to
Dnahcram
, which just sounded too complicated and kind of silly, unless she left the D silent and said
Nahcram
, which would be pronounced
Noshrom
. But that was silly too.
“Well, what about Hunter?” Lara said.
“What is your need for freaks?”
“He's hot.”
“He's scary,” Rene said.
“I like bad boys,” Lara replied.
“You know, the reputation you make for yourself in high school will stay with you your entire life,” Cassie said, her voice soft and drawn out like the Southern belle she so wanted to become. “If you want to be respected as a lady, you'll respect yourself first.”
“Oh, do not burden me with your dinosaur logic,” Lara said, swatting at Cassie's hair and sending a few strands out of place. “I know your mama's shoveling that Southern gentility crap into you, but the only thing that kept that fiction alive was isolation. We're wired now. All of that Southern-hospitality-prim-and-proper thinking is dusted.”
“So, you're going to be a whore?” Cassie asked.
“I'm expressing my sexual nature,” Lara countered with a smile.
“Well, quit expressing it over lunch,” Rene said. “There are other things to talk about.”
“You wanna talk about homework?”
“What about the carnival next Friday?” Cassie said. “That will be fun.”
“Not without dates it won't. A bunch of kiddie rides and games? Please.”
Rene listened to her friends bicker and wished Susan still hung out with them. She always had something interesting to talk about. But Susan's halfhearted greeting in the hall that morning was about as deep as things got with her these days.
This is growing up
, Rene thought. Susan had let her childhood friends go, like when Rene stopped playing with Mason. Maybe Cassie was wrong. Maybe nothing you built for yourselfâeven a reputationâstayed with you your whole life. Maybe nothing lasted forever but rather existed in parcels, some large, others far too small, each tossed away when empty. After all, there was no way to move forward if you carried every little thing you'd ever acquired with you. You'd get bogged down and crushed by them. Things had to be tossed out.
She looked across the football field. On the far bleachers, Mason sat alone, eating a sandwich, drinking
from a juice box and every now and then looking up at the sky. He caught her looking his way and held up a big hand. He waved furiously.
Rene lifted her hand, then turned back to her friends.