The Naked Face

by Jeffrey Greene

Table of Contents parts 1, 2, 3, 4,

part 1

Rickard woke up with a blinding headache, parched mouth and a crick in his neck, last night’s mask melted on the car seat, and only the vaguest idea where he was. Roadside park somewhere, blanking on how he got here, his vintage Chevy the only car in sight. With luck, no one happened along while he was sleeping and reported an unmasked man to Health Enforcement.

Early morning birdsong, picnic table, smell of garbage, dented trash can that he must have knocked over trying to park, shreds of fog rising out of a ravine, sounds of a river below, the same river running through dreams of water and the girl whose name, her name... She never told him. No one under twenty-five used anything other than mask names, and hers was Owl-Fever.

But he remembered everything before that: full moon festival, the girl a two-night stand too young for him, coyote mask drummer. Had no business feeling jealous, but he was. Watching her dance by the big bonfire, like the others nude except for her mask, her eyes on the drummer, skin gilded with sweat in the firelight as she leapt and swooped on imaginary prey, earning an A for effort, though the owl spirit disdained to possess her.

Getting turned on watching her catch her breath, fingers pulling at the tufted horns of her mask as she told him their little thing was over. He shoved and was shoved through the crowd to his car, spun out of the dirt lot and drove to wherever here was, which looked like New Mexico. Must have bought a bottle and finished it somewhere along the way, because there was nothing in the car.

Another blackout. It was getting old fast. And what to do now but move? Maybe north into Colorado or northwest into the red canyon lands, he didn’t care. Northwest, then. He pulled on a paper temp mask from the glove box and drove until he found a town with gas/food and kept moving.

Butt-sore and thirsty by the time he reached southeastern Utah. Wilson Arch at sunset, a white-haired Navajo by the roadside selling “Traditional and Living Masks. Guaranteed Virus-Reactive.” He bought a Blue Cicada, which can signify either the Cuckold or the Needy Stranger. The Navajo’s mask was old-school, a wood-carved, hand-painted Gila Monster with a nano mesh screen stretched across the mouth and nose holes.

“Old knife-in-the-heart?” the Navajo asked as money changed hands. He nodded, then turned his back and donned the new mask. Like ants under the skin as its feeder roots penetrated his pores, quickly shaping itself to the contours of his face.

“Go to the Green River Tavern in Moab. You might find a band-aid.”

“How ’bout a cure?”

The old man’s muffled laugh: “Dig a hole and fall in.”

He went. Rafters, mostly, paired off by the species in trout masks and dressed down for the local economy. They were being guilt-tripped for drinks by a Ute barfly in a Custer mask. The band called themselves Yellowcake U, wore masks of mutated prospectors and played a kind of Bob Wills meets Mescalito. He’d heard it before and better and there weren’t any loose band-aids around, so he left after a beer.

Unlocking his car when a big guy in a bear mask and his raven girl stepped out of the shadows and asked for a ride. The Bear was carrying a deer rifle on a shoulder strap, a canteen and a bag of supplies. The Raven had five harmonicas holstered in a sash across her buckskin vest and a pistol on her hip. Both tall, lean, sun-lightened hair, their masks beautiful but beginning to deteriorate.

“Where to?” he asked.

“Cabin about a mile off the main road four miles out of town,” the Bear said. “We’d walk in the last mile.”

“Let’s go.”

He took them all the way, into a valley of pastures sloping down to cottonwood groves hugging the river, silent shapes of cattle bedded down under the trees. Dark cabin on a rise with the river behind them, moon-painted rapids. As they climbed out, Raven said, “You’re welcome to sleep on the couch if you’re tired.” He liked her voice, warm and husky from the hash she’d smoked nonstop, but her body made him lonely.

“Can’t shake that drive-all-night feeling. Thanks anyway.”

“Where you headed?” Bear asked.

“Nowhere. I hear it’s just up the road.”

“Actually, you’re parked on it,” Raven said. “Breakfast at six.”

“Talked me into it.”

They were music nomads who’d tired of the life and settled down to homestead a few acres on the Colorado River. He was hungry and they fed him, then passed around a jug of their own corn liquor and started in playing. The Raven had a rough, bluesy voice, but really went to town on the harp, and Bear was more than a fair hand on guitar.

No kids on the property. Like most women, she couldn’t have any, a parting shot from the last variant. It made everyone strange, that look in the eyes of last things, of endings with no more beginnings. Some turned reckless; others, crazy.

Her it made generous. She came to his couch after midnight, wearing nothing but a green-eyed Black Cat that had mated to her face with alarming perfection, like a human/cat hybrid, the mask-secreted nano-mesh over her mouth and nose glowing a benign green. Breathtaking as she was, he preferred to keep breathing, and whispered as much into her pointed ear, even as her smell was driving him past the point of caring.

“I could tell you were hurting,” she whispered. “So could he. The Raven belongs to him, loves only him. If I came as the Raven, he’d be within his rights to kill us both. But he sent the Black Cat as a gift, and she wanted to.”

“I’ve always loved cats,” he whispered.

He bathed in the river at dawn, back smarting from cat scratches, the now-dead Blue Cicada dropping off his face in gelid pieces borne away by the current. He didn’t need it anymore. Three hundred miles and one pleasantly sleepless night had numbed the pain, at least for now. Owl-Fever had been a band-aid, too, for wounds that still bled. The temp mask would keep him legal until he found a mask shop.

After a fine breakfast of eggs, homemade bacon, fresh bread and coffee served by a more reserved but still warm Raven, he offered to help Bear with the chores. They milked cows, baled hay, mucked stalls, trimmed tomato plants, and talked of everything except the Black Cat.

“Just drifting?” Bear asked, during a water break.

“Started out as something else. Now? Drifting with intent, I guess.”

“Does she favor one kind of mask?”

Must have had ‘she’ written all over him. “Predators,” he said. “Not one in particular.”

“Does she want to be found?”

“Probably not. If she even knows or cares that I’m after her.”

“Well, good hunting.”

“Thanks.”

“Lots of hiding places out here.”

“Burned up a lot of gas learning that.”

He left around ten with an invitation to visit anytime. You don’t forget people who treat you like a god in disguise, come to test their hospitality.

Proceed to part 2...

Copyright © 2024 by Jeffrey Greene