Ch. 3 / Pt. 2 : When They Wear the Mask
Recently divorced and more recently unemployed, Robert Robertson, Jr., Bob-Bob’s-son, disappointment infinite, had more than sufficient time to develop a real obsession.
When the divorce had gotten to its knock-down-drag-out ugliest, Judge Howard Lesser had presided over the dispute. Howard Lesser had gaveled many of the final decisions that had put Bob in his new, undecorated condo, including alimony and child support. He’d gaveled Bob’s isolation, too, with his ruling on custody.
But while Bob’s ex-wife Veronica and daughter Sadie had left Oceanrest for some distant part of the country, Judge Howard Lesser still lived there.
And in those unprecedented times, someone could discover an unimaginable amount about someone else’s life through the systematic and occasionally clever use of the internet. With the Mask laid out on the left side of his desk and his mouse on the right, he found his research oracular. Somehow, he already knew which digital paths to follow. He followed them almost on auto-pilot.
The judge that had presided over his divorce case had cooked a homemade dinner with his new, much-younger fiancee and had taken a photo of the two of them eating it in on their balcony. Beyond the railing, Bob-Bob’s-Son, not-so-fucking-disappointing-after-all, recognized a statue. The statue belonged to a suburban park not terribly far from the denser city center. Not terribly far from him.
On one side of the park, a row of small condo buildings contained young couples and professionals. On the other side of the park, houses. But the judge lived in a condo, probably on the third-and-topmost floor, with a clear view of the monument and the walking path that circled it. Trees obscured a small picnic area, another property feature he recognized. Having spent almost two days poring through the other man’s photos and social media profiles, Bob felt he had a pretty accurate idea of what building and unit the judge occupied.
He’d seen the inside of the man’s home. Photographs taken at a housewarming party two years prior showed a broad living room, a kitchen with marbled countertops, and recent-renovation appliances. They also showed hallways, angles of bedroom and bathroom, and the threshold opening from lounge to balcony. An impressive place, a new construction. A monument to the slow but slowly-accelerating recovery of Oceanrest’s previously crippled economy.
Judge Howard Lesser, fifty-four, had recently become engaged to a twenty-eight year old paralegal.
Bob jerked back from the screen with a gasp.
Had the Mask moved?
No. Of course not.
Had its expression changed? Did it smile, now?
Did it matter?
Another day burnt into night. Rob-Bob-Mikey stroked the Mask with one hand while he scrolled the internet with the other. His breath deepened, husky. Judge Howard Lesser ate dinner with a smiling woman so far away from a divorce they hadn’t even thought of it, yet. Them with their jobs and their balcony and their bright white teeth. Did they want to rub it in? All their joy, bright eyes character-lined from laughter—they did. They had to.
Bob lost his breath, pulling away from the monitor. Sweat flopped his brow.
He wouldn’t really do it, right?
He hesitated before closing the windows and shutting down the VPN and turning off the computer.
Would he?
In his dreams, people whispered his name. No matter how small he got, the whispers stopped him from disappearing.
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