Rona Jaffe - Mazes and Monsters

By the time the rest of the students had come back to the dorm, Jay Jay had everything he needed, neatly hidden away in one of the rooms of his caverns. He had now begun to think of them as his caverns, not the caverns, just as this production now was his game. Good-bye to Freelik the Frenetic of Glossamir, who had only been a player. Now he was the Maze Controller: the director, the scriptwriter, the set decorater, even the producer. He had begun to map his maze from the labyrinth of his caverns, and he kept the map hidden in his room where no one could find it. This was the most creative project he had ever done in his life, and it fulfilled him almost completely. The only thing he still needed were his actors, and they were sequestered with their noses in their books, cramming for Winter Finals.

He also needed human bones; his special scary present for Kate. For these he went to his friend Perry, who was in pre-med.

Perry was a simian-looking person with a gnomelike mind. “What do you need human bones for?”

“I just need them,” Jay Jay said. “I’ll trade you the use of my motorbike for two weeks in return for two days use of the bones.”

“ If I let you have them, it would have to be on a weekend. I’d have to steal them out of the anatomy lab and that’s the only time no one will know.”

“A weekend is just when I want them. Friday night till late Sunday night.”

Perry squinted his eyes like the mad scientist. “I have to know why you need them, though.”

“You don’t have to know,” Jay Jay said. “You want to know.”

“Same thing. I can get them and you can’t.”

“Okay, but don’t tell anybody. I don’t want anybody else to get the idea of invading my territory. I thought of it first and it’s my thing. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“A couple of us are going to play Mazes and Monsters in the caverns,” Jay Jay whispered triumphantly.

“Oh, boy, you are really nuts!” Perry said.

“Do I get the bones?”

“Why don’t you use animal bones? All you have to do is boil the carcass—”

“You’re going to make me throw up,” Jay Jay said.

“You’re really going to play in the caverns?” Perry said. Like most of the people at Grant, he had heard of the game and knew that it was popular on the campus, even though he didn’t play it himself. “You know, you could get lost in there and die.”

“We know,” Jay Jay said.

“You’re not going to lose my bones?”

“If we get lost and die in the caverns with your bones, they’ll come to look for us, and then you’ll get even more bones. That ought to make you happy.”

“And I get free gas for the motorbike,” Perry said.

They shook hands on their deal. Jay Jay said he’d let him know the date. He knew Perry would probably tell a few people, but it didn’t matter. They would never tell the school authorities, and none of Perry’s friends played the game. The chance of another group trying to play in the caverns was extremely rare. It was much more likely that they would come to Jay Jay and ask to be included. Even so, Jay Jay didn’t want strangers.

“Remember,” he said, “secrecy is of the essence.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Perry said. “It’s my ass too, you know.”

Oh joy, oh bliss, oh gleeful wonder! Everything was falling into place so well.

Reading Period, when everyone studied for exams, was a time of hushed terror in the dorms. There were no parties. People went to the library. Even the constant blare of music from all the individual stereo sets was muted; background for memorizing. The people who had neglected their work up till now were frantic. There was much trading of notes, and all-night sessions to catch up. Normally pale anyway at this time of year, now most of the students looked sick — with worry, sleeplessness, and the effect of a vast consumption of coffee, junk food, nicotine, and pills to stay awake. Jay Jay looked and felt very chipper. Daniel and Kate, although they studied, seemed normal. Poor Robbie was haggard and drawn. All romances were put on hold during this period of fear. After all, if you flunked out, you’d probably never see the person you were in love with again … not to mention never getting a decent job; suffering the wrath of your parents, the disdain of the world, and the loss of your own self-respect.

One night around eleven thirty, when he had returned from his secret nightly trip to the caverns, Jay Jay came tapping on Kate’s door, carrying a Thermos of hot coffee.

“Coffee break, madam.”

She looked pleased to see him, and put her book down immediately. “How sweet. Thank you.”

He sat down on her bed and poured coffee for both of them. “How’s it going?”

“Oh, it’s okay. I just sometimes wonder how the professors know what the authors had in mind. We have to spit back whatever they tell us in class. And I think: If I’m a famous writer some day, will people make up what they think I meant and then make other people agree with them?”

“Probably,” Jay Jay said. “Unless you write the textbook yourself.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Kate said, suddenly looking depressed. “I’m never going to be a famous writer — or any kind at all.”

“How can you say that? We’re all going to be famous. That’s the plan.”

“Whose plan?”

“Mine,” Jay Jay said.

“Then you’ll have to get rid of my writer’s block. I can’t be a writer if I don’t write anything.”

“You’ll think of things. Right now you’re at school; there’s too much input from other sources.”

“Maybe.” She sipped her coffee. “How are your plans for the new game going?”

“Fantastic. Just wait.”

“I worry about you at night, Jay Jay. I know you’re in the caverns all alone.”

He was touched. She, his love, his friend, worried about him! He wished he had brought her something better than coffee, but it was what he’d had left from his evening in the caverns and it had been a spur-of-the-moment idea to share it with her. “You don’t have to worry,” he said. “I’m careful, and I know my way around pretty well by now.”

“You couldn’t. They’re too big.”

“The Pyramids were not built in a day.”

“May I quote you?” They laughed. It was a matter of pride with both of them never to say anything banal unless it was on purpose. “You know what I was thinking, Jay Jay? You’re almost halfway through college and you want to be an actor, but you’ve never taken an acting class.”

“I know,” he said calmly.

“But why not?”

He thought about it. It wasn’t to spite his father, because his father didn’t care. It wasn’t because he was afraid of competition. He knew he was good. Why, then? “I guess,” Jay Jay said finally, “it’s because I have the game. I don’t need anything else.”

“It’s not the same,” Kate said.

“Yes it is.” He told her then about his feelings in the caverns; how he was the producer, scriptwriter, set designer, and everyone else. “Most of us actors end up wanting to do everything else too,” he said. “We like the power.”

“Maybe then you won’t be an actor after all — maybe you’ll be a director or a producer,” she said. She sounded rather pleased. “You really have the soul of an entrepreneur.”

“I could star in my own movies,” he said. “I’d write in a part for myself. Maybe just a cameo, but effective. Or a lead. It would depend on how I felt.”

“Sometimes I dread life after college,” Kate said. “I absolutely refuse to settle for a boring job. Don’t let me, Jay Jay. If you see me copping out, you remind me how when we were at Grant we knew we could do anything.”