@@DESCRIPT="`Behind The Mask' By TS"
                         Behind the Mask


     The dressing room was small compared to the large size of
his body.  An odar like a traveling circus lingered in the room
like a patient waiting to see a doctor.  He sat wondering if the
smell was the way the room always smelled or if he had brought it
with him.  Smells were important to him.  He didn't want to give
off the wrong scent, it could be dangerous.  He knew they were
getting close to him and they were like dogs who could smell his
scent miles away.
     Then why do I go on? he thought.
     Because I need to.  That was the answer wasn't it?  He
needed to see their eyes watch him with unconditional love, he
needed to see their white fleshy skin, to taste the wetness of it
against his lips.  That's why he went on, he would die without
it.  
     His fingers, white from the makeup, jabbed and poked across
his face, layering the colors across his skin, putting on his
disguise.  The red circles around the eyes, the big red fire
engine lips.  They were all apart of him now, he was a wave of
colors, a collection of masks.  He could hide himself easily.  It
helped him get close to them, to get inside them.  The colors of
the mask made them trust him and there wasn't anything he
couldn't do to them if he had their trust.
     And they all trusted him.  They all loved him.  He made them
laugh.  His painted tear down a white crusted cheek, his foolish
grins and funny dances.  All were like weapons that allowed him
to control them.  He could watch their smiles from behind his 
mask and inside he smiled along with them, but for different
reasons.  For them it was joke, only a moment in time they would
soon forget.  But for him it was a lifetime, squeezed into ten
minutes on stage gazing at their childhood, becoming a part of
their life.  And they loved him.
     Until he took of the mask.
     Underneath the mask he was nothing but an old man, an old
man with wrinkles and age twisting in the skin.  That wasn't what
they wanted.  They wanted laughter but the man behind the mask
only brought them pain.  They screamed when he touched them.  He
would try to show them that he was still the man in the mask and
that he only wanted to show them love they had never felt before.
     But the children still screamed.
     He looked into the mirror in front of him, watched his eyes
float in their sockets gazing across the man, the figure he had
become.  Sometimes he felt like such a fool.  A man this age
shouldn't look like this, he told himself.  Useless, when did I
grow so useless?  His outfit was a spectrum of colors, bright
blue and red lines stretched down across the seams.  His big
floppy shoes, all part of the show, tapped on the floor below
him.  
     When he looked in the mirror he could see the man behind the
mask.  He could see his own heart, beating black in front of his
eyes.  And he could see the heartbeats slowing down and the shell
of lining around the heart slowly being cut away.  He could see
the vile running through his veins, poisoning him from within 
like the venom from a snake.  He was no better than the snake who
steals the mothers eggs and eats them whole.  No better.
     She was in the mirror staring back at him.  She wasn't
actually in the room but she was in the place she would forever
be, in his mind.  Her name was Cameron or Candice, he couldn't
remember.  He called her Fire because her hair was red and wavy
like ambers of a roaring flame.  She was a shy seven year old who
would have been a beautiful woman, if she had the chance to grow
up.  
     Fire.  The name sparked in his mind like a lighter being
flipped on.  Her skin was painted with red freckles and soft
colored hair that tickled across his fingers.  She was so young,
so precious, so eager.  She followed him into his car, stared at
his funny face as they drove through the backstreets of a town
she never knew.  She imagined how funny he would look driving to
anyone who would pass them on the road.  But no one drove by, he
had planned it that way.
     And she had cried at first, not finding the energy to scream
after he had tied her up.  And he went to her, smelling the smell
of youth the way a florist knows the scent of roses, filling his
nostrils up with the sweet scent that burned in his lungs.  His
hands found their way under the cotton of her clothes and then
pulled them until they tore off.  
     Her tears streamed down across her cheeks as her face went
red with embarresment as the old man in front of her was staring
at her "girl parts" as her mother once told her.  No one was 
suppose to see her "girl parts" and so she cried.  And then she
began to shiver and shake as the old mans wrinkled hand began to
sway between her legs.  
     Her cries of pain became muffled by his screams of pleasure. 
He untied her legs but not her hands and then undressed himself. 
He opened her up and placed himself inside, his weight almost
crushing her underneath but him not noticing.  And like magic she
had been taking to a place she had never known existed.  A place
of sheer pain that ripped inside her.  He had brought her to his
fantasy world and showed her a love she never knew of before.
     Afterwords he had brought out the knife.  The child was
holding onto life like the fallen cliffhanger who dangles at the
end of the rope.  She was bleeding in between her legs and across
her mouth and he knew that he had broken a bone or two.  The
knife danced above in the air and then repeatively flew down into
her skin, taking the girl out of the daze she had been in for the
moment it took the pain to reach her brain and then as the knife
cut across her insides she lost her grip on the rope and fell
into the darkness below. 
     He came back from his memory and looked at the illusion of a
girl standing before him in the mirror.  Her body entirely red as
if she was a sponge that had soaked up a bucket of paint.  Her
naked body shivering in the coldness of death.  Her eyes wide
open looking into his soul asking why and damning him for life.  
     He closed his eyes and washed the memory of her away, for
now. 
     He placed the final dabs of makeup across his face, then
came the silly court jester hat and the big red nose.  He stood
up and walked over to the wall mirror where he would be able to
see his entire large mass.  He set the hat on straight, reached
for his gloves and began to pull his fingers up the tiny leather
holes.  The gloves tight, like a childs skin.
     The sounds from outside growing louder as the crowd began to
get settled waiting for the show.  Almost show time.  Another
chance to see them, to make them laugh, to steal a part of them. 
He could feel himself get excited by this and also angry at
himself.  His excitement usually ruled out his anger.  
     "Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls, it's almost showtime. 
Pogo the Clown will be out in only a matter of minutes, so please
find your seats and get ready to laugh and have fun" a voice said
from a PA system outside of his room.  
     He sighed, thinking again.  Fire.  Where was she now?  He
knew.  She was in his backyard resting.  Making friends with all
the creatures who lived under the ground.  That's where they all
were, all the children.  All buried in his own private cemetary,
resting for the moment when they would see their familes again.
     A knock at the door.  Perry walked in and said "Five minutes
Mister Gacy."
     "Thanks" John said.  
     Another show, another chance.   He pushed the memory of
former children in the back of his mind.  It was time to meet new
boys and girls.  It was time to look at them and see who would be 
his next friend.  To see who would be the witness at his final
show.  
     He jumped up once and then again, trying to put himself in a
"clown mood".  He smiled, he laughed into the mirror.  He could
feel the river of vile rising to the top of his veins, his
corroded heart once again coming alive with excitement.  He
turned to the door with the man behind the mask right behind him
and stepped out to extasy.


The Stranger  SAZ

