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    |  |          ...Hogs of Entropy Text Files Present...            |  |
    |  |                                                              |  |
    |  |                      "Behind the Mask"                       |  |
    |  |                                                              |  |
    |  |                                                              |  |
    |  |                                           By: The Stranger   |  |
    |  |                                                              |  |
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      ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

   The dressing room was small compared to the large size of his body.  An
odor 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
embarrassment 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 man's
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 repetitively
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 cemetery, resting for the moment when they would see their
families 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 ecstasy.

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 Copyright (c) 1995 HoE Publications, Souls at Zero, & The Stranger-#79-5/1/95
 All rights Reserved.  Original edit of this file in SaZ.
