::Masks

A melancholy, weary day.  I’m not serving drinks.  Get them yourself and put your silver in the box.  You know where it is.

I’m in the back office, watching incense smoke curl up around the candlelight.  Wishing I could remember the right magic words, to undo all these levers and chains.  To throw the gears backward, spitting teeth and sparks.  To tear the world asunder and give me room to spread my terrible wings.  I’m tooth and claw and smoldering eyes.  I’m in a dangerous, toothy mood.  I’m ready to tell lies.  I want things from you.  So.  Now’s really not the time.

But you insist.  The smoke belies the fire.  Maybe you don’t believe. 

Fine.  I’m thinking of masks and affectations.  Fog and mirrors and bullshit and whether I really am the singing, dancing mystery man of the First World.  The truth of the matter is that I’m not even remotely the same man who quit writing here in 2010, spent two years twisting in the ether, and came dancing blithely back as if nothing had changed.   Because this is the last of the Old Places — the VERY last — where I can wear that man’s face and pretend that we are the same.  It makes me feel powerful and dangerous instead of old, filthy, fat, and dull.

I know that’s why I haven’t spilled a drop of where I’ve been these two years:  What my fucking excuse is.  Where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing.  You deserve better, and I’m sorry.  That time is coming.  I’ve bitten down on the hook, and it’s only a matter of time.  Soon you’re going to ask questions, and I’m going to answer every one of them.  And I know it will feel like unmasking Zorro or dethroning Oz, bringing daylight to this sorry lump tapping away at a keyboard and pretending at himself.

I’m afraid that you won’t find me very interesting after.  Just another fiddle-farting Bruce Wayne nattering on about the everyday.  And then you’ll leave, and I’ll be here with my cobwebs and a few dried-up jars of warpaint.  And I’m angry that I need to be interesting, because I barely have any of the things I had two years ago.  Shreds in the wind and dirt under my fingernails.  The two of us wouldn’t understand each other.  But I still wear his faces and speak his words – and it feels so good.

So I’m back here gnashing my teeth and burning things.  Wishing I were tearing the clouds asunder and bellowing echoes around the world.  Knowing that the time is coming. 

Ask.  You’re the one who walked back down this dark hallway toward the candlelight.  You’re the one who saw my animal stare and didn’t turn away.  You didn’t quit reading and it means you want to know, and I’m tired of waiting for it to come.  ASK ME.  Before I put out this candle and lock the door to the office and change my mind.