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Mask
by Bob Bradshaw It's Halloween and I slip a mask on that looks like I've undergone surgery with a yakuza's serrated knife. Mom hands me a brown bag. Be polite. I nod. I bang a neighbor's door with my shoe. A woman wedges the door open and flips a candy bar towards me. I melt into the widening darkness. I snarl as a kid opens a door. My hairy fist grabs her bowl of licorice. I dump it into my bag and rumble off, the kid screaming as if her house had been torched. All night I run with streamers of toilet paper across lawns, leaving a papery vapor trail across bushes, trees, roofs. One man stiffs me with a handful of candy corns flicked like seed at a pigeon...that guy's house I paint yellow with egg yolk. I howl all the way home. Were you good? Mom asks. I feign an insult. All year the mask hangs in my room, a silent witness to my other life |
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