Suzie’s House 415 : The Mask Maker At Home

No one was home when Bruce slipped into this house though it was already well after curfew. Every room was dark, so probably no one had been home all day.

He raided the fridge and took a beer, and a pudding pack then grabbed some chips from the cupboard. It wasn’t much of a meal, but he’d had worse. He settled in front of ht big screen high def brand new wired up the wazoo stereo system and popped the top of the can

The first swallow burned and fizzed so much he had to close his eyes for a sec.

He was hardly a newbie to drinking, even though he had yet to set foot in the hallowed halls of East High, let along turn into the kind of college student he was supposed to be. Probably nobody else in the band had ever gotten drunk before. Well… maybe Gene. Bruce got the feeling Gene had already given up on alcohol even before middle school.

For sure Emma would be shocked. No. Not shocked. She’d turn up her little nose and get that holier than though frown. She was such a prude at heart. But when she wore one of his masks it was a whole other ballgame. Then she let out her inner vixen.

She probably thought he was just being nice. He knew better. It was a power trip. When he made the masks he could already guess what kind of persona she would have on stage. Nothing beat watching her march to his tune.

He clicked through channels. Over a hundred stations to choose from but only the same old boring stuff. He could be making a mask instead.

Ditching everything just as it was, he headed for his room. His uncle liked to say Bruce always left the TV on because he was lonely. Yeah, right. So lonely he should move in with his uncle and turn into a music product 24/7? Not likely.

He yanked open the dresser drawer in his bedroom where he hid his fabric scraps. The last thing he needed was for anyone in his family to find out he did something as sissy as sewing. There wasn’t much left from the velvet dress he bought at St. Vinny’s thrift shop, let alone the leather jacket he’d cannibalized. The discount store package of feathers had gone flat. There was still some lace he’d torn off a wedding dress that he’d found in a garbage can along with a shattered picture of a happy couple and a bowling ball that looked like someone took a hammer to it.. Not much to work with. A tube of red glitter glue looked the most useful.

He found some of his old jeans three sizes too small in the bottom of the drawer. Well, at least it gave him something to work with. He took the scissors to them.

All the plans he’d had for the band and his place in it were melting out from under him. He had no one but himself to blame. He was the one who blocked the promotion activities Uncle John kept coming up with. But no other promoter or manager had stepped forward. He had consciously allowed Tracy to step forward as leader. He had even turned down an offer from a garage band full of college students.

Bruce no longer considered Malaprop a stepping stone. The band had something special. When he was with the other members he felt more at home than here in his bedroom. They were better friends than his gang. When he was practicing or writing songs he didn’t even feel like hitting anyone.

He snipped out holes for the eyes, they frayed all the edges of the mask shape. This time he’d skip the feathers and just do swirly patterns with glitter glue.

Maybe it wasn’t a bad thing that he had changed. It didn’t feel so much like he’s lost his way as like he’d found himself. Or maybe he was just having too much fun to worry about it right now. After all, he had four more years before he had to start acting like an adult. Anything could happen in that time.

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