The Game Of Masks

Patrick needed a beer and a mask.

His shirt stuck to his back in the Costa Rican humidity, woodsmoke wafted the aroma of cilantro, cumin, and cinnamon in a light breeze, and in this crazy crowd of locals and tourists, he might as well be in a Where’s Waldo puzzle.

Patrick wiped his brow and scanned the crowds, some dressed for the festivities, some dressed for Disney World, but none of them looked like they were looking for him.

He stood halfway out the opening of a ramshackle hut, watching an intense little man sitting on a short three-legged stool, the floor covered in curled slivers of wood, a home-made hammer and a chisel nicking out balsa chips, removing all the parts that weren’t a frowning old man with tusks and what would soon be devil’s horns. There was a painted sign on his shack that read: Indigenous Art For Sale. The man smiled at him and handed him the mask. No more looking over his shoulder, his disguise complete.

Today was the final battle of the Juego de Los Diablitos; some had been at it for two days, everyone waiting for the Danza de los Diablitos – the final act of the festival. The festival began the morning of December 31st and would end today with the burning of the bull. As festivals go, El Jeugo was chaotic, hot, and humid. The craft beer of the indigenous Boruca people – chicha - was served in a murky wooden bowl, offered freely, with a tangy, slightly carbonated, puddle water taste that could only come from homegrown ingredients. In all his travels there, he had found that fermenting something from the local terrain was a cultural constant.

She stood out like an actress walking off a set into the real world.

Holding a jaguar mask halfway to her face, ready to hide behind it, kinetic energy poised to run as she watched people stream by. Her mask, a stunningly carved and painted jaguar, tawny with contrasting black rosettes, golden-red eyes peering through an emerald forest, feathers sprouting flamboyantly from the top, looked more like a headpiece.

He nodded to himself, admitting she was the real reason he was here.

Patrick looked for an opening in the growing parade of diablitos – he took a leap of faith and stepped in between a group of old men in old masks, and a bunch of kids chasing them. The men flowed around him, dancing and chanting; the kids surrounded him, reaching for his pockets, their faces wrinkled up into smiles that stretched to bright eyes -- scrunched up happy faces. He was prepared.

He reached into his bag and pulled out a handful of candy, the kind you hated on Halloween as a kid, but it was sweet and bright, and he quickly became a festival favorite, at least with his new friends. He scanned the crowds as he handed out the candy, but all eyes were on the procession of men looking for the next serving of chicha, as eager for it as the kids for candy.

The holiday warriors kept moving to the beat of a handheld drum and the magical sound of a hand-carved flute, most wearing woven banana leaf tunics, and masks whose elaborate decorations seemed to be a sign of class; bright paint, feathers, extravagant designs for some, plain, worn masks for the older generation. The village elders led the way, blowing on conch shell horns.

The warriors, enraged, frowning and growling, some carrying short spears or bows, all in search of the bull -- a burlap effigy -- the subject of their wrath that represented the Spanish conquerors who considered the Boruncans devils because they were pagans. They marched past homes that, like most indigenous folks, were simple, well-ventilated huts with corrugated tin roofs, surrounded by lush tropical plants that looked like giant cousins of their domesticated household versions in the States.

She waved, and he smiled, forgetting he was wearing a mask.

She joined the procession with an exaggerated leap, “Sorry to interrupt, but I’m feeling a little out of place and was looking for a friendly face,” she laughed. “No pun intended.”

“They say that people choose a mask to reflect their inner self.” He removed his mask and shook his head. “I like yours better.”

She was Gabriel DeLeon. They had met three nights ago, and Patrick considered their dinner the following night might be fast-tracking a relationship he was not ready to navigate. “Call me Gabbi,” she had said, touching his hand, and with the rhythm of the waves, the salt breeze, and stars scattered across a moonlit sky, he let himself take a step into a world he thought was lost to him.

It was too soon.

She looked for the warriors who had rounded the curve, their chants and drumbeat fading, “Should we catch up?”

Their dinner conversation had been playful, exploring without stepping over lines, and after dinner, drinks and an out-of-practice slow dance, he knew her, while knowing nothing about her.

“So, if you aren’t an anthropologist, what are you?” He guessed wrong

“I’m not a novelist,” she said.

“Ah, aspiring?”

“Yes. You?”

“Aspiring to finish my sloop and sail away into the sunset.”

“I see,” she thought a moment. “I ran away to get here. You want to sail away. Everyone wants to be somewhere else.”

Patrick did want to be somewhere else, or be somebody else, all of which made his side of the conversation veiled at best – maybe masked was a better description.

The first drops of the daily afternoon rain pelted the loose dusty street, and Patrick looked for a place to wait it out, not to be out of the rain, but for a quiet moment.

“Can I buy you a drink?” She laughed, and they sat under a thatched roof, with a wooden table and two chairs that had garage-sale appeal. A trickle of rainwater dripped from the thatched overhang, Patrick shifted the table, and they sat.

“What are you writing about?” He tried to sound interested. He was interested, but it was just hard to keep an eye out for a potential threat while also paying complete attention to the woman next to him. Both deserved more attention, and he was a little rusty on both accounts.

“Don’t know. That’s why I’m here, I guess. I had to get away to clear my mind.”

“Find yourself? Or your muse?”

“A little of both. You?”

“No. Just the opposite, I came here to get lost.” It came out sounding more spiritual than he intended.

Gabbi shook her head in understanding, “Sometimes you have to get lost to find yourself.”

The rain tapped a tune against the next-door hut’s tin roof, and Patrick thought about what she said. A throw-away line? Something she saw in him? He stumbled through responses in his mind, but none made sense to him, and worse, would leave too much room for interpretation. He had insulated himself from others for too long, avoiding relationships that stalled at the barriers he erected, and he feared that he was already scaring Gabbi away.

“I’ve got an idea!” Gabbi said, picking up her mask. Her eyes widened, and she shifted away slightly as he realized she startled him out of his reverie.

“Oh, sorry,” I said. I was just thinking that this was a good thing, whatever it is between us, but we don’t know much about each other.

“No, let’s hear it,” Patrick said. Everything that came out of his mouth sounded stiff with the enthusiasm of first-date awkwardness. There was a time in his life when he could play the game, be a part of the conversation. Scars got in the way.

“Yeah, well, it sounded good in my head, but here it goes. Each of us tells the other something about themselves, something outrageous or bold. But you can bluff. So, you tell me, and if I think you are lying, I put on my mask. If I believe you, it’s your turn.”

She saw the shock on his face before he could mask it.

“Or we could run and catch up with the diablitos?”

“Okay, but you start. I need time to think.”

She smiled and did that thing with her shoulders, scrunching them up and taking a deep breath in anticipation...it made her look like a kid around the fire and at a campout.

“I…” she stretched out the vowel like she was digging deep, “I am here because I’m running from a failed relationship, and I needed to get away to clear my mind and write.”

He lifted his mask to challenge, then smiled. “This game is more complicated than I imagined.”

“It can be. If you overthink it.”

If he put the mask on, she was lying. If he didn’t put the mask on, he believed her. But everything about her screamed, “Put it on, so I can tell you the truth.”

He put the mask on, and she squirmed and let out a little shriek. Not a little girl shriek, but a --“ I want you to think of me as a little girl -- shriek. She was lying…and she wanted him to know.

“Now you!”

“I don’t get a follow-up?”

“You might, but you have to go next.”

“Okay, I am here because there was nothing left for me back home, and I’m on hold, looking for the next thing. Living the life everyone dreams of and will sail off into the sunset.”

She put her mask on.

“I’m terrible at this.”

She put a finger to her lips…the jaguar’s lips. “My turn.”

She leaned in on her elbows, her mask still on, and whispered, “I need a drink and have a bottle in my room.”

He held his mask in his hand, not knowing what to do with it. She walked off without looking back.

Patrick followed.

Gabbi’s room was exclusive for the area; the bottle was the finest the town had to offer. The room was clean but sparse, and the bottle unlabelled. She poured.

“Are we still playing?” Patrick asked.

“That depends on you,” she said. Her voice sounded nothing like the playful tease of their game of masks.

“So, you aren’t a struggling novelist looking for your muse?”

She waved the mask in front of her face but didn’t take her eyes off him.

She told him to sit, and there was only one chair.

She sat on the bed and put a hand under the pillow.

“I’m not a guy in a midlife crisis building a sloop to sail away into the sunset.”

She set the mask down.

For the briefest moment, sadness darkened her face.

The pillow hid her hand, and Patrick decided not to cross the room and throw her on the bed and see what happened next.

“The cartel sent you here to kill me,” Patrick said.

She put the mask on. Her hand remained hidden, but she didn’t seem threatened.

“My ex-wife sent you here to kill me,” he laughed.

Patrick’s ex-wife was living in the Midwest under an assumed name, and Patrick was on the run. She took the mask off, as if she knew his thoughts.

He let out a breath, tired of the game. He nodded, buying time.

He had made some mistakes dealing with good guys doing bad things, and bad guys who were not so bad. Both wanted him dead. They had left him one choice: run.

Her hand slid from under the pillow, holding a 9 mm Beretta. She didn’t point it at him, but she kept her eyes on him like a pro -- like a predator.

There are only two types of people who could get a gun into this country: one wanted him dead, the other wanted him in prison.

“They want you back.”

“Alive?”

“Preferably,” she smiled. “They needed to know if you ran because you fucked up, or if you had crossed over.”

She set the gun down. “I told them you asked the same thing about the agency when you left, you didn’t know what side they were on. Apparently, they are more interested in what you know than what you did.”

“So, all of the masks and dinner and,” Patrick stopped. He left the agency when he was asked to cross the line, an order to kill a man that he called a friend. He chose a good man working for the bad guys over a bad man working for the good guys. He would do it again.

She tilted her head and raised a brow. “It’s time for you to put the mask away and come back to work.”