Masquerading

by Kory Kosmicki

All of the moms in our neighborhood smoked
menthol cigarettes and sent their school-
aged children to the Amoco with fistfuls
of change, or maybe a small wad of bills
to buy their packs. The clerks knew our mothers’
brands by our faces. I was Salem Lights 100s. I fancied
the sailboat insignia and the allusion to the Witch
Trials. With any leftover dough, we bought
candy cigarettes, then smashed
all the buttons on the soda
machines hoping for free
cans of pop to come rolling out: JACKPOT! The year
the moms threw a Halloween
Block Party, they held it out of doors
so they could smoke
freely without overpolluting
our lungs, though every home had at least one ashtray
made by a kid in art
class. No dads attended the cheap costume
festivities, but not because they were off winning
bread. More than one had trekked
off to buy his own
smokes and never come back.
Where do you go? After that? As a father? As a cliché? As a human being? I know
now that you go to the bar. Then, I thought you walked
the streets for days
on end until you found a new home, in a new state,
with a different family, similar to the one
you’d left, but an upgrade, an alternate universe
version of the family you’d deserted.

The party got moved indoors due
to a storm the moms
should have seen coming. Us kids all moaned and groaned because
they picked the Lemkul
house, the cleanest, but with the worst children: Ricky bit
and Tiffany might stab you with a kitchen
scissors or hammer you with a meat
tenderizer. The Lemkuls’ dad actually lived
there: a mathematician, weird
guy, pulled his pants up way too high. The moms quieted
us by promising they had some big surprise, a grand
finale. My pops lived with us, too, but had just returned
home from a 15
month stint in

the loony bin. It pissed my mom
off because apparently they played
volleyball and drew with charcoal all day
long in the insane asylum, while she worked two
jobs. The moms dimmed
the lights with glee. Jerry
Heinz, the oldest of us, at ten, muttered,
“Oh, shit.” Jeannie Kuchler announced, “Stand
back, we’re bringing down an escaped
lunatic. A real Charlie
Manson type!” Even the eight year olds, including me,
had seen Helter
Skelter on VHS. You couldn’t not piss
your pants watching that movie that young.
My mom escorted him down
the stairs on a leash, him walking on
all fours, his hair
mussed like I’d never seen it before--my whole life,
he’d combed it
neatly often throughout the day--blood on
his face and hospital gown shirt, frothing at the mouth. I jumped over
the back of the Lemkul
couch and wouldn’t come
out, even though I knew it was him the whole time.

“Son. Son,” he cooed, “it’s me, it’s just
me. It’s only pretend.
I won’t hurt
you. I would never hurt you.”

I couldn’t believe
it, I just couldn’t believe it.

All these grown-up years
later, I still have a hard time
telling for absolute
certain what’s pretend and what’s not.

Kory Kosmicki runs a bookstore with the finest citizens in the Fox Cities, coaches for the vaunted Neenah Special Olympics program and directs the guerilla homeschool theatre company The 39 STEPs. He parents four extraordinary children (Felix, Elias, Frances and Rosanne) with his beautiful wife, Sara. Also, he loves to invent sandwiches named after astronauts. Ask him and he’ll invite you over for dinner and make you one.