The Mask by Mike Freeman

 The Mask

By Mike Freeman

My college water polo teammate, Dirk, is very creative. After practice one day, he tells me about his plan to build a full-head mask for Halloween. Intrigued, I ask to join him. He invites me over to his house to develop our creative monstrosities.

He shows me how to build a monster mask that covers my entire head using papier-mâché. I decorate mine with lizard eyes that I can see through. Green scales are a nice flourish. Lumps for ears and a round mouth with a long section of surgical tubing hanging out finish my masterpiece of horror. I paint the papier-mâché head with ghoulish colors. I am going to scare the bajebbers out of small kids!

My amphibious creation is a hit at the team Halloween party. Wearing a full-body wetsuit for extended periods is hot. And my mask muffles my speech. I begin using pantomime to communicate. The long surgical tubing becomes dual-purpose. I can breathe through it if needed. I can place the tube in someone's drink and silently sip whatever is in their glass as they converse with others. I slither from conversation to conversation. Free drinks everywhere! No one notices my dastardly deed. Now, I wish every party a Halloween party!

The following weekend, I gather with my high school friends who are famous for high-adventure, low-judgment activities. They distinguish themselves. Teenstupid is pulsating through their veins and brains.

We determine it is a good idea to roll several bowling balls down a long, steep hill to destroy a fence at the bottom. We plot our scheme.

Where can we get some bowling balls? No one owns one. We can't afford to buy them at a bowling store. We decide to "liberate" them from a bowling alley.

We find a bowling alley near Irvine. How do we "extract" the balls from the bowling alley? We can't just carry them out. We need a significant diversion.

Inspiration hits! I can wear my Halloween mask at the bowling alley for the diversion. It is in the backseat of my station wagon. Driving two cars, we proceed to the bowling alley. We establish a backup rendezvous place to meet if things go askew.

I put on my mask and enter the bowling alley. Immediately, a buzz ripples through the bowling venue.

Children run to me, shouting, "Monster Man, Monster Man!"

I use the pantomime routines I learned at my water polo party to amuse the children. They start screaming for candy. I do not have any.

I look away from the swarm of children surrounding me. My classmates are walking out of the bowling alley with bowling balls. One of them, Tom, takes two at a time.

"Our beautiful plan is working," I think to myself.

Then the trouble starts. Children are getting angry about my lack of candy. Adults are noticing teenagers stealing bowling balls. I am surrounded by children, unable to move or run. My friend, Joe, gets caught before he makes it out the exit door. A herd of adults drags him over to me.

One of the adults turns to a man and says, "Gus, you hold these guys here. We will be back with the others."

The complaining children dissipate. Joe and I stand with Gus. Gus is very elderly and heavily built. I am sure he has not run a quarter mile in three or four decades. Joe is a high school track star in the 100-yard sprint. I am in great water polo shape.

I look at Joe. Joe looks at me. No words necessary. We will sprint away from Gus and the tantruming children to freedom in three seconds.

Gus looks at us. He knows what we are thinking. He can't stop us.

Gus says, "You guys get out of here!"

No further encouragement is required. Joe and I are gone. Sprinting and wearing a full-headed Halloween mask through a bowling alley is a lifelong memory. We make it out to the parking lot.

It is utter chaos. Adults are screaming instructions to each other. None of them is fast enough to catch teenagers carrying bowling balls. Our car drivers calmly exit the parking lot. They have some out-of-breath teenagers holding bowling balls in the backseat. Those of us on foot are on our own.

Several minutes later, we all meet at our backup rendezvous point. We get in our cars and drive to a nearby hill.

The hill is perfect. It features a paved downhill road ending at a four-lane cross street. The road is straight and isolated, with a chain-link fence at the end. Everything is perfect for our scientific experiment.

Scientists Greg and Rick go downhill to the four-lane cross street to ensure there is no cross traffic present when the bowling balls smash into the fence. Joe, Tom, twin brothers Mike and Mark, and I fetch our bowling balls and get ready to roll.

The "no cars coming" signal flashes, sent by Greg and Rick at the bottom of the hill. Many bowling balls are released and rolling downhill. They gather speed. They continue to roll. More speed. More rolling.

Seconds seem to turn into minutes, then hours. The bowling balls continue to roll. I am beginning to feel as if I could time these bowling balls with the calendar. They continue to roll.

All of us are getting nervous. Even our less fully developed teenage brains know this is taking too long.

We hear an engine in the distance. The car travels the four-lane road to the intersection point with the bowling balls. The car gets closer and louder. The bowling balls continue on their downhill path.

"This is going to be close!" we all think.

The car and the bowling balls continue to close.

No one is breathing except the car's driver. He is the only one unaware of the imminent danger.

The car headlights illuminate the road where the bowling balls will hit the fence. We see all of the bowling balls rolling directly in front of the speeding car. They all miss the swift automobile.

There is a huge, palpable sigh of relief from everyone.

Then it happens. The bowling balls bounce back off a sidewalk curb into the street again. The curb protecting the chain-link fence was not seen or integrated into our planning.

There are several thuds as the bowling balls strike the car. The engine growls and dies as the vehicle goes over a ricocheted ball.

Time to panic! The guys at the bottom of the hill start to sprint up to us. The top of the hill gang runs around getting into cars like chickens with their heads cut off. Ready to go, we realize all of the car drivers with their keys are the ones running up the hill towards us. We panic, exit the vehicles, and shout encouragement to our uphill running comrades. Their sprint uphill is long, tedious, and takes too much time.

We get in and out of the cars a few more times before our friends with the ignition keys arrive. We pile in and hit the road.

After driving for a few minutes, we stop to talk. Our actions have damaged a car and possibly injured someone. We decide to drive to the crime scene. Everyone is quiet. As we drive by, we see a man carrying two bowling balls back to his BMW. I can't imagine the insurance report.

Relieved that we only caused property damage, we continue onwards. We still have a few bowling balls left. We drive into a neighborhood and talk again. We decide we have had enough with the bowling balls. We throw them out of our cars in case the police stop us. We drive down the neighborhood street. A few of us look back.

God must be punishing us for our deeds. Lord knows we deserve it. The bowling balls we dumped out of our cars are now rolling downhill behind us. We accelerate to get ahead of them. They are gaining speed as the sidewalk gutters guide them towards us.

I cannot help but appreciate the irony of our dilemma. We get to the end of our road and take a sharp right. A car passes us to turn into the street we just left. Brake lights go on.

We leave the neighborhood not knowing what happened.

Twenty years go by. My high school class is celebrating our reunion. One of my bowling ball schemers, Tom, announces to the crowd that our high school had an unknown bowling team. He asks all of his conspirators to join him on stage. As we gather around him, he tells our bowling story. Then the coup de grâce occurs. He pulls out an article from his local paper in Northern California. The article conveys that some high school kids tried to roll some bowling balls down a hill through a fence. In the article, police say, "It's been 20 years since we've seen anything like this in California."

Hopefully, Teenstupid ideas like this are a once-in-a-generation occurrence and not contagious.

I never wore my amphibious monster mask again.