Junglepixiebelize - Recollections of a Gringa Pioneer
Nancy R Koerner - Copyright@2021 - All Rights Reserved
CHAPTER FIVE
"Mask Man"
A young mestizo boy had given us good directions to get out of Belize City. Orange Street became Cemetery Road, and sure enough, the feeling of “city” was thinning. With the broad swath of Central American Boulevard ahead, we knew we were on the right track. Again, thinking it might be good to put some calories in our bellies before the next leg, we spotted a little wooden kiosk. Having had excellent luck with food kiosks so far, we parked and prepared to make a purchase. I got out of the van, and stood in the front of the counter, waiting. Although physically, I did not waiver at the sight of the apparition, my mind reeled. Apparently, the man had been lying supine on a narrow wooden bench behind the counter, and now he seemed to manifest like a ghost out of the darkness.
I wasn’t just a white girl. I had grown up in Pennsylvania, a white-anglo-saxon-protestant (WASP), who had grown up in middle-class suburbia, gone to a good school, attended church every Sunday – naïve, privileged, and protected from many of life’s harsh |
realities. Sure, I knew what Down’s Syndrome looked like -- and then there was that *one* kid at school who had a hook for a hand -- but I had never lived a culture wherein people with abnormalities, mental issues, or unusual appearances had been part of the everyday mix. Welcome to Belize. All I could think of were the words “bucket head,” and an inner controlled mantra, “try to act normal, try to act normal.”
Of all the colorful characters I would ever meet throughout the years in Belize, he was unique, bizarre. The man was very tall, but it was otherwise impossible to describe any of his features. Every part of him was covered, head-to-toe, not just in pants, shoes, and a long-sleeved shirt – but also a heavy beige canvas helmet on his head. This was not a rounded hood, or shapeless bag. It was a stovepipe-straight tube of canvas, at sharp-right angles to the Frankenstein-like flat circular top, and crudely stitched at the join. Large holes, about 2” in diameter, had been cut through the canvas to accommodate his eyes, and likewise crude hand-stitching bordered the raw edges. A large big-toothed 3” zipper had been sewn into the canvas across his mouth, and he wore canvas gloves. I’m in another culture. I reminded myself, feverishly. This is normal, right? Nope. My fight-or-flight-o-meter was in disaster-mode.
As strange as the man looked wearing the canvas bucket, it was not the disguise, or costume, or whatever-it-was, that held me in awe. He was a very dark, but I could see his skin visible through the eye-holes. The near-black irises of his eyes were surrounded by whites that were not white, but tinged malarial yellow, like aged ivory. No, the arresting aspect was the expression he held – of defensiveness, a furtive paradox of hope and fear in those eyes. Fear that you, as his paying customer, would crumble and say something – almost daring you lose focus on the eight meat pies you were buying with the wrinkled purple two-dollah bill and a red-five, both bearing the elegant image of a faraway white queen.
He spoke to me, very politely, as we did our transaction. I can’t remember what he said, but I would assume it would have been of the same trivial things that anyone -- standing there in a little wooden food kiosk in Central America would have said -- while wearing a canvas bucket on his head.
Surprise! (Not.) They were the best meat pies I ever ate. I can still taste them. For years to come, I would visit Mask Man whenever I was in Belize City, and buy his delicious street food. I can still remember the heavenly aroma, the perfectly spiced meat, inside that perfect flaky crust, with the grease stains seeping through the paper bag, so warm in my hands.
At some point in my Belizean experience, someone told me a story explaining their version of Mask Man. That he had been in love with a white Bahamian girl. That he had wanted to marry her, but her parents said he was "too black." That, in a fit of despair and dark depression, that he had poured acid over his head, hands, and “to bleach himself white,” now severely burned and deformed.
The story had little actual credence to me. The guy who told me was undoubtedly a fabulist. But, one day, years later, I saw a tall old Creole man near the fish market, whose nearly-bare skull, cheeks, ears, arms, and hands, were a thick mass of ropey pink, white, and tan scars. Portions of his natural skin were still evident, but his entire head was a cicatrize patchwork of scars and nappy-head. A full-body chill shook me. Was this the man? Had the story been true? Maybe. Maybe not. Perhaps just a conflated urban legend, contrived by some-random-somebody who felt the need to assign logic and reason.
Yet, I never ceased to speculate on Mask Man’s real story. I felt nothing but compassion for him. He was a person, after all. A man. Not a thing. Not a suit. Not a canvas bucket. He had family. He had a mind, and heart, and body. And surely, above all, he carried pain. Perhaps, he even had the right idea.
After all, most of us wear our canvas buckets on the inside…
Of all the colorful characters I would ever meet throughout the years in Belize, he was unique, bizarre. The man was very tall, but it was otherwise impossible to describe any of his features. Every part of him was covered, head-to-toe, not just in pants, shoes, and a long-sleeved shirt – but also a heavy beige canvas helmet on his head. This was not a rounded hood, or shapeless bag. It was a stovepipe-straight tube of canvas, at sharp-right angles to the Frankenstein-like flat circular top, and crudely stitched at the join. Large holes, about 2” in diameter, had been cut through the canvas to accommodate his eyes, and likewise crude hand-stitching bordered the raw edges. A large big-toothed 3” zipper had been sewn into the canvas across his mouth, and he wore canvas gloves. I’m in another culture. I reminded myself, feverishly. This is normal, right? Nope. My fight-or-flight-o-meter was in disaster-mode.
As strange as the man looked wearing the canvas bucket, it was not the disguise, or costume, or whatever-it-was, that held me in awe. He was a very dark, but I could see his skin visible through the eye-holes. The near-black irises of his eyes were surrounded by whites that were not white, but tinged malarial yellow, like aged ivory. No, the arresting aspect was the expression he held – of defensiveness, a furtive paradox of hope and fear in those eyes. Fear that you, as his paying customer, would crumble and say something – almost daring you lose focus on the eight meat pies you were buying with the wrinkled purple two-dollah bill and a red-five, both bearing the elegant image of a faraway white queen.
He spoke to me, very politely, as we did our transaction. I can’t remember what he said, but I would assume it would have been of the same trivial things that anyone -- standing there in a little wooden food kiosk in Central America would have said -- while wearing a canvas bucket on his head.
Surprise! (Not.) They were the best meat pies I ever ate. I can still taste them. For years to come, I would visit Mask Man whenever I was in Belize City, and buy his delicious street food. I can still remember the heavenly aroma, the perfectly spiced meat, inside that perfect flaky crust, with the grease stains seeping through the paper bag, so warm in my hands.
At some point in my Belizean experience, someone told me a story explaining their version of Mask Man. That he had been in love with a white Bahamian girl. That he had wanted to marry her, but her parents said he was "too black." That, in a fit of despair and dark depression, that he had poured acid over his head, hands, and “to bleach himself white,” now severely burned and deformed.
The story had little actual credence to me. The guy who told me was undoubtedly a fabulist. But, one day, years later, I saw a tall old Creole man near the fish market, whose nearly-bare skull, cheeks, ears, arms, and hands, were a thick mass of ropey pink, white, and tan scars. Portions of his natural skin were still evident, but his entire head was a cicatrize patchwork of scars and nappy-head. A full-body chill shook me. Was this the man? Had the story been true? Maybe. Maybe not. Perhaps just a conflated urban legend, contrived by some-random-somebody who felt the need to assign logic and reason.
Yet, I never ceased to speculate on Mask Man’s real story. I felt nothing but compassion for him. He was a person, after all. A man. Not a thing. Not a suit. Not a canvas bucket. He had family. He had a mind, and heart, and body. And surely, above all, he carried pain. Perhaps, he even had the right idea.
After all, most of us wear our canvas buckets on the inside…