Didn’t I miss my father terribly? Didn’t I love alcohol in order to know him? Didn’t my brothers do the same?

I heard a noise and there was Gunner. He had an African mask in his mouth. This mask was familiar to me. It was old, wooden and immense, a brightly painted Central African tree spirit featuring an elongated chin and pronounced, scarlet cheekbones. Horizontal knife slits served as eyes, and bushy hair fashioned from dried twigs cascaded in bunches over an expansive forehead carved from some equatorial hardwood with the peeling bark still attached.

I crouched down and the dog came to me. It was a shame, really, that I had no doggy treats along with the morphine in my pockets. I said, like a true master, “That’ll do, boy.” Gunner had clearly exerted himself carrying this weighty, cumbersome mask. He opened his mouth and let me extract it from between his teeth. Saliva coated it. It was not, I should say, a mask I would have selected for myself. I’d have chosen something smaller, lighter, with bigger eyes and wearing a meaner, more threatening facial expression. I would have preferred a face without bark. The bark gave an appearance of unclear skin. This mask, with its absurdly long chin and its silly hairstyle, most likely represented some friendly, comical spirit.

Any mask, even a demon’s face or a Zulu war mask, will look harmless until worn by a person. If worn correctly, a mask becomes animated. The face—no matter how grotesque or exaggerated its features—seems to come alive, to change countenance, and to convey, through the gestures and movements of the wearer, the emotional spirit of the mask character. Creative animation of this sort can have a profound effect on an audience, a profounder effect on the mask’s wearer. As the mask’s spirit—this can be the spirit of a god, a beast, an inanimate object, or some form of vegetation—emanates outward, into the world, so does it penetrate inward, into the unconscious of the person wearing the mask. This is the mask’s real purpose: to lead its wearer, gradually, by way of the ecstasy induced through physical exertion (most often a savage dancing), into a realm that is shared by these two principal characters, the man in the mask and the spirit symbolized by the mask. In this dark and phantasmagorical realm it is possible for the wearer to leave behind quotidian life, reconcile himself to natural forces beyond conscious understanding, and with a little luck and a few bourbons down the hatch, experience, in an instant of life, a hideous self-transformation.

I told Gunner, “When I put on this mask, I won’t be myself anymore. I’ll be the Corn King. But don’t worry, because the Corn King will also be me. Ready, boy?”

Before I could put on the mask I had to get the rest of my costume in order. As a rule this is not difficult because my costume consists only of nakedness. Primitive, elementary, unencumbered, old-fashioned, barbaric, vulnerable, willing, childlike nakedness.