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“That obvious?” Noah asked, glancing around the room. The students were about half men and half women—young and old, white, black, Hispanic, and Asian, including several people with prosthetic limbs.
“Yeah, you got that newbie what-the-fuck-am-I-doing-here expression on your face.” Mo winked. “It’s all good, though. Jarvis is a kick-ass instructor and all around good human. He’ll ease you into it.”
Turned out Mo was right. Jack Jarvis was a former Navy clinical psychologist who now had a private practice and a prominent reputation in the field of art therapy for veterans. He was tall and thin with salt-and-pepper hair and an easy, no-nonsense demeanor matched by the jeans and white button-down shirt he wore.
Everything the man said about his goals for the class resonated with Noah and alleviated his concerns that this experience was going to involve anything akin to sitting in a circle weaving flower chains while sharing their feelings. In fact, Jarvis made it clear that no one was expected to speak about anything beyond artistic procedures and techniques if they didn’t want to.
Which had Noah sitting more comfortably on his stool.
There was one other exception about the speaking bit—Jarvis had them go around the room and introduce themselves to whatever extent they were comfortable. And hearing about the military backgrounds of the others in the room eased even more of Noah’s discomfort. There were officers and enlisted. Vets from all of the services. Even a couple of other guys from the Corps. After seven months of being out of the military, it was a relief to be around others who’d had the same experience, who knew what it meant, who knew what sacrifices it required.
“Okay,” Jarvis said when they all finished. “There are four parts to this workshop. Today, you’ll write down a list of words that describe how you feel, in general and about yourself. You might also write down how you feel about your service, your injuries, and your discharge. There are no wrong answers here and you don’t have to share the list if you don’t want to. But this will give you a jumping off point for figuring out how to use the mask to represent those feelings.” He unbuttoned his shirt sleeves and rolled both of them up his forearms. “You’ll make the basic form of your mask using plastic facial molds—” He held up a smooth white oval generically shaped like a face. “—and molding clay. Once that’s done, you’ll create the actual mask out of papier-mache formed over the mold you make. The papier-mache will need to dry, so that’s where we’ll stop for today.”
Jarvis walked down the side of the classroom and handed out enough paper, pencils, boxes of clay, and plastic forms for the people in each row. Noah found himself staring into that totally blank facial mold and wondering what the hell he was going to make.
“Start with the list of words,” Jarvis said as he finished handing out the materials. “Then Mo and I will come around and help you get started.”
Noah’s gaze cut to the big man beside him.
The guy winked and gestured to himself. “Repeat offender.”
“You’ve taken this class before?” Noah asked, surprised.
“Fifth time in as many years,” Mo said, his expression almost serene. “These masks make a great benchmark for how the shit in my head is progressing. Know what I mean?”
Noah nodded because, even though he couldn’t relate to the idea of progress—not at all, the very fact that Mo felt that he was making progress and could see an actual, tangible representation of it in these masks all of a sudden had Noah looking at the facial form in a whole new way.
After a moment of hesitation, he pulled the paper and pencil in front of himself. Noah felt ridiculously exposed even contemplating putting this particular list to paper, despite the fact that no one would see it if he didn’t want them to. Out of the corner of his eye, he spied others already getting to work, so he picked up his pencil and wrote the first thing that came to mind.
Nothing
It soured his gut to see that word in black and white, but it definitely was at the very top of the list of how he felt about himself. He thought about the other things on which Jarvis had asked them to reflect, and jotted down a few more words:
Proud (of service)
Embarrassed (by weakness)
Noah tapped his pencil against his bottom lip, then continued writing.
In pain
Partial
Off center
Broken
Wrecked
His pencil moved faster and faster until it was almost an exercise in stream of consciousness.
Blind
Deaf
Muted
Fake
