Over the years from the cheap college apartments to nice middle class neighborhoods, I’ve found that masks come in different prices. Money and education will buy finer ones. But finer ones only make the cries harder to hear.

Two examples illustrate:

First: Jim was so handsome; Jane was so pretty. They lived in a college apartment which adjoined ours. I heard sounds through the thin cheap walls. There was such fighting over there. But when I met them on the parking lot, I gave not a clue that I had heard what was happening behind their cheap paper-thin masks.

Second: Bob and Jennifer. Such a fine couple. She was a Brooke Shields lookalike. Probably made more money than any other neighbor we ever had. Oil business of some sort. Series of loud pops in the night….Five police cars…Bob in handcuffs…Jennifer standing alone in the yard as police drove off with Bob. I went out and asked if she would like company for the rest of the night. She said yes so I spent the rest of the night with her. It was the only time I’ve ever seen real bullet holes in a house. It was a most revealing look at what could happen even when masks were fine and expensive.

As I said, “Masks come in different prices” but we can probably see through cheaper ones more easily.  

Expensive masks can hide as much pain.