New developments: pumpkin pancake barf in the sewer grates. Cult meeting in the overgrown graveyard. “Monster Mash” playing endlessly, over and over, from the record store’s cracked glass doors. Poor children in shabby costumes traipsing up and down the streets holding plastic grocery bags for candy (serious question: why have kids when you knowingly cannot afford them?). White cotton-candy looking strains of fabric weaving across statues, streetlamps, bus stops. The face of a ghost carved into a wart-speckled pumpkin smirks at me, and were it not for my exhaustion and the somehow attractive candle blazing in its mouth, I would’ve smashed the thing into oblivion.
Like I used to say back in my tired old youth: happy Halloween, motherfuckers.
There’s a Halloween party uptown and while I’m aware that Harris and Jen have a 97.69% likelihood chance of being there, I’m not allowing that to ruin my life. It wasn’t me who left Jen those drunk messages on her answering machine. But it’ll be me dressed as a hot vampire, downing J&B tonight.
Costume is as follows: black satin cape with red-lined collar, nice black pants and shirt with Bergdorf Goodman tags to prove it, black boots, fake fangs. I saved this costume from last year because I had this inkling I’d want to keep it. And here I am, fully clothed in an October 31st of the past.
“Walk as if an agent is about to scout you” is my new motto, because half of being the part is looking the part, is confidence, and fake it till you make it and so forth. I strut down a flight of stairs and into the elevator, since it never retains the ability to make it all the way up the full fourteen floors. Standing next to me is a guy, younger probably, good-looking I suppose, in what may or may not be a costume.
He surveys the scene: me. “Dracula,” he muses.
“Whatever...you are,” I reply. He smirk-laughs, prompts me with: “Ever read Bram Stoker?”
“Is this a columnist for the Village Voice?” I adjust my collar, observing my reflection in the dull shine of the gold double doors.
“Never mind,” says he. We part ways once the elevator reaches the lobby. I hurry briskly into the subway station and into a car, where more than two drag queens give me excited looks.
Party is: at the new club Van Sac, drawing a crowd, reverberating with C+C Music Factory, surrounded by twenty-somethings dressed like the guy from The Crow, noisy but not sweaty because the A/C’s on full blast, hip, really happening. I see Henry outside, adorned in zombie regalia, holding a choke-a-horse roll of cash, arguing with what looks like some Italian mobster.
“Henry!” I slap a hand on his shoulder.
“Richard! What are you doing here?” he looks scared.
“Coming to have a fantastic time this Halloween night,” I say, pulling a cigar from my pocket and lighting up when everyone else does the same. I glance around at our companions for the night. “Ghouls and goblins galore, hah?”
Henry and co. shove their way to the front of the line and I follow suit. When Henry gives the bouncer – seven feet, five hundred pounds before breakfast, I’m assuming – the cash, I rush behind the velvet ropes with them.
“I don’t know how good it is that you’re here tonight,” Henry hisses.
“Hey, buddy. Are you getting enough sun? You look a little dead,” I chide, taking a shot glass of orange liquid from a woman dressed as a skanky skeleton. “Thanks, babe.”
“Harris and Jen are here, and you know that,” Henry says as I drink, wince, whoop.
“Pumpkin liqueur,” says Felippe, who does not know who I am. How come the intern gets to go to this party?
“Did you know all pumpkin-flavored food and drink is actually made with butternut squash?” Rodney says.
“Oh my God, I’m gonna throw up,” I say.
“They’re dressed as Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein,” Harris proceeds with the buzzkilling.
“Don’t tell me they’ve gone as a plug and socket,” I laugh, dunking back another shot of butternut squash liqueur.
“No, I said Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein. Though, I mean, if it was me, I like your costume better.”
“I genuinely thank you.”
“But that’s not the point.” Henry suddenly tightens up, and I quickly recognize that it’s because Trevor Fleece, P&P’s hardest drinker, has sidled over in a Boss Hogg suit, three flasks in hand. Henry has always idolized Trevor, for reasons unbeknownst to me. He’s got a beer gut. He could never be a model.
“Henry,” Trevor says. “Better watch out, Dukes – I’m gonna arrest you.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking out,” Henry stammers.
“You’re hysterical, Trevor! Oh MAN!” I crack up more than I need to.
Trevor swallows his Adam’s apple and takes a step back to take me all in. “Do I know you?”
That’s it.
Fast forward: punching walls in a bathroom stall. Hearing gigantic sniffs and cheers next door to me. Drying my eyes on the lapel of my Dracula cape. Seeing what are unmistakably Harris’ tassled Ferragamos underneath the door, entering the bathroom. Watch them stride over, pompous, to a urinal. Watch them make their way in front of the sink, wash hands – actually taking the damn time to wash his hands – dry on paper towels, pop pills, exit. I follow suit.
Back in the warm togetherness of the club, I find Harris and Rodney and Felippe again and laugh at appropriate moments and don’t offer any of my own input. A girlish hand grazes my shoulder. I don’t need to turn around to know it’s Jen.
“I need you,” she whispers.
I need you.
“to get the fuck out” is how it’s finished.
Subway ride back to the apartment: blur of emotion. Walk back to lobby: cold, uncompromising, and the Oriental weirdo having hysterics in the street, almost feel like caring but really definitely don’t. Back in apartment: work with phone for an hour figuring out how to hear messages I’ve left other people. Messages: to Jen, drunk, pleading. Me: asleep on the floor, having cried my soul into extinction.
