What We Were for Halloween

[This is part 2 of 6 from my new Halloween Essay, which I wrote in celebration of the holiday. I am sharing the whole thing piecemeal over this week. The first part appeared yesterday, October 19, and I will post a new section each day through October 24.]

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For those who, like myself, are easily frightened, here is a calming truth to remember: Although Halloween is an extremely diabolical holiday, if you look into its heart, you’ll see that it’s really just all about eating candy.

But now we’ve reached the part of my Halloween Essay where the scene turns intensely scary. Zombies and goblins creep out into the street, wearing makeup that resembles blood and guts. There’s a mummy unraveling. There are vampire fangs and hair dye kits. Everyone is carrying some sort of large purse or handbag to hold the treats that they have pillaged from the neighborhood. I open up my briefcase and show you that it is filled with chocolate and Pepsi. 

When my friends & I were in our 30s, we went out trick-or-treating dressed as familiar characters from our favorite sitcoms: Alex P. Keaton from Family Ties, Cliff the mailman from Cheers, Kramer from Seinfeld, and Phillip Drummond from Diff’rent Strokes. 

The next year, I cut eye-holes in a bedsheet and dressed as a ghost, and we all roasted marshmallows and carved pumpkins together. That was enjoyable. Then we used our fake gun to scare people: “Boo! Stick ’em up!” We also all carried neon green glow-sticks, and there was fake steam coming out of the gutters in the street, just like a Michael Jackson video. 

The mother of my children stays home to answer the door and distribute treats. Usually she wears her French maid costume on Halloween, but she explained that the weight that she put on during the pandemic lockdown caused her to lose confidence in her figure, so this year she opted to dress as a witch. 

We had a fun Costume Bash on the weekend. Everyone was told to doll up and come ready to party. My colleague Nick was Pluto (the cartoon dog, not the dwarf planet or the God of the Underworld); and his girlfriend Jen went as He-Man’s twin sister She-Ra “Princess of Power” with super hairy armpits. Our co-worker Clarence was half Popeye and half Wolverine, and his fiancée Lucinda went as Mitch from Baywatch.

The event was even more fun than expected. After the sermon, we all sang the traditional Halloween Hymn:

Trick or treat, wash my feet;

Gimme something good to eat.

If I die before I wake,

Then I made a big mistake.

At this point, goblets of flaming spooky-potion were served. Clarence finished his beverage too fast and passed out on the floor, so Lucinda immediately arranged for us to snap a humorous photo of her sitting on his face. 

The president of our company had been dead for a while, but we dressed him up as an unmentionable body part and propped him against the podium between two U.S. flags. 

At long last, my brother Paul came bursting in the front door — he wasn’t even wearing a costume: he was just dressed in his regular street-clothes. He told us how he had spent the whole night stealing candy from all the children, and the trunk and rear seats of his Mercedes-Benz are now brimful of goodies. He said that he saw a whole mob of girls all dressed as the actress Brandy from the sitcom Moesha. So we all chipped in and made Paul a costume that looked like a giant piece of toast.