Halloween 2015. I'm guessing it'll go down in my memory banks as the best one ever. It'll certainly be hard to top, that's for sure. It's a pretty good story if you've got a few minutes. I'll try and keep it short and sweet so you can get on with your day.
*****
A friend of mine asked me if I wanted to go out Halloween night. There's a live music club that has a costume contest every year. He always goes and has a good time, but I hate dressing up in costumes so I hadn't gone with him the last few years.
"You gotta go man, it's really hot these days," he pleaded. "The girls are unbelievable."
"Sure, prey on the fact that I haven't got any in a while," I said. "All right, I guess I'll go. I'm not dressing fancy though. I'll look through my dad's old clothes and see what I can come up with."
I went over to my mom's place a few days later. She had boxes and old trunks full of clothes that used to belong to my dad.
"Why do you keep all this stuff Mom?" I asked, shaking my head at the jumbled mess of boxes in her cellar.
"For this Pitchy," she said. "I knew you'd need it."
My name's Pete, but my mom and my sister call me Pitchy. I guess when I was just learning to talk I was obsessed with baseball, and pitch was the only word I said for like six months.
"How about this honey," my mom said, holding up an old grey blazer.
"I was hoping for something with a little more zing," I said. I kept rummaging.
"This is zingy," she said, pulling out a green and white pinstriped suit jacket, styled sort of like a tuxedo. "It was your Great Grandpa Willard's. Your father insisted on keeping it for some reason."
"Because its
Awesome!
That's perfect mom! Is the rest of it there?"
She lifted a shirt, pants and a bowler hat out of the box and I just about flipped.
"He performed in Vaudeville you know," she said. "Some kind of a song and dance man I think. It looks like it might fit you. All the men in the family were built just like you."
She winked when she said that last part, but the last thing I wanted to do was ask her what she meant.
"This is perfect," I said, holding the various pieces up against me. "Do you mind if I have it dry-cleaned?"
"Of course not honey, it's yours to do what you want with," she said. "Be careful though, that kind of clothing was a . . . how do you say it . . . a chick magnet in its day."
———————
Dry-cleaned and pressed, the suit looked ridiculous on me. The
good
kind of ridiculous. It fit me like a glove and was unbelievably cool. I found the perfect bow tie at a vintage clothing store, and bought a shiny pair of shoes that looked the part. Halloween night I felt stylish and not the least bit costumed, even though I was.
"Were the fuck did you get
that?
" my friend Marcus asked when he saw me walk into the bar.
"Great Grandpa Willard man," I said. "He must have been a cool son-of-a-bitch is all I can say. He was a song and dance man."
I did a few steps, tapping the smooth soles of my shiny shoes, and there was rhythm there that I didn't even know I had.
"Sweet!" a hot looking girl in a sexy librarian costume said as she walked by.
"Oh, you're gettin' lucky tonight dude," Marcus said. "Why didn't you find me a magic suit?"
The music started at the far end of the room. The band members were all dressed in various costumes, and ninety-percent of the crowd was too. It really was quite a party.
"Dude," Marcus said with a nudge. He was looking at two girls who just walked in off the street, a female Dracula and the Bride of Frankenstein.
We watched them walk by and Dracula Girl showed me her pointy teeth and made a hissing noise. The bride just giggled. Dracula Girl had a wig of jet-black hair that was clumpy and twisted into snake-like tentacles. White makeup on her face transitioned into a darker airbrushed painting on her neck and ample cleavage that made her look like she had been skinned and all that was left was muscle and bone. It was freaky looking. The rest of her was covered up with a cape that she held closed from the inside, her arms not visible at all. It was about the length of a short dress, showing off fishnet stockings over more freaky looking makeup and body paint, and high, black, stiletto healed shoes. Even without being able to see her torso she was super hot.
Frankenstein's bride had the usual tall black and white beehive hairdo and white makeup, but below that was a ripped and torn 'dress' made out of a few scraps of black cloth and a couple inches of thread. You could call it 'minimal,' but 'barely there' was more like it. The two of them were quickly swallowed up in the crowd.
"Didn't I tell you the girls were unbelievable?" Marcus said.
Marcus is a single guy. One of those 'players' who can get a girl interested with one little smile. I've always been his wing man, but not because I'm ugly or anything. I'm better looking than he is, but I'm shy. It's been my curse since puberty. Personality gets you fucked, not looks. If I can get a girl to talk to me for like a month, so I can get used to the situation, we might get somewhere. But a quick pick-up in a bar? Forget about it. It never happens to me.
We stood near the door sipping on our beers, watching more girls arrive. Tons of sexy nurses, sexy librarians, and sexy police officers. It was easy to see who put effort into their costumes and who didn't. A peasant girl with dirty skin came in all alone. She had the most amazing body, barely covered by a thin burlap dress that she must have made. Her friends ran over and collected her before Marcus had a chance to move in.
An auto mechanic with skin-tight coveralls open to her bellybutton, a backwards cap on her head, and fake grease on her hands and face made quite an impression on me.
"She's into you man," Marcus said after she passed. "That crazy fuckin' suit's gonna get you laid."
"Pitchy!" my sister Beth's distinct voice called out from the throbbing crowd. She emerged from the masses and walked closer. "What are you doing here? I thought you hated these kinda things."
"Whaddaya think?" I said, spinning around with my arms out to show off my suit. "Great Grandpa Willard."
