"Well I woke up Sunday morning,
With no way to hold my head that didn't hurt.
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn't bad,
So I had one more for dessert." -Kris Kristofferson
Halloween is a fun time of year. The end of October is blessed with cold nights, but at least the waning daylight hours offer some relative comfort from the unforgiving cold of winter. The leaves have already turned colors and fallen peacefully to the ground. It's often a wet month in Pennsylvania, giving the earth a bit more bounce to it when you walk. Later though, that bounce turns to mud, but at the end of October it's not too bad.
Halloween offers children a day of free candy and role playing. Dressing as their favorite cartoon character or superhero, the kids have a respite from the dull experience in school. I remember we'd do battle against our schoolyard foes with sticks as swords and bad candy as fake grenades, we'd litter the neighborhood with candy corn and popcorn balls. It's a time in school where your feet start to drag. It's after the novelty of new faces has worn off yet before the Thanksgiving to Christmas countdown. I remember the school year seemed to crawl through October and I'd just phone it in until one day I'd realize Halloween was almost upon me and I still needed a costume. Hours of planning and discussion would go into my candy grubbing alter ego garb until I'd lazily settle on a hockey mask and black cape. A sorry excuse for a vampire who didn't even care enough to put on any make-up.
Out of this exciting history stems my current philosophy on Halloween. If it's warm enough, I'll just wear a wife beater. It goes well because I drink so much Pabst Blue Ribbon. If it's too cold for the white trash get-up, I toss on a baseball hat and make a different identity for each person that asks. After all, the point of this holiday is to grab a handful of ass and titties and see as much muff as is normally not allowed. Creativity is a must for this disguise, but most don't even ask what I am.
So it was with my baseball cap donned I went out for Halloween my sophomore year of college. Depending on when we managed to scrape the money together for a case of PBR, we'd start drinking anywhere between noon to 8PM (when the distributor closed). We always managed to make it before 8, miraculously. If memory serves, we got on to an early afternoon start that day.
Normally we'd leave after the initial supply was gone and search out alternative forms of liquid sustenance. Sometimes we'd raid the supply of the apartment downstairs because they always left their door unlocked. Other times we'd head to the bar to continue drinking. This time it was too damn early for either of these options. With a few quick phone calls we found enough money to buy a case of 40s. Olde English malt liquor was our ghetto cocktail of choice.
By 9 o'clock the 5 of us had cut through two and a half cases of PBR and 12 40s. The great thing about 9 was the parties starting up at this time. Halloween had finally caught up to our early start.
A short walk down the street was our primary target. The girls on some random sports team had got together with their neighbors and were throwing a rager. Walking in to the house, my eyes beheld the full rainbow of feminine diversity. From the dykes of hazzard on one end to some sexy Bunnies on the other. They probably weren't dressed as lesbians, though that's what I called them. Mostly everyone was in costume to some degree, from the silly hats all the way to the aforementioned bunnies and even a couple of nurses.
As my haze started to creep further over my eyes I only grew more thirsty. Luckily for everyone, there was plenty to finish the job on me. Calmly at first but with increasing ferociousness I went from lighthearted conversation with a dixie cup to violently insulting people while chugging the drinking juice straight from the vat.
The party began to turn on me and my friends decided it was time to leave. Struggling to pull me away from my vat of alcoholic wonderment, my friends picked me up and carried me out of the party. It was that time. That time where it was the end of the party for one person yet not for everyone else. That guy/girl was the outcast. It was the end of their night even if they disagreed. No matter how convincing their argument, they were done. They were shunned and they were over.
Dragged out of the festivities, I began to sober up. I didn't sober up like normal folks, I was one of those slow to wake drunks. Slow to wake while my friends wanted to continue partying meant I was going back to the apartment and being put to bed whether I liked it or not. Four men my size or bigger were going to make me do what they wanted, so I capitulated. Luckily, there were no fantasies played out this night.
I slept peacefully for a while until I awoke suddenly. A noise from downstairs jumped my heart and slapped me to wakefulness. It was time to descend on the town once more. Glancing at my watch, I had only lost an hour or two. 1 o'clock is early for most drunkards and I felt like I had the whole night ahead of me.
Stumbling to my feet I tried to open the front door. It was locked. From the outside. Someone had locked me into a prison I had no idea I'd ever be locked in. I tried the door but it was one of those older locks that could only be fixed by the key from either side. BANG! BANG! BANG! I tried knocking it over. It didn't work. About to give up, I began frantically searching for a key on the inside. No one was around but there must be a key somewhere...
Shortly after my key hunt began a click and a clack were heard from the door. Certainly none of my comrades would be coming home this early, I outdrank them all. To my surprise, the 6th member of our usual group opened the door and asked me what I was doing there. Instead of answering, I bolted for the opened path to freedom.
After breaking free, I realized why my friends had locked me away. I was drunk enough to be a danger to myself and anyone around me. I couldn't even make it down the single flight of stairs to the ground level. I fell down the second half of stairs and came to a few minutes later in a heap at the bottom. The cool night air brought me all the way to the surface. I threw up.
Hearing some noise from the downstairs neighbors, I decided to investigate. To their surprise, I acted as sober as I could muster the few moments it took to take a trio of shots of whiskey. It hit me again, the drunken demon I thought I had just gotten rid of outside. I was right back where I came from, but I could fake it for a while, at least long enough to finish the job on myself. I blacked out soon after that.
I'm told I tried to go home that night, but I didn't know how to get there and my keys were missing. I wound up passed out next to the passenger side of my car, only slightly out of view of the street. Maybe I was trying to drive somewhere, realized my lack of keys and just gave up. Maybe the cold, wet grass looked comfortable. No one will ever know.
I do know that I couldn't have been lounging in the night air for too long because my partners in crime from earlier were due back not long after I checked the time while I was throwing up. They helped me back to the apartment and might have saved me from a night spent in jail, though I saw the spot where I laid and it was pretty well hidden from the street.
Waking the next morning, I had dirt all over my face and vomit all over my pants. The hardwood floor felt like a sheet of ice and I was shivering, a lot. I found the key thief and drove home, still very drunk and looking disgusting. Before I was able to get in the car though, the morning sun set off a negative reaction and I dry heaved for a few minutes. As bad as I looked, I felt worse and spent the rest of the day hiding under my blankets because the sun hurt my eyes and brought about renewed fits of nausea.
It wasn't one of my proudest moments, but there were no casualties. Always look on the bright side and all.
