Part I
Halloween, and the events of that night, or at least the events that you get yourself into by choice or by ghostly intuition, often follow the cycles of one's life, and provide a decent snapshot regarding where you might find yourself any given year. Where you find yourself on the evening of October 31st betrays your priorities at that stage of your time on earth.
It's possible that this is a Occidental way of thinking, we Americans focused on candy and beer like we often are, and this particular night having a focus on at least one of those, if not both. I look back on the Halloweens of my life and understand now, in retrospect, that my choices on that spookiest night of the year are indicative of what I held dear in the ten months previous, a bacchanalia of that year's excesses before we settle in for a long winter's nap. I hold this theory close and defend it, even when I consider that there was a Halloween in my youth when I shit my pants.
There were the years in which trick-or-treating was the priority for us, and proper supervision was the priority for our parents. I have no idea if this is something that necessarily needs to be gendered, but this was our experience, back then, and so I report it as such—the dads would take us trick-or-treating. I remember someone having a wagon carrying a cooler that held many beverages, which makes sense. If I was let's say ten years old, then my dad and my friends' dads were in their mid-30s, and I'm at that age now, typing these words, writing about that cooler on Halloween night and can taste the cool sugary bitterness of a crisp Miller Lite on my tongue now, still. See how this is cyclical. See how the dads were once children too, trick-or-treating with their parents, and now they are supervising the trick-or-treating, and indulging in their own way.
And but so this was for a few years, we neighborhood friends and our dads, filling up pillow cases full of confections. And eventually, we found ourselves sans supervision, the dads comfortable in doing their drinking at a single house, and comfortable with the idea of their preteen children sticking together and sticking to a non-specific distance. These were the years we felt cool and probably were. Pillowcases still filled to the brim, lots of witticisms and fucking around in between, not young enough to need a helping hand, but definitely not old enough any of the neighbors are going to roll their eyes at a pack of teenagers still requesting their candy. I dressed as the Cat in the Hat on one of these years, and added a fake cigarette to the ensemble after sprinting out of the house at sundown.
And but so this was for a few years, we neighborhood friends and our dads, filling up pillow cases full of confections. And eventually, we found ourselves sans supervision, the dads comfortable in doing their drinking at a single house, and comfortable with the idea of their preteen children sticking together and sticking to a non-specific distance. These were the years we felt cool and probably were. Pillowcases still filled to the brim, lots of witticisms and fucking around in between, not young enough to need a helping hand, but definitely not old enough any of the neighbors are going to roll their eyes at a pack of teenagers still requesting their candy. I dressed as the Cat in the Hat on one of these years, and added a fake cigarette to the ensemble after sprinting out of the house at sundown.
It was also during one of these years when I was scheduled for a dentist check-up the next day, November 1st, a "holy day" for Catholics and thus no school and thus a good day for my mom to bring us to Dr. Smiles or whoever the fuck and get our teeth prodded and poked and but Mom what were you thinking? The day after Halloween?! This is a holy day for dentists too. Imagine the money they are raking in from all the cavities that had exploded twelve hours prior during an all-night, parent-sanctioned candy buffet. On this particular November 1st, my mother was given the news straight like a punch to the gut: your son has six cavities. I still maintain to this day that those numbers were inflated. What self-respecting mother is going to question the existence of cavities in her child's mouth just one day after that same child consumed untold amounts of Twixes and M&Ms and Babies Ruth?
The trick-or-treating went out of style, eventually. As it must for all children. Halloween is for kids, we say to ourselves, sadly candy-less. But so too begins the initiation into life's next stage. I was on Kristin's porch. It was, I don't know, let's say Halloween 2005. There were a few of us there, just hanging out, too cool to go door-to-door but too young to take part in any official "adult activities."
There was, on that night, a bottle. I don't remember who brought it. Could've been any of us. Could've been me, to be honest; I don't remember, only because time sands down these types of details and you can never get them back. What I do remember is drinking a lot of it, whatever it was. Vodka, maybe, or rum. I don't remember if I drank it straight or mixed with soda or Gatorade or whatever. But I remember hitting it hard, conscious of the thrill, especially since this was a school night (I guess Catholic high schools don't take their holy days as seriously). I don't remember how I got home, but I guess if my dad picked me up then I held it together long enough to make it home and get into bed. (It also occurs to me for the first time as I type this that it's possible my dad had had a couple beers himself, not enough to disqualify him from pick-up duties but enough that he wouldn't have been able to smell the alcohol on the breath of the son he was picking up.)
I made it to school. But in order to get there, I: threw up on the walk to the bus, I threw up when I got off the first bus, I threw up when I got off the second bus, I threw up on the way to homeroom, I threw up on the way out of homeroom, I threw up in the nurse's office, and I threw up while I was waiting for my dad to pick me up for the second time in twelve hours. On that ride home, he accused me of being hungover. He was right, but I denied it. He then accused me of lying, and I denied that too, but he was right, and I kept lying to him for at least eighteen more years. It was exactly one month before my seventeenth birthday, and I was puking. There's the truth right there.
The trick-or-treating went out of style, eventually. As it must for all children. Halloween is for kids, we say to ourselves, sadly candy-less. But so too begins the initiation into life's next stage. I was on Kristin's porch. It was, I don't know, let's say Halloween 2005. There were a few of us there, just hanging out, too cool to go door-to-door but too young to take part in any official "adult activities."
There was, on that night, a bottle. I don't remember who brought it. Could've been any of us. Could've been me, to be honest; I don't remember, only because time sands down these types of details and you can never get them back. What I do remember is drinking a lot of it, whatever it was. Vodka, maybe, or rum. I don't remember if I drank it straight or mixed with soda or Gatorade or whatever. But I remember hitting it hard, conscious of the thrill, especially since this was a school night (I guess Catholic high schools don't take their holy days as seriously). I don't remember how I got home, but I guess if my dad picked me up then I held it together long enough to make it home and get into bed. (It also occurs to me for the first time as I type this that it's possible my dad had had a couple beers himself, not enough to disqualify him from pick-up duties but enough that he wouldn't have been able to smell the alcohol on the breath of the son he was picking up.)
I made it to school. But in order to get there, I: threw up on the walk to the bus, I threw up when I got off the first bus, I threw up when I got off the second bus, I threw up on the way to homeroom, I threw up on the way out of homeroom, I threw up in the nurse's office, and I threw up while I was waiting for my dad to pick me up for the second time in twelve hours. On that ride home, he accused me of being hungover. He was right, but I denied it. He then accused me of lying, and I denied that too, but he was right, and I kept lying to him for at least eighteen more years. It was exactly one month before my seventeenth birthday, and I was puking. There's the truth right there.
No one was there to pick me up in college, even though maybe I needed to be picked up on a couple of those Halloweens. The issue—besides my alcoholism, which would be stupid to talk about in this context, since it was college, and everyone is allowed to be an alcoholic during those four years if they want to be, and I sure as shit wanted to be, it seems—was that the Phillies were a really good baseball team during those years, and the sports victories and our youth and the drinking all kind of coalesced together into one giant party. I track the years only through the success or the failure of the hometown team. 2007, they were out by the first round, so I was free to blackout at the Wister House. 2008 saw the greatest Philly sports success of our lifetimes, and so I woke up at 3:30 AM on Halloween morning and started drinking in preparation for the parade. 2009 was close but no cigar, and so in with tenderness and grace I filled a CamelBak with rum and coke and fell down the LA C2 apartment steps.
My point isn't really to talk about the Phillies or rehash old playoff campaigns or relive the final years of an unchecked youth. I'm just trying to give you a succinct snapshot of where I was in the autumn of those years, and holding up Halloween specifically as the big yearly example of How I Lived Then. It's the holiday that anchors an entire year's worth of memories. It is a summation, a cliff note. And so here were these years: sloppy, wild, unencumbered by life's general responsibilities. As it was throughout the other 364 days of the year, so too was it on Halloween.
By senior year's Halloween—2010, for those keeping track at home—I had made at least one significant change in my life. I wasn't single anymore. Halloween marked the first couples costume with my now-wife, Pam. Nothing else changed—we were still living Red Octobers, we were still consuming alcohol at a frightening clip—but that one change had a pretty sizeable impact on how I conducted myself, both generally and on Halloween.
How I'll describe the change in both regards is as followed: it was a move from utter chaos to organized celebration. These were the golden years of the first life cycle. We had parties, official parties, no longer needing to hide them, and we raised a glass and we toasted to the end of that cycle, those last years before everything started all over again. There was that final college Halloween at Woodstock, a few years during which our adult friends were paying rent at various houses across the city and decided to buy a keg, and then, most memorably, a few years when Pam and I rented out the Casbah Caterers in Port Richmond, catered food and open bar and, like I said, organized celebration.
That final party found Pam pregnant and found me sober for my first Halloween since 2004 (for reasons that I half-explained before). And so, the transition officially began. Children entered the world, our world, and all of a sudden I found myself the dad in the trick-or-treating scenario. You can bet your ass there was a cooler involved. But aside from the alcohol and all that, it was a supervising game. Responsibilities. Not just responsibilities to keep the kids alive, but the responsibility to give them the best night they can possibly have. A lot of that involves getting free candy from neighbors. I'm there to help that happen.
And so the cycle continues, but I get to watch it this time. There will be more years of trick-or-treating. Then there will be a year when one or more of my kids step out on their own. This will inevitably lead to a few mistakes made, and occasionally I'll be there, until I won't. Then there will be the organized parties shared with loved ones, and maybe even one of my daughters will throw their old man a pity invite, when they are old enough, and such an invite no longer marks them as "uncool."
Those are snapshots for the future though. This one here, soon, this upcoming Halloween 2023, it'll definitely show where I'm at this year more succinctly than any other day of the year could. My two oldest will be dressed in matching mermaid outfits, and I'll accompany them through Fox Chase (no cooler this time). They'll have a great time, and I'll just be there to observe and to occasionally direct them. Feels good.
By senior year's Halloween—2010, for those keeping track at home—I had made at least one significant change in my life. I wasn't single anymore. Halloween marked the first couples costume with my now-wife, Pam. Nothing else changed—we were still living Red Octobers, we were still consuming alcohol at a frightening clip—but that one change had a pretty sizeable impact on how I conducted myself, both generally and on Halloween.
How I'll describe the change in both regards is as followed: it was a move from utter chaos to organized celebration. These were the golden years of the first life cycle. We had parties, official parties, no longer needing to hide them, and we raised a glass and we toasted to the end of that cycle, those last years before everything started all over again. There was that final college Halloween at Woodstock, a few years during which our adult friends were paying rent at various houses across the city and decided to buy a keg, and then, most memorably, a few years when Pam and I rented out the Casbah Caterers in Port Richmond, catered food and open bar and, like I said, organized celebration.
That final party found Pam pregnant and found me sober for my first Halloween since 2004 (for reasons that I half-explained before). And so, the transition officially began. Children entered the world, our world, and all of a sudden I found myself the dad in the trick-or-treating scenario. You can bet your ass there was a cooler involved. But aside from the alcohol and all that, it was a supervising game. Responsibilities. Not just responsibilities to keep the kids alive, but the responsibility to give them the best night they can possibly have. A lot of that involves getting free candy from neighbors. I'm there to help that happen.
And so the cycle continues, but I get to watch it this time. There will be more years of trick-or-treating. Then there will be a year when one or more of my kids step out on their own. This will inevitably lead to a few mistakes made, and occasionally I'll be there, until I won't. Then there will be the organized parties shared with loved ones, and maybe even one of my daughters will throw their old man a pity invite, when they are old enough, and such an invite no longer marks them as "uncool."
Those are snapshots for the future though. This one here, soon, this upcoming Halloween 2023, it'll definitely show where I'm at this year more succinctly than any other day of the year could. My two oldest will be dressed in matching mermaid outfits, and I'll accompany them through Fox Chase (no cooler this time). They'll have a great time, and I'll just be there to observe and to occasionally direct them. Feels good.
I wonder how my dad felt when we no longer needed him to chaperone Halloween night. I've never asked him. Maybe I didn't need to ask. I see how he is on Halloween night these days, again a helping hand on the trek through a bustling neighborhood with his granddaughters. I can imagine that he felt like there was something lost, in not being there, on that specific night. I wonder what that night felt like to him, and what that meant for him as a snapshot of his year. I can imagine—especially existing the stage right before that one myself, currently—that it must have been bittersweet. You want your kids to grow up and be happy and eventually take those tentative flaps of the wing toward leaving the nest, but a lot of that is going to happen off-stage for a parent. And you want to be involved as much as you can, but at a certain point, you can't.
This is what I'm thinking about now as I reflect on the Halloween night that I shit my pants.
This is what I'm thinking about now as I reflect on the Halloween night that I shit my pants.
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