Part II
I don't have access to any pictures from back then (no doubt my mom took a picture of me and my sisters in our respective Halloween costumes that night, as is the boilerplate custom in families such as mine), so I can't say with complete certainty what year it was. If I had to guess, I'd say 2001 (and no, I did not poop in my pants because I was grieving the lives lost on September 11th).
It
was the aforementioned Cat in the Hat year. This being maybe the second
year that we were out on our own without tipsy parental supervision, maybe even the first. In
a way only early-year teens can, it somehow became the expectation that
your costume needed to be cool, in a low-effort way. Too elaborate was
lame. Too simple, though? Also lame. And believe it or not, no costume
at all would have been the lamest thing to do.
Something I've known innately all my life is that I look the coolest when I have a cigarette in my hand. In seventh grade, I hadn't actually smoked a cigarette yet. This wasn't the 1940s, this was the early 2000s, a time when you'd have to swim against the tide to actually smoke. I didn't know about my addiction issues then, but I didn't have to—even someone as young and as dumb as me knew that smoking was bad news. Still, there's been some smoking of legal toxins over the years. Mostly while drunk, and mostly because the combination of thinking I'm cool when I'm drunk and knowing I'm cool when I smoke a cigarette. This was obvious to me even at age thirteen.
And so my plan was to be the Cat in the Hat (black sweatpants, black sweatshirt with white felt sewed to front torso, classic tall red/white hat, and whiskers drawn on with costume makeup), but also smoke a cigarette. I would call myself... well now wait, what did I call myself? I unfortunately probably chose something like "Gangsta Cat in the Hat," even though there were other costume names that were more clever and less racist. Maybe I could've chosen "Felonious Feline" or something. Ack, but who am I kidding? "Felonious Feline" would've gotten tagged as "lame" because the "nerd" of the group who had the audacity to get good grades in school was using big words.
I've talked thus far about broad life cycles, and how you can divide your life according those those stages, but you see, you can also subdivide, and examine on the micro level where you were at during that particular section of that particular stage. As I've written about before and probably alluded to too many times on Puke on Your Birthday already, these years at the end of grade school into high school were a time of transition for me, socially and communally speaking. When you're young, your friends choose you, and when you're old, you choose your friends, and I was just about ready to enter that period of my life when my friends from when I was young were no longer choosing me, and so I chose new friends (chose wisely, I should reiterate, since they are still my friends today).
This was the build up to that choice, though, and so here, on this particular Halloween, I was holding on for dear life. Donning the Cat in the Hat garb and smoking a fake toy cigarette whose tip actually lit up when you breathed through it and sincerely looked like a real cigarette and might've even sent tiny puffs of smoke into the air I forget, it was all a fucking front. A desperate attempt to stay in with the in-crowd. Every night with them felt like a test. Could I overcome my shyness and general lack of chill and school-earned reputation as a (gasp) academically-inclined child, and could I, tonight, be one of the cool kids?
Not that I was cognizant of any of these thoughts at the time. It was just Halloween, only one of the most fun nights of the year no matter what your age, and I was going out to hang out with my friends at the time, and maybe have a few laughs. The grumbling in my stomach wasn't a good sign, though.
Something I've known innately all my life is that I look the coolest when I have a cigarette in my hand. In seventh grade, I hadn't actually smoked a cigarette yet. This wasn't the 1940s, this was the early 2000s, a time when you'd have to swim against the tide to actually smoke. I didn't know about my addiction issues then, but I didn't have to—even someone as young and as dumb as me knew that smoking was bad news. Still, there's been some smoking of legal toxins over the years. Mostly while drunk, and mostly because the combination of thinking I'm cool when I'm drunk and knowing I'm cool when I smoke a cigarette. This was obvious to me even at age thirteen.
And so my plan was to be the Cat in the Hat (black sweatpants, black sweatshirt with white felt sewed to front torso, classic tall red/white hat, and whiskers drawn on with costume makeup), but also smoke a cigarette. I would call myself... well now wait, what did I call myself? I unfortunately probably chose something like "Gangsta Cat in the Hat," even though there were other costume names that were more clever and less racist. Maybe I could've chosen "Felonious Feline" or something. Ack, but who am I kidding? "Felonious Feline" would've gotten tagged as "lame" because the "nerd" of the group who had the audacity to get good grades in school was using big words.
I've talked thus far about broad life cycles, and how you can divide your life according those those stages, but you see, you can also subdivide, and examine on the micro level where you were at during that particular section of that particular stage. As I've written about before and probably alluded to too many times on Puke on Your Birthday already, these years at the end of grade school into high school were a time of transition for me, socially and communally speaking. When you're young, your friends choose you, and when you're old, you choose your friends, and I was just about ready to enter that period of my life when my friends from when I was young were no longer choosing me, and so I chose new friends (chose wisely, I should reiterate, since they are still my friends today).
This was the build up to that choice, though, and so here, on this particular Halloween, I was holding on for dear life. Donning the Cat in the Hat garb and smoking a fake toy cigarette whose tip actually lit up when you breathed through it and sincerely looked like a real cigarette and might've even sent tiny puffs of smoke into the air I forget, it was all a fucking front. A desperate attempt to stay in with the in-crowd. Every night with them felt like a test. Could I overcome my shyness and general lack of chill and school-earned reputation as a (gasp) academically-inclined child, and could I, tonight, be one of the cool kids?
Not that I was cognizant of any of these thoughts at the time. It was just Halloween, only one of the most fun nights of the year no matter what your age, and I was going out to hang out with my friends at the time, and maybe have a few laughs. The grumbling in my stomach wasn't a good sign, though.
I
have no idea now, and probably didn't then either, where the grumbling
came from. Could've been a spot of spoiled meat. Could've been a virus.
Could've just been one of those fucking things. But it was there, and
leaving the house was a risky endeavor, and yet... Halloween! Worth the
risk!
We
were done doing whatever passed for trick-or-treating that year, and
chilling in Tommy's backyard. There were probably a dozen of us, a mix
of boys and girls (the female presence alone was enough to shake the
nerves of shy children even lamer than me). I don't think Tom's parents
were home. They might have even been at my house, I don't recall. But
for some reason, when the grumbling and creaking and moaning got too
much for my stomach to handle, and my brain all of a sudden pushed the
emergency button and then held its finger over the escape hatch trigger,
just walking into his house was not an option. So I decided to walk
home.
It
was only two blocks. His backyard butted up against a driveway that
emptied out onto Shelbourne St., 6900 block (across Shelbourne from the
alleyway that would hold great importance to me about four and a half
months later), and my house was on the 7000 block. Didn't matter. During
that short walk, the failsafe collapsed, and I could hold it no longer.
This remains the most recent time that I've full-on shit my pants. Urinating is a different story, as are wet farts during either medicated sojourns at home or during any given nadir of the half of my life when I drank consistently and heavily. I can't imagine the record will hold until I die. I hope to be old one day, and the adult incontinence market is huge for a reason.
So I'm walking and I'm silent and it's exiting and the whole thing is surreal in the same way as a nightmare might be. I don't say a word. The plan for the remaining block is the just keep walking. Even as it's dripping down my leg, just don't fucking stop. I get to the house, and I walk in the front door. My parents have people over, and so they are preoccupied a bit, but not enough to miss the sight of their eldest child walking in the front door and immediately running up the step with nary a wave hello. I get to the restroom and slam the door.
A minute later, and I'm looking around wildly for a spot to put my soiled clothing, my dad raps a knuckle on the door. "Everything okay?" The lying would come much later; now was the time for truth. "Dad... I had an accident... I... don't know what else to say." Next thing I know, a disembodied hand appears holding a plastic bag, and a voice that says "It's all good, just hop in the shower after you tie the clothes up in this bag."
This remains the most recent time that I've full-on shit my pants. Urinating is a different story, as are wet farts during either medicated sojourns at home or during any given nadir of the half of my life when I drank consistently and heavily. I can't imagine the record will hold until I die. I hope to be old one day, and the adult incontinence market is huge for a reason.
So I'm walking and I'm silent and it's exiting and the whole thing is surreal in the same way as a nightmare might be. I don't say a word. The plan for the remaining block is the just keep walking. Even as it's dripping down my leg, just don't fucking stop. I get to the house, and I walk in the front door. My parents have people over, and so they are preoccupied a bit, but not enough to miss the sight of their eldest child walking in the front door and immediately running up the step with nary a wave hello. I get to the restroom and slam the door.
A minute later, and I'm looking around wildly for a spot to put my soiled clothing, my dad raps a knuckle on the door. "Everything okay?" The lying would come much later; now was the time for truth. "Dad... I had an accident... I... don't know what else to say." Next thing I know, a disembodied hand appears holding a plastic bag, and a voice that says "It's all good, just hop in the shower after you tie the clothes up in this bag."
And
that was it. The clothes were thrown out (I assume?). I got in the
shower and washed off the cat whiskers and all the other dark stains on
my body. Halloween was over. I don't remember the rest of the night but I
assume I just hung out in my room for a bit, maybe played some N64 or
whatever. I'm sure there were a couple inquiries about why I bailed so
quickly and without explanation, but those were most likely passed from
friend to their parent to my parent to me, and not directly from a
friend, since I wasn't all that essential to anyone's night in the first
place.
The
thing I'm thinking about the most these days is my dad's calm and cool
reaction to something that could've otherwise been a disaster of untold
proportions for a teenager with aspirations of fitting in. Any questions
or remarks about the incident would've made it worse, and to my dad's
credit, he understood that, and made no comments that night or any other
time afterward. He probably doesn't even remember it now (because I am
not the main character, you'll recall), but I remember it.
I remember, and my interpretation in the memory is that this must have been some small part emotionally fulfilling for my dad. This was very shortly after it was decided that he was no longer needed for trick-or-treating. Not that he said anything—and it would've been fucked up if he had—but some part of him had to have been like, "my kids are growing up, and things are changing," which is sad in its own way. But one of those first years in which he's cut out of the Halloween ritual that his children grew up needing him for, here is this small opportunity for kindness to be passed to that child.
Halloween is a snapshot of your life during that general time period. Halloween 2001 was a snapshot of a young man in transition and with poop dripping down his leg as some sort of spiritual christening of a new life stage just around the corner. But Halloween 2001 was also the snapshot of a dad who found, for one infinitesimally small moment, was able to find himself back in a position where he felt like he could help, and did so without question, with the need for help being lifelong but the opportunities to help being rather sporadic in the life of a father of teenagers.
I wonder how I'll feel once I stop trick-or-treating with my girls, whether there will be any sense of loss there. Probably. But it's okay, because I understand now that life is cyclical, and everything will come back around regardless. Even if I am eventually unceremoniously cut out from many of the rituals that I imparted on my own children, then there will be plenty of small moments in between to make our love known.
I do feel for full-time professional writers. The tweet at the beginning of both parts of this essay was an exaggeration mined for humor, but I don't doubt its underlying veracity. I like writing about this stuff, but I don't have anyone tell me what I should or shouldn't write, and I'm not getting paid for it. And it's fucking crazy, because $50 seems like a lot at first, but consider the fact that it would probably take an average of an hour per 1000 words, factoring in proofreading and editing. That's what it took me, around four hours, and I didn't even have any deadline pressure. Plus, I wrote it in between jobs at work, and so I did technically get paid for it. Four hours, even after tax, is at least 100 bucks. And I don't even need to write about shitting my pants to support my family! I'm just doing this for fun! Which is so, so fucked up.
I mean to say that I hope that by writing exactly what this satirical tweet asked me to write, and not even expecting the paltry, unfair sum that would no doubt be rate paid for such writing, I hope that I'm not undercutting the point of the tweet, or making it seem like I disagree with it. I love writing, and I love writers out there who are doing this for a living, and who can spin a yarn like this except way more intelligently written, and who deserve fair wages, even if they are freelancing.
Because this shit is important (figurative shit and literal shit). Without the power of words, I would still love my dad and I would still love my kids, but being able to write almost 4000 words now about it gives me clarity to see that love just a little better than I did yesterday. And maybe it even helped you see the love you hold in your heart for your own loved ones a little clearer too.
I remember, and my interpretation in the memory is that this must have been some small part emotionally fulfilling for my dad. This was very shortly after it was decided that he was no longer needed for trick-or-treating. Not that he said anything—and it would've been fucked up if he had—but some part of him had to have been like, "my kids are growing up, and things are changing," which is sad in its own way. But one of those first years in which he's cut out of the Halloween ritual that his children grew up needing him for, here is this small opportunity for kindness to be passed to that child.
Halloween is a snapshot of your life during that general time period. Halloween 2001 was a snapshot of a young man in transition and with poop dripping down his leg as some sort of spiritual christening of a new life stage just around the corner. But Halloween 2001 was also the snapshot of a dad who found, for one infinitesimally small moment, was able to find himself back in a position where he felt like he could help, and did so without question, with the need for help being lifelong but the opportunities to help being rather sporadic in the life of a father of teenagers.
I wonder how I'll feel once I stop trick-or-treating with my girls, whether there will be any sense of loss there. Probably. But it's okay, because I understand now that life is cyclical, and everything will come back around regardless. Even if I am eventually unceremoniously cut out from many of the rituals that I imparted on my own children, then there will be plenty of small moments in between to make our love known.
I do feel for full-time professional writers. The tweet at the beginning of both parts of this essay was an exaggeration mined for humor, but I don't doubt its underlying veracity. I like writing about this stuff, but I don't have anyone tell me what I should or shouldn't write, and I'm not getting paid for it. And it's fucking crazy, because $50 seems like a lot at first, but consider the fact that it would probably take an average of an hour per 1000 words, factoring in proofreading and editing. That's what it took me, around four hours, and I didn't even have any deadline pressure. Plus, I wrote it in between jobs at work, and so I did technically get paid for it. Four hours, even after tax, is at least 100 bucks. And I don't even need to write about shitting my pants to support my family! I'm just doing this for fun! Which is so, so fucked up.
I mean to say that I hope that by writing exactly what this satirical tweet asked me to write, and not even expecting the paltry, unfair sum that would no doubt be rate paid for such writing, I hope that I'm not undercutting the point of the tweet, or making it seem like I disagree with it. I love writing, and I love writers out there who are doing this for a living, and who can spin a yarn like this except way more intelligently written, and who deserve fair wages, even if they are freelancing.
Because this shit is important (figurative shit and literal shit). Without the power of words, I would still love my dad and I would still love my kids, but being able to write almost 4000 words now about it gives me clarity to see that love just a little better than I did yesterday. And maybe it even helped you see the love you hold in your heart for your own loved ones a little clearer too.
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