A Good Boy
Up until Halloween of 1989 I was a well-behaved kid. I’d never really left my bedroom. That’s why I felt like it was time for a change when my cousin, Kimberly, booked The Grange in Smithfield, Rhode Island for what she called her “Big Halloween Bash.” I’d never attended a party, never mind a bash, in my life by that point.
…
I lived with my mother and four siblings in a two-story house on a dead-end road. My siblings had technically been moved out for a few years, but there were daily visits since Mom never locked the door. Likewise, Aunt Mabel lived in the raised ranch directly to the left of us (if you were facing the house) and her six adult children were in and out. Beside her house was an immediate drop of an unspecified distance but more than ten feet to a pit of gravel and garbage. We called it The Abyss. None of us dared go near it. One night I saw my brother Tommy get into a fight with this kid Keith from a few roads over. Tommy got a hold of his collar, dragged him to the edge of the drop, and shoved him. I never saw Keith again.
…
Hearing the sequential opening and closing of the screen door and footsteps heavily landing on the stairs, reaching a crescendo, I felt a presence in the doorway of my room. My back had faced the door with the way I arranged my desk. Having myself positioned in a way that the front of me faced the door caused me to feel too vulnerable.
“Halloween bash tonight,” 22-year-old Kimberly said. “My big Halloween bash.”
For a few long moments, I ignored her. Slowly, I turned around to see that she was still in my doorway, excited as all hell. “In The Abyss?” I asked.
“No. The Grange,” she said. Without a word, I turned back around; I’d been in the middle of The Adolescent by Dostoyevsky, because as I said, I’d been a well-behaved kid. “Are you coming or not?” Kimberly was still in my doorway. Cousin Kimberly lacked awareness; she was the type to stand in a doorway until you told her to leave. “Are you coming or not?” She asked again, more whiny than curious.
I responded with a hmph, and then, without turning back around, “Why would I go? When have I ever done anything?”
Silence. There was still an entity lingering around me, so I knew she hadn’t left. “There’s going to be a costume contest.”
For the first time in twenty-three years, I had reconsidered my voluntary confinement to my dismal bedroom. Costume contest.
…
“It’s at The Grange,” I said into the phone, leaning against a wall in the kitchen, twirling the phone cord with my finger. I’d watched my mother talk to her girlfriends on the phone so often that I adopted her mannerism. On the other line was my girlfriend, Amy. Technically, she wasn’t my girlfriend; at the same time, technically, she was. Amy was the only girl I really spent time with who wasn’t one of my sisters or neighboring cousins, and by spent time I mean she was the only girl who’d sit in my room in dead silence while I read Russian literature. I wasn’t an emotionally available sort of person, and we’d never established that we were together, and come to think of it we never even kissed or anything, but there was something unspoken between us that we were just… together.
“I’m going to be Pee-Wee Herman,” I said to Amy. The sliding door behind me hissed as it opened, prompting one of the four resident Maine Coons to slip out into the fenced backyard. Tommy stepped in from the cold sunset wearing blue jeans, a white t‑shirt, and a leather jacket. I always thought he looked like a prick. He always tried to look so tough. To be fair, he was extremely tough, and I never crossed him. As he passed me, he yanked the twirled cord out from between my fingers. I was shocked that he didn’t call me gay or a bitch for twirling the cord, which in his caveman brain was only what women did because Mom did it.
Amy let out a shrill squeal of delight, which was not only ear-piercing in person, but was like a dog whistle over the phone. “I’ll be Chairry!” She said.
I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. “Don’t.”
…
It smelled like it was going to snow that night. There’s a certain kind of weather in the Northeast where the air is sharp and it brings about a sort of scent that you instinctively associate with snow. It probably happens elsewhere, but I’d never been elsewhere.
I pulled up onto the lawn of The Grange in my woodie station wagon with Amy beside me. She wasn’t dressed as Chairry, but the girl from The Exorcist, “pre-possession,” she said, which was just some girl in a nightgown. “I didn’t really like all that shouting and levitating and head rotating,” she said, which was the whole movie.
When we got out of the woodie, I looked up at the deep, dark sky full of stars. From within The Grange I could hear various one-hit wonders pouring out of the jukebox. I truly did find that the Eighties was the time for obscure groups to make a million dollars off of one song, then fall off the face of the earth.
Amy pulled out a 35 millimeter Kodak camera from thin air. “This nightgown has pockets,” she said. “I didn’t even know when I got it! What a score!” She wound the film and looked through the viewfinder at me. I had no time to process what was happening as the flash hit me like a dodgeball. “So we’ll never forget this night,” Amy said enthusiastically.
We headed for the front door and I scanned the darkness for a car that I could recognize. Just above the entrance to The Grange was a banner, poorly hanging. It said, “Big Halloween Bash In Cool Letters.” I imagined that Kimberly asked the banner making people, “Can it say: Big Halloween Bash, in cool letters?” And the banner making people did exactly that.
I had felt so confident as Pee-Wee Herman that I knew in my heart of hearts I’d win the costume contest. The initial hype of Pee-Wee was over, I thought, and nobody would be dressed as him. It wouldn’t be the costume that would get me to win the contest, no; it would be my admirable commitment to the character. I had an uncanny impression of Pee-Wee Herman under my belt, which had taken two years of devoted practice to fully master.
“David!” I heard Kimberly exclaim as my hand grasped the door handle of The Grange. Out of the corner of my eye, a motion detecting light flashed on. There was a strange figure under it, and I felt it looking at me. When I glanced at Amy to my left, she was looking straight past me, gawking at the figure. Becoming terrified at the thought of what heinous beast was waiting for my shrieks of terror, I turned to face my fate. Kimberly stood under the light, dressed as an infant. She had a white shirt on, a pink diaper, a bonnet, and a sash that said, “It’s A Girl!”. A pacifier dangled on a string around her neck.
“Oh my god,” I said in a tone of disgust, accidental but completely genuine. There was never really a line I had drawn for someone to step over in order for me to lose all respect for them until that moment. Seeing my adult cousin dressed as an infant truly crossed the line that never existed before that.
“I didn’t think you were going to show up,” Kimberly said, pleasantly surprised. “Food, drinks, and the jukebox is inside. The real party is out under the canopy, though,” she said in a mischievous tone, and gave me a wink that involved scrunching half of her face. It was more of a bizarre spasm. Amy, Kimberly, and I stood in our respective spots, frozen in place. Kimberly stared at us, and we stared back. So much time had passed, that the motion detection light turned off. When it turned back on, Kimberly was gone.
…
The Grange served as a community center and consisted of one long room with a small stage at the far end. There were fold-out tables and chairs available in the minuscule kitchen to the right of the stage. Due to historic preservation and a questionable town budget, the wooden floor was splintery and most definitely rotting away. With the amount of people standing around it was amazing the floor didn’t cave in that very night.
Finally I began to recognize people. “David!” They exclaimed, like I was a cryptic legend and was spotted on a rare occasion. This was partially true; I wasn’t a legend, merely the village cryptic. Usually sporting a worn out, raggedy flannel with corduroy pants and deteriorated converse, my peers were pleased to see me so put together, even if it was to replicate Pee-Wee Herman. That Halloween was the cleanest I’d ever looked.
For a few minutes I stood in the center of a few acquaintances and strangers, doing my killer impression of Pee-Wee that brought the house down every time. They laughed and applauded, and I felt not only like a god, but that I would easily win the costume contest.
“So, what are you, the sexy Oregon Trail?” This guy, Jared, asked Amy. He was smug and drunk, swaying back and forth, not in costume at all. I saw a scar below his right eye. He must’ve crossed Tommy.
“Firstly, the Oregon Trail was an era, not one person,” Amy said, “and I’m Regan from The Exorcist. Pre-possession.”
“So you’re just a girl in a nightgown,” someone dressed as the Phantom from The Phantom of the Opera said. I liked him for sharing my sentiment regarding Amy’s non-costume, but I hated him for having a costume that could totally take first place in the contest. Everyone loves a phantom.
Amy seemed actually bothered by the Phantom’s observation, and she was my kind-of-girlfriend after all, so I felt obligated to defend her. “I know you are, but what am I?” I asked in Pee-Wee’s voice. The people around me hollered and laughed in the Phantom’s face. Once again, I had the higher ground.
“I didn’t say you were a girl in a nightgown,” the Phantom said, not understanding my shtick, but my attention had gone to someone else across the room. I recognized the slicked black hair, gray suit, and white loafers anywhere. It’s another goddamned Pee-Wee Herman.
Tunnel-visioned, I marched through the crowd I’d created, heading straight to my brand new enemy. I extended my arm, firmly gripped Pee-Wee Two’s shoulder, and spun him around.
“Keith! You’re alive!”
…
The midnight air bit at me as I stepped out of The Grange’s back door to the canopy. It was this idle, wooden roof that was held up by beams, and under it was a drab concrete rectangle with two unkempt picnic tables. Electricity ran to it, so there were Christmas lights that dangled from under the roof. Indeed, it was more busy under the canopy, a strange mass of people huddled together, clouds of smoke rising up occasionally like a natural hot spring.
Tommy and his Girlfriend of the Day, What’sHerFace, came out of the back door and headed for the canopy. He was dressed as a ninja, and his girlfriend was a witch with barely any clothes on.
“That’s disrespectful to the actual women who were persecuted during that era,” Amy said. Tommy gave me the finger even though I wasn’t the one who said it. He probably knew that I was thinking it.
The cloud of smoke traveled up and down, left and right within the crowd. Kimberly squeezed out of the crowd, her long-term boyfriend Reggie trailing behind her. The two of them stood in front of me and Amy in their infant costumes. Reggie was Kimberly’s counterpart, with a blue diaper, bonnet, and sash that said, “It’s A Boy!”. I always thought Reggie was a douche, but this made all of his other disappointing traits seem respectable.
“Why…?” I began but trailed off as Reggie extended something towards my face. It was a marijuana cigarette. The source of the traveling smoke.
“This is the good stuff,” said Reggie. He dragged out gooood and stuuuffff, nodding at the same pace as his words, eyes glossy and red. Kimberly slapped him on the shoulder.
“You know David doesn’t smoke. He’s a good boy; look at him.”
The term good boy bothered me for some reason. I felt like a crystal glass shattering due to a high frequency. Involuntarily I cringed at Kimberly’s perspective of me, especially realizing that this was what everyone thought. Here I was, twenty-three years old, Dostoyevsky reader, master of the hacky sack and Pee-Wee Herman impression, who’s never even smoked a cigarette. Of course I was a good boy. Everyone in earshot heard Kimberly, and at that point she was gesturing to me, so a good amount of people were staring. I felt like a tool.
“Aren’t we lacking good boys in this society?” Amy offered in response. In no way did she sound confident of this rhetoric.
The marijuana cigarette was still extended towards my face, and Reggie was getting impatient. “Dude, are you taking a hit or not?”
All eyes on me, surely losing the majority vote for the contest, I had to get the people back on my side. Plus, I was becoming susceptible to societal pressure, and didn’t want to be viewed as a loser for not smoking weed.
“Put ‘er there,” I lamely said, holding out my hand to accept the reefer. Those who were spectating gasped and clapped, having known me for most of our lives, and it being common knowledge that I was the epitome of straight edge. Acting like I was aware of what I was doing, I slowly brought the joint to my mouth, and inhaled for longer than recommended.
“Yeah,” Reggie said, “you don’t say put ‘er there when you want a hit of the J.”
When I separated from the joint, I held my breath, then exhaled. Suddenly, a coughing fit of which the likes I’d never experienced washed over me — or rather, hit me like a train. It was like whoever was living in my lungs had closed the door and nailed it shut. I’m saying that I couldn’t breathe. While I was keeled over, trying to not die then and there, wheezing and hacking, I didn’t notice the silent dispersal of my peers. I did, however, from the corner of my eye, acknowledge the headlights shining directly on me.
“What’s going on, bud?” A manly man’s voice asked me. He was trying to be friendly, but when I glanced up and squinted, my eyes adjusting to the silhouette in front of the lights, two cops were staring down at me. One of them shone a flashlight into my face like the high beams weren’t enough. “We got a noise complaint from someone in the neighborhood. What d’ya got there?” The flashlight cop asked, nodding to the joint. Obviously he knew it was a joint.
“Cigarette,” I said, and by said I mean that I emitted it so weakly out of my mouth that I sounded like a dying tea kettle.
The two cops exchanged knowing glances.
“It looks an awful lot like a reefer,” the other cop said. He was probably in his thirties and had aviator sunglasses on despite it being the middle of the night.
I stood up straight and flattened out my gray blazer, remembering that I was still in Pee-Wee Herman garb. “My mother hand rolls cigarettes,” I said. If anything, they couldn’t blame me for trying.
Aviator Cop stepped forward and snatched the joint from me like it was some secret weapon and he was a supervillain. With my own eyes I watched him carefully inspect the joint, bring it to his mouth, and take an elongated drag. I turned to glance at The Grange to see everyone peering out of the windows or standing just outside, watching. Nobody could believe the sight before us.
Aviator Cop exhaled. “It’s marijuana,” he said.
Flashlight Cop nodded and held onto his belt like a cowboy. “Uh-huh. You know that smoking marijuana is against the law, right?”
“He just did it,” I said, pointing to Aviator Cop.
“To determine if it was drugs!” Flashlight Cop shouted. He stepped towards me and got all in my face. “You are aware that you’re a criminal now, right? How does that make you feel?”
I’d never had a standard of what was manly and what wasn’t, and I had never tried very hard to be a man, whatever it meant, but this was a severely emasculating experience. Here I was, having done nothing wrong in my life, now dressed fully as Pee-Wee Herman, getting the business from a cop in front of everyone I’ve ever known.
“You’re in deep shit, kid! You understand?” He yelled.
Suddenly, Kimberly stormed past me and got in Flashlight Cop’s face. Meanwhile, Aviator Cop arrested me. “Don’t yell at my cousin, you freak!” She said. I wondered what her definition of a freak was, and if it involved dressing as an adult infant. Aviator Cop shoved me into the back of the paddy wagon, and Kimberly continued reprimanding Flashlight Cop. “You can’t just go around arresting people willy-nilly!” Here was my cousin Kimberly, in a diaper and bonnet, trying to tell a cop how to do his job. Yet, I felt like the jackass.
“Shut the fuck up, Kimberly! Just shut up!” Said Tommy. He and Kimberly hurried over to my window as the two officers got in.
“We’ll get you out, David. I promise,” Kimberly said.
“This is what you get for twirling the phone cord,” Tommy said. “Are you gay or something?”
That was the last thing I heard before the policemen drove me to the station.
…
I hung on the bars of the holding cell, staring at the door, waiting for Flashlight or Aviator to come in and tell me that I’m free to go because I’m such a good boy. Behind me were other weekend criminals. All of them looked much tougher than me. Probably because they didn’t get arrested while dressed as a beloved television character.
Abruptly, Amy came barreling in, and the delinquent men who were otherwise bored on this Halloween night were suddenly very interested in my maybe girlfriend. They stood up or at least looked more alert, looking her up and down.
I grimaced at them. “She’s dressed as the girl from The Exorcist, pre-possession.” Every last one of them averted their eyes.
“I got here as soon as I could,” Amy said.
“It’s been two hours,” I said.
“Well, I had to stay for the costume contest. And your brother Paul had bail for me to get.”
I ignored the latter half. “The costume contest? You were there for the results?” She nodded. “Who won?”
“Tommy,” she said.
“What?” I exclaimed, perplexed. “He was a ninja!”
“Well, it was the most mysterious costume.”
Like a confused dog, I tilted my head. “What other categories were there?”
Amy shrugged. “It was just a contest for the most mysterious costume.”
It felt like it took hours for my brain to process the information. “The contest was themed? How the hell was I ever going to win as Pee-Wee Herman when the objective was to be the most mysterious?” I couldn’t believe it. Then, something struck me that made me even more perplexed. “So why was Kimberly dressed as a baby?!”
She shrugged, “Maybe she thinks that babies are mysterious. I think they are. They speak gibberish, but you can tell that they mean it, and it makes me think that they have crucial information we don’t know about but ought to know. Like which god we’re supposed to be worshipping.”
I sulked. I wish I’d remained a good boy and didn’t give into peer pressure. I felt like I was in an after school special. Amy stood there, staring at me.
“If you take a picture, it’ll last longer,” I said.
Silently, Amy pulled her Kodak from her nightgown pocket, held it up to her eye, and snapped a photo, the flash briefly blinding me again. “I should’ve been arrested right along with you,” she said with armchair sympathy. And something hit me: if I’d only made a run for it into The Grange, those cops could’ve arrested that asshole Keith, also dressed as Pee-Wee Herman. I would’ve really been a legend amongst my peers if I dodged Weekend Jail. I wished Keith had died in The Abyss after all.
“You said Paul had bail money?” I asked her. She nodded between the specs of lingering light in my eyes. “Do you have it?”
She patted her pockets and slapped her forehead. “Gosh, I forgot to stop at Paul’s house!”
Defeated, I sat on the cold, wooden bench beside a normally dressed degenerate. The degenerate looked me up and down. “What are you in for? Being a tool?” The other insubordinates laughed. I could only nod because he was exactly right.
—
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