Green （1978） #3
“Are you two studying? I hear an awful lot of talking,” Jackson yelled from the kitchen, drowning out Donna for a moment. “I’m making a snack, but only studiers can have some.”
MJ lingered over the last photo in my parents’ wedding album.
In it, my parents are looking back at the photographer from the back seat of Grampy Eddie’s 1958 Buick Century convertible.
My dad’s arm rests across my mother’s bare shoulders.
They are both smiling. Grampy Eddie sits up front behind the steering wheel, his back to the camera; the inevitable fedora set at a rakish angle covers his head.
On the trunk of the Buick are the words: Just Married.
With a sigh, MJ closed the album. As she returned it to its spot on the shelf, she asked, “Do you think you’ll ever get married? ”
“What? That’s ridiculous. No.”
Jackson burst in just then carrying a bowl of Jiffy popcorn glistening with butter and salt.
Saturday, October 21, 1978, University City—Saturday afternoons, what I have begun to think of as our “gang of seven” hang out at our apartment—DAX, MJ, Perils, Sue P, Faiz, Jackson, and me.
DAX was reclining on our sofa tossing popcorn from the bowl resting on his stomach into his mouth when he asked, “So, what are we doing for Halloween?” When no one responded, he sat up and demanded, “None of you have made plans?”
We—MJ, Perils, Sue P, Faiz, Jackson, and I—shook our heads, no.
“Pathetic,” he said. “Fine. I’ll make plans. We’re going trick-or-treating, then we’ll hop the bars downtown.”
We looked at each other, but no one dared contradict him, even though I was sure we were all thinking, aren’t we’re too old to go trick-or-treating?
“OK, it’s settled,” DAX declared. “We’re going trick-or-treating together. We’ll meet here Tuesday around five-thirty.”
Jackson and I looked at each other, wondering when our tiny apartment had become the official launch pad for our gang’s little adventures.
“I’ve always wanted to go trick-or-treating,” I offered.
“You’ve never been trick-or-treating?” DAX asked incredulously. The others just stared at me in mute astonishment.
“No, and neither has Jackson.” They all turned to stare at Jackson.
“It’s true,” Jackson said. “Neither of us have been.”
“How is that possible?” MJ wondered aloud.
Easy. When I’d asked to be taken trick-or-treating back in Springfield, Grampy Eddie had nixed the idea with a firm no, adding, “We are not poor. There is no need for you to dress up as a fool and go begging the neighbors for candy.”
And of course, in Locust Hollow there was no Halloween, Reverend Jack having decreed it an opportunity to pay homage to the devil, but more dangerously, through costuming and wandering the darkened streets, you were inviting the devil himself into your home and offering him a seat in your favorite chair.
“Is Halloween a big holiday here?” Jackson asked.
“Only for children and the gays,” Perils said.
“Chil’,” DAX said, “Halloween is gay Christmas.”
“Gay Christmas?”
“Yes. Well, now, anyway. During the fifties and sixties, Halloween was known as ‘bitches Christmas.’ All the gays dressed up in drag and bar hopped. It was really special because normally it was illegal to cross dress, but on Halloween, folks could get away with dressing in drag—for a lot of folks, it was the only time they could appear in public as their true selves. So that’s why Halloween is so important to us gays. ”
Tuesday, October 31, 1978, University City—Perils arrived dressed as Cat Woman from Batman and carried her family’s remarkably placid calico cat in her arms. When anyone commented on how cute the cat was, she would insist it was a dog in a cat costume.
Most people laughed, while others stepped back in wary confusion.
MJ was the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz.
She’d painted one of her perpetual overalls silver, placed an aluminum watering can on her head, and Perils had helped her paint her face and hands with a silver body paint they’d found at Spencer’s Gifts.
Jackson took one look at her and, calling her contagious, told her not to sit on any furniture.
“Don’t even lean against the walls,” he admonished.
Faiz was dressed as Tony Manero from Saturday Night Fever in a white three-piece suit, black shirt with a wide collar, and platform shoes; Sue P was dressed as a “disco lady” in a two-piece bedazzled black-and-white jumpsuit with a matching headband.
Jackson and I were dressed up as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. MJ looked us over from her station in the middle of our living room and nodded approvingly.
When DAX showed up looking like his normal self, Perils demanded to know where his costume was. “I’m wearing it,” he said.
“Oh? And who are you supposed to be?”
He waited a beat then, tossing his silvery head and placing his hands on his hips—thumbs forward—he lisped, “A young American homosexual.”
“Well done,” Perils said before declaring him the winner of the best costume contest that had until that moment existed exclusively in her head. She handed him his prize: a victor’s box of eclairs.
“Shall we go?” DAX asked.
We dispersed into the neighborhood immediately surrounding campus, joining costumed actual children, their harried-looking parents, and their trailing, picture-snapping grandparents.
If anyone thought we were too old to be trick-or-treating, they certainly didn’t say anything, cheerfully inviting us to dive into proffered bowls of candy.
We walked until our bags of candy became burdensome to carry.
Next, we hopped the trolley into town and went bar hopping in the gayborhood, where we actually seemed like children compared to the costumed, bejeweled revelers—devils and witches, drag queens of every size and description, a Michelin man.
After, at home, stripped of his costume, Jackson fell onto the bed and said, “Man, what a night.”
Indeed. I looked around and didn’t see the devil seated anywhere in our apartment.