My Halloween

HOW I SPENT MY 65TH HALLOWEEN

I decided I would spend it at the Santa Anita Mall dressed as a Sith. The Jayster became the Sithster. Every Halloween children from all over the place come to the Santa Anita Mall with their parents. The children are all dressed in costume. The parents aren't. The only grownups, or near-grownups, who dress in costume at Halloween at the Santa Anita Mall are employees of the shops. And, this year, me. And I am not an employee at any of the shops. If I was an employee at any of the shops, and if I was dressed up at Halloween inside the mall - I would be giving candy to the children who came up to me. And in fact that is the whole idea of employees at the shops dressing up at Halloween: to give candy to the children; who are also dressed up at Halloween; to go to the shops and get candy from the grownup employees dressed up at Halloween. I am also a grownup. I was also at the mall dressed up for Halloween. But I had no candy. And I didn't work at any of the shops. But the kids didn't know that. And so it is by now that you should be able to see what it was that was going on here inside my head, inside my costume, inside the mall, with no candy inside my pockets.
It was not long before little tykes began to cute-ily approach me in their delightful costumes of fairies and frogs and pirates and little pretties; their eager, avaricious eyes filled with trust and excitement. "TRICK OR TREAT!!!" a little band of innocent hopefuls announced to me, their satchels of contraband held open and upward at my shrouded form. I looked down at them with a soft grin. I enclosed all my fingers together at my waist, and in all blackness I said to them "Ah: trick or treat indeed. I shall select from you, I think, 'trick'. For you see, I have no candy. I just look like I do. And even if I did have candy, I would not give it to you. I would give it to crows. Or to bats. Or to lizards. Not to you." They would look at me then with a bit of unsureness mixed with, I think, worry. I don't think their worry was that they would get no candy. No, I think their worry was that they would not be able to back-up their threat of punishment if they got no "treat." Rare is the toddler who comes prepared at the annual Halloween greedfest and extortion orgy to follow through with his
threat of retaliation should he not get his beak quite as moistened as he had demanded at the outset of his demand, all full of swagger and confidence and braggadocio. And so when I told them I had no candy for them they would look at me for a moment, in childlike concern and upset, and then turn immediately in desperation and confusion to their parents - usually six to ten feet away - and wonder I suppose if their guardians and protectors - and the very people who brought them here in the first place to get their guts full of crap and goo for free - they would turn to these formerly trusted, but eventually not quite so trusted, souls to straighten all of this out. Preferably in the child's favor. But I do not fear parents any more than I fear their idiot, annoying midgit offspring. I would then raise my gaze to the parents, standing off in the distance, and I would just look at them. I am often told, usually by people who, having 5 or 6 drinks at my invitation, and feeling welcomed enough to speak freely, that i have - even when not in costume - a sort of crazed and
disturbing.....I guess "look" would be the best word to use as a description. Though sometimes they say "manner" and sometimes they say "expression" and sometimes they say "vibe" and sometimes they say "demeanor" and sometimes they say.....well I guess you can add your own words here, I am getting tired of doing so. Keep it up for as long as you think it's necessary. And so, being possessed of all or some of these attributes, I would look up from the befuddled children, now looking back at their parents, and I would join them in their gaze toward their elders. Even to the most fearless, and in the case of the shoppers at this mall, criminally mutated, parents, the sight of a 65 year old man of minimum charm and even less attractiveness staring expressionless at them in a Sith costume, devoid of makeup and yet appearing quite appropriately dressed to suit his natural facial appearance.....the parents' reactions always seem to mimic their childrens' at these moments. Leading me to conclude that stupidity is indeed transferable via the testicles and ovaries. After a moment or two of silence from all three groups - the children before me, the parents behind them, and me and my shroud in front of both - the parents would gesture the kids "Come on, come away from there..." (I was more often than not referred to as "there" in these little dramas) "...Let's go to the next store." And the children would then QUICKLY scamper away in a direction perpendicular to where I was facing and proceed to hopefully better hunting grounds yonder. I did this for about two hours. I inadvertantly gave a bad name to many MANY places of business. This was not my intent. It was my intent to amuse myself at the expense of toddlers. Not at the expense of diligent business owners. Such is the unfortunate plague of Halloween: it spreads its contagion like spraying, roiling lethal shrapnel from a hellish cannonball. Once in a while some adult, a bit more self assured than most, would march up to me, all martial and regal and self appointed to something, and say to me straight on, once the kids were out of earshot "What the fuck's your problem grampa, fuckin with these kids. This the best you can do with your fuckin free time??" I'd gesture down at myself real quick, all Italian, my arms out, my garb draped open - and dark, inside and out - my face all hooded: and I'd look at him like he was an imbecile. "Whattaya want from me. I'm a Sith, fa crise sakes. We're pricks." Like as though, ya know, have a fukkin clue, stupid. Then I'd just stand there, my arms out, presenting myself; lookin' at him with an expression of self explanatory righteousness mixed with a kind of ominous glare. Then, still standing there looking at him, presenting myself in preposterous grim reaper attire, I'd tilt my head a smidge and kind of soften my expression, as though saying, "Hey: dude; c'mon; it's October 31st. " This worked with all my participants in these private conversations, and they would all kind of chuckle and go off after their family like, oh, yeah: you're right. Well, it worked with all but one granpa 55 year old Mexican patron who still was not amused and to this day probably STILL isn't, his nuts probly even now still undergoing reformation from pudding back into their original ovoid shapes. I'm still a dancer AND a good sprinter and by the time he regained his painlessness and his upright posture I was in front of another store 500 yards away and pissing off boys and girls like hellzapoppin. When the time came for me to go I was making my way down the escalator in Macy's and I heard a voice behind me utter, "Will you forgive my sins?" This was, I decided, directed at me. At the bottom I stepped off and sort of turned around to await and encounter who was talking to me and it was a strange man with a kind of unhinged expression. I said, still under the cowl, "What?" looking at him. He had to stop because I had stopped. A bit more jocular now he said, "Will you forgive me my sins?" I looked at him unsmilingly for a second and then told him, "I don't forgive sins. I encourage them." He got all weirder and went away, troubled. It was fun. And, I would hasten to add, it WAS Halloween. Otherwise I am sure I would be writing this from State Custody. For even now I am still in my Sith robe. And it's mid November. But I am wise enough to only go OUT in it one night a year. Which make me - officially, at least - ... not nuts. Heh heh.