Totally Joe (7 page)

At that point, Addie stopped taking notes. It almost always ends up like this. We talk until the food shows up. Then, no matter what Skeezie has ordered, there's something wrong with it, and he has to throw a hissy fit and be a big drama queen about it. We never get back to what we were talking about. But that's okay because there's always the next time—and, trust me, Addie
never
runs out of Important, News-Breaking, World-Shaking Topics to talk about.

LIFE LESSON
: As somebody said in a song once (I don't think it was Elvis), “You gotta have friends.”

OKAY, SO HALLOWEEN IS MY ABSOLUTE
,
numero uno
favorite holiday. I mean, come on, we're talking about DRESSING UP here! Ever since I can remember, I have loved dressing up. And I'm not just talking about in my mother's clothes. Although: Been there, done that. There's this video of me when I was about three parading around the house in my mom's
very
high heels (I was also wearing one of her necklaces, my Oscar the Grouch underpants, a tutu, and a Superman cape). Anyway, every time we show this video it's a real crowd-pleaser—up until the part where I
fall down the stairs and MY FATHER KEEPS TAPING!
Everybody goes, like, “Dave, how could you have done that?!” I don't know, maybe he thought he'd win a million dollars on
America's Funniest Home Videos
or something, but this was his child's
life
we're talking
about! Fine. It was only, like, two steps and there was knee-deep carpeting everywhere, but still.

Anyway, the point is that I
love
to dress up, and not only on Halloween. It's just that Halloween makes it legit. Even my brother dressed up in drag one Halloween a couple of years ago, although he was all very “Yuck, yuck, look at me, I'm a woman, watch me jiggle my melons and shake my booty.” So gross. Not to mention Guy-Guy Behavior Supreme-O. In fact, they weren't melons, they were soccer balls. He must have used up a whole roll of duct tape to keep them on. My mother told him there was no way he was leaving the house looking like a walking silicone nightmare, and he said if I could dress up in girls' clothes why couldn't he, and Mom said that I wasn't insulting women when I did it. That's when he stormed out of the house, shouting, “Double standard!” Which surprised me, because I didn't think he even knew what “double standard” meant.

(This may have been around the time Addie came to her senses, in terms of my brother not being suitable crush material.)

It's funny. Even though I have done lots of dressing up in girls' clothes around the house, I have never worn drag on Halloween. Okay, almost never. I
was
Dorothy in
kindergarten. But being Dorothy from
The Wizard of Oz
is kind of like being Mary in the Christmas pageant. Sacred-like, you know?

Anyway, I am
so
looking forward to Halloween this year. A whole group of us is going trick-or-treating (we figure it's our Farewell Tour, since we're kind of outgrowing it), and then we're going back to Addie's house for a party. I hope we get lots of candy, because I can just imagine what the refreshments will be like. This is a family that every Thanksgiving has
tofurky
.

Colin and I have been talking about our costumes for the last two weeks. We want to do something where we kind of go together—like salt and pepper, or Rose and Jack.
(Titanic.
) (Hello.) We actually considered that last one, thinking we could go as the part where they're floating around in the icy water. We were going to, like, cover ourselves in blue makeup and make little icicles to hang off our noses, but then we figured if my mother wouldn't let Jeff out of the house with his Pamela Anderson boobs, she was not about to let us go anywhere dressed as half-dead disaster victims. Besides which, we had already come to the conclusion all on our own that the idea would be Breaking New Ground in Bad Taste. (Although maybe Aunt Pam already did that with the
Titanic
cake.)

Oh, and dressing up as
lovers?
And one of us being a
woman?
And going out in
public?
Uh. No.

It was Pam who came up with the brilliant idea of Bert and Ernie.

Okay, I have to admit this right here, right now. I totally love Bert and Ernie. Personally, I think it's not only un-American not to love Bert and Ernie, but
so
uncool.

Problem was, both Colin and I wanted to be Bert. But since Colin is taller, he won. I don't mind. I do Ernie's laugh better, anyway. And, needless to say, I have in my possession a rubber ducky. More than one. Okay, five.

So Pam is making our costumes and doing our hair and makeup and everything. No plastic masks for us! “Right, Bert?” “Right, Ernie!”

I'm going to write more later. Bye for now! And …

Happy Halloween!

It is now later.

How do I put this? Let's try: THIS WAS THE WORST HALLOWEEN OF MY LIFE!! And on top of that: I may have lost my one true love (i.e., Bert) forever!!

I am
so
not being dramatic.

Okay, where do I start?

Our costumes were Fab. U. Luss. Except for our heads, which remained melon-instead-of-football-shaped, we looked
just
like Bert and Ernie. Besides being a painter, Pam works in the cosmetics department at Awkworth & Ames Department Store, so she was able to put together this perfect yellow and orange makeup (yellow for Bert/Colin, orange for Ernie/me). She put it on our faces and over these bald caps she found somewhere and added long strands of black crepe hair (the kind you make fake beards out of) to the tops of our heads. And she made a unibrow out of the same stuff for Colin that looked just like the one Bert has. By the time we put on the big noses and the costumes she'd made (I don't know how she found material that looked just like their shirts, but she did) (she's awesome) (she could be a Hollywood designer, I mean it), we could have been celebrity doubles!

Everybody was like, “Oh. My. God. You guys are
amazing!”

And nobody had to guess who or what we were, unlike Addie, who was a stalk of broccoli, but most people thought she was either an alien or the Jolly Green Giant.

Anyway, trick-or-treating: Let's see, it was Colin and me; Bobby and Kelsey; Kelsey's friends Amy and Evie; Skeezie and his sisters, Megan and Jessie; Addie; Drew and
Sara (Sara broke up with Justin last week and is now Drew's girlfriend) (we think) (nobody's really sure about that); and Colin's sister, Claire. DuShawn didn't come with us because he said trick-or-treating was for little kids and he'd meet us at Addie's for the party later. If he had come with us in the first place, he might still have said what he did, but it wouldn't have been nearly as bad.

Anyway, up until the bad part we were having a really good time. Colin and I kept going, “Hey, Bert!” and “What is it, Ernie?” and cracking everybody up with our voices, and it was decided that we had to be the ones to say “trick or treat” at every house because the sound of it made people laugh even before they opened their doors—and then when they did open their doors, well, they freaked when they saw us, what can I say?

For almost an hour, it was the best Halloween ever. Colin and I walked together the whole time, being Bert and Ernie and sometimes holding Claire's hands between us and swinging her up in the air. She was dressed as the flying carpet from
Aladdin
(a hand-me-down, store-bought costume, but on her totally cute), so of course she had to fly. It was so much fun being the three of us. It was like, I don't know, Colin and I were
connected
through Claire or something. Almost
like we were holding each other's hands instead of hers.

Anyway, we came to this street corner and everybody started to run across. Colin went to grab Claire's hand, but she had already gone ahead with Bobby and Kelsey, so he grabbed mine instead. By mistake, like. I guess I should have gone, “Bert, let go of my hand!” But I didn't. And he didn't let go. We ran across the street together like that—you know, holding hands. For all of maybe five seconds.

Guess who was watching from the other side.

DuShawn and Kevin and Jimmy.

DuShawn looks at us and goes, “Bert and Ernie? That is so gay.”

If that had been all, it would have been okay. I mean, not okay, but we could have told him he was being a jerk and it would have been over. But Kevin had seen us holding hands, I guess, because he said, “That's because they
are
gay.”

DuShawn said, “Huh?”

Kevin goes, “Bert and Ernie. They're gay. I mean, you never see them with girls, do you? They live together, right? Next thing you know, they'll be getting
married
. Hey, maybe that's what Colin and Josephine are gonna do.”

“That is so sick,” Jimmy Lemon says, and he and Kevin start making barf noises.

At that point, I don't remember who said what. I
probably should have told Kevin and Jimmy to shove it, but I heard somebody else saying it for me, and, besides, I was too busy watching the look of panic spreading over Colin's face under his yellow makeup. Addie was yelling at DuShawn, and DuShawn was yelling at Addie and then telling her he was sorry and then telling Kevin and Jimmy the two of them had better go. Which they did, but not before Kevin said something about faggots holding hands. I guess the whole thing didn't last more than a minute or two, but it seemed a lot longer.

On the way to Addie's house, Claire asked Colin if Bert and Ernie really were gay, and Colin said, “Of course not. Anyway, does it matter?” Claire thought about it and said, “Not really.” “So don't worry about it,” Colin told her. But from the way he avoided looking at me, I had the feeling he wasn't exactly taking his own advice.

At one point, I heard DuShawn say to Addie, “They were asking for it, dressing up like Bert and Ernie. I mean, what do they want people to think?”

“Are you blaming the
victims?”
Addie said, and then she was yelling again, and DuShawn was going, “I'm not saying that, I'm not saying that,” until finally he agreed that maybe he
was
saying that, and for, like, the thousandth time he was sorry.

The party was over before it began—and not because of the food, which was actually pretty good. (Addie's parents are fantastic cooks, even if all their cookbooks have lame names like
The Joy of Soy.
) It's just that we were all feeling weird, especially since a few of the kids there knew about Colin and me, but most didn't, and now those who didn't were probably wondering.

Colin was still avoiding me. I tried getting him to talk by being Ernie, but that just got him annoyed (I could tell by his furrowed unibrow), and finally he said it was getting late and he should take Claire home.

Late? It was, like, eight o'clock—on a Friday night!

I went home pretty soon after that myself. Like I said, the party was
so
over. Before I changed out of my costume, I went online and e-mailed Colin.

Hi Bert,

That was fun tonight. Except for when Dumb, Dumber, and Dumberer showed up. Did Claire have fun? She sure is cute.
So write me, okay? Me and R.D. (Rubber Ducky) are lonely. What? What did you say, Bert? I can't hear you. I've got a banana in my ear.

Ernie

I checked my e-mail three times before I finally went to bed. I didn't hear from Colin, but Addie wrote to ask, RUOK? I sent back the shortest e-mail I ever wrote in my whole life: No. I mean, what else was there to say?

LIFE LESSON
: Trick-or-treating is for little kids.