Finally, she was following my convoluted thinking. “You’re saying, like, if he dresses up as a construction worker, he wants to be from the Village People, which means he’s really gay.”

“Exactly. I think that’s what all male costumes essentially mean. They all have to do with their own sexual hang-ups, and being in touch with their feminine side. I mean, think of the guy with the 20-foot shlong. What’s that all about?”

“The trucker wants to go the distance,” she said and stumbled in her turquoise pumps.

“You know,” I remembered, “just before we left that party, I saw a baby with a big fat stogie lighting it off a tiki lamp. It was beautiful, man. That’s what this holiday’s all about.”

We’d walked far enough to land at another party. What the heck; might as well go in. The first thing I noticed was a five-foot sushi roll. I sprung into action.

“Do you secretly want to be a sushi roll?” I asked.

“I don’t want to be a sushi,” the sushi roll protested in a wave of self-loathing.

“Why did you dress as a sushi roll, then?” Barbara Walters would be proud.

“Because I ate sushi last week and it was the first thing I thought of as a costume, man.”

A likely story. But I had to press on. I cornered a moth. “What inspired the moth?” I asked.

“Well, that’s a good question. I was going to be barefoot and pregnant cause I really was enthralled with the idea of being fat, cause it’s really fun to feel it, you know?” She told me to touch her squishy costume. I did.

“It’s squishy,” I observed.

The moth said, “Being pregnant wasn’t enough production for me, cause I’m all about the production of Halloween, so I needed to, like, make more of a costume because barefoot and pregnant -- that was just like a pillow and a maternity dress. I wanted to wear wings.”

“So, what’s fat with wings?” I prompted.

“A moth.”

“Terrific.”

“Thank-you.”

As fascinating as the moth and her fat fetish were, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to interview the person who had just entered.

“Jesus!” I screamed, tripped over his robe and recovering in time to shove the tape recorder reasonably close to his beard. “Is the end of the world coming?”

“The end of the world is near. The end of the world is near,” Jesus slurred. He had been turning miracles all night and was clearly weak from the exertion.

I sank to my knees. “What do you want from us? What should we do for you?” I asked.

“Reboot your computersh. Get bottled water,” he blurted and blessed the floor with his holy phlegm.

One of his apostles called, “Get bottled water and canned corn.”

A third added, “And kill yourself.”

“Canned corn! Canned corn!” the first apostle insisted.

“Why get bottled water if you’re just going to kill yourself?” I asked, jumping up to avoid the next stream of holy phlegm.

“Canned corn. Lots and lots of canned corn,” the first apostle repeated, with a beatific expression. “You can never have too much canned corn. You can make breakfast, lunch, dinner.”

“You can make corn muffins,” I said, uneasily. I tried to back away without getting sprayed by any more holy phlegm. Jesus was busy telling somebody the end of the world would come if someone didn’t get him a beer.

 

Page  1  2  3  4  5