Mrs. Memphis and I were invited to a Halloween party this year. The party was in a part of town where, when I was younger, everyone always wished to live. It's up on top of a steep hill, with perfect houses, all very large, and everyone and everything up on that hill somehow just better. They were the rich people up on that hill, the privileged, the elite.
Going up there is a bit like shifting into low gear and driving your car right up into Heaven. Except that you hit a Stop sign at the top. And then we had to hang a right, and then the first left, and just over the rise there is the house on the left. OK, so Heaven has detailed instructions. You could Mapquest it.
I wanted to go as something practical, which meant no latex masks covering my face like I'd worn for so many Halloweens in the past. And I wanted something that everyone would like, so no politicians or celebrities. Most of all, I wanted people to be happy when they saw me coming.
So, I thought it over, and I decided that the only logical choice was for me to go to the party dressed as Captain Morgan, the pirate on the rum bottle. There's always rum when you're Captain Morgan!
Mrs. Memphis, for reasons known only to her, had always wanted to go to a Halloween party dressed as a witch.
My costume cost a good bit of money. It would have been cheaper to piece it together and rent most of it, but I didn't know that until it was too late. All the individual accessories - 2 musket pistols, sword, boots, belt, etc - had to be purchased separately. Luckily, I'm a packrat and a freak. I already had a perfect pair of boots. I also had a real cavalry sword. My niece asked me about it as I was getting ready for the party.
"Where'd you get the costume?"
"I bought the coat and hat and these floppy things that slip over my boots to give the floppy boot-top effect."
"What about that sword?" she asked.
"I already had the sword."
"Oh, of course you did," she said sarcastically. Yes, because who doesn't have a sword lying around, right?
Mrs. Memphis' witch dress looked like hell. Luckily she had a skin tight little black dress that I had bought for her years ago that worked just fine. And it looked a hell of a lot better, too. Other than the dress, all a witch needs is hose, black shoes, and a hat. She was ready in no time flat.
We arrived at the party right on time. There was a 1940 supercharged, emergency orange, flamed Chevrolet coupe parked in the drive in front of the house. There was no way you could miss the house with that car out front.
We entered through the front door. A few younger partiers were upstairs, scarfing up all the food in the kitchen. We quickly moved past them to the stairs and went down into the den, where the real party was.
In the den was a large open room with fireplace, and a well-stocked bar complete with Angela the bartender. Angela is a real bartender, a pro. Life has sure changed since college days when we just grabbed whatever was behind the bar or drank straight from the keg.
There was also a band. It was made up of the husbands of various women I knew at the party. But this was no ordinary band. Everyone in the band was, either in the 1980s or '90s, in some semi-famous band, and has actually made a good chunk of change working as rock stars. That's all over now, and they mostly play for fun, although they do still get paid. When they played, it was serious business. And the drunker I got, and less able to get off the bar stool, the more I began to realize just how different it was to have professional rockers playing a party instead of some friends from school who just like to knock around with guitars and drums and shit. They were awesome. I felt like I should flick a lighter or something. If I'd had a bra, I'd have thrown it at them.
Out in back was a large inground pool, a pool house, and a large 3-car garage. There were a few tables and chairs outside and a fire pit blazing away. There were costumed people everywhere, most of whom I had never met before. And of course, every woman, no matter what her costume, was dressed as a slut. This is the greatest thing about Halloween, really, the way every woman in the world expresses her inner slut as best as she can. There were several slutty witches, slutty superheroes, slutty movie characters, etc. There were slutty moms who brought their slutty teenaged daughters mixing with slutty twenty-somethings and slutty thirty-somethings. There was even a woman who must be at least 50, with a perpetual cigarette blazing and a cigarette laugh that rolls like thunder and can be heard for miles. She was a slutty something or other, too.
At one point a gang of pirates arrived, all theater people, all very shiny and dramatic with their entrance. I knew 2 of them from a birthday party I had attended a few months before at their very own house. It was just down the street at the opposite end of this fabulous neighborhood up in drive-in Heaven. They are married to one another, he being a super-successful executive and she being one of the most charismatic and beautiful women I have ever met in my life. And wouldn't you know it, their swords were real, too? Naturally we took a few pirate photos together after briefly discussing the possibility of looting and pillaging. Someone suggested some raping, it may have even been me, but the pretty pirate seemed far too enthused about the idea in a way that made us all nervous, so we nixed the raping. And then we hid her sword.
Both Mrs. Memphis and I had the time of our lives. We talked to people we knew, people we didn't know until that night, and people we still don't know and can barely remember. And once we were thoroughly sloshed, we enjoyed watching several intoxicated men all trying their best to seduce a French-Canadian model from Montreal who looked good enough to eat. She was tres hawt. And those poor guys got nowhere with her. Oh, but it was sooo much fun to watch them try. We laughed and laughed. Alcohol may have been a factor in how much and how loudly we laughed, but the music was so loud that they never heard us.
Mrs. Memphis spent half the night talking to the French-Canadian model, who was dressed as a slutty witch just like my wife was, before I ever got a chance to meet her myself. She turned out to be fun to talk to and very entertaining. And she made the blood rush to my happy places when she leaned in close to speak in my ear over the sound of the live music. But I have had enough experience with French-Canadian women to know that, no matter how smokin' hot their bodies may be, no matter what they may agree to do to you, they are usually a lot of trouble. And by trouble, I mean drama and flying furniture and kicks in the groin and tears and handcuffs and leather whips and police and chain smoking and pole dancing and more police and a mug shot and a restraining order and changing your phone number and moving and praying to God she never finds you again. Elle est ennui très mauvais.
So deep down inside, even though she was gorgeous, I was glad Mrs. Memphis was with me. And also that I had a sword, a real sword, which might be used to fend off an intoxicated and beautiful French-Canadian model should the need arise.
My friends who hosted the party had once told me that they were big tequila and vodka drinkers. I drained them of Jagermeister and vodka before the night was through, but I brought them some Captain Morgan spiced rum as my contribution to the party. I was pleased when they told me later in the week that they'd loved the rum and were adding it to their list of drinks they enjoy.
I had driven Mrs. Memphis and I to the party. A beautiful female friend, the woman through whom I had met almost every single one of the other people at the party, apparently wanted to get me drunk because she steadily filled me with Jager and Vodka all night long. Her husband was busy playing guitar in the band and she had time on her hands, I suppose, so getting me sloshed became her primary focus. She worked hard on this while my wife was away somewhere chatting up the French Canadian model prior to introducing her to me. Anyway, after the party was over, Mrs. Memphis drove us home again, which was lucky for me. I didn't want to drive, but I don't normally have my own "desitooted" driver. Besides, you should try driving a car while wearing an Ozzie Osbourne/Jamaican hippie wig, pirate hat, boots, and sword. It wasn't easy getting us there while in full costume and I wasn't all that anxious to try it again getting us home.
This was the best Halloween party I have ever attended. And even better, when the host was ending the party, he announced that everyone who had been invited to this year's party, as in every previous party, has a standing invitation to their annual Halloween party for life. You can be sure I'll be going back next year.
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