Killing Daddy’s Love - A Halloween Tragedy
So, it’s possibly a tad late to be throwing up the Halloween stories. But, since there’s been more than one post here which had been written years ago, it’s at least consistent with my diligence.
Halloween itself wasn’t terribly exceptional this year – nobody got set on fire and neither of my kids came home with a safety razors stuffed in popcorn balls. But the day was fun, always is, and we turned our garage into a haunted house for the first time. With hay bales, dead leaves, eyeball lights and moaning skulls it was even declared “awesome” by a few young teens.
The kids’ costumes had been in the planning for months – Jack, in a recent Star Wars craze, had been wearing his Darth Vader costume daily since early September. Elsie had decided by late summer that she wanted to dress up as Spider-Man. Not just as the regular Web Slinger, mind you, but as the black-suited version. I’d imagined that she would have chosen something girlie and cute. But as a lifelong Spidey fan I was tickled as living fuck. My little girl was going out trick-or-treating as Spider-Man’s darkest incarnation.
I told people about it, bragging over her individuality and how much she was like Daddy in her Marvel groove. She had even insisted on a Black Spidey birthday cake last May (with a pink web design) and when the black suit came from UPS she threw it on and looked incredible. As a tyke’s costume it didn’t have those fucked-up muscle pads which makes children look like adult midgets rather than rippling super heroes. It fit snugly and gave her a wee heroic aura in the overall silly adorableness of it all.
Horrible Little Girl
All along the way, neighbors were commenting on my non-superhero daughter,
“She looks sooooo adorable!”
“Hi Elsie! I love your princess outfit, it’s really cute”
The compliments were too much to bear. The sparkle in her eyes, demure smile and blushing over the attention were all insidious mockery over how she’d yanked the rug out from under me. Then it came, the whisper I’d dreaded all evening…
“Hey Frank – Wasn’t she supposed to be Black Spider-Man?”
I almost ran back home to cry alone. How could Elsie have done this to me? I was devastated and convinced there’d be no forgiveness for this princess atrocity I wondered if I’d ever be able to love my daughter again…
OK, I’m just fucking with you. Having Elsie dressed up as Spider-Man would have made for some neat photo-ops, but it really didn’t matter what she wanted to be. Once we hit the streets her beaming smile and excitement were all the cool costumery necessary. We had the stroller just to keep up with Jack and the bigger kids as they sprinted form door to door. But it was the first Halloween where she could carry her own scary “Hello Kitty” bag up stoops and say “Ticker Tweet” all by herself.
I hadn’t taken notice until one candy-dispensing neighbor brought it up. She told me that Elsie was the only kid who’d actually said “Trick or Treat” to her all night. After that I started to pay attention to the clusters of kids at different doorsteps and I heard that traditional Halloween demand for candy only once or twice until we got home. All the Hanna Montana’s, and Aliens, and Batmans and Princesses (w/ my little exception) did little else beside elbow each other out of the way and wait for candy to just get dropped into their open bags. Great. Yet another corner kids were learning to cut as they go through life. At least I could take pride in Elsie’s little squeaks of “Senk You” or “Sanks” at each drop of treats into her kitty head and Jack only neglected the Thank You’s once or twice.
As the only parent who actually went up to each door with our group I took charge of reminding the goblins to express their gratitude. While the other dads were standing roadside drinking beer and puffing fat Dominican cigars as though they were on to something ubercool I was keeping their bastards polite. Nothing stupider than guys with fingers arched over burning stogies the diameter of penises. And, regardless of how fast and easy it is to push, why the hell doesn’t a Phil & Ted stroller come with a goddamned upholder? The one beer I tried to drink en route got kicked over in the grass by a dwarf witch while I rang a doorbell for Elsie.
Anyhow… Not saying “Trick or Treat” may not seem like all that big a deal. Neither is one pigeon dropping a turd on a statue. But if enough birds keep crapping on a sculpture it won’t be long till it’s just another ugly figure in the city that’s starting to disintegrate beneath the feces. Kids grow up believing they have to do very little for all the things they expect to have handed to them. It’s our fault for not keeping our children in even the littlest habits of things like please and thanks. We seem to have developed our own sense of unrealistic expectations – there’ll probably be someone else to give the kids these little foundation blocks for life. Preschool teachers can educate them on manners perhaps. Or the task could be taken on a single night by a frustratingly sober dad reminding some spawn to be thankful while their fathers guzzled sissy Corona Lights and performed fellatio on natural-leaf wrapped tubes of burning stink. I can’t wait for the next 20 years as my neighbors begin to bitch about school systems and correctional facilities for failing to make their offspring better people.
This little lamentation of mine may be just a whizz in the wind. I had an awesome Halloween watching my two kids having a blast with other kids and eating a six-month allotment of candy in a single evening. And even though it’s well into November now I still need to be on my guard as every few days, without warning, Darth Vader comes swinging his light-saber through the house…chased by Spider-Man in her black symbiote suit.
Coming Next… Thanksgiving Day and Hooray for Smallpox!
