Lamenting the ghosts of Halloween past

As far back as I can remember, I’ve always had a proclivity to the macabre only ever satiated by horror movies and questionably elder chicken in the back of the fridge. I enjoyed the vomit-inducing vertigo of “The Blair Witch Project” while I wore size-three shoes and still ate crayons. “The Pit and the Pendulum” enraptured me in my father’s condominium while I ate homemade curry with extra peppers.

I guess it’s safe to say I was born a masochist.

So, obviously, I sought out the comradery of like-minded weirdos who inhabited the sun spotted slats under the bleachers and listened to Iron Maiden because the t-shirts were cool. Among those lucky few in my neighborhood were such characters as High Alex, who described himself as the man who needed no introduction even though he was 13. There was David, who was named after and looked like the short biblical warrior who killed Goliath. Also Robert, who never trimmed his toenails.

Halloween was our night. When I turned 15 and realized the guttural wailing one could make using the tonsils inside of a toilet paper roll, we subsequently turned our attention to scaring children every Halloween. We were terrible at being terrifying. Mostly because we didn’t have the money to buy the expensive costumes and settled on do-it-yourself solutions like baby powder and lipstick to look like the Joker.

I didn’t have many friends, so Halloween gave me a unique chance to mingle among the monsters in masks to hide an identity plagued by the red-headed brand, a favorite among bullies who could craft such intricate insults as “carrot top” and “red man.”

Not much has changed, really. I still enjoy horror movies. My tastes have expanded to include the strangely hilarious and often bootleg horror movies of South Africa and the Japanese found-footage horror masterpieces of Japan.

Now that I’m all too old and tall to dress up for Halloween, I’m in limbo about what to do this year. My girlfriend and I carved pumpkins and we intend to go to a haunted house or two, but growing older has its ways of deadening the brain’s holiday receptors and desensitizing the body to seasonal joys like pumpkin-spice-everythings and skull shaped cookies.

So now I just intend on drinking, wondering where my joy for my formerly favorite holiday went. Because I’m currently in a friend famine, I assume it will just be my girlfriend and I imbibing in an apartment where the only decoration is an orange and black dollar store decoration of “Happy Halloween.”

That is, if you don’t count the nasty, prehistoric roaches that inhabit the bathroom drain pipes.

This isn’t to say there’s not a proper way to celebrate holidays unless you’re a child on the receiving end of a gift. I just haven’t found it yet as I’ve proceeded into some semblance of adulthood with all its headaches, bills and stressors. I’m beginning to think the holidays weren’t intended for adults. During Christmas, I’ve always noticed a certain hesitation in my mother’s voice. As if she’s exhausted, drained from the season’s jumping jacks.

I suppose there’s a satisfaction in giving the gifts. Thoughts like those have made me think about giving out candy this year. But I suppose kids don’t really trick-or-treat anymore, do they? At least, not in my neighborhood. I don’t blame them, most of my neighbors have already bought razors for the candy season.

This lonely Halloween, I think I’ll snuggle up with my girlfriend and dogs to watch the horror movies that inspired me into a life of strangedom. I’ll toast just to lament the leftovers of childhood enthusiasm sprawled out in aluminum wrappers on the dinner table. Maybe bid farewell to cocoa covered faces of Halloweens passed, pack them up in cardboard boxes and move them to the attic where I can remove them once a year and brood.