Some Fools Fool Themselves, I Guess

A Halloween story

Crayon, Highlighter, Bic Pen, and colored pencil on an index card

I’ll tell you a scary story.

The truth is, I loved him. I can say it now that he is dead. I fucking loved him. Call it whatever you want. When we moved away from the traditional Greek distinctions of love and toward a single word, we erased real feelings. He wouldn’t have understood.

He only ever knew gay, straight, lust, or intimacy. At least that is what he pretended.

We walked those docks all the time. Marty’s movement approached perfection at the seaside in the autumn. Marty hated the crowds and wouldn’t be caught dead at the beach in the summer.

Ha!

There is something about the ocean as autumn finds its grip. The mist is different; the smell is different. Why did Marty always want something other than what he was being offered?

Marty never tried to cause trouble. I mean, sure, he was confused, but he wasn’t any different from the rest of us. We all question our place, right?

We romanticize our past both individually and culturally. I didn’t agree with his regressive idealism, but that didn’t make him a bad person. Idealism doesn’t make one a bad person?

Marty said, “It’s Halloween, let’s go to Salisbury Beach.” It was a short drive. I let him think it was his idea.

Marty couldn’t drive anymore since the DUI, but he loved the beach in the autumn. It wasn’t that cold, and we could be alone at the end. Also, I missed parts of him.

People get wrapped up in their own lives, and how could I blame them?

Your life is the only story you know, and of course, you think your perspective is the truth. You can’t see it any other way. People get blinded by their unique plight, whatever that plight may be. It is hard to take responsibility for yourself; people hate it—people like Marty hate it.

It was dark by the time we got to Salisbury. We drove through all those houses along the strip. We drove past all the decorations and the pumpkins. Kids hurried home with treats. I had on my costume, but not Marty. He was dressed like he always dressed. Sort of just practical enough to signal some blue-collar roots.

There is something to the ocean, they say.

All that power and all that mystery.

It is so vast, and it moves.

It moves as one thing.

The ocean sways back and forth and has since forever. Right?

That is what they say?

I think Marty liked the smell, the sound, and the damp salty air. The senses seemed important to him.

The tangible senses—the identifiable.

He would have hated me saying this, but Marty was sensual. What must he have sensed as he died? All his sensuality was weaponized against him. Marty’s life spilled forth into that vast ocean.

What is the verb?

Why can’t I find the words?

It manifests in my mind as only a symbol. I can’t describe the symbol.

It feels like semiotic torture, or alien suffering.

He didn’t think he deserved this fate.

We had to go to that bar!

He said he never hurt anyone. It wasn’t his fault. We are all confused. We make Mistakes. Right?

Sometimes control gets away from you real fast. You have that first shot and a beer, and then it is all downhill. Marty said he wanted to go to that bar. He liked it there; it was quiet and “had people like him.” This was true most of the time, but tonight was Halloween, and it would be different. I tried to warn him. I know that “people like him” is code, but He didn’t want to listen. Halloween is a time for some people to be a bit more adventurous and to stretch the boundaries of what they deem acceptable.

Sensual people struggle with alcoholism, too. It is not just the mad geniuses of the world.

People feel with all the different parts of the body. When a soul has been torn asunder by an irrational world, we soothe it as we know best. Twenty minutes might be the fastest I’ve ever seen someone wear out their welcome, especially on a holiday, especially on Halloween. The bartender knew Marty was trouble. Too much, too quick. I said, “Come on, Marty, lighten up, let the people have fun.” The look he gave me let me know it was too late. Marty smirked a bit. I threw an extra ten on the bar as an apology and acted surprised.

Marty kicked over the jack-o’-lantern out front.

I know what set him off. I know why he was mad.

God knows what those poor people thought.

He shouldn’t have said those things. I mean those words specifically.

I am not defending anything; it is also sort of my fault.

Finally, we got to the stage where we could just walk along alone.

The moon was out.

It might have been full.

I don’t know. I can never tell, and it doesn’t really matter. Once it gets to a certain size, it all looks the same to me. It was bright enough to illuminate our stroll with its glorious silver rays.

Marty had the flask I gave him. I think that is why it was so easy to leave that bar. He wasn’t finished, but they were finished serving him.

I get it.

It was hard for Marty.

Hard to see the world change. Hard to be stuck in a past that never existed. He raved about freedom and rights. I asked him why he wasn’t wearing a costume…he asked me why I wasn’t.

I didn’t have the heart to tell him I was.

I didn’t want to argue with him. I missed the person I used to pretend he was. I could still see bits of that projection, but they were fading. Sometimes a person’s posture will change. The way they hold their body will be different. When it gets to that point, they are almost gone. I knew he was almost gone. I couldn’t focus on it. My body knew as we approached that dock.

Marty kept sputtering on. The rhetoric had reached its crescendo as we stepped on the dock. I felt my heart sink. I thought it was just him who filled me with dread. I also thought for a moment, under that moonlight on Halloween, about how I was changing. I was always mutable and flexible to new situations. I could bend and shape myself into whatever form someone required…

I wondered if perhaps Marty wasn’t real. Was this man—sputtering away in front of me a mere projection of myself? Some hidden self-loathing bigoted effigy? No. This was my love. The lifelong desire of this form I presented. I was deeply confused.

I can’t even call my change indescribable. That would mean that some facet of discernibility existed. These new forms had no environment in which to exist.

Marty existed in his own environment. He crafted it to suit his own unique sensual desires. He wanted what they say you all do: Safety, comfort, and understanding. The world that he knew had changed. He didn’t recognize it anymore. He could never see me, and certainly not now.

I put my head down and we kept walking. I was concentrating on the boards under my feet. The slats were stable but old. No one really came out here that much anymore. This town had seen better days, and the few vessels that surrounded the dock had been covered. There were some jack-o-lanterns and other decorations strewn about, but nothing too concentrated—nothing intentional. I could hear the gentle lapping of the waves. It was cold enough, and the wind carried the warm smell of rot along with the salt air. Do you know the sound of footsteps on a dock? The careful plodding matches a steady and intentional gait. That is what my footsteps sounded like. I was extending my feet to muffle the impact. Inch by inch, they were growing. I could feel my hands extending, and the nails on each of my fingertips began to crawl forth. They bent down toward the dock. I was minding my feet. I could hear Marty’s steps, too, though. It was more of a stumble. A rambling gait that matched the nature of his hateful diatribe. He stepped like an angry child. His movements were a mockery of what I loved about humanity. I could tell he felt every bit of his sensuality as his body imbibed the false courage. I didn’t like the words he was using. His language had changed. My ears grew, and I could pinpoint the vitriol in every syllable.

There was no value left in him. My nose could no longer smell anything of humanity. I felt the stink. It shocked my heart.

Then it all happened.

I am sure of it, though I no longer trust my duality.

To say feel would imply something of a material nature. This was not a material action. Not any material known. Something reached out from deep within me. I didn’t notice until it was too late. I always felt it and knew it was there. I have always been changeable in an unnatural sense. I have always stretched and grown. I have groped for flesh and heat. My hand came from behind Marty. He was facing me with his back to the ocean. It went right through him from behind. I reached around and extended a pointed shard of sinew and bone right through him. The blood was warm, and I could feel his pulse wane from inside his wound. I pawed at his face gently before I even noticed I was moving. My jaw unhinged just enough, and his windpipe popped between my teeth. I shuddered as the explosion of blood feathered down my throat.

I know what I did.

I know why I did it.

They are lost in the performance of a false normalcy. He was lost in his performance. He had the script so well-rehearsed that he thought it was real. Imagine living someone else’s script your whole life, only to see your fawning platonic friend consume your body on Halloween. I couldn’t imagine it any longer because I made it real.

I guess it was just eros on my part. Or maybe eros for the feeling of eros. I was playing my role too. A doughy hopeless romantic, in love with the unobtainable.

Funny.

I looked him right in those cobalt eyes as confusion, pain, and terror collided in his rotten heart.

I shoved his body into the ocean.

Splash!

“Some people will never be that happy. I’ll never be that happy.” We all don’t get agape in the end.

I stood on the sea wall and stared blankly at the nothing in front of me. There wasn’t a shred of eros remaining. Just darkness with plops of orange light and that iridescent sacred moon.

…gone for good…

My alterations ebbed away.

Why was the fabled raving lunacy withheld from me?

Must I process this with my faculties still in order?

I walked back to the mendacity and the Subaru.

---

Now I am in the driver’s seat and observing my costume in the rearview mirror. I see the blood spattered. I see my everyday face hanging there on my head. I don’t know where I should go from here.

I will never possess someone; not all people allow themselves to be possessed.

I need to clear my mind.

I wonder what is on the radio….

…hiss…

…py Halloween boys and ghouls, this next one will keep you howling all night long. These guys might say love hurts.

the only real cure is the hair of the dog that bit ya.

Here is Nazareth

….howwwwll!