A sentimental writer’s Halloween

It was sometime before midnight, I think. I was sitting in an old bar somewhere in downtown Fort Worth, surrounded by older men singing songs. I was in a sailor’s costume and my friend was there too, a poor man’s Alex DeLarge. I’d just recently broken up with my then-girlfriend and maybe I was a little drunk (but not that drunk, give me some credit) and my friend, she kept offering to “hook me up” with people at the bar. I wasn’t impressed.

“I’m a great wingman,” she kept saying. “Just point somebody out and I’ll work my magic.”

I didn’t care. I didn’t want magic. I just wanted to go out after work, maybe wander around town a bit in a silly sailor’s costume. It’s allowed, right? Can’t a girl just sit in an old bar with her friend, and drink a beer, and listen to old men sing songs? It was Halloween, and I just wanted to forget for one night.

It was definitely just before midnight. You kept texting me. I kept texting you back. I knew you were on the other side of the country, dressed as a zombie-girl with a Y-incision and a skimpy dress at a party with friends. We were both with friends, in bars and clubs, in major cities on Halloween. We were out with others and only talking to each other. It seemed important at the time.

Then you called me, or maybe I called you. I don’t remember. It was loud, I know that much, shouting to hear and be heard over music and singing. We didn’t talk long, maybe five or ten minutes, about whatever comes after nothing. The Sailor and The Zombie-Girl. I had butterflies in my stomach, and it was hard to say why. Eventually my friend, who had gone to the ladies room, came back and took up her seat next to me at the bar. I hung up. You went back to dancing.

I had a stupid look on my face.

I felt happy.

“What was that all about?” my friend asked.

“Oh,” I said and put my phone away. “It’s my friend Melissa.”

“You’ve been talking to her all night,” my friend said, only half-accusing.

“Yeah, well. I think she has a bit of a lesbian crush on me.” Which was true, I knew it. It just didn’t really bother me before.

Then somewhere along the way, it really didn’t bother me at all.

“Yeah, I’d say so,” my friend said with an eye-roll.

(This might be part of the reason we’re not friends anymore.)

“But I’m okay with it,” I said, like nothing happened.

But somehow, on opposite sides of the country, in crowds of people in costumes, something had happened. Something kind of like magic, like conjuring ghosts or reading tea leaves. You become more important to me than I was at the time willing to admit, and to this day have trouble conveying with stupid words and clumsy hands. And as I sit here on Halloween writing this out, I find it difficult to look at the day the same way again.

You changed my life, Melissa Dominic.

I expect to see you in it next Halloween, too.