A Little Something Different

October (Casey - Gabe's friend)

Casey- Gabe’s friend

I love my housemates, I really do, but it’s nights like this one that kind of make me wish I had just gotten an apartment with Sam this year so that I wouldn’t have to deal with a house full of friends of friends of friends on Halloween. It’s fun, but there’s something unsettling about it. Especially because there are so many masks this year. I don’t ever remember seeing this many people in masks at a party like this before.

Gabe comes in around eleven. I told him he could have brought whoever he wanted with him, but it kind of seems like he lost touch with his friends.

“What’s with the bag?” I ask as he wanders in.

“I figure I’d crash here tonight,” he says. “Sam said it was cool…”

“Of course!”

He runs upstairs and I wait for him to come back before I get myself more beer.

“I thought you would have been here earlier,” I say as he reappears.

“I decided to take a nap and that turned into like five hours of sleep,” he says with a shrug.

“What on earth on are you holding?” 

“This?” he asks, holding up the oldest, creepiest, most moth-ridden werewolf mask I have ever seen.

“That’s gross.”

“I found it at my parents,” he says. “And you told me it was costumes required this year.”

“So you’re a decrepit werewolf?”

“Sure, let’s go with that,” he says, smirking. “Apparently all the chicks are really into those dudes on Teen Wolf.”

I blink at him. “Why do you know anything about Teen Wolf?”

“My little sisters told me that. Maybe they were lying.”

“You look like Jason Bateman in Teen Wolf Too.”

“You’re just jealous of my chest hair,” he says. And to punctuate that statement he unbuttons the top button of his plaid shirt. “And at least I’m referencing current popular culture as opposed to 1980’s pop culture.”

“Don’t act like you’ve never seen those movies.”

“Only because my dad owned them on VHS and we didn’t have cable,” Gabe says. “And who are you supposed to be?”

“I … am Batman,” I say, pulling my cape around me with a flourish.

“You’re wearing a cape with jeans.”

“I am … casually neat Batman.”

“Your Christian Bale voice needs work.”

“I’m doing Michael Keaton,” I say.

“And another outdated cultural reference!  Not to mention that you don’t sound like Michael Keaton. You think you do, but you don’t.”

I’ll have to work on that, but I refuse to admit defeat. “So, want some beer?”

“Obviously.”

“Do you need a chaperone, or can I hang here and greet people and you can come find me when you’re done?”

“I'm good, I'll be right back.”

Bailey, one of our other friends, comes in while Gabe is gone. “Who are you supposed to be?”

“I’m Dora the Explorer.”

“Holy shit! You’re Dora the Explorer!” I say as I fully take in the pink t-shirt and orange shorts.