All Hallows
Halloween is one of the craziest days of the year, every year. It's not just that people like to dress up, it's that when the annual Village Halloween Parade wraps up at 21st Street, every bar south of 72nd Street fills up with crazy people looking to keep their drunk on, dressed up (or down) in wonderfully insane costumes. It's an exhausting, incredibly entertaining night, but what makes it difficult is that it's usually the second day within a week that things have been that crazy. If Halloween falls early in the week, the Saturday before Halloween is a close second in craziness. But the tips are always fantastic both nights, so I've made sure I'm on those schedules. For Saturday night, Amy, Jocelyn, Maya, and I have planned to wear togas while we tend bar, which should be fun and sexy without being too outlandish.
So I'm sitting at home eating dinner before getting ready for my shift on Saturday, and my roommate Cassie is in her bedroom changing into her costume for a party her boyfriend Olimpio's taking her to. My other roommate Jill and her boyfriend, Vince the barback, are dressing up as Sonny and Cher, but they're getting dressed over at his place. Cassie comes out of her bedroom, and I nearly spit out my drink. She's dressed - no, undressed - in a lingerie ensemble designed to look a little bit like a tuxedo. There's a collar with a bowtie, french cuffs, a g-string with a dickie attachment, and bowtie pasties - and that's it.
"Cassie, are you going out in that?!"
"Yeah, isn't it fantastic?"
"You're going to freeze to death!"
"No, don't be silly, I'm wearing my big, black wool overcoat for the ride, and I'll be fine at the party."
"Cassie, you can't be serious. This is something you put on and get in bed to wait for your boyfriend to come home, not something you go out with him in. You're going to get arrested!"
She shakes her head and goes to get her overcoat, and comes back wearing it loosely and holding a glass of wine. I keep trying to talk her out of it - and I get plenty of time to do it, since Olimpio calls to tell her he's stuck in traffic - but she won't listen, she's determined to go out in this thing. It's distracting as hell to have her sitting there with her breasts just kind of hanging out, even if they're not technically "naked," and finally I just give up and go get into my toga for work. When I'm just about to leave, Olimpio arrives, and as much as I want to stick around to see how's he going to react, I have to get going.
Things are hopping at the Bar when I get there at 8, and my girls look great in their togas. Todd still hasn't hired a new barback to replace Tommy, so he's pitching in, and it's badly needed. Maya even stays on for a little while after I "take over" for her, because Todd can't quite keep up with our need for clean glasses and well bottles on his own.
We've got quite the assortment of costumes, as usual - we've got a Wayne and Garth, a Jay and Silent Bob, a Batman and Robin, a Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl, an almost believable Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, and an entire starting nine of undead New York Yankees. This last one is really creative, and they're my favorites, so I buy them all a round and they grunt and shuffle in appreciation. I grab the one wearing #25 as he shuffles by, and look him over for a moment. He can't quite compare with the real thing, so I let him go. As he turns, I laugh, because I suddenly realize that instead of "Giambi" over the number 25, it says "Zambi Giambi."
The togas are a big hit, as I knew they would be - much better than Jocelyn's original idea to wear bikinis, which I'm sure we would have had trouble keeping on the whole night. But as it turns out, Jocelyn has some trouble keeping her toga on. Her left breast absolutely refuses to stay inside the sheet for more than a half hour at a time, and I think to myself she could really use Cassie's pasties right about now. Needless to say, the guys at the Bar love the inadvertant show, Jocelyn gets very flustered, and Todd starts panicking that he's going to get slapped with a fine for operating an unlicensed burlesque. But by about one in the morning, Amy has managed to find some double-sided tape and a ball of twine in the back room, and Jocelyn's left breast heads back in for another six weeks of winter. "Next time," Amy yells over the chorus of boos, "try using a fitted sheet!" Jocelyn and I laugh.
Not long after, the atmosphere in the Bar begins to get downright electric. People are excited because it's getting close to two in the morning, and they're drinking even more heavily and making toasts - to the end of Daylight Saving Time. This is the other reason that things are always so crazy the Saturday night right before Halloween; at 2am, it becomes 1am again. In most parts of the country, where they can't serve alcohol past 2am, last call only happens once, that's the law. In New York City, where last call is 4am, they don't make us stop serving at 3am just because it's been 2am twice - we keep serving until the functional equivalent of 5am. And when they're dressed in outrageous costumes, people make really good use of that extra hour, drinking to write home about.
At two o'clock, we make a big show of turning back the clocks in the Bar, and a great cheer goes up. I feel the weight in the pocket of my barmaid's apron, and as my feet start to hurt, I think about the three remaining hours of tips, and I smile.
Sunday a little past one in the afternoon, I drag myself out of bed and into the living room in my pajamas to see what the state of brunch is. I'm badly in need of a cup of coffee, so I pad my way past the Comfy Couch where Jill and Vince are cuddling, and visit the kitchen. Cassie is standing over the coffee-maker with her hands on the counter, staring down at the floor, waiting for the coffee to finish brewing.
"Olimpio still in bed?" She doesn't answer. When the coffee is done, she pours us each a mug, and adds a little milk to each, never quite looking me in the eye.
We go back out to the living room to hang out with Jill and Vince, and when the bagels arrive by delivery, we dig in as usual, but we don't have any Netflix movies on hand, so we just chat. I talk about my night at the Bar, and Vince acts very glad not to have been there, though he had to promise to work the next six nights in a row (including Halloween itself) to get out of it. The party he and Jill attended sounds like it was fun, and Jill has fun describing some of the costumes. One guy apparently came dressed as Woody Allen, and carried around a little Asian girl doll with a violin and a "Soon-Yi" sign on her, and I cringe. Vince asks Cassie if there were any good costumes at the party she went to with Olimpio, and she just shrugs and says, "It was the usual."
Not long after she finishes eating, Cassie pours herself another cup of coffee in the kitchen, then goes to her bedroom and closes the door behind her.
So I'm sitting at home eating dinner before getting ready for my shift on Saturday, and my roommate Cassie is in her bedroom changing into her costume for a party her boyfriend Olimpio's taking her to. My other roommate Jill and her boyfriend, Vince the barback, are dressing up as Sonny and Cher, but they're getting dressed over at his place. Cassie comes out of her bedroom, and I nearly spit out my drink. She's dressed - no, undressed - in a lingerie ensemble designed to look a little bit like a tuxedo. There's a collar with a bowtie, french cuffs, a g-string with a dickie attachment, and bowtie pasties - and that's it.
"Cassie, are you going out in that?!"
"Yeah, isn't it fantastic?"
"You're going to freeze to death!"
"No, don't be silly, I'm wearing my big, black wool overcoat for the ride, and I'll be fine at the party."
"Cassie, you can't be serious. This is something you put on and get in bed to wait for your boyfriend to come home, not something you go out with him in. You're going to get arrested!"
She shakes her head and goes to get her overcoat, and comes back wearing it loosely and holding a glass of wine. I keep trying to talk her out of it - and I get plenty of time to do it, since Olimpio calls to tell her he's stuck in traffic - but she won't listen, she's determined to go out in this thing. It's distracting as hell to have her sitting there with her breasts just kind of hanging out, even if they're not technically "naked," and finally I just give up and go get into my toga for work. When I'm just about to leave, Olimpio arrives, and as much as I want to stick around to see how's he going to react, I have to get going.
Things are hopping at the Bar when I get there at 8, and my girls look great in their togas. Todd still hasn't hired a new barback to replace Tommy, so he's pitching in, and it's badly needed. Maya even stays on for a little while after I "take over" for her, because Todd can't quite keep up with our need for clean glasses and well bottles on his own.
We've got quite the assortment of costumes, as usual - we've got a Wayne and Garth, a Jay and Silent Bob, a Batman and Robin, a Wonder Woman and Wonder Girl, an almost believable Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, and an entire starting nine of undead New York Yankees. This last one is really creative, and they're my favorites, so I buy them all a round and they grunt and shuffle in appreciation. I grab the one wearing #25 as he shuffles by, and look him over for a moment. He can't quite compare with the real thing, so I let him go. As he turns, I laugh, because I suddenly realize that instead of "Giambi" over the number 25, it says "Zambi Giambi."
The togas are a big hit, as I knew they would be - much better than Jocelyn's original idea to wear bikinis, which I'm sure we would have had trouble keeping on the whole night. But as it turns out, Jocelyn has some trouble keeping her toga on. Her left breast absolutely refuses to stay inside the sheet for more than a half hour at a time, and I think to myself she could really use Cassie's pasties right about now. Needless to say, the guys at the Bar love the inadvertant show, Jocelyn gets very flustered, and Todd starts panicking that he's going to get slapped with a fine for operating an unlicensed burlesque. But by about one in the morning, Amy has managed to find some double-sided tape and a ball of twine in the back room, and Jocelyn's left breast heads back in for another six weeks of winter. "Next time," Amy yells over the chorus of boos, "try using a fitted sheet!" Jocelyn and I laugh.
Not long after, the atmosphere in the Bar begins to get downright electric. People are excited because it's getting close to two in the morning, and they're drinking even more heavily and making toasts - to the end of Daylight Saving Time. This is the other reason that things are always so crazy the Saturday night right before Halloween; at 2am, it becomes 1am again. In most parts of the country, where they can't serve alcohol past 2am, last call only happens once, that's the law. In New York City, where last call is 4am, they don't make us stop serving at 3am just because it's been 2am twice - we keep serving until the functional equivalent of 5am. And when they're dressed in outrageous costumes, people make really good use of that extra hour, drinking to write home about.
At two o'clock, we make a big show of turning back the clocks in the Bar, and a great cheer goes up. I feel the weight in the pocket of my barmaid's apron, and as my feet start to hurt, I think about the three remaining hours of tips, and I smile.
Sunday a little past one in the afternoon, I drag myself out of bed and into the living room in my pajamas to see what the state of brunch is. I'm badly in need of a cup of coffee, so I pad my way past the Comfy Couch where Jill and Vince are cuddling, and visit the kitchen. Cassie is standing over the coffee-maker with her hands on the counter, staring down at the floor, waiting for the coffee to finish brewing.
"Olimpio still in bed?" She doesn't answer. When the coffee is done, she pours us each a mug, and adds a little milk to each, never quite looking me in the eye.
We go back out to the living room to hang out with Jill and Vince, and when the bagels arrive by delivery, we dig in as usual, but we don't have any Netflix movies on hand, so we just chat. I talk about my night at the Bar, and Vince acts very glad not to have been there, though he had to promise to work the next six nights in a row (including Halloween itself) to get out of it. The party he and Jill attended sounds like it was fun, and Jill has fun describing some of the costumes. One guy apparently came dressed as Woody Allen, and carried around a little Asian girl doll with a violin and a "Soon-Yi" sign on her, and I cringe. Vince asks Cassie if there were any good costumes at the party she went to with Olimpio, and she just shrugs and says, "It was the usual."
Not long after she finishes eating, Cassie pours herself another cup of coffee in the kitchen, then goes to her bedroom and closes the door behind her.