In which I Hire my own Secret Service
Halloween has come and gone. I usually forget it's Halloween until I see someone buying antihistamines at the drug store dressed as Prince or something. The Friday night before Halloween, Mike was out of town, and I took the opportunity for a rare night of socializing in Berkeley. My companion was one Ruth, a new friend introduced to me by my mom. We had seen The Science of Sleep, a film for which you should all go purchase tickets directly, and it was nearly midnight when the show got out. I was now faced with a fifteen minute climb over the Berkeley hills in the dark as a prelude to the drive back to Davis (this is why I so rarely socialize in Berkeley in the evenings). Ruth was reluctant to leave me to this walk by myself, but I didn't want to take her with me and drop her back at the BART station because the car has been smelling strange ever since I spilled a gallon of water in the trunk on the way back from the Co-op. So I insisted Ruth go home, and began the climb.
I was mildly interested in the pair walking ahead of me. All I could see from the back was that one of them was wearing a red robe and a giant white sphere on his head. The other was clad in an Irish football jersey with a turban and scimitar. I did notice, however, that everyone who passed them greeted them in admiration. It says something about Berkeley that it did not immediately occur to me that the two were dressed for Halloween. In any case, I approched them. "Scuse me, " I said. "Are you two walking toward Hearst and Euclid? I have to walk to my car in the dark and the way you're dressed I kind of get the feeling no one's going to fuck with you." They agreed to accompany me as far as Hearst and LeConte, and we began to chat.
I could see now that the guy in the robe was dressed as a cardinal from the neck down. From the neck up, he was dressed as the guy from the Jack in the Box commercials (do you have Jack in the Box on the East Coast nowadays?). He explained to me that he was dressed as Cardinal Jack. I pressed, but he said the phrase had no deeper significance. "I keep trying to explain to everyone that there is no concept to my costume," he said. He could see out of a thinned-out space around the mouth of his giant sphere head, but not all that well. His companion was dressed as the Irish Taliban, and proved to be a genuine Southside Dubliner. He was responsible for making sure Cardinal Jack didn't trip on the curbs. They were grad student physicists.
Now that I was walking with them I could also see that every group of two people or more that passed them was shouting "Hey! Jack!" at the Cardinal. He informed me that he'd never had such a popular costume before, which I felt to be a slightly depressing comment on the state of food advertising in our country. Apparently the two of them went as characters from Aqua Teen Hunger Force last year, but no one recognized them. I said I'd heard of it, to which Irish Taliban responded "Then you must be some sort of scientist." "I guess," I said, "Do you count Epidemiology?" "Well, some sort of nerd then." "That I will totally cop to," I said.
They took their leave of me at Hearst and LeConte, as it was obvious that the city was full of Halloween partiers and I had no need of escorts. Cardinal Jack waved goodbye to me and promptly walked off in the wrong direction.
I was mildly interested in the pair walking ahead of me. All I could see from the back was that one of them was wearing a red robe and a giant white sphere on his head. The other was clad in an Irish football jersey with a turban and scimitar. I did notice, however, that everyone who passed them greeted them in admiration. It says something about Berkeley that it did not immediately occur to me that the two were dressed for Halloween. In any case, I approched them. "Scuse me, " I said. "Are you two walking toward Hearst and Euclid? I have to walk to my car in the dark and the way you're dressed I kind of get the feeling no one's going to fuck with you." They agreed to accompany me as far as Hearst and LeConte, and we began to chat.
I could see now that the guy in the robe was dressed as a cardinal from the neck down. From the neck up, he was dressed as the guy from the Jack in the Box commercials (do you have Jack in the Box on the East Coast nowadays?). He explained to me that he was dressed as Cardinal Jack. I pressed, but he said the phrase had no deeper significance. "I keep trying to explain to everyone that there is no concept to my costume," he said. He could see out of a thinned-out space around the mouth of his giant sphere head, but not all that well. His companion was dressed as the Irish Taliban, and proved to be a genuine Southside Dubliner. He was responsible for making sure Cardinal Jack didn't trip on the curbs. They were grad student physicists.
Now that I was walking with them I could also see that every group of two people or more that passed them was shouting "Hey! Jack!" at the Cardinal. He informed me that he'd never had such a popular costume before, which I felt to be a slightly depressing comment on the state of food advertising in our country. Apparently the two of them went as characters from Aqua Teen Hunger Force last year, but no one recognized them. I said I'd heard of it, to which Irish Taliban responded "Then you must be some sort of scientist." "I guess," I said, "Do you count Epidemiology?" "Well, some sort of nerd then." "That I will totally cop to," I said.
They took their leave of me at Hearst and LeConte, as it was obvious that the city was full of Halloween partiers and I had no need of escorts. Cardinal Jack waved goodbye to me and promptly walked off in the wrong direction.
Labels: Movies, White People
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