“Shit.”
Despite its flawless construction, there were issues with my daughter’s school bus costume. My wife had cut a piece of ribbon and bored two holes on either side of the bus. Then she tied the ribbon through each hole so that we could hang the bus on my daughter’s shoulders. When I put it on the girl, she turned and knocked the bus into the TV set. Its life flashed before my eyes. Holy shit, no. Not the TV.
“Let’s just put this on you outside,” I told her.
Once we got outside, it was clear that the girl had limited mobility with the box hanging on her. Every time she went down a concrete step, I became terrified that the box would trip her and she’d end up eating the curb. I had a clear picture of it in my head, watching her fall and seeing her teeth shatter and her lips tear open. Blood everywhere. Scars. Lifetime deformities. I couldn’t stop seeing it, so I grabbed her hand. She immediately recoiled. My palms were very hot and clammy and she was able to escape them easily.
“No hand!” she screamed. She was under three feet tall and already a far more assertive human being than I was.
“You gotta take my hand. I don’t want you tripping and falling and dying.”
“NO!”
She ran ahead and I saw my wife go after her, finally convincing her to take her hand, since a mother’s hands are dry and soft and pleasant.
There was a group of parents congregating down the street. The plan was for all of the kids to go trick-or-treating together so that all of the adults could hang out and, in theory, socialize. We met up with the group, and one of the neighborhood moms asked me about my costume.
“What’s your costume?”
“Oh, this? I’m a SLOW guy.”
“A slow guy?”
“Not, like, a retarded guy. I swear. You know how we put a sign outside our house because those asshole kids drive too fast?”
“Not sure I saw it.”
“Well, it’s like this little guy and he says ‘SLOW’ and he has a red cap. So that’s me.”
“Oh! Oh, that’s very clever.”
“Oh, thank you. And again, not making fun of retarded people here.”
With every subsequent conversation, I felt compelled to explain my costume immediately, as a preventive measure. I was already socially awkward around other parents, and this added a fun new wrinkle to my discomfort. The moms fell in together and began talking shop about bedtimes and their kids’ eating habits. Moms are excellent at this sort of thing.
Dads, on the other hand, interact like a dozen horses tied together at the head. I shook hands and stammered out a couple of empty how you doin’s, but I wasn’t giving it my full effort because I was still a relatively new father. And new fathers despise talking to other fathers. I withdrew. My daughter was bumbling around in her school bus outfit and I stayed by her because hanging with your kids is such an effective way to be antisocial.
Then I noticed another dad walk up with a giant wagon filled with cold beer and I saw salvation. I didn’t know the dad well, but I had failed to bring out any beer of my own, which was an incredible oversight. I made getting beer a priority.
But then the trick-or-treating started. The sun began to fall and you could hear joyous squeals from kids ringing out from all around the neighborhood. Little flashlights strobed around up and down the street, and I heard the older kids plotting which house to hit next. I held a flashlight out in front of my daughter, but the bus was still causing her problems and she was dragging her candy bag along the ground. My wife was busy cavorting with her friends so I was left to hunch down and make sure every step the girl took wasn’t her last. Meanwhile, the beer wagon set off in the opposite direction. I knelt down by the girl and tried to turn her around.
“Maybe we should go this way, dear.”
“No.”
“There’s more candy that way.”
“No.”
She stopped at a nearby house that had fifty-three steps leading up to the front door. She may as well have declared her desire to scale Everest. The front stoop was tiny, almost as if it were designed so that a simple outward push of the screen door could wipe out hordes of trick-or-treaters.
“That’s too many steps, sweetheart. The other houses have candy too.”
“No.”
“What if we take the bus off of you so you can climb those steps safely?”
“No.” Gather together a hundred of the finest lawyers and you wouldn’t have as formidable a negotiating entity as a two-year-old.