Brian Eckert

This piece originally appeared in the Autumn 2012 issue of Hobo Camp Review. 

Halloween may have its origins in European pagan tradition, but nowhere today is the holiday celebrated more vigorously than in the United States. I’ve spent Halloween on four continents and can confidently say that America is the unofficial capital of Halloween celebrations—or, at least, those that involve getting wasted and dressed up. Not surprising in a country where most people are desperately trying to be something they’re not. Don’t let the disguises fool you, though. Underneath those elaborate getups are still Americans. With their American beliefs. Their American Outrage. Their American Self-Righteousness.

October 31, 2001. I’ve been invited to an off campus Halloween house party hosted by the brother of a friend of a girlfriend from the dormitory. I aim to be out the door in an hour and still don’t have a costume picked out. I down a couple of shower beers and decide to go as a terrorist, on account of a pretty solid beard I’ve been working on and the fact that I anyway, through some genealogical twist of fate, resemble a Paki.

The look is achieved by wearing my much larger roommate’s long sleeved tan oxford—which on me looks like a tunic—and wrapping a green scarf around my head. A novelty bandolier fortuitously scored from the dude next door, a pair of Jesus Sandals, and a Middle Eastern accent (which actually sounds Indian) provide the finishing touches.

It’s a mile or so walk to the single story ranch house on Mill Pond Road. I slip in the back past some people smoking butts on the patio. “Hey, fuckin bin Laden is here,” one of them says. Daft Punk’s “Around the World” plays at high volume. Bud Light, Keystone Light, and Captain Morgan Spiced Rum the drinks of choice. Also a veritable trough of that mixture known as “Jungle Juice,” an ubiquitous feature at college parties that’s super sweet and super strong and, for all intents and purposes, meant to radically increase the chances of young women making bad decisions.

The décor is typical of guys who want to show they’re above dorm room posters but not quite ready for a Magritte. Photos of Boston sports heroes dominate: Bobby Orr’s dive. Carlton Fisk waving his shot fair in Game 6 of the 1975 World Series. Bird choking Doc J. Havlicek stealing the ball. There’s also a cardboard cutout of George W. Bush in the corner near the keg. His teeth have been blacked out and a blunt, drawn-on with a Sharpie, is dangling from his left hand.

Aware that my terrorist garb could very well elicit some bad blood in the post-9/11 patriotic fervor, I am relieved to find that two other guests are going to be the main outlet for Islamic blood lust.

Using large boxes wrapped in tinfoil save for face holes, two guys are dressed as the World Trade Center Towers. They’ve used action figures attached to the sides of the boxes with fishing line to simulate victims jumping to their deaths and pushed toy planes through the top portions of the boxes.

I suck down a few Bud Lights, play the wall, and look for a familiar face. I recognize another guy form the dorm. He’s there with a new girlfriend, one of those girls who I refer to as “well maintained;” not necessarily good-looking, but nice hair, skin, clothing, teeth like Chiclets, physically fit, etc. A biological product of East Coast money.

Getting into character, I joke about her boyfriend being an “infidel.” He laughs, but I can tell she doesn’t like it—and generally doesn’t approve of my outfit—so I kick it up a notch. In my Paki/Indian accent I say I’m going to slit the throat of her American Pig boyfriend. She slaps me.

People start to look our way. I diffuse the situation by walking away and chatting up another acquaintance. We sign up to play a game of beer pong. Our team name reads: “Pink Panther and bin Laden.” Elvis and the Incredible Hulk, the current table champions, are killing it. “Thank you, thank you very much,” says Elvis as he seals the victory by nailing the last remaining cup.

A commotion in the corner turns my attention away from the game. The North Tower and three guys dressed as American Gladiators are getting into a little brouhaha, egged on by the same hysterical bitch who slapped me.

“I could see if you lost somebody in the attack…” says the man in the box.

“What does it matter?” she yells, cutting him off. “This tragedy affects every American. Don’t you have any compassion? It’s just…it’s too soon!”

As I write this more than 11 years later, it’s still “too soon.” It’s always too soon to talk about things that induce us to behave irrationally.

The Gladiator Turbo cracks his knuckles and puffs his chest out, says to the North Tower, “Yeah, I think you should take it off, or else just get out of here.”

“Fuck you, Turbo. Why don’t you go run the Eliminator and leave me alone. I’ll wear what I want to wear. You fucking morons want to talk about how the terrorists attacked us for our freedoms, but I don’t even have the freedom to dress up the way I want to without some macho dickheads giving me shit.”

Laser steps in and whacks the North Tower on the side of the head with his pugil stick. Gemini gets into an athletic position and holds his stick at the ready. A guy dressed as Hugh Hefner starts to imitate the American Gladiator theme song (dum dum da dum dum dum, da da da dum…).

Turbo shoves the North Tower, who stumbles back into the crowd. People hold him upright, push him towards the Gladiators. The South Tower forces his way through bodies and enters the fray, trying to stand up for his buddy. Gemini thumps him in the vicinity of the crotch with his pugil stick and then delivers a crosscheck that sends him to the ground. The Towers can barely move their arms, never mind fight back.

“The South Tower is down!” shouts somebody. “Fuck ‘em up!” yells another person.

The North Tower tries to make a run for it but trips over his fellow edifice and goes down. With both Towers fallen, the Gladiators start to kick them. Laser delivers an elbow drop to the South Tower that collapses one side of the box.

Random bystanders now start to kick the Towers, who are yelling, pleading, for people to stop the attack. The bodies roll into the vicinity of my feet.

I don’t intend to join the violence. The girl who slapped me glares at me as if to say, “Well, who’s side are you on, Mr. Terrorist?” I don’t doubt that she set this whole thing off, nor do I doubt that she’d like to, and very well could, turn the mob against me.

I rear back, kick clear through the box of the closest body to me. My toes bend painfully back as they meet rib. Turbo high-fives me. I am a good American this night.