Jess Hopsicker
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Three days to Halloween and the store was nothing short of a crime
scene. Accessories were strewn about, wigs were displaced, the hair
knotted and clinging to life on the wire racks. A princess wand speared
a Rastafarian dreadlock, the really big Afro drooped lifelessly like
road kill. Costumes were mercilessly torn open and discarded. Spiderman
mingled with last year’s Power Rangers. Hapless Harry Potter robes hung
alongside ravaged Prom Zombies and wingless Twinkle Fairies. That was
just the clearance rack. The aforementioned description excluded the
pile of castoffs on the floor that was literally shin-deep. There were
Spongebob boot covers and useless plastic bags. Muscle shirts and
straight jackets mixed with missing gloves, random ties, plastic
jewelry, cracked masks and bandito mustaches. Crazy Clowns and hippie
vests were trampled underfoot. Batman was snagged and carried away,
caught under the wheels of a passing cart. Robin watched helplessly,
left all by his lonesome.
The aisles were packed with families, whining needy toddlers, trailer
trash, yuppie couples, and herds and herds of giggling teenage girls.
They all had the divine inspiration to find the perfect last minute
costume. It was my duty to pick up after them. Savages -every last one-
and they all had the audacity to complain when everything was in
shambles…
I set about the fruitless task of straightening out the aisles, only to
be ousted by a gaggle of girls milling around the devil tails and
pitchforks. They carelessly clogged the aisle, debating about matching
costumes and what kind of glitter press-on nails to wear: “Should we
wear the feathery devil horns...oh no there’s not eleven of them… I know
lets all be cats!” Luckily the bomb-blast passed on to the next victim,
leaving upended merchandise in their wake. No one for the life of them
could put anything back on the shelves. However, my janitorial duties
trumped dealing with the customers first-hand. Three hours into the job
and I wasn’t feeling much like a people person. “Trust me lady,” I would
catch myself wanting to say, “There’s no chance in hell you’ll fit that
cottage cheese ass of yours into that Sexy Witch costume. Plus Size
please, for the sake of everyone here- think about your family…” Sadly,
I wanted a paycheck too badly.
Occasionally, I’d get an “Excuse me miss,” behind my back, which then
followed with “Do you work here?”
“No shit,” I wanted to answer, while pointing my plastic cutlass at her
throat. “Just because I’m dressed like a pirate wench doesn’t mean I
work here.” Then I’d turn around and viciously point at the obnoxiously
bright safety orange work vest I also wore, which bore the big black
bold letters of HALLOWEEN EXPERT. “Yes, I do,” I replied politely and
held up my nametag for her to read. “How may I help you?”
“What are the chances of finding something that matches-” She held up
the pieces of a haphazard costume.
“Slim to none,” I interrupted her looking around sympathetically at the
body-strewn trenches. There was no chance of finding anything here.
“Would you have gloves?”
I ducked as a beer mug hat sailed overhead, hey quit throwing shit I
wanted to scream, but turned to her and smiled instead, “Are there any
on the shelf?”
“Well, no there aren’t any.” She said nicely, a little too nicely.
“I’m sorry, what’s out is out.” Whips cracked and a violent green
machinegun sounded. Somewhere in the melee a child cried over the Spooky
Sounds tape loop.
“Are you sure? Can you check in the back?” She spoke hopefully, yet
condescendingly.
“We already hung up every last one of them, all the gloves we have are
right there. Just the costumes are in the back.” I spoke authoritatively
and smiled charmingly. I was after all an expert. I knew what I was
talking about.
“Are you sure?”
I sighed heavily and walked away pretending I didn’t hear her. ‘Let’s do
the Time Warp again…’ Oh god not that song, please don’t play it again.
Please no please, I pleaded with the CD player. A motion sensing hanging
ghost howled. Skeleton bones chattered and laughed in reply. I looked
wearily at the wreckage; I barely even made a dent. Just when things had
started to make sense, another stampede ripped through. Another family
entered and the screaming doormat screamed.
I turned the corner about to make my way back to the bathroom, which
doubled as a panic room, when things got too out of hand. I ran headlong
into another needy customer. This one, she understood that I was
working, but beyond that she didn’t make much sense at all. “Like, do
you, like, have any, like, stuff, you know, stuff?” I raised an eyebrow,
pointed off in the opposite direction and mumbled something about a
speech impediment and darted out of the way.
Finally a moment’s rest, I gratefully closed the door behind me and
locked it. A weary disheveled pirate looked back from the mirror,
wearing the costume of a disgruntled employee. At least I’m wearing a
costume. Weaponry always helps too, I told myself as I always had. It
was Black Friday at the Halloween store. For a few years it had been a
hobby of mine, a bout of greatly anticipated chaos in a nominally menial
existence. Not just any retail job would let you dress in a Horror Robe
and facemask and stalk people with a scythe. I loved scaring the poop
out of little kids. When I was in the right mood I would gladly sell you
the costume off my back. That year the mood came rarely. It was all just
more bedlam heaped on an already busy plate. I was working three jobs in
one day at the time. There wasn’t room to be excited for a holiday I
always loved. It all felt too much like work. Hype, commercialism,
cheaply made costumes; and people- too many people. Never before have I
wanted more to lay waste to the human race. I was in one of those moods.
All of this suffering was for what? A few extra dollars so I could
scrape together enough paychecks for a trip to Manhattan. My vacation
felt like it would never come. Halloween was so close. I hadn’t had time
to think of a costume. I just wasn’t feeling it; in its place was a bad
case of fuck you. Suck it up, I thought to myself, weaving on sore and
tired feet. I adjusted my hat and shouldered the cutlass, and strolled
out of the bathroom. Sneering at a boy as I passed and took the whip out
of his hand. Two more hours left and it would all be over. It was my
last night in the holiday battlefield. Leave the clearance rack to
someone else, I felt rather liberated by that thought, after all, I had
some shopping to do.
