My Halloween costume was a bust. I went as a mattress. When I started trying to hollow it out, I discovered that today's mattresses aren't simply stuffed with cornhusks or loved ones' hair like they were in the good old days. They're held together with hundreds of tenacious steel wires. I spent hours with a pair of bolt cutters, finally clearing out a human-shaped space amongst the rusty tangle.
Once I had the wires clipped it was time to cut the holes for my arms and face. This was a two-person job. A friend came over, and I crawled inside the mattress and pressed my face against the front and hands against the sides so he could see where the holes needed to be. He outlined the circles with a marker, and I got out so as to avoid the scissors. The rusty wires had stained my shirt. We cut, and I got back in to gauge the success.
It was then I discovered the first problem with the costume: I couldn't stand up. I'd carved the space in such a way that the end of the mattress was at shin level. My friend helped me up, and I shortly realized two other significant flaws. I couldn't really walk, because I couldn't bend my knees. I had to swivel-step, swinging one side forward and then the next, like a giant Miss America wave. I also couldn't fit through doorways.
I didn't let these obstacles get me down. Friday night was for the State Street stroll, not house parties or bars, and if I put the costume on outside with friends there to help me stand, everything would work out.
Friday was cold, but the mattress provided a lot of insulation and wasn't exactly light, so I wore shorts and a T-shirt to avoid overheating. The shorts were old khaki cut-offs with a rip in the back, and the t-shirt was a ratty white \Life's a Beer"" Corona shirt with neon-green pit stains. It wouldn't matter if it got rust on it.
My group began to head toward State St., slowing their pace to accommodate me. As we got closer, my costume began to attract attention, even in the midst of sexy teachers, sexy bunnies, sexy fairy-tale characters, sexy doctors, sexy nuns and sexy television sets.
The mattress' stuffing was itching a little, but we got swallowed up in the crowd and I was able to ignore it. We made our way from Johnson Street to Library Mall. It was hard to keep my balance in the jostling masses.
By the time we got to Library Mall, I was sweating heavily, and the itching on my arms and legs was more like a burning. I had to get out of the mattress. I went and flopped down in the grass and crawled out. Once I got out, I could see the stuffing had irritated my skin, and my arms and legs were covered in a vibrant red rash. My shirt was soaked through with sweat, and I was striped with
rust stains.
As I walked back towards my friends, a woman in hot pants, roller skates and a coconut bra asked me what my costume was.
""I'm a scurvy victim,"" I said. Then, looking down at my wet t-shirt and ripped shorts, I reconsidered.
""A sexy scurvy victim,"" I said.
chunkkicke@yahoo.com.
