Searching for the last bits of life at the lesbian/transgendered Halloween party.

I go with two gay guys to the lesbian/transgendered Halloween party. One dresses up as a country club guy with a tennis ball inserted into his skull. Blood drips down his face. The other is an homage to that great American invention, the color-coded terror alert. He chose to be orange, or high. The word 'high' is lettered on an orange shirt. He wears around his head a rather annoying flashing biker's reflector light. When I ask him to shut it off, tell him it is making me nauseous, he says, "Sorry, it's an alert."

We must pay 8 dollars to get in. The lesbians working the door adore the tennis player get up. I, dressed as 'Cracker back in time' - a redneck rapper holding a plastic bag filled with loose Budweisers - am appraised with less fanfare. We are admitted into a large old factory loft. The ceiling is at least thirty feet high. The party is not yet fully assembled, most dance to a DJ. I am immediately entranced by a woman with go go boots. Long hair, a large nose she dances so gracefully and exquisitely I am crazed.

Pipes are passed, beers are exchanged, looks are shot around. A jungle woman topless leers at a quiet gay guy taking digital pictures. A couple we know, boyfriend and girlfriend, live here and are dressed up as some sort of band members in formal costumes. They try explaining the genesis of their get up but I must explain to them that I do not care. They hit me and laugh at me then go find their friends. I walk around feeling awkward in my costume. The girl in the go go boots makes me confront the nature of my nervousness. If I were to accost her what would I say? Perhaps something like, when you dance you fill my heart with a swelling that threatens to burst forth and shower you with expressions of gratitude.

The gay guys are talking among themselves. They are not a couple so I tell them to break up the tea party, ladies. Go forth and meet some gay guys. Surely there are some here. The full palette is to be found on the gender variegation scale tonight. It makes a straight person feel kind of square. All I want to touch and freak on and sing songs to are females. I quickly find the most compelling ones in attendance then force myself to look away. Leering, as I have grown to realize, does not work when trying to chat up women at parties.

Then, a crisis, I have to pee. Really badly. When I entered I knew that transgendered parties in old factories frequently have facilities issues. Luckily a resident leads me to the back fire escape. It opens on to a black roof right next to the interstate. Trucks roar past as I skulk around the corner and unleash a torrent most prodigious. I must tread carefully. I am not the first to discover the outdoor back latrine.

Reborn, I charge back in. I engage strangers in conversations I instantly forget. Me and some guy from New Jersey stare at a Barbara Eden type in one piece red suit. Stupefied I wander towards the stage. The dancing is erratic. I see go go boots girl again, but lose her as laughing lesbians crash to the ground. I reach for them to make sure nobody cracks a skull. The party has reached capacity apparently. All the nooks and crannies are populated. A mysterious woman with black sunglasses and wig is found wriggling psychotically near a speaker. I am entranced. I pretend not to care. Then a song comes that forces my hand. We dance.

After the dancing we yell ironic comments at each other.

"Why are you so hot?" I ask.

"Only in costume are we truly unguarded," she responds.

"I want to grope you while I-94 watches."

"Dogs in dark places should properly be called wolves."

I love her. I want to learn and grow old with her. We will adopt a pet and call him Weenie to demarcate the fateful collision of the primal elements as we assume them: Redneck Rapper Man and Psychedelic Secret Agent Woman.

But fate intervenes most cruelly. In the shape of a long dark woman with a quiet tall boyfriend. The Cure cover band is supposed to come on. But they dither and cannot get their instruments in order. I want to yell at them but, like the rest of the crowd, am somehow cowed. She is not. She starts in on them:

"Great sound check! Play some music! Play something!"

She keeps this up at regular intervals. I laugh and finally start yelling at the band with her:

"While we're young! I'll start you off! A one, and a two, and a..!"

While me and the tall long dark girl yell most merrily, my future freaky lover wanders off. One of the (many) pitfalls of my usually hidden redneck rapper personality. It scares away the more sensitive. Later, in the middle of a Cure medley, I find that long tall woman walking alone. I accost her. I tell her how awesome her tirade was. She laughs but has to beg off. The quiet skinny boyfriend needs to be found. Alas, how is it I always gravitate to 'fearless wonders' who then always have quiet long term monogamous mates?

The gay guys make me leave, but not before a lesbian pours champagne in my mouth and my face. For this I have to give her a cigarette. It is funny because, upon arriving I was already thinking about leaving. Now upon leaving I cannot stand the idea. But we must go to White Castle.

The White Castle takes an inordinate amount of time in the drive through. Orange Terror Alert, who I must mention is nice enough to drive, relates a story during our long wait of his previous adventure in this White Castle drive through. Apparently some woman appeared from the litter strewn shrubbery and went into the van up ahead in line. She stayed for like ten minutes then disappeared again into the foliage. Perhaps the White Castle drive-through has truly become full service?

I am very excited for her appearance tonight, but alas she is not working.

Finally I get home and strip off my stinky costume. I lay in bed and shut my eyes against the swirling spiral that whips around the last bits of life. It is created occasionally by the freaks at an old factory next to an eight lane high way.

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