The Wake

The house in front of us was about the size of a two-car garage. “This is Nick’s brother’s house right?” I question Aaron not wanting to walk into some random house. “Of course,” Aaron said, following Nick up the incredibly small flight of stairs. Nick turned the knob, and we all walked in awkwardly. We got a few glances since we were the odd men out. The room was filled with the smell of alcohol and fun. It was packed to the brim with people; we knew none of them. All of these students graduated at least a year before us, and all went to rival schools of ours. None of them knew Aaron or me so we decided to make up fake backgrounds for ourselves just to make things entertaining.

Nick headed for the keg and Aaron and I were left in a lurch; we decided to sit down and take it all in. The first people that we saw happened to be a sexy nurse and something I would like to call a mermaid. The nurse was wearing the cliché tight fitting short-skirted ensemble and the mermaid was covered from the waist down in green scales and a top thing of some sort. “So are you guys from Saint Paul too?” they started questioning. “Yeah we are.” This was the only thing truthful coming out of our mouths. “Oh cool, so what year did you guys graduate.” Aaron and I looked at each other and both said completely different numbers. It was a combination of 2003 and 2002 they didn’t really seem to catch our folly.

The conversation got worse from there. We continued and one thing led to another and soon Aaron and I both went to a private Catholic school, instead of our ugly, run-down, jail of a public school. We said we knew about five of the girls’ friends or cousins that went there, every name they would mention we immediately said we knew them. This wasn’t done as way to be mean or manipulative; we just realized we would never see these people again and found this funny.

As our conversation continued, a large frat-looking guy came into the room announcing: “Everyone, we’re heading out to State Street in a few minutes.” Just coming from that swarm of drunken chaos to get to this toy box house, I was ready to take another pilgrimage. As the sexy nurse and the mermaid found their sexy cop friend, a strange new face came out of the kitchen. He walked with a presence that was felt through the house and his attire demanded his name to be spoken—Jesus. He wore a dingy white robe that looked as though it had been used as the mat next to the bath tub. With his long, brown hair that was greasy and stringy and his robe, the whole combo all preached, “How I look isn’t important, but my message is.”

I felt that my three-man party, consisting of Aaron, Nick, and myself, wasn’t up to par with our dress. Aaron and I were recently divorced Mario and Luigi, with blazers, original white gloves, green and red hats and recently shaven mustaches. (Madisonians were not happy with our lack of commitment to character.) But Nick was the best dressed of all of us. He was in a large Sponge Bob Square Pants child’s costume with a blue hood and rather rough facial hair. Donning a lit cigarette always seconds from falling from his mouth, he looked as if Nickelodeon had just given him his pink slip that morning. Despite this small obstacle, or asset, depending on your view, I knew Jesus would accept us for who we were as people.

Everyone walked out of the house leaving the door wide open. There were about seven or eight of us in total and Jesus showed us the way to State Street. After passing the Romanesque police that lined the only passage to the street, we found ourselves in front a sea of intoxicated college students. Everywhere you looked there were more sexy nurses and more Mario and Luigi look-a-likes. With the decision of right or left, we all chose right as a group and ventured cautiously into the churning mass of characters. Everyone was having a good time because it is always fun to yell for no reason at random people you don’t know and the only reason you can connect to them is through the fact you recognize who they are dressed like. Like “Batman! Yes high five!” or “There’s Waldo. I found him; he was peeing by the bookstore!” With our group being led by the most popular man among college students, the J.C. himself, and his sidekick of a down-on-his-luck Sponge Bob, we couldn’t go wrong, or could we?

This continued for what I would say felt like about 15 minutes. Once we were all starting to get tired of walking the group pulled off the main street to talk about heading back. The big frat guy said, “Let’s head back. We still a whole keg to finish” Looking around I felt like something was missing. There was a whole; our chain had been broken. We had lost Jesus; he was still on State Street. So many visions ran though my head even though we had just met. I felt I owed him. “I’m going back for him! Who’s coming with me!” without waiting, I dashed back onto the street. Mario was the only one I had seen following me back in to the Hell from which we had just come. (I mean Hell in the best way possible.) As we kept walking, some areas of the street were so crowed with costumed freaks that there wasn’t enough room to move. Every step and every shout of “Jesus, Jesus Christ?” made me feel that much closer to finding him. All I could do was imagine him spreading his vision of the best Halloween ever; it brought a tear to my eye that amidst his exile he would still be working towards helping the cause.
As our journey pushed on through the slurry of people, it seemed no matter how fast we went it looked as if Jesus was just out of our reach. We were nearing the end of State Street and still no sign of him. We were asking people if they had seen him and one kid responded, “Yeah, Jesus just got arrested. They put him in a squad car.” “THEY PUT HIM IN A SQUAD CAR!” He had been busted for public intoxication. I thought it’s not his fault his blood consists entirely of wine. My heart sank and a feeling of dread flowed over me like a white sheet hung to dry on clothesline on a warm summer day. Not wanting to believe this, I asked the kid: “What did you Jesus look like? Was he short?” The kid said no. He said no. That’s all I needed to hear. I knew my savior wouldn’t desert me like that. At the same time my head became confused with the thought of more than one Jesus, but obviously the other was an evil fake. With only hope left in our hearts and no more streets to conquer, we headed back to the refuge of the disheveled Sponge Bob’s brother’s house.

We got back and waited, Aaron and I went to the small porch and took the chairs down to the lawn and started our wait, only to see drunk after drunk walk by. No sign of Jesus, but then in the mist and coming from the totally opposite direction, our friend came. Aaron and I leapt from our seats to meet him. “Jesus! You will never guess what happened.” We regaled him with the story. With a smile and a calm tone he left and cried with our struggles and was appreciative. Once our hold on him had loosened, he walked into the house. Aaron and I stayed outside and just listened to the screams that arose from his return. Recently resurrected, his first order of business was to change his wine from ordinary wine into wine in a glass. All Aaron and I could do was smile and know everything worked out and our messiah of Halloween was fine.