Halloween in Omaha
Photo by Łukasz Nieścioruk on Unsplash
Photo by Łukasz Nieścioruk on Unsplash
“Hey Jenny. Hey there little Georgie.”
“Hi, Dad. Can you say hi to your Grandpa, Georgie? Looks like she’s a bit tired and shy right now, Dad. Sorry.”
“No problemo. How was the drive?”
“Not bad. We stopped at Runza.”
“Of course you did. Come inside. Do you need me to bring any bags in?”
“Sure. That’d’be great. Thanks.”
Jenny’s father grabbed her backpack and suitcase and carried them inside, while Jenny carried the duffel bag full of Georgie’s toys and diapers. Georgie sprinted inside.
“Dang. Last time I saw her she couldn’t walk.”
“Yeah, well she sure likes using her legs now.”
Once they were settled and Jenny had put Georgie down for a nap, she went to sit at the kitchen table with her father.
“Your mother’s out getting some takeout barbecue for us for dinner. Doya wanna drink?”
“Water’s fine, thanks. Where’s Rocky?”
“Oh, I don’t know. He’ll come over later. Think he had to work late today or something. Thanks for taking off to come and visit us again.”
“It’s no trouble. I can work from anywhere and I’m only doing half-time anyway so I can watch Georgie. Rodney had to go out of town for a meeting anyway, and I didn’t want to spend Halloween just me and Georgie.”
“Well, I bought plenty of candy for her, so I think it’ll be a good one.”
“Oh no. We were trying to limit her sugar intake. I swear it’s like giving crack to an orangutan if we ever let her drink any soda.”
“Haw, I’ll eat it if she doesn’t. Lemme tell you a story. When I was buyin’ the candy, last Sunday, you see, I was at the checkout at the supermarket. And you know it’s the one we always go to. Ever’ Sunday, I been goin’ there for maybe, maybe 30 years, hey maybe as long as we’ve had you. Anyway, the fellow behind the, the cashier, he knows me, see. They all know me there. Anyway, Buddy, the clerk, he says to me, ‘why you ain’t got your six-packs? What’d you give up drinking or somethin’?’ Cause he sees I ain’t got my usual 7 six-packs of Bush Lite, one for each day. ‘Ha, no,’ I tells him, ‘I ain’t give up drinkin’. I just got over the COVID and I can’t smell nor taste nuthin’. So I figured there’s no point. If I can’t taste ‘em, it’s not worth it.’”
Jenny nodded. “Well,” she said slowly, “I’m glad to hear you’re not an alcoholic.” As she mulled over this new information and wondered whether to add, ‘You drink them for the taste?’ her father asked, “What’s Georgie goin’ as fer Halloween?”
Jenny looked out the window at the cherry tree in the backyard and her father’s garden and the treehouse where she and Rocky used to play. “She’s going as Sam,” she said.
“Sam who?”
Jenny sighed.
“A couple weeks ago I had to go to the store, and Rodney was out at work, and I couldn’t leave Georgie. So, I took her with me. And, you know, we went to Sam’s Club. And, well, she asked me who Sam was. And so, I told her he was the guy who made all the stuff that we bought in the store and that he was the guy who made it appear there and that he made sure people all over America like us could get their stuff. Which she decided was the greatest thing this month.”
“She wants to go as Sam Walton for Halloween?”
Very sheepishly, Jenny said, “yes.”
Before her father could ask how exactly that costume was going to work, Jenny’s mother walked in the door.
“Jenny,” she said with delight, “here, lemme put this stuff down.” She put a couple tinfoil trays down on the counter.
Jenny jumped up and wrapped her mother in a big hug, which her mother returned.
“I got pulled pork and brisket and mac n’ cheese and baked beans and coleslaw and corn bread,” her mother told her, “I knew you’d want barbecue.”
“Thanks, Mom. Good to see you.”
They reheated the food, along with some green beans left over from the day before. Jenny went and woke Georgie and they sat down to dinner just as Rocky came in the door.
“Howdy, sis’,” he boomed with what Jenny had always felt was great affectation.
“Hi, Rocky.”
They hugged dutifully.
“Hey there, kiddo? Remember me? It’s your Uncle Rocky. It’s been awhile.”
“Can you say hello, Georgie? Where are your manners?”
“Mmmlo.”
“That’s about all you’ll get out of her. She’s feelin’ pretty shy today.”
“That’s okay. I’m starving. Thanks, Mom, for getting this stuff.”
“Get up a plate for yourself and sit yourself down. We’re all waitin’.”
Rocky got his food and sat down and his father said a blessing and they began eating. As usual, it was a struggle to get Georgie to eat much, but Jenny said she thought that was a good problem to have considering the obesity epidemic. As soon as she could, Georgie scrambled down and raced over to the living room where her mother took a break from dinner to put on Cocomelon, Georgie’s favorite show.
“The hell is that?” asked Rocky.
“It’s a show. It’s her favorite.”
“Kids watched the damnedest stuff. I couldn’t stand that.”
“Try living with a 2-year-old, Rocky.”
After Jenny had put Georgie to bed, she sat around talking with her parents and her brother, who ate half a bag of candy corn intended for trick-or-treaters.
“Rocky! That was for the kids. Now I’ll have to go out and buy more.”
“Oh. Sorry, Mom.”
“Say, Jenny, how is this Sam’s Club costume going to work?” interjected their father, bored by this discussion of candy corn.
“She’s only 2, Dad,” replied Jenny, “so we just got her a few items from Sam’s Club. Anything we could find with the logo on it. She won’t know the difference between that and a real costume – which I don’t know how the hell we’d pull that off.”
“I see. She’ll be a regular ole walking advertisement.”
“I guess.”
They went to bed. The following afternoon, Grandma and Grandpa took little Georgie to the park while Rocky and Jenny hung out at their parents’ house. They were getting ready for a Halloween party some of their friends from grade school were throwing that night.
“How’d you feel about Dad watching Georgie while we’re at the party?”
“Well, I think Mom will do most of the heavy lifting.”
“I mean Dad’s gonna get sick of listening to kiddie tunes and watching that Cocomelon thing.”
“Oh, yeah. Well, I expect that. But see, when Dad gets tired of it, he’ll just put on Johnny Cash or Kris Kristofferson. I don’t really mind him exposing her to old country music. If I left her with you, she’d be listening to Megadeth or some such.”
“Ha. Point taken.”
“I got to go get dressed.”
“Ok. Me too.”
Jenny went upstairs to change into her costume. She hadn’t had time to plan anything creative. She was just going as a clown. She happened to think that the clown nose went well with her curly red hair. It was a simple costume, but it still took her a few minutes to get ready.
When she came down the stairs, as if she had prompted her brother, she heard loud music with the kind of heavy, dangerous sound she’d always associated with music she disliked. The words weren’t in English, though. German, she guessed.
Jenny walked into the living room. “What the hell are you listening to?” she asked her brother, “and what are you wearing?” Then she saw the television.
“That’s disgusting.”
The same screen that just the day before had displayed images of small animated children singing educational songs now showed what appeared to be some sort of horror short on YouTube. A few soldiers, in red togas and carrying spears, tiptoed into an ominous forest with looks of terror on their faces. Dead bodies, dressed in Roman legionary garb, hung rotting from gibbets. Piles of bones and corpses enhanced the scene.
“What are you watching?”
“It’s Rammstein,” said her brother with satisfaction, “their music video for ‘Deutschland Uber Alles.’ Really gets you in the Halloween spirit.”
“No, it just makes me sick.”
“You want to know something? It’s actually historically accurate. I read some of Tacitus recently and when he describes Germanicus leading his legions across the Rhine to avenge the death of Varus and the battle of Teutoberg Forest…”
“Since when do you read?”
“Hey, I like the battles. Anyway, he talks about this stuff. The German tribes left the bodies of Varus’ legionaries out as a warning to future Roman invaders. Tacitus describes this stuff. Seems pretty dry when you’re reading it but really vivid when you see it like this.”
“It’s disgusting. Turn it off. Do you even know what they’re saying? Did you learn to speak German recently?”
“But it’s the theme for my Halloween costume. I’m going as Arminius, the leader of the German tribes who ambushed Varus.” Rodney gestured at the strange assortment of furry cloths and rags he was wearing.
Now it was Jenny’s turn to feel smug about knowing something her brother didn’t. “You’re going as Arminius?” she asked, “as in the German hero celebrated by the Nazis who built statues to him?”
“What?”
“I took a class on Nazi Germany in college. We learned about this guy. He was like a folk hero for the Nazis.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“You can’t go as him. People are going to think you’re a neo-Nazi skinhead.”
Rocky looked crestfallen. “What am I supposed to go as for Halloween?” he asked.
“I don’t know but you can’t go as that.”
“I don’t have anything to wear.”
“Just wear some random camo or something and be a hunter. You’ve got plenty of that stuff. C’mon, we don’t have much time. Mom and Dad will be home soon and then we’ve got to get over to Lisa’n’Andy’s house.”
On Halloween, Rocky and Jenny took Georgie out trick-or-treating in the neighborhood. Rocky wore the same camo jacket he’d worn the night before to the party. A few people had made fun of him for not having a costume, so he’d doubled down on insistence that his jacket did count as a real costume. At one house, situated at the base of a small cul-de-sac in their parents’ neighborhood, an elderly gentleman and his wife who were handing out Halloween candy asked Jenny what Georgie’s costume was supposed to be.
Glancing at Rocky in his camo, then at Georgie in her blue jean jacket and baseball hat with a couple Sam’s Club stickers pulled off of water bottles, then finally at herself in her clown costume, Jenny said, “You know how families do themed costumes sometimes?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, she’s Sam’s Club, my brother’s Gander Mountain, and I’m Ronald McDonald.”