The cliché, yet usually true, answer to “what matters most to you a friend” is “a sense of humor.” So naturally, I exploited this fact to its bitter end. As a middle schooler, I practiced quick thinking around my classmates, and found that being funny was an easy way to make friends. As I grew older, I used my wit to distract boys from my pimples and somewhat jelly-belly shaped midsection. Maybe, just maybe, I could be clever enough to make them see past the Butterfinger stuck in my braces. My wit became my armor against petty adolescent insecurities, and it became my primary currency for friendship. Just like those twisted characters of Seinfeld.

But when I came to college, I noticed something was awry with my formula. Without the assurance of bumping into the same people every day, I never got past the acquaintance stage with most, and as a result, became merely a clever afterthought. When I did happen to enter the realm of serious conversations with someone, I choked. I had nothing substantive, deep or even mildly informative to say. Everyone else appeared to be treading along a rather steadfast path—engineer, lawyer, journalist—and underneath my Spinal Tap references, I had no idea what I really wanted out of my life. So, whenever someone attempted to discover the facts and figures of Hayley Altabef, I simply deflected all serious queries with another self-deprecating line, entirely unsure what those answers would actually be. And because of my total lack of self-awareness, I found that most of my friendships stagnated on a surface of superficial inside jokes, sharing nothing on which to base a true bond.

I had totally missed the mark. Instead of leaning about people, their interests, and their quirks, I had settled for a series of incongruous stop and chats, in which personalities were exchanged merely on the side of quips. My only way to relate to people caused them to see me as little more than an encyclopedia of sexual innuendo and Superbad references. While I had always conceived of wit as an indication of intelligence and depth, I quickly discovered that, in excess, it placed me on the shallow, one-dimensional side of life. Wit certainly displayed my mental muscles and bluntly presented what I was thinking, but it continually failed to explain why. This fickle “why” bit plagued me throughout freshman year, and dug friendships built upon fact, not philosophy. I had no idea how my mind really worked, and beyond dissecting others’ humor, was oblivious as to their thought processes as well.

Now, as a sophomore, I’ve made a conscious decision to leave behind most of the acquaintances that once filled my walks to and from Tech. This year, I’ve decided to embody the cliché college experience and find myself alongside others who are trying to do the same. I’ve laid most of my witticisms to rest, and have replaced them with authentic conversations that steer clear of a mutual distain for middle parts or whole-wheat pasta.

Without the gloss of rehearsed comebacks and standby routines, I’ve found my friendships at Northwestern have grown into something much bigger than a handful of wry observations. They push me to find something beyond the everyday Seinfeld banter that so often veils intimacy. It’s a whole new kind of anticipation, walking the tightrope of true friendship instead of lobbing tired lines back and forth. My old pretense of humor was exhausting for all the wrong reasons; while sharing myself with others is perhaps equally taxing, at least I come away with something slightly more probing than another scene of Jerry and George discussing the relative merits of ventriloquism or ankle socks.

It was, after all, a show about nothing. I just wish I had realized that before I embodied its facetious, pessimistic spirit for the past 10 years of my life.

That’s the problem-
Don’t you see?

Please stop staring
And glaring at me I
Can taste the salty tears
Falling from the corners
Of your eyes, rubbed raw
Against the cuff of a sweater
Sleeve and please-

Don’t look at me that way.

You can’t be afraid; look, I can
Explain she came home late, my
Car with chipped paint and
Bent fender gleaming, a
Contorted, twisted knot rotting
Off of my cherry red Chevrolet.

I had done her a favor.

How I savored that shrill-
Voiced excuse echoing in our
Bedroom but it was of
No use; it wouldn’t do.

My palms slipped I
Just reached towards her
Fragile frame, bird’s bones
Arranged in a wide-hipped
Human skeleton, so delicate
And dying to break-
I wanted to make
A point.

But on her neck remained
A bruise, brushed on like
Thick purple paint, the Japanese
Maple leaf-shaped stain
I had made.

Her limp wrists and
Glazed eyes felt so
Right, this warm feeling
Inside washed my skin
With warm panting
Breath and sweat I fell
To the bed and in tight blankets and
Slept soundly through the night-

And your silence
Bores through me
Like a hot iron rod
But you see…
I can’t help it, it’s what
I like.

Oh God.

It’s what I like.

The blaring white glow of the blank document seemed to mock the dark circles under David’s eyes. He rested his chin on his hands and rubbed his face, urging it into creative awareness. The idea of writing her a letter had seemed so simple in the state of half-dreaming, half-consciousness last night as they lay in bed together.

In the moment of itching motel sheets and blaring ambulance sirens outside, the softness of her skin as he stroked her arm and the gentle rhythm of her breathing has seemed like a respite. Sitting before the computer screen, he grasped for the lines of poetry that had sung through his head the previous night, but the scent of instant coffee and the incessant clicking of people typing, printers running and copiers beeping all around him was making it impossible to recall anything. Combined with the sense of urgency now impressed on the situation from their fight that morning, he could barely think of anything except the way her green eyes had seemed to glow in the dark as she threw pillows at him while he attempted to get dressed. He placed his hands on the keyboard and one letter at a time forced himself to write.

Last night while I was lying next to you, stroking your soft skin, smelling the scent of citrus in your hair, the idea for this letter came to mind. I realized I never tell you how much I love you and how much you mean to me.

He stopped and re-read the first few lines. It sounds like a load of bullshit, he thought. Why was it so difficult to recall the feelings of the night before? This seemed a perpetual problem to David. He opened a game of solitaire and absentmindedly played as he wracked his brain for ideas of what a love letter should contain. Even trying to recall the first time he’d seen Sarah was a blur. All he could remember was that she was wearing a black skirt and a red top, the details of both were unclear, and he was fairly certain that vaguely describing her attire from that trip to the dentist’s office was anything but romantic. He tried to think of what she might like and wrote again.

I wish I could provide you with everything you want. I mean diamonds and trips to exotic beaches, yes, but more than those things; I mean my time. When I have to, at times, cancel our plans, your silence on the other end of the line snakes out of the receiver and constricts my heart until I can barely breathe. All I can think about on those nights is the image of you leaning against the counter near the phone in your kitchen, clutching your pink, silky bathrobe tight around your shoulders, biting your nails, hoping I’ll call back with news that I’m coming over anyway. Thinking that maybe tonight is finally the night. The thought that I can hurt you, whom I love so much, makes me sick with disgust and self-loathing. It makes me feel like something less than human, not worthy of even knowing your name, but I take solace in the fact that someday I will find a way to make it up to you.

The last sentence jolted him. Caught up in the image of them together in a setting outside of the bedroom, he had begun making promises. Closing his eyes, he pictured her reading those words. She would be twisting one blonde ringlet around and around her finger, one arm curled around her torso, the other holding the letter out in front of her. He could picture the tears following each other one by one down her face. The image was at once exhilarating and terrifying. How easy to write suddenly. He read back over the letter again thinking how clever the line about the snake and how she would surely comment on his brilliance. Sitting up straighter in his chair, he clenched and unclenched his finger, then caught a glimpse of a pair of blue eyes staring back at him from the picture frame beside his computer. Instinctively, without hesitation, he slammed the frame down on its face, the picture now facing only the gray plastic veneer of his desktop, and returned his attention to the screen.

Today, this letter is helping me recover from our fight this morning. All day I’ve been sitting at work staring at my computer screen formulating ways to prove my love to you and plans to reach our goal of ultimate togetherness as soon as possible and overcome all the frustrations you shouted at me this morning. I’m a little embarrassed to say it, but I kept getting distracted by how beautiful your eyes looked in the soft glow from the window this morning, the green even more vibrant and intoxicating than usual. I wish I could have told you that in person and that I could have stayed with you all day and worked out everything, but I know you understand, and your patience is just one more check on a list of reasons why you are perfect, and soon, very soon my dear, everything will be just as you want it.

His fingers were hitting hard on the keyboard, pounding each letter with force.

I know that you’ve heard these things before, but I feel like putting it down in words makes it real, like a contract of my love. With this paper I’m giving you a promise, just like the ones I’ve whispered in your ear in the dead of night and when I’ve pulled you close before a parting kiss, but this you can keep under your pillow to help you sleep at night when you’re missing me. When you’re lonely and it’s too early to call because you might wake her up as well, just pull out this letter and know someday, every night, we will be lying next to each other, and you won’t need this letter anymore.

Love,
David

He was excited now, face flushed and hands tingling from flying across the keyboard. Surely this would win her back, and it would be so easy. This could even hold off all the pressure she’d been putting on him, at least for a little while. About to hit “Print,” he was interrupted.

“Baker!”

David jumped, hearing his last name. Recognizing the voice, he frantically closed the window with the letter just a second before his boss’s head appeared around the cubicle wall.

“Have you finished that budget report yet?”

“Um, it’ll be done in about fifteen minutes.”

“All right good.” The man started to move on to the next cubicle, but paused. David’s breath caught in his throat as his boss’s eyes moved past him and toward the computer screen.

“Look, your picture of your wife fell.” He reached past David and righted the frame. Turning back to his screen, David was distracted by his wife’s beautiful bright blue eyes staring at him, and his eyes kept flashing back and forth between the two sights, so it took a second for him to realize that he had not saved the document. For a second he was filled with fury, a mixture of anger at himself and frustration and sense of loss. So much work, so much creativity, so much passion lost!

He looked at his wife.

someday, every night, we will be lying next to each other, and you won’t need this letter anymore

Perhaps it was for the best. At least for now.

In a very obvious way, my quarter in New York City (at Bonnier Corp.’s masculine stalwart, Outdoor Life) has been functioning as a kind of trial run. And not just in the blandly professional sense. Spiritually, sort of, also — it’s a chance to confirm or deny the notion that this is where I belong. As such, I’ve amassed what I consider to be a pretty exhaustive resume of garden variety Big Apple activities, assuming perhaps that if I immerse myself blindly enough, life’s big questions will somehow be answered for me.

Which is all merely an elaborate preface to say that I gritted my teeth and let go of $25 for a New Yorker Festival fiction event Friday, October 16. Readings by David Bezmozgis and Jonathan Franzen. Of Bezmozgis’ work, I had almost zero familiarity, and looked forward to him with the pallorless indifference most people bestow upon U2’s opening acts, as something above all to be put up with, as a necessary precursor.

Because Franzen, of course, occupies a real special place. His 2001 opus, The Corrections, was one of those few super kinetic reading experiences for me (in a totally different way than David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest was, a book which I read always with a sort of fierce giddiness, the only real variation from page to page being just exactly how far my jaw was from the floor). The Corrections was much more, I don’t know, fine-tuned or something. More sturdy. It had that emotional savagery too, which even as a teenager, compelled me to set the fat thing down at intervals and breathe mid-paragraph.

And he didn’t disappoint. He was hysterical. The material from his new (reportedly massive) novel is as buoyant and compelling as ever, and furthermore marked by his familiar undercurrent of tragedy which lends it, more than anything, that almost wraithish aspect of something yanked directly from the human soul. He read an extended clip from the second chapter. The first was featured in the New Yorker’s summer fiction issue.

After the readings and the author Q&As, I found myself just pacing around the space, more or less establishing a perimeter. (I have this problem where I go to readings and literary events lamely hoping that I’ll become friends with the authors. And that somehow this will happen without any active engagement on my part.)

So yes, I lurked on the fringes while people shook hands and proffered their stupid questions. These idiots — they think they’re supposed to drop big-time vocab words in the presence of published articulate people. The staff finally kicked us out because there was another reading immediately following.

Major point is, I was leafing through the festival schedule down the street maybe 15 minutes later when who should come briskly strolling by but Franzen himself. Impulsively, I shouted his name, and started jabbering like a fool about how he’s the greatest thing on earth. He’s kind of an odd fellow, Franzen, and he’s got these glasses which make his eyes seem really distantly enormous, like planets. Anyway, I think he got a kick out of my boyish enthusiasm and beckoned me to walk with him to the bar where he was meeting some old Swarthmore friends.

I made the dicey decision to bring up David Foster Wallace (I knew they had been close). Franzen called him as good a friend as he’d ever had. I told him that he and Wallace were sort of heroes of mine, being these groundbreaking authors from the Midwest. He asked me where I was from, and I was able to talk triumphantly about Cleveland for a bit which he loved, and said one of the reasons he didn’t have a totally positive experience at Swarthmore was that he always felt so innocently Midwestern. I told him I thought the literary landscape would be done a tremendous service if there were more voices like his around. He asked me my name. I told him. And we parted ways.

I’m aware that this likely seems pathetic, the fact that I was and remain still unthinkably energized by the encounter. Please make no mistake: I don’t count myself among the socially omnivorous, those who brush shoulders with the popular and posh and insist that the proximity somehow entitles them to a status upgrade. I’m in no way suggesting that having a brief conversation with a bestselling author makes me any more valuable or formidable, as a human.

What I am suggesting is that having a personal encounter with a personal hero can shake a man at his bedrock, at his core. Jonathan Franzen already has no recollection of me. Get that clear. Beyond any a shadow of a doubt, he’s plum forgotten I exist. But I’d been hopping around one of the world’s most populous, surely most dazzling, cities, cooped up in a pocket of Brooklyn that a million published authors call a motherland — a million. I’d been wordlessly fraternizing with the bearded and the bespectacled and the radically skirted, aspirants like me who graze in the pastures of used bookstores and artsy coffee shops, writing writing writing to some unknowable purpose, one which for the life of us we can’t identify but still provides that grasping sense of existential towardness.

And still, as a writer, I am unanchored. Hopelessly so. Toggling back and forth between two desolately insoluble fields — journalism and creative writing. Being able to chat one-on-one with one of the great authors of our time, even for a moment, is thrilling not only for what it signifies in the present, but also for what it might portend.

In short, that Jonathan Franzen — a man with a reputedly probing sense of character — for a few moments intuited my bona fides and engaged me in conversation, such that in three, five, seven, nine years, should I ever be so fortunate to publish anything he would conceivably read, he will see a name he once asked for and promptly remember nothing.

But then maybe a week later, he’ll be assaulted by a nagging half-image. Not a memory necessarily. Just some spectral association from something that happened a long time ago. And then perhaps three weeks after that, he’ll be having a cup of coffee when the weird ratchets and clicks of an entrenched neural reactor will describe a searing electric jolt.

And Jonathan Franzen will remember with sudden absolute clarity a windy evening in New York City back in 2009. Sam Allard, he’ll recall! He’s that crazy kid who wouldn’t shut up about Cleveland after the New Yorker festival. I wonder how the hell he’s doing.

And as he sat sipping coffee at a Starbucks not far from his birth-home, his own cosmic relevance lighting his blood with the fire of conviction, his divine purpose was increasingly clear to him.

“HOW MANY TIMES? NO DRINKING PRODUCT ON THE JOB, YOU HEAR?”

His ears still ringing, Max grudgingly went back to work, thinking of just how blind his manager was. Here was Max Powers, possibly the only human capable of saving the sorry lot of his peers, serving shoddy cups of café to the all those “productive” zombies. The idea of all that lost potential, those missed opportunities was enough of a reason for national outrage! He should be the one headlining on that TV! Who cares about the World Series?

But Max was patient; he knew he had a special responsibility. Perhaps his supreme mission required him to bide his time. There was no doubt in his heart that he was destined to be at least the world’s greatest super villain, if not super hero. But in the meantime, who would watch over the breasts of those Virgins of Heroism, Chivalry and Honor? Who would rappel down the mountains of Deceit and go spelunking into the caves of Duplicity to rescue Innocence?

“No. The world needs a hero. And Max Pow, I will be that hero!”

While Max Powers pondered the complexity of the Universe to plan his next move, Lily Waters quite serendipitously stepped into the store. She definitely had a presence, with her smooth brown hair and characteristic disgusted expression. He had, haltingly, taken her order for weeks but still couldn’t shake off the visceral desire to strip away all the matter that clouded her naked energy. They were made to be together. No really, they were! Max Powers, the hero of humanity, and Lily Waters was the perfect complement to his powers. It was only a minor hiccup that she seemed oblivious to his every attempt at conversation. No, the bigger issue was for Max to hide his super hero identity, a tough job considering how innately imposing he was for others. He didn’t want his emotional dependents to constantly worry about his safety as he saved the world from catastrophe.

“Tall chai latte.”

As Max poured out the coffee, almost spilling it in his hurry to serve Lily, he was struck with a brilliant idea. For all the complex machinations of time and space that molded matter and energy into his radiant being, it was hard to judge at times what the Universe wanted him to do. But he had definitely outsmarted Heisenberg this time; this plan was certain to work.

“Um, congratulations!” he began nervously. “You’ve won, er, a special, bonus party invitation for valued members!”

“I’m a valued member here? That’s sad.”

“It’s, uh, this Thursday evening actually! On the roof of this building. We’ll have – we’ll have some local bands,” stammered Max Powers, thinking furiously. He’d always seen her with headphones. “Oh, and everyone gets a fifty dollar gift card.”

“Hmm, sure, I can be bored for fifty bucks,” muttered Lily rather vaguely.

Served with chai latte and booked for Thursday. The quasars were definitely lighting up in Max’s favor this week.

Thursday could not arrive soon enough. Sweating straight through his shirt, Max Powers nearly fainted as Lily Waters finally walked in.

“Hey, you’re that Starbucks guy. Am I at the right place? There’s, like, no one here.”

Max Powers shuddered, but beamed nonetheless. He mustn’t let trivialities like names eclipse his magnificent union with Lily Waters.

Because only Max Powers could pull off a highbrow party on the roof of a coffee shop, the event began with the obligatory finger food. The mood was set with a bit of soft music that was spicy with modern flair: the perfect environment for pleasant small talk. There was no doubt in Max’s mind that Lily would be absolutely thrilled to be at this party.

“This party is dead,” Lily said to the roof at large.

Thinking quickly, Max muttered: “I know, right? I can’t believe my manager forced me into working overtime for this.”

“Dude, your job doesn’t suck half as much as mine. Try being a clerk at the Parks department.”
And so the two talked for a while, to Max’s tremendous amazement. He had moved up from just eye contact to names in a few days. Third base couldn’t be too far away.

“POWERS! WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?” yelled the disembodied voice of the manager through a set of speakers Powers had smuggled upstairs. “WHERE IS ALL MY STAFF? Where, WHERE IS ALL THE FOOD?”

The sky was falling on Max Powers’s head. In a few minutes, the roof was quickly deserted of all the staff sane enough to avoid the manager’s wrath. In the pell-mell of mint brownies and half-empty hot chocolate cups, Lily Waters was nowhere to be seen. Dejected, Max Powers slumped down the stairs, headed for a small utility closet he often used to escape the manager. Simply imagining the place, in which he had left his distinctly personal touches, made him feel enveloped by the warmth of a Red Giant.

“Hey, watch it!” snarled a voice right as he brushed past someone to open the door of the closet.

To Max’s dismay it was Lily Waters. She couldn’t be in here – this was where he had planned his super-persona, where all of his future heroics were detailed. There was even a half-finished costume, complete with latex underwear and utility belt. No, he must act fast and defuse the situation.

“MAX POWERS!” he yelled, tackling Lily Waters down the stairs. The two snowballed spectacularly, knocking out two other people in the way and tumbling all the way down to land with a bone-crushing thud on the wooden floor.

“Get – off – er – me!” Lily screamed in a muffled voice, pushing Max’s legs away from her face.
“You’re safe,” Max managed to mutter as he got up, “I mean– ”

Lily swung a powerful blow, knocking Max to the ground, and after yelling, “Jerk!” stormed out of the shop. Just in time, the manager barreled down the stairs, his voice cracking with anger. It was a while before Max fully recovered his hearing.

A lesser man would have decided to reconsider his boldness after these events and learn a lesson or two, but Max Powers was no ordinary man. Lily Waters was but a passing comet, a clueless wench in the presence of incalculable power. He remained determined to fulfill the role of savior of mankind and player of womankind. In fact, it was even easier now that the manager had recognized his potential and cut him loose from his job. He was finally free to don the costume, with an additional makeshift cape, and operate out of his secret underground base, cleverly disguised as his parents’ basement.

So, while galaxies may bubble with bursts of deadly gamma rays and stars may flush inexorably towards singularities, never fear, for Max Powers is here.

I will admit that I am very prone to not logging out, which is the first step in every Facebook debacle. I leave myself exposed and for that I’m oftentimes punished. My friends have made me a fan of things like “The Third Reich,” “polio,” and even “microwaves that don’t work.” These are all a little off-putting, but certainly not earth shattering. Yet recently, a friend took it a little too far.

When I went to the library for the night, I left my computer on my bed with my Facebook inevitably open. My friend must have come into my room looking for an Oreo, seen the open Facebook and pounced. He did as he pleased with it and then to make matters worse, evidently took an Oreo on the way out.

Walking back from the library later that night, I checked my phone. I was greeted with a text from my mom that read, “you sure you okay?” and a voicemail from my dad saying “just wanted to let you know and remind you that your pappy and nanny are going to see this.” As I was walking up the stairs, my friend asked me “what’d you exactly do at the library?” Something was up and I hoped to god it wasn’t that I had inadvertently mooned all of References and somehow Anderson Cooper had picked the story up.

I ran to my computer in a panic, and saw something far worse than I could have ever imagined: my friend had me a fan of 79 sex-related pages. Whether it was “sex on safari,” “sex while wearing socks,” or “sex in a hovercraft,” I would be receiving regular updates about it. It would take hours to get rid of all the pages and years to dispel the rumor that I was that creepy kid, either the one who thought this stuff was funny or the one who was in awe of people who enjoyed having “sex with a chimney sweeper.” This was bad, really bad.

There was nothing I could do though; I had homework so I let it be, just waiting for a moment to strike back. I started noticing people shooting me dirty looks while I was walking down Sheridan. While showing a slide of a nude bust of a woman from Ancient Greece, I swear that my ancient art history TA gave me the stink eye. I wanted to send out e-mails over every listserv imaginable that it wasn’t me, I wasn’t the weirdo. But there was nothing I could do.

Then one day, my friend who had single-handedly sabotaged my life and any future prospects of a job or a wife of any kind left his computer on his seat while running to the bathroom during class. I had to act quickly on this golden opportunity as I knew time was fleeting. With the adrenaline rushing, with all of those dirty looks and texts running through my mind, all I could think of was “my butt is itchy.” It wasn’t even true for me at the time, but I thought it would be a death blow; nothing in my mind could possibly be more embarrassing.

So, with a slight smirk, I alerted the whole world to the slight irritation on my neighbor’s behind. Either his friends were wearing cheaply made denim and also were beginning to get a rash or maybe they just found his honesty refreshing, because all of them loved it. In either scenario, I was the loser.

Yet, as the comments continued to pour in, I began to realize that people don’t take Facebook as seriously as I once thought. Every time someone said “you should get some cream for that dude” or “maybe you should try sleeping on your stomach tonight,” I relaxed a little. As demonstrated by his friends, Facebook statuses are not representative of a person. Facebook is such a major part of our lives that we forget we can get rid of it at anytime. If Jason’s status says, “nothing starts the day off like eating poo for breakfast,” it’s probably not true. On the off chance that that morning routine does in fact keep Jason going throughout the day, then it’s probably for the best that people don’t believe him anyway.

A regular called for another beer. He was very likely an alcoholic, Jace knew; he drank beer on weeknights and tequila on weekends, he sat in the same spot every night from seven until closing time, paid for each drink individually as it came and Jace didn’t even know his name. He had always thought bartenders led interesting lives, giving useful advice to desolate and heartbroken young men, listening to old men talk about the war, mixing drinks and getting to know their regulars more intimately than their wives did…

Now that he was one, he knew that it was like any other job he could have had: tedious, unfulfilling and a temporary means of making money while he was in graduate school. Just occasionally, though, he wondered if the fact that he didn’t give advice and know his customers meant that he was a crappy bartender.

As long as I’m making enough to live on, he thought, pouring a beer for the probable alcoholic. Despite himself, he was concerned for the poor man, or at least for his liver. What, Jace wondered day after day, could be so terrible about his life that he escaped here every day?

Well, he probably wouldn’t ever find out, so it didn’t matter.

The doors flew open, bringing in a gust of frigid wind and a man built like a refrigerator. Jace knew he was a police officer, either in plain clothes or off-duty. There was something in the way cops carried themselves, with authority and at the same time braced to react instantaneously to danger. Plus, as Jace could now see, he carried his gun and a badge on his belt. He had come in last night and had ordered a single Bloody Mary, sipping it carefully all night while looking all around the room. He and the regular were the only two customers in the bar last night; Monday was always the slowest.

“What’ll it be, of—sir?” Jace caught himself in time.

“Bloody Mary,” the officer said, eyes darting around the room. Jace brought him his drink but he didn’t touch it. He seemed to be waiting for someone.

Customers filed in and out, but the alcoholic and the police officer stayed put. The officer hardly touched his drink, instead absently swirling the celery around and around. Nothing interesting happened for the majority of the evening, except for an already drunk girl teetering on high heels asked Jace for a spiked watermelon. She burst into hysterical laughter when Jace asked her for her I.D. and was escorted out by her friends, who were hardly more sober than she was.

People hooked up together all the time after meeting at bars, Jace mused. This wasn’t the first time he had wondered whether bartenders did so with their customers.

The police officer was talking quietly on his cell phone. He was covering his mouth with his hand as he spoke, presumably so no one could read his lips. He had nothing to worry about. Jace couldn’t read lips as it was, and the regular was preoccupied with his drink.

Jace began cleaning the glasses. There wasn’t much else for him to do anyway. His mind turned again to the regular, who was on his—what was it?—fifth, sixth, maybe seventh beer. Even Jace had lost count. Regardless of how many beers or shots the man had, however, he never seemed to get drunk. He walked in with a stoic expression and walked out with a stoic expression, never wobbling or falling over like most people did. For all Jace knew, he might even have driven home. The only indication that he was drunk was the permeating smell of alcohol about him.

He was a fairly young man, now that Jace came to think about it. He probably wasn’t much older than Jace was. He was a tall man, thin and with black hair that made him look as though he had been electrocuted.

He drained his glass and said, “One last one.”

Jace poured it and, as the man was reaching for his wallet, Jace told him, “I see you here a lot. Here’s one for free.”

“Thank you,” the regular replied, his expression not changing. Jace turned back to cleaning glasses. The man took a couple of sips and said, “I’ve seen you around campus.”

Jace turned to him, a little surprised. He had never seen him at school, and said so.

“I’m not surprised,” the man said, smiling faintly. “I’m not a student, but I’m there often.”

Something about this statement struck him as not right; a sixth sense set off alarms in his brain. It was a perfectly normal statement, and yet…

He shook it off. It wasn’t his business, and in any case he didn’t believe in sixth senses. Hard facts, that was what was important, what got things done, not intuition.

The police officer paid for his drink and left. Jace and the regular were now the only two people left in the bar. All the nearby stores were closed; there was absolutely no one else around. This realization gave Jace a prickly feeling at the back of his neck. Adding to his trepidation was the sound of distant sirens filtering into the silent bar. Still, he knew, if anything went wrong, there was always the gun taped underneath his side of the counter. He fumbled under the table for its brief, reassuring touch. Not that he thought the man would do anything. He never did, except drink. And now he was still smiling faintly at Jace.

“Bartender,” he said, addressing Jace directly for the first time. “Can I ask you something?”

Jace nodded, but the man never had the chance to ask, because at that moment lights, blue and red, filled the windows. Jace’s chest seized up; his heart seemed to stop. Armed officers burst in, aiming directly at Jace’s regular. Instinctively, Jace backed up against the wall. Bottles of liquor rattled behind him.

The man didn’t look surprised in the least, not when the officers arrested him, handcuffed him, read him his rights and dragged him roughly out of the bar.

“Son,” one of the officers addressed Jace. It was the same officer who had been there earlier. “We’re going to need to ask you some questions.”

Jace nodded his head. His mind was reeling. Everything seemed surreal, like a dream. The sirens hadn’t been on when the policemen drove up to the bar, but now they screamed through the night. He was vaguely aware of the officer addressing him.

“Do you know that man who was just arrested?”

“Yes,” Jace found himself replying. “Yes. I know him. But I don’t know his name.”

Throughout the years, I grew accustomed to directing our mailman to deliver two sets of letters to our mailbox because the one across the street was nailed shut as part of a Dexter’s Laboratory cabinet setup. The candy bubble-blowing pumpkin, my personal favorite, became an object of fascination for neighborhood children and raccoons alike. And last year, a block party was considered when — after ten years of modifications and an army of helium tanks — the couple finally got the balloon spider’s nineteen legs to support its over-bloated belly.

Now here I am in Paris, where wine is cheaper than water, and there’s enough cheese to satisfy any Pixar rat. But after a two-day search through various marketplaces just to locate a pumpkin sizeable enough to survive a carving session, followed by a confusing conversation with my host brother about why I was hacking at said pumpkin on the kitchen table, I knew celebrating Halloween away from home was going to be the wrong kind of horror show.

The week leading up to the big day, I walked through the 15th arrondissement and noticed that — aside from a single orange balloon deflating in a corner shop window — Halloween n’existe pas.

Deciding that perhaps this particular city was just too grown-up for the holiday, I joined a group of American study abroad students for a trip to Parc Astérix just in time for a peur sur le parc adventure. Parc Astérix, reachable from Paris proper by a combination of metro, train, and bus, is the French answer to Disneyland. It’s based on the popular comic Astérix and Obélix, with a Greek and Roman ruins theme that makes it a fun place even for those who can’t stand any ride going faster than normal jogging pace.

As we waited in line for the bus, I looked for signs of hope, evidence that the Halloween-faithful still walked among us. Thirteen out of 150 line stragglers were dressed in Halloween gear: three were vampires, four had on witches’ hats, and the six others had on striped tights. But their costumes were so uninspired and unenthusiastic that the vampires could have used an infusion of new blood and the witches needed some magic — black or any other color would have sufficed. I’ve seen people more creatively dressed as they made their zombie-like walks to winter quarter 8 a.m. classes.

Parc Astérix tried, but the effort was as anemic as the neck of a vampire’s thrice-weekly victim. As we entered the park, statues lining the streets were garbed in Halloween get-ups, but only the non-French speakers paid them any attention. There was Astérix as Dracula, Obélix as a dumpy witch and their sidekick puppy as an unconvincing dinosaur. No reaction. Crowds of excited children passed the two-story-high foaming witches’ brew without a second glance. The lopsided castle towering in the background, draped in black and covered with cobwebs, excited just enough interest for one hasty snapshot at best.

These well-meaning tricks were no treat at all.

While I am used to the barely-concealed boredom or confusion on parents’ faces as their children jabber about Halloween, I can’t imagine a whole city’s indifference to the allure of joyful spookdom. Here I was, 3000 miles away from home, trying to grasp at those last strings of childhood goblin-induced glee, and the general feeling of indifference was damn near breaking my heart.

As I wandered back to my apartment in the morning, I decided that the French really don’t need an excuse to consume an exorbitant amount of sugar; every morning’s breakfast is a competition to eat as much chocolate as possible anyway. But for me, Halloween wasn’t the day when I wanted to branch out and embrace another culture. Give me my jack-o-lanterns, my hometown vampires and yes, even someone’s front lawn that looks like the Addams family is having a yard sale. And while I’ll miss the three-hour dinners with my host family and the well-done steak that’s still moving on the plate, what I’m really looking forward to is the next Halloween when I can glance out of my window and be greeted by the latest addition to my neighbor’s yard: Severus Snape’s cauldron of sparkling grape juice. Who needs French wine, anyway, on Oct. 31?

When I was little my favorite time of year was always Halloween. The relatively mild central Pennsylvania climate is usually at the apex of perfection in late October and the leaves are at their most beautiful — that wonderful shade of orange and red, the definition of perfection that only lasts for three or four days before they finally succumb to the winds of change and fall, blanketing the front yards until raked into piles that kids jump into and parents rake all over again until you have a big enough pile to burn. And you do burn it, and the wonderful smell of burning leaves pervades the air in the entire neighborhood as you ride your tricycle at first barely old enough and big enough to reach the pedals until you’re in the autumn of your 18th year driving around town one last time with your windows down and you see the piles of leaves and smell the familiar smell you know so well and you realize you’re going to be gone in just a few short weeks at college and just a few short weeks after that your first Halloween on your own.

By far my favorite part of Halloween is the costumes. I love seeing the hundreds of kids coming to our door, begging for candy, dressed up in elaborate costumes, either store-bought or self-assembled, recognizable Disney characters or ironic high schoolers thinking they’re being original (one guy came as “that guy” one time). Nobody could hold a candle to my dad’s costumes, though.

The author: a clown. Photo provided by the author.

My dad took Halloween very seriously. He went all out on the costumes, working for days, weeks, crafting an outfit fit for a king. Every neighborhood has one — that one house that goes all out making a scary haunted house, that one family that dons themed costumes that embarrass everybody equally, and, like my dad, that one parent who slaves over the costumes, working by hand, creating memories that last a lifetime.

For example, one year (I forget how old I was, the pictures suggest five or six) my dad made a T-Rex costume entirely from scratch. He took my measurements, bought the fabric and got to sewing. Sounds pretty cool, but also a bit tame, right? Lots of people’s parents make their costumes from scratch, so what, right?

Just wait. He put a pressure pad in the foot so that whenever I stomped on the ground it activated a circuit board he put in the costume that would make the eyes glow red and a voice box would activate and let out a tremendous dinosaur roar. I would go to a house, say trick or treat, people would remark how cute my costume was, hand me some candy, and I would stomp my foot, roar, strike a pose and run away to the next house, leaving them in my dust, gaping, marveling at what just happened, talking about the best costume they’ve ever seen.

This went on for years. One year he made a mummy costume out thousands of sheets of toilet paper – I don’t think the photo does it enough justice. When I was very little, maybe even my first or second birthday, he made an adorable little clown costume. One of my personal favorites was the headless horseman costume he made in fifth grade — he built this sort of outer body suit made out of foam and covered it with a ratty old coat that I put my arms through and I covered my head with another little piece of foam (painted red) to be morbid chunk of neck left over after the beheading. It was grotesque, and sick, and great.

What am I doing for Halloween this year, you ask? Hell if I know. I have an old Chicago Bears hat that looks like a legitimate decapitated bears head, I could probably make something out of that. Maybe see what I have in the dorm room, see what’s in that Halloween shop in Evanston, throw something together. It’s a lot less organized now that I’m on my own. A lot less meaningful.

The white Power Ranger dominating, as he was made to do. Photo provided by the author.

I remember trick or treating was a neighborhood event when I was little. My dad would put weeks of effort into creating the perfect costume; then I would meet up with my best friend Alex Chung and compare outfits; then we would begin the arduous trek up hill, starting with the houses at the top of the neighborhood and systematically making our way down, having gravity help us along the way (being the smart boys we were.) The Nelsons always turned their home into a haunted house, inviting trick-or-treaters inside to close their eyes and feel a bowl of intestines or eyeballs. The Sullivans would always have a full-fledged kiosk set up in their cul-de-sac, offering Dunkin’ Donuts doughnut holes and homemade apple cider to weary travelers. We would always return back to my house after a hard night of work and dump our pillowcases onto the floor, sort our candy, and dig in.

It was the same every year, it never changed. From my first Halloween to my 17th, the experience was always the same. It was always great. The costumes were always amazing, the decorations were always just the right mix of terrifying and fun, the candy was always delicious. It was the best day of the year.

I’m a busy guy. I perpetually have hundreds of pages of a novel to get caught up on or a poem to revise for class. It’s possible I might not make it out this weekend for Halloween festivities. That doesn’t mean I won’t be celebrating, though. You can take the kid out of Halloween but you can’t take the Halloween out of the kid. I’ll be wearing a makeshift costume on October 31, even if it’s just my zebra snuggie and my bear head. And I’m confident that back home my parents will be breaking out the gigantic cardboard box of decorations from the attic, the 20-year old sharpie that says “HALLOWEEN” on the side still clear as day.