Trailer Trashed: My Dubious Efforts Toward Upward Mobility Read Online Free PDF Page B

would
not have served as a sturdy barrier between us and evil. But still my
mother would holler at him to accompany us. "Your sisters could get
kidnapped. Get your ass out there."

    He was always reluctant to come, so to make it worth his while
he'd invent reasons why he was needed. Once, as we approached the
Gothic hilltop home of our strange neighbors, two sisters by the name
of Blister, he told us that this here was where the kidnappers lived, the
one our mother had warned us about. He then launched into a florid
oration about the legend of the kidnapping Blister sisters, two women
with wings like the pterodactyls that ate their own eggs in The Land
That Time Forgot, and in spite of the fact that my brother had said
they'd lock me in the crawl space under the staircase and feed me mice
the rest of my life, I was excited to see the Blister sisters. I did not want
to miss the sight of real live kidnappers, and considered becoming one
myself. The wings, I tell you, were a huge draw.
    The women who answered the door, though, did not have wings
that I could see. They were tall and pale with their hair pinned in
large white knots at the base of their necks. One had a bun the size of
a bicycle seat. My brother was loitering at the end of the drive, behind
the gate, out of sight and of absolutely no use should the kidnappers
wield their hunting knives to gut us like little flounders. So my two
sisters and I stood silently before them with our tray of cupcakes,
quivering.
    "What have we here?" one Blister sister asked.
    "We're selling cupcakes-" my sister Cheryl began.
    "Where's your wings?" I blurted. "We wanna see your wings!"
    What happened next will remain one of the most vivid memories
of my childhood, because damn if that woman's white bun did not,
right then, come alive and spread goddamn wings as wide as the open sky. My sisters screamed so loud that lobsters in the middle of the
Pacific were probably alerted to our presence, and ran back down the
drive toward my brother, cupcakes in their wake. I remained there,
though, agog. The bun had not been a bun after all, but a sleeping
cockatiel. The lady let me stay for a good while after that, feeding
the bird cupcakes, until finally my mother appeared at her door, dispatched by my terrified siblings to save me from the legendary kidnapping Blister sisters.

    I WONDER WHICH IS MORE TELLING OF MY GENIUS, the fact that I knew
exactly where to get the two plastic asses, or the fact that I needed two
plastic asses to begin with. "Girl," Daniel sighed, rubbing his eyes,
"tell me again just what in the hell is it you're going to be for Halloween this year?"
    "A double-butted baboon," I answered excitedly. "I already have
the plastic asses."
    "Of course you do," he said.
    My genius is obviously wasted on Daniel, an artist whose gift is
outside the double-butted variety. If you subtract the time he dressed
up as a country-singing drag queen when he helped throw me my
"Recovering Slut Baby Shower," I haven't seen him dress up in a costume since that Halloween a decade back when he was a priest with
porn hanging out of his pockets. How he can let another perfectly
good opportunity like the entire month of October go by without
even at least gluing a fake bloody hatchet to his head is a mystery to
me. But I don't judge.
    "You pussy," I griped. "At least wear one of my headbands with
the blinking bloody-eyeball antennae."
    "Hell no, bitch," he griped back. "Don't draw me into your Halloween drama. I could injure myself. You practically get hospitalized
every year yourself."
    Please, the Halloween when I got the concussion was not even
because of my own costume. I got hit in the head from the corner of a tabletop that was part of my friend's walking "Decapitated Head
Served on a Platter" masterpiece. Of course, it might have helped if I
could have seen through the black-lace veil of my evil-sorceress outfit,
but details like that are secondary to