You can reach the author at basementfiles@hotmail.com

Thursday, October 23, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Mercury

Basement Files: Who are you?

According to retailers, the best-selling costumes and masks for Halloween 2003 are expected to be those of George W. Bush, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Ozzy Osbourne. But what are the worst selling? If last year's sales figures are any indication, these may be among the least seen costumes this Halloween.

Tommy (sales rank: 172), the plucky and courageous but horribly disfigured burn victim who refuses to sit at home and feel sorry for himself and unfortunately insists on greeting the public at Wal-Mart and with whom you feel compelled to make lasting eye contact out of some misguided, guilt-ridden sense of compassion.

Tran (sales rank: 214), the curt and abrupt Vietnamese pedicurist at Visage Salon who never seems to have a kind word for anyone and who manages to communicate with grunts and dejected sighs that she considers working on rich women's feet to be pretty goddamn demeaning but who will suddenly let loose with a cryptic burst of words in her sing-song native language that elicits peals of laughter from the other manicurists and makes you feel, with a queasy certainty, that she's mocking your feet, your hygiene or the entire Caucasoid race.

Roger (sales rank: 126), the guy in shipping-receiving who doesn't seem quite old enough to have served in Vietnam but who ruins every lunch hour with his stomach-turning stories of the deadly ambush at "a bloody little patch of hell itself called Nha Trang" and his search for revenge and fresh, anatomical souvenirs among the wounded but still conscious Viet Cong.

Sheila (sales rank: 159), alcoholic den mother to Cub Scout Troop 417 who sets out a jug of Gatorade and a single box of Triscuits and tells the boys to "fend for themselves" while she nurses a Scotch and a Marlboro Light and sits at the window staring out over a back yard as desolate as her dreams and speaks, if at all, to urge the boys not to bother even growing up if all they're gonna do is "become the kind of man my husband is" and then makes a dismissive little "pfffft" sound and turns back to stare out the window some more.

Larry (sales rank: 194), the friendly long-haul truck driver who'd be happy to take you down the road apiece cause, hey, he's going that way anyway, but whose eerie pale-blue eyes and unblinking gaze begins to make you feel dirty, helpless and chilled to the bone around mile 38 and who keeps a bungie cord-bound shoebox of Polaroids on the front seat that you are never, EVER to open...are we clear on that?...because "as long as you don't get to snooping, we won't have us a problem."

Carol (sales rank: 147), the frail, wire-haired and earnest guidance counselor at Thomas A. Edison High School who "really, really cares about the kids," but who increasingly finds herself living her barren life through the constant parade of overwrought emotional crises of her teenage charges and whose sudden vacancies of thought and corroded teeth hint at a murky past of addiction and bulimia.

Stephen (sales rank: 133), bachelor and electrical engineer at DynaSystems Inc., who, every time he rides in your car--and even though he knows exactly what you're doing and where you're going--will ask in a prissy, Spock-like voice that manages to sound genuinely confounded, "What are you doing?" or "Where are you going?" the second you take a right on Madison, just so he'll have the pleasure of explaining that given the way the lights are synchronized on Madison, it's much more efficient to take Peoria this time of day, and anyone who hasn't already figured that out is some kind of moron who stumbles through this world without any regard for logic or precise thought.

Frank (sales rank: 223), retired master sergeant (USMC) who now has no target for his inexhaustible arsenal of hatred save his browbeaten wife, neighbors, paperboys, immigrants, liberals, editors, congressional receptionists, retails clerks and a wider world grown helpless with incompetence.

Stuart (sales rank: 184), 27-year-old, ne'er-do-well son of a family friend who calls you late one night to ask if there's any chance he could maybe just kick it at your cabin in Big Bear for a couple of months, you know, just to get his head straight for a little while and maybe avoid some guys who may or may not be looking for him, but that you definitely shouldn't mention to his dad, and maybe he can use the time to work on, I don't know, some kind of big novel or something, and who would definitely take good care of the place and would totally respect all your personal shit, and who "totally understands" if you're not completely cool with the idea, but could "really stand a favor from an old friend right now, man. Seriously."

Leslie (sales rank: 106) Long-abandoned mistress from a miserable and much-regretted three-week affair who suddenly shows up at your church six months later and glares at you through the whole sermon and makes this big deal out of introducing herself to your wife in the foyer after the service with this totally insincere Chatty Kathy voice and saying shit like, "Hi, Jane. I'm Leslie. I'm sure Tom's mentioned me from the office. No? Really? Well, I'm a little surprised because Tom and I worked very closely on a project that was supposed to be really, really big, but didn't turn out to be that big at all," and then grows silent and smiles at your discomfort with such crazy eyes that your wife can't help but ask some pretty penetrating questions for about the next two weeks.
October 23-29, 2003 ¥ 61