Captain Jack
History has an odd way of neutralizing the objectively abhorrent. Pirates, for example, were violent criminals, albeit with codes of conduct, yet they are the subject of countless children’s books, cartoons, and movies aimed particularly at young boys. So it is no wonder that at a very early age I become obsessed with these outlaws of the seven seas, going by Captain Jack, blithely ordering my friends to “walk the plank” and “marooning” those who irritated me even the slightest bit. Of course, at the age of five I had no idea I was living my life in accordance with scoundrels who routinely severed the limbs of people they disagreed with, and my parents, rather than break the news to me, would help me make treasure maps, dipping white paper in earl grey tea and burning the edges on the stove to make them look old. I’d have done the same in their position.
When I reached the fourth grade I finally reached the age at which my parents thought me mature enough to choose my own Halloween costume. Not a fan of Halloween (I didn’t care for crowds or strangers and certainly not crowds of strangers, still don’t) I jumped at the chance to dress like one of my murderous heroes. Plus, I was a fan of candy, and having vegan parents obsessed with flax seed cereals and the poor substitute for fruit roll ups called fruit leather that every child of hippies knows all too well, Halloween was the only time I could get away with eating as much as I could, it was the only reason I suffered through Halloween in years past.
Unfortunately for me, while bestowed with the great honor of choosing my own costume, my parents also laid on me the heavy burden of assembling it. Too broke to buy store-bought costume, and long since weary of the crafting in which they had aided me as a younger child, it was up to me to create my dream Halloween costume. It was a daunting task for sure, especially with my limited resources and motor skills, not to mention my penchant for procrastination. It would be an uphill battle, but one I was willing to fight. My dreams were about to come true, after all. The streets of Davis, California were my Caribbean, the houses of the upper middle class my Spanish Galleons.
The night of Halloween I assembled my materials: one of my father’s large white dress shirts, black construction paper, a sheet of lined, wide ruled, notebook paper haphazardly ripped from my english notebook, scissors that had been in my family for decades with blue plastic handles which at one point were melted to the point of deformity, but not quite to the point of non functionality, and some tape; the non precious metals with which to perform my alchemy, resulting in the pure gold of the perfectly bespoke pirate costume, haute couture of the high seas.
I snipped away at the black paper attempting to create a tricorne hat, already dawning my father’s dress shirt. Surely an adorable sight. I tried but ultimately failed, resorting to taping a triangle of black construction paper directly to my forehead. I tucked the shirt into my jeans, making sure to poof it out at the waist, making it extra billowy. I was ready to go, and so were Richie and Frankie, my two friends who were waiting out front for me decked out in Halloween superstore costumes with masks that bled and bloody scythe so realistic they terrified me. We had to leave early, I lived on the poorer side of town, which in Davis meant the houses were single story and may or may not have had doorbells, if we wanted to get to the other side of town where they had two story houses that gave out full size bars of chocolate, we’d have to move fast.
I grabbed a drool-stained pillowcase, and ran to the front door. I didn’t have time to find a less embarrassing case, it would be dark soon anyway. I made it as far as the front door before I was stymied in my pursuit of my sweet treasure.
“Not so fast, Samuel,” my mother said as I was turning the knob. “Pirates do not wear jeans.”
It was at this moment I realized my mother was holding something in her left hand and blocking the door with her right. In her left hand was a pair of my father’s spandex bicycle shorts. The kind with the padded crotch.
“Pirates wore tights,” she said. “Wear these or you are not going.”
I protested, not wanting to wear a sweaty old pair of work out pants that had been so close to my father’s genitals, but my mother was stern and conceded nothing. To this day I have no idea why this was the hill on which my mother was willing to die, or if pirates actually did wear tights. Reluctantly, I put the shorts on and spent the night trying to explain to fancy stay at home moms and elaborate haunted house building dads what I was. In my mind the answer was clear: I was deprived. Deprived of a proper costume, of non flax seed based foods, of a house with stairs and a doorbell. But I would not be deprived of candy, not tonight. Like my swashbuckling heroes, that night I was going to take what I wanted.
