A Chinese-themed Halloween.
Chuck and Ava Fries know how to produce things.
Events.
Dinner parties with themes.
Movies.
So when they invited us over to dinner on Halloween night, we eagerly accepted.
No problem for costumes. Vin had tattoo “sleeves” we’d gotten at the car wash — at my insistence, a few weeks earlier.
I was going to wear a mask that I got in New Orleans, hand-carved to look like a tree trunk.
But when Chuck said,”Ava and I have Chinese robes we got there 2o years ago” and sent me pictures of wigs and hairstyles — and Fu Manchu moustaches — he wanted me to pick up in Chinatown…. I realized, I’d better get on the stick.
At the last minute, a few hours before we needed to be there, I ran around to the Phoenix Bakery and got the standard fortune cookies, sesame seed drops, and for the sake of variety, had Vin get a German Chocolate Cake at Lenny’s Deli in Westwood.
Back on Broadway in Chinatown, I walked to my car, ready to drive home when I had a change of heart. Chuck really wanted his outfit complete, and I couldn’t let him down, could i? I put the cookies in my trunk, forgetting the mochi that cried out for a freezer, and walked back into the melee.
I cruised the polyester palaces, not sure of what I was looking for, until I found a few hats such as Chuck had wanted — and surprise! a yellow & black outfit I could wear. For Vin, I sought a similar suit in yellow embroidery on black, with toggles instead of buttons. After a quick but thorough steaming to get rid of all the wrinkles from the plastic covering they were in, we had our outfits. And it was worth all the trouble.
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