LUDIC LOG

The October balm was turning to November chill, and everyone was feeling nasty. Weather does that to you. We have seasons up here like anyone else, and even though winter was showtime for a lot of us, that didn't make it any better when the mercury disappeared. I trudged into the bar around seven, kicking cold dirty rain off my shoes and hoping that I hadn't missed Hal's big moment.

Most of us just work one day a year, so we have a lot of free time on our hands. That's why the Holiday Club is always packed, no matter what day it is. Some of the guys stay busy longer -- that stuck-up rich jerk Santa Claus works pretty much year-round running his shop and making a killing on the market, and he never lets us forget it -- but for the rest of us, the bar is as good a place to waste time as any other while we're waiting for our time in the spotlight.

I probably spend more time at the Holiday Club than most, to be honest. Not the way you think -- I'm no alcoholic, unlike certain people I could mention -- but I won't because I'm not one to slander a cute baby in a sash. It's just that I don't have much to do anymore since they doubled up my shift. I mean, don't get me wrong President's Day has been great for me personally, since I get the same money for half the work. It's just it leaves me with a lot more free time, and I'm not quite as popular down below as I used to be, for obvious reasons. Also, my father-in-law owns the place. So you can usually find me here anytime, pounding down a few Sam Adams and hanging out with my best friend Arbor Day, who's been in a similar situation since that hippie kid Earth Day started showing up.

Today, though, I had wanted to get here early. Today was a special day. Today was Hal O'Ween's day.

I had originally planned on getting here around five, but I had to pick the kids up from soccer practice, and then the van got stalled in the downpour so I had to have my wife May come get me and drive me over. (May never comes into the Holiday Club herself, even though her pop runs the joint; she's really political, and most people don't like to mix business and politics.) By the time I finally swung through the front door, I was worried that I'd missed the big show, but Arby waved me over to an open stool -- the place was packed, as it always was on October 31st -- and smiled, assuring me that the magic moment was yet to come.

One thing you have to understand about the gang. Just like any other group of people, we get along to go along. Sure, we've got our differences -- Columbus and Martin Luther King got in a fistfight back in '96 that people are still talking about. Sure, we tend to form cliques -- Makar Sankrati and Nag Panchami don't really hang out with Boxing Day and Cinco de Mayo. And sure, we have guys who tend to be the butt of jokes -- people used to really give the Easter Bunny a hard time, until United Nations Day showed up and took some of the pressure off of him. But as a rule, we tend to be a pretty tightly-knit group, like any other bunch of people who work together and live in the same area. We don't give any one person too much grief, because except for the real money players like Claus, we're all basically in the same boat.

Hal, though...Hal is different. And I mean that literally: he's different every year. At the end of every October, he's someone new. Most of us don't change much; we've all settled pretty comfortably into a style, and we stick with it. New Year gets older, of course, and then younger again; and Labor Day seems to be getting shorter. But aside from that, we're a pretty solid bunch of citizens. And Hal's the same way, 364 days out of the year at least. But on his work day, there's a big change. And that's why we give him such a hard time about it.

See, he's one of the oldest guys on the crew. He's been around forever. Which might explain why he signed such a crappy contract. The gist of it is, he's got to dress up every year in whatever the most popular costume is down below. It used to be really great -- always something really tough and scary. I remember back in '56, when I was still doing both presidents, he had this great Frankenstein outfit. And some of the really old guys like Passover and St. Pat tell me that way back in the day, he was the baddest man in town -- he made Dia de los Muertos look like Shrove Tuesday. But lately, he's been wearing the goofiest outfits. Ronald Reagan. Uncle Sam. Freddy Kreuger. And, man, do we razz him about it. He's a good sport, really, but I can tell that it's starting to wear on him.

"He should be here pretty soon", Arby said, tugging on a Rolling Rock. "It's getting late."

"Hey, Arby," I asked, jabbing him in the ribs and pointing at a photo framed behind the cash register, "Remember '97? The Princess Diana outfit? Look at that tiara, haw."

"Sure, sure. You know which one always sticks out for me? The Max Headroom one, from what was it, '86, '87? Stuttering like Porky Pig in that cheap suit. A year later, nobody even heard of the guy. People, try and figure them out."

"Well, it can't be worse than last year, right? Man, that was depressing," I said. Last year had been rough on all the winter holidays. We thought Hal might not even show up, and when he did, dressed like an angel, we all wished he hadn't.

Luckily, I didn't have time to dwell on what a drag Halloween 2001 had been, because ANZAC Day came running in from outside. He was a little pipsqueak who was sort of the unofficial mascot of the Holiday Club, and when he ran, it looked like a hyperactive potato with legs. "'E's comin'!", he shouted in that goofy portmanteau accent of his. "Gor, you gotta see this one!"

The gold-tinsel door to the Holiday Club swung shut, and a hush blanketed the place. It's almost never quiet in there; it was a little eerie. Which I guess was appropriate. The door slowly creaked open; you could hear every inch in the silence. Even July 4th had shut up for once.

And that's when Hal O'Ween stepped through the door. Soaking wet. Wearing a blonde wig. Thigh-high red leather boots. A pleated blue mini-skirt, a bustier, and a nautical collar. It would have looked dead sexy if it hadn't been on a paunchy balding guy in his mid-50s. The place just broke apart with loud laughter, but he yelled loud enough for everybody to hear:

"Who the fuck is Sailor Moon?!?"