The Early Years — Part 9

Even though Halloween has been referred to as "a national gay holiday" Dennis and I never really got into it. That did change once, and one time only—Halloween of 1987. A friend of ours, Tim Chitwood, had decided he was going to throw a large Halloween party and of course, we were invited. When we first got the invitation, we just kind of shrugged it off. But then we found out that many of our friends were going to go so we decided, "What the hell, let's do it," I told him.

Since neither of us had ever dressed up for Halloween, we had to figure out what type of costumes we wanted to wear. Should be go as a couple? Individual costumes, not related to what the other was wearing? I called up my friend Tom Wade as I knew he had dressed up as a court jester a year or two earlier, so I wanted to borrow his costume. He still had it, so that settled what I was going to do. Dennis wanted to get a bit more bizarre and complicated. He talked our friend Donna into sewing him a large black hooded cape. We then went searching and found him a full black body leotard. We also bought a Halloween kit for painting faces, etc.

Halloween even fell on a Saturday that year, so it was perfect. I had called Tom and asked him to come over after we got dressed so that he could take photos of us. As the doorbell rang, Dennis hid in the bedroom because we wanted to surprise Tom with his costume. I buzzed Tom in and met him at the door. "Oh, that costume looks good on you, Rick. I can't wait to see Dennis, too."

"Come on in, Tom. He's in the bedroom because he wants to make an 'entrance' for you." We walked into the living room and I told Tom to sit down and close his eyes. Once seated, I went into the bedroom to tell Dennis to make his entrance.

"Okay, Tom. You can open your eyes now," I half-screamed.

As Tom's eyes opened, his mouth dropped. "Dennis, is that you? Oh my god, what a costume. I don't believe it."

Once Dennis had gotten dressed, I applied white face paint to his entire head, face, neck and ears, along with his hands. I also painted his lips black. I then put black circles around his eyes and eyelids and painted an 8-ball on his forehead. He had become an "8-Ball God" for the night.

We took a cab to the party and had a wonderful night of partying with friends. Our only Halloween party in over 30 years of partnership. But we did look pretty good, don't you think?