Bushwick, The Horned Ball (1/x)

Last time I went to the Horned Ball, I was still living with Edward.

Edward.

What a motherfucking lunatic.

He’s so crazy he told me to use his real name in this book.

But I didn’t.

Hanging out with Edward, I learned this: if you are friends with a pathological liar, you never have to pay the cover.

We’re from Gawker, he says.

I nod.

I’m an innocent looking guy. I have an innocent face. I have an inherent Midwestern quality that just makes me look ineffably honest.

Plus I’m a giant. That helps out crashing a party even more than you might think. When I start walking people kinda sorta just start to dodge.

He’s my photographer, he says.

I nod again.

After we’re stamped and in, he tells me he knew he had to say Gawker.

If it was anyone else, they wouldn’t have let us in, he says.

I’m not really sure what Gawker is, even now.

Its some website or something, right?

Anyways, I’m used to going everywhere for free, so we just get stamped and pop in. Inside, its pretty fun.

Edward’s a talker and a charismatic savant. We meet people. We meet a lot of people. We meet some people you maybe don’t necessarily want to know. But we do meet them.

This was the night where Edward took the first steps to joining what he would later describe as a cult, and, I believe, the first steps towards his suicide attempt.

Like I said, people you maybe don’t necessarily want to know.

That was also the night I met Ki. More about her later.

The cult that Edward joined was not the Kostume Kult, btw. It was an entirely different cult. A weird electro-shaman-2012-apocalypse-monster-porno cult. Yes, I said monster-porno. The cult made monster porno.

They called it monsterotica.

That’s a completely different story, the cult thing, one I’ll get to in due time. Lets talk about Horned Ball.

I went. I didn’t know anyone. I couldn’t have felt more welcome.

I spent several days scouting stores to construct a costume. I ended up descending into the undergraduate costume rental shop at the University I attend. I’m not saying I bribed anyone, but I had an awesome costume.

Shorts and shirtless of course. Bouquets of green and yellow fabric spilling behind and around me. Leaves in a garland around my neck. One hand was covered in a gigantic leaf-glove borrowed from the costume shop. The other held a twice-folded leaf-patterned pillowcase full of yellow flower-bearing sticks. As soon as I got there, I had someone paint leaves all over my body.

I was plantman. These are the new hippies.

The theme of this party was Vikings, and berserking was encouraged in the invite, but everyone, everyone I saw, was at peace with themselves and the world.

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Tags: bushwick, Fiction, hornedball, novel