Many years and lifetimes ago, I was living - sort of? - in San Francisco, and in the process of a long-drawn-out breakup with a boyfriend - which ... I was so ready to be DONE w/ him but he was my first boyfriend so, you know, wild sobs, etc. In the middle of this was Halloween.
He was fresh out of law school, and had gotten a job in a gigantic corporate law firm in San Francisco. So much for the dreams of being a public defender. (Unfair. He is now a public defender, and doing what he wants to do.) But at the time it was like a Faustian deal.
Meanwhile, I was a babe in the woods, and wondering what the hell I was doing in San Francisco when I should clearly be down in LA, or at least in New York. I eventually did flee (literally) to LA ... and then fled 3 months later ... to Chicago. I was ... not well. lol
We had just spent half a year living out of our van and driving around the country. I still felt barely civilized. I was like ... stove? Hot water? So we arrive in San Francisco and he's busy buying, like, glass jars to hold pasta/grains and just looking at them made me suicidal.
I had been suicidal during our entire time living in our van. Looking back, I feel like we should have veered off Route 66 to the nearest psych ward, STAT, but alas, I was white-knuckling it. But those glass jars filled with pasta took on an almost hallucinatory power. lol
I had no job. He was going to this insanely high-pressured job every day. I wandered around. I felt like I was a spirit. I had no body. I was not really there. Then comes Halloween. There's a party at his law firm. I decide to dress up as Squeaky Fromme.
So. Insane. I got a bald wig, I bought a long black robe, my hair was already red, so I was good there, and I put an X on my forehead. I also made a sign. Which I will now proceed to tell you about.
Boyfriend is at this corporate job, and I'm racing around putting together my Squeaky Fromme costume. I went to a Kinko's and had a picture of Charles Manson enlarged (the really crazy one) - I taped it to a piece of cardboard. Wrote underneath in red marker: FREE CHARLIE.
I know it's not funny. But ... it is funny. It was this project I was working on - so that I could wear it to his corporate law party. SHEILA. STOP. Move to Chicago and start the rest of your life. Glass jars filled with pasta do not need to be your destiny.
There is nothing wrong with putting your pasta into glass jars. But they became this SYMBOL to me, as everything I didn't want. Boyfriend had proposed marriage to me. (He was quite a bit older than I was. I was just out of college. I said "No." Thank GOD.)
So. Night of the party. Halloween in San Francisco. It's like a national holiday there - the costumes we saw on the streets were AMAZING. Boyfriend dressed as Atlas. He wore his normal clothes, and had taped a gigantic balloon with the earth on it on his back.
Meanwhile, I put on my bald wig and my cloak and picked up my sign. We took no pictures. So I have no evidence. We were like a Bad Joke walking down the street. Squeaky Fromme and Atlas walk into a bar ...
People had VERY negative reactions to my costume. Which of course I expected. I wasn't expecting people to think I was adorable. I have no idea WHAT I was thinking, frankly. Random people on the street got VERY angry with me. I loved it.
One random person, though, took one look at me and came running over to me, saying, "Are you KIDDING ME? I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!" And he got down on one knee and bowed to me in adoration. Best part of this: He was dressed as Spock.
His pal, dressed as a mermaid, looked on at this rapturous scene and said, "Spock isn't supposed to have any emotion, man." lol
When I think of me strolling into this party of corporate lawyers dressed like that - AND it was my first time meeting my boyfriend's new colleagues - like, this is the first impression I made ... I am shaking with laughter.
This one woman at the party, who was wearing regular clothes and Playboy bunny ears - was suuuuuuper irritated with me. She couldn't let it go. She said, "This is so inappropriate." "I know, right?" I said. "Do you think this is funny?" she said. "No." I said. I was a big hit!
Meanwhile, there's my boyfriend, sipping a cocktail, with a huge globe attached to his back.
Playboy-bunny-lady wanted to talk to my boyfriend - but she was so irritated by me - drinking wine in a bald wig holding a sign saying FREE CHARLIE - she kept talking ONLY to my boyfriend. I narrowed my eyes looking at her. I see you, sister, I know what you're up to.
As we walked away from the party I said, "That Playboy lady is after you." "What? No, she's not." "She wants you." "No she doesn't." "Mark my words." "Just because she didn't like your costume?" "Nope. She's INTO you. You need to trust me on this."
(Footnote: Three insane months later, when I landed in Chicago like I had escaped from Alcatraz, my now-ex-boyfriend called me and said, "I just want you to know that that Playboy lady asked me out." "I TOLD YOU DIDN'T I TELL YOU. You never listened to a word I said.")
I only lasted a couple more weeks in San Fran. In that time, however, it suddenly got very chilly. Boyfriend had a fireplace in his apartment, along with the glass jars of pasta. He wanted to make a fire. Something was wrong with the flue thingie, though.
It wouldn't stay open. Our solution was to take the cardboard sign with Charles Manson's face on it - and jam it somehow behind the thingie so it would stay open - it worked. We made a fire. We drank wine and didn't talk to each other and stared at the fire. Good times.
Years pass. My boyfriend got married within a year (not to Playboy lady) and he and his now-wife moved into a new place. I'm not in touch with him during this time. I am having a blast cavorting with Window-Boy in Chicago. (Old-timers will understand.)
At some point ... maybe 3 years later ... I remembered this whole Halloween story. I was, to put it mildly, not in the slightest bit well during that whole era so my memories are not good. But it all came rushing back. And then I thought of us pushing that sign up the chimney.
I wondered ... did he take it out before he moved? Or ... did it stay up there? I pictured the people moving into that apartment and wanting to make a fire.... They're excited, filled with hope and optimism, they love their new place, they have pasta in glass jars ...
They attempt to close the flue, and realize something is jammed up in the chimney. They wonder what it is. They start to pull on it. And out comes my fucking crazy sign.
They hurry to throw it out, seriously unsettled. Did a member of the Manson family SQUAT in this apartment in 1970?? What have we done?? Charles Manson just came out of our chimney!
They will never feel the same way about their apartment again.
At least that's how I picture it going down.
My costume lives on in the horror it caused in others. Except for Spock. Spock got it.
And coming right after this whole story - chronologically - is this epic thread. Call it Chapter 2. It was a VERY busy 12 months. From Charlie Manson in the chimney to the back of a pickup truck with a famous actor.
