We both wore ripped jeans and black boots (he wore his army issued jungle boots, I wore my doc martens), a 90s band t-shirt, long sleeve, button down flannels, and wigs. We went shopping at a Halloween store to find the wigs. Mine was bright blonde and wild, his a dark brown mullet that he wore under the Wayne's World hat we'd ordered off the internet. I found a pair of drum sticks and thick black glasses somewhere. We watched the movie the night before the party to get in character.
As with 80s night, I swallowed too many drinks made with vodka and just enough cranberry juice to tinge the glass pink. Everyone had too much to drink that night. By the end of the evening our table was covered in empty beer bottles and plastic cups. We had enjoyed ourselves though and were smiling in all the pictures my sister-in-law snapped with her disposable camera.
We left the VFW to go to the same bar we went to after 80s night. They were having a costume party and we were sure we would win. Hours into the night our friend got the DJ to play Bohemian Rhapsody and my husband and I danced like Wayne and Garth. The fact that he joined me was a testament to how much he'd had to drink since we hadn't even danced on our wedding day. The head banging stirred up the gallons of liquor in my stomach though and I had to be carried away over my husband's shoulder. We never found out who won the costume contest, but by the next morning it didn't matter.
In the shuffle after we danced, my husband had lost his wig. We were going to a wedding costume party that night and needed to dress up a second time. We went back to the store we'd gone to originally, but weren't able to find the same wig. He bought one that was meant for a Jesus costume and wore the beard and long hair with his army jacket and pretended to be Vietnam Veteran as he handed out candy to the neighborhood kids. Our friend who was getting married didn't recognize either of us and nearly fell backwards in surprise when I started to speak and he realized who I was. A photographer who took our picture thought I was a boy. I laughed at how embarrassed she got when my husband said in a no-nonsense way, "She's my wife."
No matter how often I pushed the wigs beneath the guest linens at the top of our closet, they always poked back out and brushed against my hand as I was hanging our clothes. I hated the feeling of the synthetic wig and as our relationship declined I couldn't bear to see them because they reminded me of a time when we had been happy together. I wanted to throw them away but my husband thought we'd reuse them someday. I put them in plastic bags and shoved them into the black trunk at the bottom of the closet.
When I cleaned out the trunk last week I found mine, but don't know where my husband's ended up. Maybe it was one of the things he packed up when he left. Maybe he did wear it again on Halloween. It's harder to think of the happier times of our marriage because they remind me that we were once madly in love, once willing to make our relationship work from countries away, during war, and despite the challenges we faced. We always talked about growing old together, certain that our relationship would last despite how no one thought it would work.
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