It was Halloween. It was weird. The day after, Donna and I did our walk and interpreted the events of the day. It was she who used the metaphor of the mask to understand it all. She was on fire that day.

First of all, for some reason Robby decided we had to have an Irish dinner. On Halloween. The connection remained obscure, as did the nature of the thing. I wasn’t sure what an Irish dinner was, but it had to involve potatoes and Guinness, and I love both, so how bad could it be?

After dinner the other night at the Thai place, Donna and I were invited to their Halloween Party . Well, it’s not like we were special; everyone was invited, but we told people we were invited, like we were special. We kind of looked at each other and nodded. as if to say “sure, sounds like fun” to the manager and “yeah, right” to ourselves. We still weren’t sure we would go, or I thought we weren’t, then Donna texts me and asks if I have any handcuffs, real ones, not those silly fake ones. But here it was, Halloween, and Donna is wanting handcuffs, the real ones. Apparently, she had found some black leather pants with chains in Colorado and wanted to wear them. Robby and I were to go to the party as her beeyatches. When I told Fyodor on the phone what I was going as, he said “Oh, so you’ll just act the way you usually do and wear your usual clothes then.” Asshole. But that’s exactly what I did.

So Robby and I go to the grocery store, carrying with us a recipe he has printed out from Epicurious.com, and I’ve never seen him this way. He is in a world of his own, talking to himself, and looking around for shitake mushrooms and sixteen green beans. I don’t know why it had to be sixteen, but it did, and I was not to question why, mine was just to drive and buy. We wander around the local trés chic grocery picking up such odds and ends, and I just try to stay out of the way. We find a one-cent wine sale (buy one, the second is one cent) going on and grab a couple of Pinot’s for dinner, as any good Irishman would, along with the requisite six of Guinness. This could be good. This could be bad.

Once home, Robby takes over my kitchen, having brought some pots and pans himself to compensate for my culinary disabilities. He is in the zone, spreading out the ingredients and pots and pans and talking to himself still. Wanting to give the artist his space, I go outside to talk to my son Lukas. We have one of our great talks about life, love, women, and work, and all is most well. I also talk to Fyodor in New York who is wandering around Times Square looking for a club where there’s a metal band. He often calls me in New York while he’s wandering, and sometimes he asks me to look up where he is and where he is supposed to go. I find this weird and wonderful and am happy to oblige by directing him to the various venues of his new New York life. The last time it was to find Cornel West in Columbus Circle, tonight a metal band in Times Square. He also provides a running commentary on the women around him on the subways and sidewalks: “I would marry her tomorrow,” says my never-married friend about a woman he has just seen for the first time, and I believe he would. When I was there with him this summer, he did the same thing on the subway, only the woman was with what looked like a boyfriend. As we sat across from each other on the subway, the only ones in the car, I could almost see the electricity between them. Just before the Battery Park stop, he looked at me and said “I would marry her tomorrow.” When we all got up to leave, she spoke to her boyfriend, who turned around and looked directly at me, like he would kill me. Life with Fyodor is always interesting and a little dangerous at times.

I consider asking Robby if we should invite some other people over, such as Kassey or Celeste, since they’ve been hanging out some of late, or even Donna, since she’s coming over later anyway. But I don’t want to interrupt his flow, and he is flowing like Heraclitus’ river that we cannot step into twice. Finally, he finishes, and we sit down to eat on my patio. it is amazing, wonderful, delicious, sublime. One of the wonderful things about southern California is that you can always eat outside any time of year with good weather and no bugs. In fact, my dining room table is outside on my patio because that’s just where it should be. We ooh and aah over the meal: steaks, champ, vegetables, bread, wine, Guinness. I see Robby texting someone, and sure enough it is Kassey. Then he says something about where Donna is. Donna tells me on our walk that she wondered why she wasn’t invited, then deduces that Robby probably wanted to make sure the meal was awesome before he had anyone over.

As we finish up our fantastic Irish dinner, Donna makes her way over around 8:30, and she’s wearing her new pants. We learn that she rode her bike here with those pants, which gives us pause. They are indeed black and have chains on them, and she’s wearing boots that are meant to inflict pain. “Take my coat beeyatch,” she says unconvincingly, and she will do this all night. Donna is sweet and kind, and even when she calls me beeyatch, she does it with a smile. We cannot let the food go and keep nibbling until 10, when the party begins. Wisely, we walk from my house to the bar, considering for a moment having Donna use dog leashes on Robby and me, but we decide in the end that we both look beeyatchy enough in our sport coats and oxford shirts.

At the restaurant, we are treated to a classic southern California event. There is enough silicone, botox ,and collagen to pave a new HOV lane to Los Angeles. I order some vodka shots, and the owner, who is stunning in her black miniskirt and blond wig, gives them to me for free. Meanwhile, Donna has someone give her a martini. They just give it to her. Maybe it is the pants. Or the long, black wig, or the black lipstick, or the fake pirate tatoo. No, it’s just Donna. She’s an attractive woman in her early thirties who is incredibly fit, and this stuff happens to her all the time. She also, of course, worries about her ass, so I kid her about it unmercifully because there is nothing to kid about. Once when I was in LA, I called her and said “I can see your ass from here.” She was not amused.

The party is surreal, even for Halloween, and the vibe is just very strange. The people, a collection of masks, are even more unreal than they should be on Halloween. I’m not sure they’re human. Seriously. There’s just a vapidity here that is odd and discomfiting. Robby and I decide we are done with this scene and make our way to the sidewalk. There we see Donna who is texting a friend to say that she is at a surreal party. We agree that it is time to try another bar and happily leave behind the jiggling silicone mass.

We consider the college bar, but I’ve never liked it, and there’s a line to get in. I announce that I’m not standing in a f**&ing line for the f*^&ing college bar and walk toward the cool bar, Beneath the Ground. It was here that Vivien’s father and I did the karaoke version of “Sweet Home Alabama,” here where I would have had my first date in Coolville had I understood that the iPhone requires you to touch both “save” and “done” when entering a number (I never saw her again), here where Mathias kept bringing me Jim Beams neat using my credit card while I hit on his girlfriend without knowing it was his girlfriend. It was almost like coming home.

Donna, Robby, and I walk in, the dark Dorothy and her beeyatches. I order vodka-tonic while they find a table.  We look around and see the masks, but there are real people behind these masks. They are singing and dancing, enjoying the revelry of the place and the occasion. I go to look for the karaoke book and seeing it lying on a nearby table. A woman there says “hey there.” “Hey there,” I reply, not knowing who she is. “I’m the bartender at Casa Guatemala.” Now I remember her. How could I not? She’s served me gallons of margaritas, but now she’s a vampire. Does she know I’m The Slayer.

We speak for a moment, then she introduces me to her friend, Lisa, who supposedly works at Cool University. We are sitting right next to the speakers, so it’s a bit difficult to hear, but we immediately strike up a very intense and flirty conversation. Because we can’t hear, we have to put our mouths next to each other’s ears in that wonderful, practical, and semi-erotic way that conversations happen in loud bars. Very quickly, she’s doing the touching hands thing. Very quickly, she’s doing the hair-flip thing. Hmmmm.

I should point out that I’m not a player. I’m no Fyodor, who is like Casanova on speed. Seriously, I’m just enjoying the conversation, the energy of it, and how quickly two people can become, on the surface at least, somewhat intimate—in a karaoke bar—on Halloween—while I’m being someone else’s beeyatch. I don’t think much about all this until I turn to look for Donna and Robby, who are sitting at the table shaking their heads at me. Honestly, I couldn’t tell you whether Lisa was attractive or not, only that we had great energy in our conversation, but you probably don’t believe me. She did, however, smell very good.

This ear-talk, hand-touch, hair-flip thing goes on for some time. After a while I turn to look for my friends and see that Donna is surrounded by the Tin Man and Willy Wonka, and the Road Warrior is lurking nearby looking ominous. I laugh out loud at how easy it is for women like Donna, and how hard it is for men like me and Robby. But I look around and Robby is sitting with two women at a table all to themselves, and I laugh out loud again. In addition to Lisa and Monica at my table, there is Susan and Wonder Woman. We are all doing pretty well, I guess, if appearances count for anything. Of course, all that was to change.

Lisa disappears with some of the other women at the table, in that unspoken, feminine agreement that they will disappear and analyze things just as they are getting interesting. I am left with Wonder Woman. “What’s her name again?” I ask Wonder Woman, referring to the woman whose ear I have been speaking into for the last hour or so. “Lisa,” she shouts over the music. “I would marry her tomorrow,” I tell Wonder Woman, trying out Fyodor’s line. Wonder Woman replies, “She’s married. In fact she has an eight-month old daughter.” I smile in recognition of masks and fate and say “Of course she does.” She continues, “Now Susan is a doctor, a vet, and she’s single.” Right. And she hasn’t even so much as looked at me the whole time I’m sitting at her table. Monica comes back and sits on my lap. I don’t know why she does or what to do about it. Eventually, she leaves, and Robby joins our table.

Robby and Lisa get into an argument because Lisa knows Robby’s sisters and makes an disparaging remark about them. Things are beginning to spin out of control. Donna comes over to meet Lisa. She tells me on our walk the next day that she could tell she was a beeyatch the moment she met her and asks me why I go straight for the beeyatch when there are all kinds of women around. I have no answer for her. Robby’s name is called to sing the last song of the evening, and it is last call. The song is, appropriately enough, “The Night they Drove Old Dixie Down.” After he finishes, Wonder Woman and her cohort get up to leave. Lisa puts on a white, faux rabbit coat. I keep touching it for some reason. Maybe I can’t believe that a woman who smells that good and has such nice ears would wear such a thing, but like everything else tonight, it too is a mask. As we begin to go up the stairs, Lisa turns to me and says, “I’m sorry Aristaeus. It’s just not going to happen.” I laugh out loud because I don’t even know what “it” was, but I knew “it” wasn’t going to happen as soon as I learned there was a husband and child involved.

We walk home, like three refugees, dazed, drunk, and confused. We wear the mask. Robby is still angry at Lisa for the comment about his sisters and hurls curses at her into the empty night. We wear the mask. Donna is basking in the glow of attention from The Tin Man and Willy Wonka, not to mention a kiss that happened right in front of me from The Road Warrior. We wear the mask. And I, Aristaeus the Beekeeper, am walking with my friends who laugh at me and with me, who defend me and protect me, and who ask me why I would spend three hours or so with the biggest beeyatch in the bar, only to have her tell me that it’s not going to happen in the end. And I, Aristaeus the Beekeeper am happy because such is life. You open yourself to it or you miss it. And while “it” may not happen, life always will. We wear the mask.