The Ghostly Duo
A gay man who died in the 1980s has been haunting me on Halloween my entire adult life. There, I said it! That’s right, my name is Danny Pellegrino, and I have a homosexual ghost chasing me around on the spookiest holiday. Feels good to finally get that off my chest.
Being in touch with otherworldly spirits is quite a controversial topic. Brave celebrities like Vanessa Hudgens, Kesha, Demi Lovato, and Theresa Caputo have all been loud and proud about their connection to the deceased, but I’ve never quite been able to live my truth…until now. Every October 31, my queer celestial visitor rears his fabulous translucent head and spends the October holiday alongside me.
Ghostly guides are nothing new. Any fan of the 1995 feature film Casper knows that sometimes even ghosts have ghosts. In that movie, Casper is a friendly ghost, but he’s spending his death being haunted by his own personal phantoms in the form of his uncles, known as the Ghostly Trio. These three grown-slash-dead men each have their own unique names, which I’m going to need approximately forty-five minutes to unpack: Stretch, Stinkie, and Fatso. According to the rules of the Casper lore, these are the characters’ actual birth names, not nicknames. If we are to assume the friendly ghost was named Casper before he kicked the bucket and the other characters who straddle the line between living and dead also retain their earthly names when they become phantoms, then logically the uncles’ birth certificates must name them as Stretch, Stinkie, and Fatso.
Ignoring for a moment that only a truly heinous parent would name their child Fatso, there are still so many mysteries to unpack with this paranormal family. If Casper’s grandparents would name their children Stretch, Stinkie, and Fatso, then what were the names of Casper’s father or mother? And how were Casper’s parents able to escape ghostdom and proceed to a proper afterlife unlike the rest of the fam? I’m always blown away by siblings who somehow survive an unlikely fate. Sometimes you meet someone who has it all together, only to learn they have a brother or sister who is a complete mess. Somewhere along the way, they veered from their bloodline. It’s unclear if Stretch, Stinkie, and Fatso were Casper’s uncles of the maternal or paternal variety, but either way, they were stuck in the in-between with a boy who died at such a young age and still managed to remain friendly.
I can only assume those slovenly and rude uncles are heterosexual, as they have no respect for Christina Ricci or a cameo from Amy Brenneman on the big screen. (Side note: if you haven’t seen Casper in a while, go watch it immediately. It’s crazy. I also believe it would’ve had a larger cultural footprint if the three uncles were three aunts played by iconic actresses like in Hocus Pocus, but that’s a theory for another time.)
I didn’t see a gay ghost on screen or off until I was a teenager. Casper does turn into Devon Sawa at the end of the movie, and though I wished Devon were gay and wanted to run off with me when I saw it as a young boy, that, alas, was not meant to be—which is why it was even more surprising when I discovered a gay ghost took a liking to me post puberty.
The first sign of my personal queer apparition was Halloween 2002ish. I was a teenager: too old to be trick-or-treating and not old enough to be out at a party. Instead, I was stuck in the in-between, passing out candy as the holiday episodes of Roseanne played on the TV. My parents were at their adult function, my older brothers were already off at college, and I was sneaking into the liquor cabinet for a “cocktail,” drinking the first thing I found, which was some green liquor my cousin had illegally mailed from another country. I was home alone with obscene amounts of chocolate and booze, and a steady stream of kids dressed as vampires and Powerpuff Girls were knocking at the door for sweets.
In the suburbs of Ohio, trick-or-treating wraps up at an early hour. Occasionally, you get a straggler, but typically, you’re done at 10:00 p.m. By 10:15, I was still wide awake and out of episodes to watch on Nick at Nite, so when the doorbell rang, I was ready to send them away and turn off the porch light so I could be left in peace with my green drink.
“Candy is done! Now scram,” I said, sounding like an ’80s movie villain.
When I opened the door and looked down, expecting to see a young person looking for a fun-size Snickers (we never gave out the full-size candy bars), I instead saw a VHS tape. I looked to my right and then to my left…no one was nearby. The streets were quiet. I picked up the tape, and it was a copy of 9 to 5, the 1980 film starring Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, and Dolly Parton. Quite possibly the most gay-friendly cast ever assembled! While I was still in the closet at the time, I was no stranger to lady-led entertainment. It’s imperative to remind you that Stepmom was in high rotation; I even used to bring a version I taped off the TV with us on family vacations, assuming my parents and two brothers would want to watch a drama about a dying mother while we were getting away from life’s troubles on a Florida beach. Even so, I hadn’t yet seen 9 to 5. Rather than question how or why it had arrived at my feet, I simply went to the living room and put it into the VCR. I was enamored. Obsessed even. The thought crossed my mind that perhaps a spirit had delivered the goods, but I wasn’t yet convinced.
Cut to a couple of years later, while in my sophomore year of college at Ohio University, when a group of us decided to take a trip to the Ridges to celebrate Halloween. The Ridges in Athens, Ohio, was formerly known as the Athens Lunatic Asylum, a hospital for people who suffered from various mental illnesses. Students would take trips to the abandoned Ridges at night because it was widely thought to be a haunted location. We gathered our flashlights and cocktail-filled water bottles, drove up once it was dark, and inspected the building, which was filled with old desks and supplies from years prior. Needless to say, it was spooky. During the visit, I shined a light on a rickety desk used for kids who had been schooled at the asylum. There was something scribbled on the chair. I called my friend Tina over to help me read it, but when she arrived with her own flashlight, the markings disappeared. She quickly turned her attention somewhere else, and when I looked back down, there it was! Scribbled on a seat…
If you can’t say anything nice about anybody, come sit by me, it read. A Steel Magnolias quote! Right there, written in the empty loony bin—one of the most haunted places on earth! Of course, this was a film I was familiar with, a 1989 classic starring Sally Field, Julia Roberts, Shirley MacLaine, Olympia Dukakis, Daryl Hannah, and, once again, Dolly Parton. At this point, I was convinced there was a Dolly stan visiting me from the beyond.
Over the years, late October would hit, and I would keep an eye out for the signs of my gay ghost. There was a costume party in my midtwenties where I saw seven women and two men dressed as Jennifer Beals from Flashdance, and when I tried to gather them all for a picture, only one of the men could be found. He kept saying he was the only man dressed in that costume at this party, but I was certain I peed next to another drag Jennifer Beals because I remember he tried to pick me up in the bathroom, and I never forget someone who tries to pick me up in a restroom. Sexual advances next to a toilet are too personal to forget. Although this experience didn’t provide any additional support for my Dolly Parton theory, it did prove I was being haunted.
The next encounter occurred in my early thirties. I took my niece and nephew trick-or-treating with my older brother, and as we were walking the suburban northeast Ohio street, I noticed something familiar. I was staying at my brother’s house for the week, and his bar was filled with all sorts of unused bottles of booze, so I’d peeped a familiar green one, mixed it with Sprite, and poured it into a Super Mario to-go mug. As we were walking, I heard someone whispering, “Snap out of it!” in my ear over and over.
“Do you hear that?” I said to my eight-year-old niece.
“I don’t hear anything,” she said.
“You don’t hear a man talking like Cher in Moonstruck?”
“What’s Moonstruck?” she said, making the case for straights not being allowed to raise children.
Was I having a mental break? Possibly. Maybe. Probably. Likely. But I heard a Cher impression in my ear plain as day while holding a Mario mug full of liquor!
That’s four different Halloweens! Four! Four times I was presented with ghostly information centered around 1980s chick flicks. I had my suspicions about a gay ghost, but of course, I couldn’t be certain. That is, until the most recent Halloween.
What I’m about to tell you is heavy. If you’re driving, pull over. You’ll never be able to un-remember this. If you’re someone who is spooked easily, I recommend skipping to the next chapter because I can’t be responsible for the nightmares you will endure after I tell you this next tale.
It was a different kind of All Hallows’ Eve, one spent on the island of Maui in Hawaii. My boyfriend Matt and I opted to get away from the hustle and bustle of our everyday lives and unwind on a sandy beach adjacent to a Four Seasons. I love going on vacation over holidays. There’s something extra relaxing about it. It almost feels naughty, like you’re doing something you’re not supposed to.
When we got to Hawaii, the resort was quiet. There were a few families, with a small handful of kids at the pool wearing costume sunglasses that made them look like wolves and fairies, but mostly, there was nary a sign of Halloween in sight. Palm trees and macadamia nuts replaced the traditional broomsticks and Kit Kats. I spent the afternoon doing my favorite spooky season activity: watching every daytime talk show host wearing absurd costumes. I live to see TODAY show anchors in prosthetics that make them look like Charlie Brown characters or the fabulous Kelly Ripa in Harley Quinn cosplay while interviewing whatever celeb has a movie out that week.
As the sun set on October 31, my significant other and I retreated to a nearby luau, where we were seated with three other couples, including one who said they too were from the Midwest, a man and woman in their late sixties named Rod and Shelly, who looked broken and empty, like the shells of sunflower seeds found in the dugout of a baseball field. Almost immediately upon meeting me, Shelly mentioned the first time she and Rod made love freshman year of college after a football game. She also told me she and her roommates would smear lipstick on the door if one of them had a guy over and that by spring semester, it looked like “a doorway to a clown’s dressing room” because Rod would spend so many nights with her. I hope those poor roommates are doing well now. Point is Shelly and Rod were both fun and wildly forthcoming, as the most interesting people always are.
“We snuck some hooch in here,” Rod whispered under his stank breath as he pointed to his rusty flask. Shelly, meanwhile, was already overserved, inexplicably talking to the saltshaker as if it were one of her oldest and dearest friends.
I need you to know I would never drink from a stranger’s cup; it’s a terrible thing to do, and no one should ever do it, and I certainly would never drink from an unknown flask…unless I’m on vacation, in which case, I’ll put my lips around just about anything (ladies, amiright?). What we hadn’t realized when buying the tickets was that it was a dry luau, so the only alcohol was courtesy of this man named Rod, who told me every time there was a microphone within ten feet that he’d manually removed his tooth filling. I’m no lush, but I like a few cockies when I’m on holiday, so I let Rod fill my island pineapple juice with his own juice and made my way to the buffet.
In high school, they nicknamed me Two-Drink Danny because after a couple of cups, I was either dancing on a table or asleep. No middle ground. One of the benefits of not drinking a lot is that you can get drunk for cheap, but that also means you are in an unpredictable danger zone each time you indulge.
After just one of Rod’s really strong punches, I was in dance-on-table mode. The event had a live band, so this is where I regretfully tell you all that I did ask them to play “I Put a Spell on You” in honor of the spooky holiday. They were kind enough to play the Hocus Pocus version, and I assume white people dancing to a seasonal Disney song in Maui is why The White Lotus struck a chord with so many viewers, because everyone got way too excited to hear Bette Midler singing on the loudspeaker. We shouldn’t be allowed anywhere.
Eventually, I tuckered out. As I said my goodbyes to Rod and Shelly, he bamboozled me into taking one last shot of his magic potion. I obliged—and noticed it had a familiar taste when not mixed with pineapple juice—before I stumbled off to my room with my (sober) boyfriend, who, much like every night of a vacation, found himself exhausted by me.
“Yamikipiyabo, sub saray, I see do. See do!” I said to him, neither one of us knowing what it meant.
“You’re too drunk,” he said as I fell onto the bed. Before I knew it, he was snoring next to me, and my mind was racing. I had to get out of the room and explore the island; my buzz was calling me to do so.
I tiptoed out of the crisp hotel sheets and into the airport flip-flops I bought for too much money when I realized I left my own pair under my bed back home. Quietly, I made my way to the beach, where I found a group of young people carving pumpkins. Things are a bit fuzzy from here on out, so forgive me. The next order of events was roughly as follows:
Pumpkin carving.
A shot?
Sand.
I flipped my shorts inside out.
I drunk dialed my friend Beth.
I flipped my shirt inside out.
I swam (whether it was in the pool or ocean is unclear).
Before I knew it, it was the next morning. The sun rose on November 1, and the waves crashing against the sand woke me right up. Rather than spooning with my loved one, I was cuddling a carved and soggy pumpkin ON THE BEACH. A carved and soggy pumpkin that simply read, Fred. My clothes were inside out, and my phone was dead. How did I get there? What happened? Why was the pumpkin all wet? I had no choice but to piece together what happened from the few clues I had. My boyfriend didn’t even know I hadn’t been in the room, so he wouldn’t be much help. My phone battery was shot, so until it charged, I wouldn’t have a tech trail to examine. I plugged it into the wall back in the room and headed to the hotel breakfast buffet. Maybe some food in me would help jog my memory, I figured.
While I was loading up on obscene amounts of mango and French toast, I noticed a table of twentysomething women giggling and looking my way.
“DP!” one of the young ladies yelled.
“Hi! Do I know you?”
“Omigod, you don’t remember? We partied last night on the beach!” she said.
“Ugh, I’m sorry. I had some sketchy drink at dinner, and I don’t remember much of anything from last night,” I mentioned.
“You and Fred were wild!” she exclaimed with a loud cackle.
Shit, I thought. First Fred’s name appeared on the pumpkin, and now a messy twentysomething was saying he and I were wild together! I was on this vacation with the love of my life—the last thing I wanted to do was cheat on him with some floozy vacation slut named Fred!
“Is Fred…here? What does he look like?” I asked, hoping that if I cheated on the man I was committed to spending the rest of my life with, maybe it was at least with someone who looked like Channing Tatum (fingers crossed)!
“Beats me,” she said. “You kept telling us a man named Fred was with you, but you were all alone. You were singing something called ‘Endless Love,’ but you kept telling us you were only doing the Lionel Richie parts because Fred was there singing the Diana Ross parts. You were really fucked up.”
Unfortunately, that story sounds like me, so I took her word for it. I’ve been known to force people to listen to me sing duet ballads when I’m drunk, only I normally have a singing partner in the flesh. The idea that I was just doing half a song for a full audience of tourists…that was tough for me to hear in the November Hawaii daylight.
“Do you know why I put my clothes inside out?” I asked reluctantly.
“You told us Fred wanted to do a fashion show.”
Finally, it clicked. Fred is my gay ghost. He was with me as a teen ensuring I saw 9 to 5, during the college years to signify the importance of Steel Magnolias, in my twenties when I needed to be reminded of Flashdance, in my thirties to highlight Moonstruck, and now to spotlight a legendary Diana Ross/Lionel Richie song and the elation of a spontaneous fashion show. He visits me on Halloween to enjoy the gay ’80s pop culture touchstones. My best guess is that he passed away in the decade and his unfinished business is teaching younger homosexuals about the pertinent stuff, knowing that as a ’90s kid, I am not as familiar with the classics of the decade I was born. I’m grateful to Fred for acting as my spirit guide and showing me a good time, ensuring I am familiar with the queens who came before my time.
Some monsters appear when it’s a full moon, the Sanderson sisters come out to play when a virgin lights a black-flame candle, and Fred arrives on Halloween night to relive the queerest parts of the Reagan decade. For all of you out there who are skeptical of the supernatural, I encourage you to keep an eye out this October 31 for your own gay ghost because there’s nothing more magical than a night out with a homosexual who has an affinity for the film work of Dolly Parton.
Author’s Note: In writing this chapter, I realized that in each instance when I thought I was visited by a gay ghost named Fred, I had been not just drinking but drinking something called absinthe, a hallucinogenic liquor that may or may not have been the reason I thought I was being chased by a homosexual spirit. Oops. Drink responsibly next Halloween.