Page 87 of Without Bound
All of us men were responsible for setting everything else up under the supervision of Vivian, Cat and Anais.We were told where to place the tables, the decorations and how to make the food set up look aesthetically pleasing. I don’t know why the food needs to be set on top of different risers, but that is what they insisted on.
“I think we got it all. Thanks,” Viv dusts her hands as if she did more than yell at us. “Y’all better go get your costumes on.”
I roll my eyes because that was another insistence. Costumes were mandatory. For the ladies, it’s easy. Slutty baseball player. Slutty nurse. Slutty maid. Hell, slutty monkey trainer. Whatever it is, make it a short ass dress and add some high heels and they’re done. It’s the guys who really suffer.
One year I got roped in by Dagen to be the Scarecrow when she was Dorothy. The costume had real damn straw. My ass was itching for a week. On the bright side, at least I didn’t have to be the Tin Man like Vaughan. It took him weeks to be rid of the silver paint.
So choosing a costume for this evening was pretty difficult. But I shuffle off to the barn apartment where I have my things and put together what should be rather interesting.
I make my way back into the main house and run smack dab into Hayes who is dressed as…I don’t really know.
“What the hell is that costume?” I ask, still eyeing him up and down.
“What? You can’t tell? I’m a bag of M & M’s.” He proudly lifts his arms and spins around in a circle, showing off his black trash bag shirt covered with photos of Eminem.
“You’re serious?”
“As serious as a bull on castration day.” I contort my face because this guy has the strangest analogies.
Cat comes walking up at that moment wearing an Adidas tracksuit, red sneakers, and a bucket hat on her head. On her jacket are wrappers pinned all over the front.
“And what are you? Run DMC?”
“Close,” she says in delight. “I’m a candy rapper.”
“Oh my lord. You two have one half of the same brain.” I shake my head and begin to walk away when Hayes calls out.
“Okay then. Ifyou’re so smart, then what the heck is that costume because I gotta tell ya, it just looks like a bunch of tissue.”
I look down at my white t-shirt covered in exactly what he thinks, tissue.
“I’m a box of tissues…blow me,” I tell them with a waggle of my brows and cocky smirk.
It earns me a loud guffaw from the two of them, and draws attention from the others.
“What’s so funny over here?” Vaughan asks, with all his boy-next-door looks and thick as syrup country twang.
“Bishop's costume,” Cat chokes out between her spurts of laughter.
Vaughan eyes me like I’m some weird creature when, mind you, he’s dressed as Tom Hanks from the movie Castaway.
He wears a scraggly wig and beard and it looks like he’s rolled around in dirt in the barn. He’s shirtless and has a pair of shredded shorts on and that’s all.
“Are you a box of jizz filled Kleenex?”
“What the fuck, Vaughan? Why does it have to be jizz filled?”
He shrugs and says, “I dunno. I just thought it looked like the floor of a teenage boy’s bedroom after he jacked off to a nudey magazine.”
“Wow. The way you McCallan brothers' minds work.” I shake my head. “You’re partly right. I am tissue…blow me,” I repeat the phrase I told Hayes and Cat, and Vaughan has the same response.
“How-how are we supposed to know that? You need a tagline written on your shirt.” Vaughan continues to snort.
“Really? You want me walking around with the words ‘blow me’ on my shirt when your almost teenage daughter comes walking through here?”
He immediately stops his chuckling and turns straight faced. His eyes bulge and despite being covered in dirt, his face pales.
“Yeah. You’re right. Just tell people to blow you when they ask. Where’s my wife?” he says quickly and scurries off to find Cami.
