Madison.

So we did Halloween Madison-style.Brian (Boyfriend's sister's fiancée), Michelle (Boyfriend's sister), Boyfriend and I all trotted out to State Street dressed variously as a gargoyle, cyber-pirate, conquistador, and witch-priestess-thingy (not in that order).

Brian's gargoyle costume required an extraordinary amount of spirit gum, latex "skin", makeup, and the mad skilz of a theater-trained-makeup-artist. It was thus, as you can imagine, impressively cool and quite terrifying. I personally admired the moment when he (6'3") stopped outside the window of a Starbucks and smiled at everyone inside - yipes.

There were approx. a billion or two people on State Street, making a shoulder-to-shoulder surging drunken writhing mass of flesh and plastic. Mounted cops on horses adorned each corner, girls not wearing nearly enough to hold off hypothermia staggered down the street, snarled lines of people 3 blocks long waited to get into the bars, bar floors were covered in a very slick layer of beer --- ahhhh the Madison experience. It was creepy and annoying while sober and riotously entertaining while drunk (as are most things in the world).

I also got to see Mickey Mouse lay the smack down on some girls dressed up as brownies that were trying to cut in line in front of us. We had been waiting in line for at least half an hour to get into this bar, and a couple of girls in little brown skirts and pigtails tried to cut in front of Mickey while giggling and acting er... "cute". My childhood memories will now always be interrupted by the thought of Mickey yelling at two girls "get the hell back where you came from!" "I rather like being a jackass" and "your smiles won't get you anywhere little girl - you're not that pretty". Mickey - you rock.

A man in a leopard-print manpouch also tried to cut in line with the excuse "I'm cold" - Frankly, sir, it is your own damn fault that you wandered out into the STREET on the 31st of OCTOBER in WISCONSIN in nothing but a MANPOUCH. My pity really only extends so far for idiots.

Everything was great in the bar - drinks abounded, cute girls and hot bartenders served up drinks that were unholy strong. Michelle had the good sense to stop after 2 drinks, the boyfriend and I were holding our own, and Brian was just fine until I wandered downstairs to get him a requested "strongest drink possible". This ended up being a Johnny Walker Black Label neat. The bartender, against all odds, filled a 12 oz glass half full (we had been tipping well). And Brian downed said drink in less that 2min. This was the beginning of the end for him.

Rather drunk we all staggered to Memorial Union - upon arriving (and slowly realizing that something was wrong), a gang war broke out on the steps outside. Me, drunk, seeing a guy unconscious on the pavement, bolted into the middle of a gang fight (not my best move) with the boyfriend close behind. When I got out there a circle of guys had just finished kicking this guy in the face and were taking on someone else. By the time I got to him (no more than 5 seconds later) his face was already becoming inflamed, his eye was swelling shut, and he was bleeding profusely from his temple, nose, mouth, chest and god knows where else. I only got out a "Can you hear me?" to check for responsiveness before the cops arrived and drove us away from him - and then -- MOVED HIM - no C-collar, nothing. Fuck - all I could hope was that in the repeated bashings against the ground those punks hadn't injured his spine. He came to by the time we decided to get the hell out of dodge.

We walked home a bit aghast at the callousness of people, but surprisingly sober (well -- except for Brian).Have you ever seen a wolf pack hunt on TV? When there is a single victim - say a deer - and each member of the pack comes up and takes a bite until the deer falls down and then they all descend on it together? It was just like that. No one aggressor, no one to point to. They just evaporated as soon as he was down.

Woke up at 6am and padded around the apartment in the dark - restless. I thought of a thousand things I could have done better for that guy - I think his name was Darien. Brian looked like a zombie in the early-morning-closed-blinds light. Maybe I should go into medicine. I didn't even think about not running out there. I could have gotten shot, I could have gotten tear-gassed (the cops on Halloween don't really discern between aggressor, victim and bystander), I could have gotten stabbed - It was a really stupid thing to do. The Boyfriend poured an entire bottle of Hydrogen Peroxide on the bloodstains when he got home.

I'd like to say that it ruined my State Street experience, but really - on the balance the evening was really fun. People are such assholes.