Halloween Haunts: Am I related to Dracula? Or, Prince Patrick’s Perennial Halloween Costume
by P.F. Roquelaure (pen name of Patrick R. Field)
I was born with a prominent “widow’s peak,” the triangular shaped hairline on the forehead in which the apex lines up with the mid-sagittal line (middle) of the skull, projecting towards but never reaching the space between the eyebrows. The term “widow’s peak” originated from the triangular point of the hood of mourning that was worn by widows in the 1800’s…From my earliest baby pictures through the buzz cut years, my widow’s peak was very evident…Like most young boys, I was not aware of my appearance and often had to rely on my parents to remind me about simple hygienic issues or wearing clean clothes to school or church. But one Saturday afternoon, when I was between 6/7 years of age, I took notice of my unusual hairline and that changed my life forever.
I had a specific schedule for TV watching on Saturday morning/afternoon. First, it was my favorite cartoon Scooby Doo and then the fantasy live-action serials like H.R. Puf’nstuf, or Sigmund the Sea Monster. Once those had aired, then it was onto the next phase of Saturday viewing, the horror movie on the local UHF channel. I had two choices. Either Ghost Host on Channel 45 in Baltimore, or Count Gore De Vol, name play on the famous author/poet Gore Vidal, and his Creature Feature on Channel 20 in Washington DC. At this age, I was not allowed to watch the scary late night horror movies, nightmares were a problem, but I was allowed to watch the comedic black and white Abbott and Costello movies in which they met Boris Karloff as Frankenstein, Lon Chaney as the Wolfman, and Bela Lugosi as Dracula! I thought that all the monsters were neat, but Dracula was the coolest villain by far because of his cape, his fangs, his interesting accent, his ability to change into a bat, and his slicked back hair that comes to a point above his eyes… wait a minute… that looks familiar! I quickly darted to the nearest mirror during the next commercial break and observed my own hair line. I have hair like Dracula!! Am I a vampire like Dracula?
When I asked Mom about my possible vampiric nature, I am sure it was all she could do to keep from laughing out loud. But she didn’t want to hurt my feelings, as she knew that I had a deep fascination for all things supernatural. To determine if I was a long-lost distant relative of the Transylvanian count, she asked me a few basic questions that would reveal whether I was a vampire or not:
“Do you have fangs?”
“Have you ever drunk anyone’s blood?”
“Do you sleep during the day?”
“Can you walk into the daylight without burning up?”
Of course, I knew none of these characteristics applied to me. However, I did have an affinity for taking naps during the day and I didn’t like to go outside during the day because my pale, fair skin was very prone to sunburn… Maybe this sensitivity to the sun, my sleeping during the day, and my widow’s peak were remnants of vampirism that had diminished through the generations?
But even after it was apparent that I was not Dracula’s nephew, it still didn’t quench my thirst (pun intended) for all things Dracula/vampire. I watched more Dracula movies, especially Christopher Lee’s movies, by quickly switching the channel when my parents exited the family room. I loved the Munsters, a comedic parody of classic movie monsters cohabitating as a family in a sinister looking Victorian mansion, in which I was jealous of the vampire tyke Eddie Munster. And then there was my favorite blood sucker of all time: the vampire Barnabas Collins on the daytime soap opera Dark Shadows. Dark Shadows had a profound effect on my life. The characters, the eerie musical score, and the sinister gothic mansion featured in the opening scenes were the live action equivalents to my favorite cartoon, Scooby Doo, which made the possibilities of my becoming part of this world more realistic…
This obsession with all things vampiric led to my perennial choice for a Halloween costume. When I first approached Mom with the idea of being Dracula, she not only supported the idea, but was sort of enthusiastic to help me with my costume. My parents were rather conservative in their film preferences, and never indulged in my taste for horror, but Mom knew that Halloween was important to me, as that it was my favorite “holiday.” I mention this now because Grandma once asked me what my favorite holiday was when I was young, and much to her surprise, I didn’t reply with a religious event like Christmas, or a national celebration like Thanksgiving. Like most children that have a theatrical nature, Halloween is an outlet for that type of creativity; the only time of the year when you can don a costume and become anyone or anything you wanted for just one night. The chance to assume a different exotic identity and be released from the confines of a normal existence was something I craved.
My costume consisted of a home-made silky cape, black trousers, white dress shirt, a gold medallion on a red ribbon worn around the neck, and cheap fangs that hurt my gums instantly. A makeup kit containing white and red greasepaint transformed my face to a ghostly white pallor with blood red lips. But what about Dracula’s black, slicked back shiny hair that accentuated “our” unique hairline? Mom had thought of this as well. After I dressed in my costume and the make-up was done, she sat me down in the bathroom and gently applied liquid black shoe polish to my blonde mop. I didn’t ask whether the chemicals in the polish could be harmful or that it might not wash out of my hair, because it probably looked cool and I trusted my Mom’s judgement. She made sure that none of the skin outside of my hairline was blackened with the polish, emphasizing my widow’s peak by carefully outlining the triangular shape with black eye liner. When I looked in the mirror after she was finished with my hair, I was speechless. I looked like Dracula, or at least, like a member of his family.
That particular Halloween night was magical for me, one that I will never forget. I was complemented all night long by parents and kids on how authentic I looked, frequently asked about what was in my hair to give it that vampiric look. When I proudly told them it was black shoe polish, expressions of awe or disbelief were accompanied by the obvious question: “How are you going to get that out of your hair?” I wasn’t sure, but I also didn’t care.
To top off this magnificent evening, I won for best costume for children 12 and under at our neighborhood festival. I basked in this newfound limelight of fame as I proudly wore the glittery royal blue ribbon pinned to my white shirt. Nothing could ruin my memory of this night. It didn’t matter that it would require painful scrubbing to get the polish out of my hair, which didn’t completely come out the first time, as evidenced by the black smears left on my pillow the following morning…
Even though my Widow’s Peak gradually disappeared when my hairline and hair density changed, the tradition of dressing as a vampire in various incarnations for Halloween continued into my adult years. After devouring Anne Rice’s novels Interview with the Vampire and the Vampire Lestat in my early 20s, I decided to dress up as Lestat on one particular Halloween in Richmond, Virginia. Lestat’s costume consisted of his signature long, white-blond flowing hair (a mannequin wig that I borrowed from Thalhimer’s department store), a black shirt with epaulettes, and the usual vampiric make-up. I thought I looked pretty authentic until some drunk queen mistook me for Krystle Carrington on Dynasty; her broad-shouldered look and requisite blond bob were huge that year. There were other Halloweens when I dressed like a vampire, but nothing ever compared to that first time as Dracula. With my black, slicked back hair and widow’s peak, I looked like the real deal! Take that Eddie Munster!
Prince Patrick: A Memoir, Patrick R. Field, LuLu.com 2016
After 25 years in higher education, Patrick R. Field traded in teaching and textbooks to pursue his passion of spine-chilling fiction writing. Holding a Ph.D. in Anatomical Sciences and Neuroscience, his experience informs his writing, a unique blend of scientific knowledge with supernatural storytelling. His novels include The Malevolent, The Bedfordshire Warlock and Servant. Up next, Bloodstone, a paranormal gay romance set in the Outer Banks of North Carolina involving pirate lore and blood magic.
Novel for promotion: The Malevolent, P.F. Roquelaure (pen name of Patrick R. Field), The Wild Rose Press, June 2025
In 1983, Griffin Andrew Meade moves to Bartholomew Bay, settling into Antioch, the ancestral mansion of the wealthy Bartholomew family. Unbeknownst to him, he discovers it is haunted by the restless spirit of Angelus Bartholomew III, who met a tragic death in 1919 after a fatal fall from the widow’s walk. Through flashback dreams, Griffin begins to unravel the secret romance between Angelus and Lazarus Benedictine, the lighthouse keeper’s son—a forbidden love story that echoes Griffin’s own budding relationship with Christian Gutmann. But the past refuses to stay buried. Angelus’s spirit unleashes a series of deadly acts that reveal his malevolent intent to reclaim his lost love: Lazarus, in the afterlife. Griffin is faced with an agonizing choice: assist Angelus in his sinister plot or risk the lives of his family and first love.
Excerpt:
Prologue Antioch June 22, 1919
A lightning bolt illuminates the sky, followed by the rumbling of distant thunder, casting a momentary brightness over the stone pavement that borders the back porch of a great Victorian mansion. The storm is passing. A furious rain pelts the uneven flagstones, forming rivulets that flow into shallow puddles. The rain dilutes a larger pool of red, washing it away in thin streams between the stones. The red liquid spills from torn pale white flesh. Pinkish matter oozes from the fissure, revealing gleaming cracked bone. The grotesque display of anatomy is the crushed forehead of a human being. The being’s longish blond hair is draped across the deep jagged laceration and the undamaged left half of the forehead and face. The bluish white eyes stare at nothing, bulging above prominent cheekbones. Blood trickles from the corners of pale, thin lips. The nose is long and thin, blood seeps out of the left nostril. The face is beautiful, without any visible wrinkles. The long pale neck is at an unnatural angle with the rest of the body. The person is naked, lying on its right side with the left arm crossing its chest and lying on the stone pavement. The fingers are curled into the flagstone. The rain bounces off the flesh of the well-muscled, flat abdomen in small eruptions. The pale gray phallus lying flaccid against the pelvis and blond pubic hair indicates the deceased is male. His long muscular thighs and legs are folded together, his knees symmetrically bent. A long gash protrudes from his knee to the ankle, blood no longer pouring from the wound. His feet rest on the pavement and the toes of his left foot curl into the flagstones like the fingers. His body is becoming more rigid as rigor mortis sets in. Lightning flashes provide glimpses of the naked, broken, beautiful man who was strikingly handsome when he was alive. An angelic-looking creature that has fallen to the earth from the sky.
When will he be discovered?
Or has he…?
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Purchase links:
Indiebound/Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-malevolent-p-f-roquelaure/22528733
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F3ZGD59C/thewildrosepr-20
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