Pumpkin vines creep out across our sloping lawn towards the garage. Our summer crop is coming to an end as the air turns cold. No more lettuce, cucumbers or peppers. Just the last wave of tomatoes and the pumpkins.
We harvest a few, but they are too small for carving. I draw a scary face with black marker on the brightest orange pumpkin in the group. Eyebrows resembling flames and pointed teeth, give it personality. I’ve lost the small ghosts I once made from Styrofoam balls and old sheets, but I still have a package of pseudo spider web I can use to make the house look scary.
I spray the pumpkins with vinegar to deter the sneaky squirrels from taking bites. They do it anyway. Packed away in the attic is my witch hat, to wear when the neighborhood children rap on the door.
The best age, I think, for trick or treating is between seven and eleven, big enough and brave enough to knock at a stranger’s door. I take a few photographs and remember my own childhood and the costumes I’d make: angel, princess, old-fashioned bride, devil. No one in the third-grade classroom could guess who I was, the year I dressed as the Devil. I wore a mask, covered the back of my head with a scarf and walked with a swagger. In previous years I’d always chosen frilly over-the-top feminine costumes. It’s fun to surprise people. Halloween is all about surprises.
A neighbor set up a group of coffins in their front yard one year and lay inside one, dressed as a vampire. When trick or treaters approached, he’d pop up and offer candy. Teenagers loved it. Young children cried and hid behind their parents. The performance was never repeated.
Maybe Halloween is my favorite holiday because I like the idea of new identities, multiple lives, the opportunity to be anything you want to be. That’s what fiction writers do, we create new characters and inhabit their lives.
Surprise is an acquired taste.
INSTANT NOODLES 