November 02, 2007

1:44 p.m.

Revels

On Tuesday, Dar and I found ourselves in Salem as planned, after several delays involving the Red Sox parade and my general lateness. We took the commuter train from Boston and walked a couple of blocks to a Thai restaurant, where Dar had what he deemed the weirdest tasting martini ever. The food was good, though, and we reshouldered our bag of goodies (tealights, small brandy snifters, matches... two mouse masks) and headed into what we expected to be the Thick of Things.

But Salem was oddly placid. Whether because we got there after dark or because everyone was tired out from reveling over the Sox, we didn�t know. We wound our way towards the little courtyard where we do our candle ritual, and the only real action we saw was on the corner where the Christians always proseletyze on this date, brandishing signs about hell, speaking through megaphones against sin and witchcraft and people who dress up as little doggies and kitties for Satanic purposes. Sometimes they�re just ignored, but this time a crowd had gathered. It was an out-and-out shoutfest. Most were dressed in everyday clothes, some not. Dorothy Gale milled about with a vampire and a cow with udders, and a Naughty Nurse with nosepiercing stood right in front with her boyfriend�s arms around her waist, taunting the Scoffheathens in a loud voice. She�d ask a leading question like, �Are you kidding? If you were ever in a jail they�d beat the crap out of you! Have you ever BEEN in jail?� And the young Zealot would pause a moment for effect, before saying, with an immeasurable weight of underlying gravity and meaning, �Yes, I have.� �So, how did you like getting it up the ass?� someone else would shout. Meanwhile another sign holder would be decrying the presumably sinful and doomed lives of everyone who was not carrying a sign. It was quite good theatre, but we were on our own mission so carried on after a minute or so.

What did they do later, I wondered, after their witnessing and preaching were over? Did they go to someone�s house for Coke and Cheez-Its, and talk about how persecuted they were? Did they get off on the Biblical-style injustice they�d suffered? Did it feel righteous and good?

You can make anything feel righteous and good if you decide to believe in it. Hitler, for example, I imagine, felt quite righteous a lot of the time. I remember, from my long-ago born-again days, how one comes up with justifications for all this. Frankly, it�s frightening. Appropriate for Hallowe�en, don�t you think?

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We placed our memorial candles and then walked through the adjacent graveyard, some of which stones go back to the 17th Century, when things were spelled oddly and people loved to compose horribly sad and depressing poetry by which to remember their loved ones. After reading several by candlelight, Dar exclaimed, �Holy smokes!� only, as he was speaking in the parlance of the time, it came out, �Holy fmokef!�

We paused by several small ones with no inscriptions. Babies, perhaps, nameless, timeless.

Then, glad to be alive, we strolled down streets and into the few shops that were still open, then made our way back to the train station to start the long trip home. Train; subway; Dar�s car to the T station; my car home. I got in roughly 2:30, got to bed at 3, and the heating contractors were due at 7:30 that morning.

********

They�ve been here all week, working mainly on the 2nd floor. Still, I have to be up early in case they�re ready to come up here. The work, I�m told now, will go to the middle of next week. Happily, they won�t be here over the weekend, and I will be. Sleeping.

Hallowe�en itself was a hoot! I went as Dead Tired. I wore a granny nightie and robe, a lace sleeping cap, and dead face makeup. I must say I looked pretty good. If there had been more time I�d have rolled tire tracks across the nightie, but one can only do so much. Marc had been pulling shingles off his roof for several days and was exhausted and without any costume ideas. His neice came up with a big purple cloak with a huge hood, and he sat on the bench in front with the hood obscuring his face, holding a huge scythe. Iggy Pop blared out of the stereo, reading �The Tell-Tale Heart.� Cannonball lamps flared and smoked up the walk. A little firepit burned by the retaining wall. Rose dressed in elegant black with tiara (borrowed mine! Thanks, Hiss!), rhinestone necklace, and dead makeup � the Corpse Bride, appropriate as she just got married two weeks ago. Wes was stunningly elegant in black clothing underneath this shiny, slightly transparent overcoat (overdress?) and a witch hat with black hair attached. He made up as Dead too, of course, and drew a goatee and heavy eyebrows and a pencil mustache with black pencil. (�I like putting on makeup,� he mused at the mirror.) With the fake black hair falling over his natural curls, we dubbed him the Hasidic Witch. Marc�s neice was the Angry Villager, with excellent Renn-Faire style dress and a pitchfork. (Where does Marc come up with all the vintage farm equipment?)

Things were relatively predictable, with kids coming up the walk and getting candy and us improvising little creepy things to say to them, until I decided to go out to the street and drape myself over the hood of one of our parked cars.

There I lay, for probably ten or fifteen minutes, unmoving.

People started to gather.

First a couple of girls came by, and one shrieked when she saw me. Then embarrassed laughter, lots of �Oh my God, there�s a body on that car!� and �Is it real?� and �Is it dead?� And, �If it suddenly screams at me, I�m gonna freak OUT!�

Then a group of little kids would pass, taunting one another, daring each other to touch the dead body. Very few dared. One older kid somehow appointed himself my Guardian, hanging around for several minutes telling everyone, �Don�t worry, she�s just sleeping! She�s just asleep, she isn�t dead! Don�t be afraid!� There were many appreciative comments from adults which, of course, I couldn�t acknowledge, being dead. Behind my closed eyelids I detected lots of flashbulbs going off.

Finally these two kids, maybe nine years old (I�m really guessing from the voices; I had my eyes closed), couldn�t seem to leave me alone. One of them insisted I was breathing and therefore must be alive. He kept trying to convince his friend. Then the dares started. Who would be brave enough to touch the cold hand hanging off the car? (And I was cold. I was friggin� freezing by this time.) I began to wonder what would happen if there was a rumble, if they all banded together and lifted me up above their little heads and bore me away down the street. Would Wes come and save me? I slowly, slowly opened my eyes to half-mast and stared, deadlike, into the middle distance so I could get a peripheral idea of what was going on. One noticed my eyes were open. There was shouting. I looked at the perp; he was looking away. I stared at him until he looked back. His eyes shot open. I waited five seconds, then slowly, slowly started to roll off the car, reaching for him.

I never saw a crowd of kids back away so fast in my life!

A few crouching steps and a snarling lunge later, my tribe was laughing in the yard and I with them, and the kids moved on.

I only wish I�d thought to bring the vampire teeth. Vampire teeth would have made it better. Next year.

I subsequently draped myself in the crook of a tree and over an overturned wooden wheelbarrow, so I could be seen on the walkway as the kids came trembling up for their loot.

One little kid, Rose said, was dressed in a suit and had a briefcase for his candy. He said to her, �If she�s been hit by a car, she needs a lawyer. You tell her to call me!�

********

As a result of all that ghoulish merriment, I have come down with a painful cold. I�m hopeful that it won�t develop too severely, and if I�m careful I�ll get through the gig tonight all right. Thank Goddess I have the weekend off. I�m dead tired.