2006-10-26
All Hallows
10/31/05
Even a hurricane couldn't stop me from celebrating Halloween. Mama and I sat on the front deck, surrounded by pumpkin-shaped candles and tin buckets of citronella. She even managed to rig a string of lights across the porch (powered by a generator).
"The neighbors will think we've got our power back," she said, laughing.
The kids next door wandered over when it got darker and buggier. They ran around the backyard with glowsticks and flapping capes. I joined them in my purple Corpse Bride wig, dead bouquet, and pale nightgown. Later we went to the beach and ate sushi with the drag queens (who towered over the thickening crowd in heels so high, they practically stilt-walked).
The scariest costume? A Florida Power and Light worker in a hardhat and Day Glo vest. A trio of men in "I survived the hurricane(s)" t-shirts danced with battered umbrellas. Even the leashless dogs wore disguises: greyhounds in angel wings and lopsided halos, poodles in tutus.
I stopped to take a picture of a man straight out of Manet painting: bowler hat and old timey suit. He paused on the sidewalk, the crowd streaming around him, and lifted a dark cloud (not a parasol, as I'd imagined) over his head. Then it began to trickle down his face--an amazing trick.
Afterwards, I stood on the roof of the parking garage, looking at all the lights blinking below us. Soon I'd be back in my dark house, no air-conditioning, and plywood smothering the windows. For now, I would stand there, my nightgown swirling around me, and listen to the traffic, pounding like the Atlantic.
f-i-n at 11:01 p.m.