I guess you could say that I’m not really a holiday person. The reason why you could say that is because I hate holidays. (You see, the world can be a very logical place when you break things down into their component parts.) Halloween is my least favorite holiday because it focuses on children dressing up like horrible creatures and doing horrible things.
I guess you could say that I’m not really a “children” person.
In recent years, I have come to hate Halloween for more political reasons, as well, although even my curmudgeon’s heart must admit that there are aspects to it that I do like. I like how the holiday affects adults who can still discover the joy in it. I am obviously not one of those adults, but my husband is, and as I walked across my neighborhood to attend a party earlier this evening, I thought fondly of how much Rob enjoys preparing for Halloween. Passing dozens of giggling little witches and ballerinas, I pulled out my cell phone and called him in New York to express my warm feelings.
“Oh, honey, I love you so—YOU GODDAMNED MOTHERFUCKERS!”
Rob was probably a bit startled by my reaction to the group of a dozen or more teenagers who had just broken through a gate and started pelting everyone in the area with eggs.
“Yo, do something, bitch,” one of them taunted me, and when I took a threatening step toward him, he threw another egg. None of them hit me, so I just turned and kept walking. Mind your own business, that’s my motto, but it left me in a foul mood.
When I arrived at the party, forty-five minutes after it was supposed to begin, no one was there. The decorations were up; through the window, I could see the house was misty with chemical fog, which glowed in the light from a red lamp. These are more people who are able to react with joy and genuine celebration of life when confronted with Halloween and every other holiday. I love hanging out with them because they are all so brilliant and creative, but with creativity comes unpredictability. I stepped through the unlocked door because I heard the egg-throwers turning the corner, but everything was so quiet that I was afraid someone was going to jump out at me in some brilliant and creative and unpredictable way.
“Um. Hello?”
No one jumped out at me, I just got there before anyone else. I hate that. Everyone was upstairs preparing their costumes, and I sat and drank a soda before realizing that the increasingly bizarre tightness in my chest and throat was either a reaction to the chemical fog or an unwelcome new symptom in my never-ending illness. So I went home, passing hordes of pint-sized monsters and princesses, chatting with some of the neighbors I recognized, and actually seeing the egg-throwing bastards once again as they marched in single-file down the sidewalk, terrorizing everyone in their path.
There are people whose first impulse is to be creative and enjoy life, like Rob and my neighborhood friends, and there are people who can do nothing but destroy. I don’t know quite where I fall on that continuum, but when I got home and saw Goblin Foo and was able to ease my coughing, I felt better.
