I’m starting to worry about Halloween I told her. Already she said. It’s September. Yes. The knocking on the door makes the dog nervous & the barking sets off other barking & then more barking until someone from somewhere yells shut up at the top of their lungs as if dogs spoke English but all it does is make them mad until they ask each other in their canine lingo who’s this asshole. We recognize the neighborhood kids even if they are wearing costumes. We recognize their parents by the beers they stash in baby carriage cupholders. What if we run out of candy & wake up to a car covered in egg & trees wrapped in toilet paper ribbons. Our kids have grown up & moved out so we’re feeding other people’s children handfuls of cavities & a future that includes type II diabetes. If that doesn’t bother you Johnny next door has ADHD so let’s give him an extra dollop so his parents can stay up all night trying to catch him bouncing like a pogo stick off their ceiling. That’ll show ‘em. You’re an asshole she tells me & I say no my therapist says all this is legit & the root of it is my being too heavy as a kid to fit into any of the costumes I liked. (No one believes there’s a fat Aquaman my mother said). I’m not sure buoyancy is a superpower but I could really float in a pool back then. Let’s go to that bar across the street instead of sitting here waiting for this trick or treating. That bar closed three years ago she tells me so we either go somewhere else or stay here & pump sugar into the neighborhood children one Skittle at a time. Who’s the asshole now I ask as the air conditioner hums its opinion. I grab my pirate hat off the rack & it wobbles its displeasure. I snatch the keys to the magic carpet & ask her to help me raise the mast so I can get to the store to make sure we have enough candy.
RetinaSprite