Scaring little girls

Last night was Halloween. I sat hunched in the grass near the edge of our porch light, a colorful Mexican blanket pulled over my shoulders and up under the straw hat Vero, a young Mexican woman, once gave me. An upturned planter box, with a white tea towel, a plate with a single crust of bread and a drying red chili, and an empty beer bottle on the corner of the box, completed my tableau.

The girls from across the street still would not approach our front door. Last year I was one of two stuffed dummies made with pillows and towels and my scarecrow clothes, topped by plastic pumpkin heads, sitting in the same semi-shadows. 

Clara and Nico,  who live across the street, are nearly the age Claire and Molly were in the house next door when we moved into this house. Now, Claire is with her guy in Portland. Molly, newly graduated from college, lives in Denver.

I watched the two new young cowgirls climbing the other porches in the neighborhood through the brim of my hat. They knew it was me. We had talked of Halloween nights past and future during the year. Yet they were unsure. I wasn’t quite safe.

Julia, as Pippi Longstocking in her red-yarn wig, just giggled at me as she walked by – on the far edge of the sidewalk. We too, had talked. She had confessed to being scared of me last year when she was “only three” but this year she had it all figured out.

Robin Hood, with her two much younger charges, ran down the sidewalk, her cape billowing, exclaiming, “I knew it was real.” I had merely greeted them with a low, “Happy Halloween” after they had collected their candy and had been nearly safely past me for the second time.

Mothers dismissed me as just another Halloween prop – until I raised an arm and waved at their halted children.

There were boys, too. I jumped up and plied my whiffleball bat Zorro sword against Zach and Sam’s light sabers until another boy with a chain saw cut me down. One boy, Junior High age, bravely made as if to steal the beer bottle, until a Junior High girl’s voice told him to put it back. 

But I think I have a knack – a greater appreciation, maybe - for scaring girls.

I would like to write something - a poem, a story, maybe a collection of essays – something people would remember when I’m really not real – when I’m really a skeleton, inert beneath a headstone, or ashes long floated out to sea. But I might settle for some grown woman remembering me when I scared her as a little girl. She’ll say, “I knew he was real because I saw his eyes blink.”

A question

If you could choose only one word to speak out loud

for the rest of your life,

what would it be?

And if you were later told you could say it only one more time

before your death,

how long would you wait?

And then, if you were suddenly allowed to use it any time you chose,

would you neglect it?

Clarity

I want to learn to look out warm windows

and watch the last leaves holding on

as the north wind tugs.

And when the needle completes

its final spiral

and tick

tick

ticks

the endless silent circle,

I will hear music through my eyes.

And then, when

no leaves are left

I will take

a cold, bitter sip

from my cup

and settle in

to hear

the first,

white

flake

of winter

fall.