Read by author - 13.5 minutes
Text: Halloween is about uncertainty
Halloween is not about the candy at our house. It’s about
fear. Well, not really. Halloween, the way I celebrate the holiday, is about
uncertainty. For more than twenty years the theme, with variations, asks this
question: is the dummy real?
This year I sat with a dead Furbie and a plastic Jack-O’-Lantern
filled with zinnias in front of me on the patio table set away from the
sidewalk to the porch. I wore a baggy black suit, tangled gray hair tumbling
over my shoulders with a pink bowler hat and a purple flower sticking out of
the top. I also had on a slightly creepy mask with sun glasses lenses covering
the round eyeholes. But anyone could see my nose and mouth, my mustache and
beard – if they looked carefully. But in the weak light of our porch where my
wife, Dawn, was waiting behind the door with a bowl full of candy - and dark
shadows everywhere - this is the question I overheard all evening long: Is it
real? And the frequent response: It’s not real.
No one counted all of the kids last night – plus their
parents, trailing along. There was candy left over at the end of the night, so
maybe there were a hundred kids or so. But it wasn’t about the candy.
I wish I could tell you all of the stories, but so often,
things happen so fast. You can’t even see everything right in front of your
face. Kids come and go. You hear voices and many feet kicking through the
leaves. I mostly just sat still off to one side. Sometimes kids would walk by
me and not even see me at all. I could see them looking up at the rope spider’s
web and the inflatable spider closing in on two dangling and caught dolls
between the front porch pillars.
I have all night.
And then a kid stops right in front of me. The game of
uncertainty begins. I can’t see their eyes. They can’t see mine. We read each
other’s body language. All mine says is that maybe something - they don’t know
what - is sitting just right over there in the shadows. I can see their
uncertainty as they pause.
Fear is a primal instinct. Without it, my ancestors would
not have survived to pass along their genes all the way through millions of
generations of humans to me – and to these kids. They know in their heads that
we are really just playing - mostly. There’s the safety net of their parents.
Other kids all around. Ordinary houses, with ordinary people, porch lights on.
It’s just Halloween.
One boy – I couldn’t quite figure out what his costume was -
remembered when he saw me what he had forgotten. I’d added an occasional twist
for just this year. Rather than always just sitting entirely motionless, I
slowly, mechanically, twisted my head from side to side. The kid loudly announced
to his three friends that I was real and that I had scared him half to death
last year. And then his pause announced to me that he suddenly realized that he
didn’t know for sure what he was looking at this year.
I listened to the boys reassuring each other that I was real
- as I robotically shook my head ‘no.’
Uncertainty works on so many levels.
Even if they were nearly sure that I was a living, breathing person, the next
question was right on its heels waiting for them: Is he safe?
But it’s just Halloween.
Each age of kid that I have played with on Halloween night – from
parent to toddler – asks those questions in their own way. Each kid asks within
his or her own mind for themselves this existential question: Who is that, and
why am I here? Candy? As for me, I just want to play with their uncertainties. I have my own instincts to play with. In the end, I want these
kids to like me a hundred times more than I want to scare them and in the end,
this is a game that we play with each other for just one night of the year.
It’s a simple game, really, but with hopefully just enough uncertainty to make
it interesting. A coin flipped sparkles as it spins in the air.
A lot of kids from the neighborhood have played this game
before. They know my face and name in the light of day. But uncertainty is well
woven into the web of reality – and not just on this one night. In the darkness, rustling leaves all around, kids think that
they know what they know – and then I catch the loose thread of their
imagination. Human instincts fire faster than our good sense. I just watch and
wait. This is why I came to this house on this night of all nights. To see them. To
hear them. To give them something to remember as they will give me something to
remember. After our instincts, that is what we are, after all, an accumulation
of our memories. We can’t hope to hold onto all of them for long, but a
tickling of our instincts is what sometimes makes us feel alive.
The brave young man and his friends made it up onto the
porch. I heard them consulting with my wife about my possible reality. And when
they came back down to my level, I was still shaking my head back and forth.
They began to dare each other to go over and touch me. Soon, one of their
parents standing back along the sidewalk double-dog-dared them. Some of the
kids began a chant, ‘touch it, touch it.’ I watched and waited. One boy dressed
in black did step slowly towards my table. He eventually reached out his hand
and touched the flowers – then jumped back. Another came around the back and
touched my shoulder as he skipped by. I waited. Reality was wavering. We had nearly
fully entered primal territory. All Hallow’s Eve.
Everyone – even me – knew in their heads that this was just
a game. Everyone was old enough to see me breathe – but misdirection is how
illusion works. And so quickly you forget what you just knew a second ago. And
they all had very ancient and nearly forgotten primal minds pulling at
corners of their uncertainties.
The boy who knew me when he first saw me was hesitating just a
few steps out of my reach. Uncertainty had hovered and gathered for several
minutes now. And then I pounced. Only standing up half out of my chair with a
sharp growl. Before he could even think, the brave boy turned and yelled,
‘That’s it,’ tossing his full bag of candy high into the air, and hurrying away.
One of his friends came and retrieved the bag and then they
all shuffled off through the leaves, telling each other what they thought had
just happened. They had been an appreciative audience in the end.
I’ve been doing this for a long time. I prepare some. I’ve
learned that when it comes to actions that less is more. And silence is louder
than people think. I watch and wait. And then I wait a little longer. And then even
I don’t know what is going to happen next. Suddenly I am the one in primal
territory. We’re all creatures tumbling and tickling - shuffling. I laugh
without thinking. Someone screams high into the night and the next moment a
little girl is laughing with me.
I could tell you stories, but it’s not the same as living
life.
But here’s one more story.
Later in the evening, a young woman and a little girl
approached from across the lawn. The young woman, in the light of day, is my
neighbor. The little girl was holding onto her as they walked carefully across
the grass – stopping finally still twenty or twenty-five feet away. I called
out. The young woman, so apparently from Wonderland, said that she was Alice
and the little girl was Cinderella. In the half-darkness none of us could really
see each other very well. Uncertainty was in the air. I waited, but not too
long this time. Then I raised one gloved hand slowly into the air and waved. In
an instant, before she could even think, Cinderella dashed back to the
driveway. And then she slowly came back to where Alice still stood. Together,
they came nearly to where was sitting, but well out of reach. This time, I took
off my mask and Cinderella looked into my eyes. Who did she see? Then Cinderella
told me that she lived on the next street over. Alice had explained that
Cinderella had come over to help hand out candy. It’s Halloween night.
And then there were more kids coming and I put my mask back
on to watch again and wait.
Not every day or every night – but sometimes we live for the
unexpected. A little fear reminds us that reality can be scary, but hopefully we
also can learn to face our fears and live with our instincts. And sometimes surprise
is a gift from the universe. If we can live with uncertainty, life can be
joyful – if a little crazy sometimes.
The night had grown quiet. After we finally turned off the
porch light, my wife and I walked up the street. I knew our friends had gotten
York Peppermint Patties to give out – but it wasn’t about the candy. After David
let me and Dawn in the back door, their daughter laughed, home working on a
thesis, when she saw me in my gray wig and pink hat. I could clearly see her
eyes. And then as I bit into a piece of candy as we sat together on the sofa,
she told me that she still could remember being scared to go onto my porch – on
a Halloween night roughly twenty years ago. These memories are a little bit of
who we are.
And I have already forgotten much of what happened on this
Halloween. When I sit out on my lawn, I try to see every kid, knowing that I
can’t. Everything happens too fast. I go with my instincts. Every year the kids
manage to surprise me. Halloween is, after all, about uncertainty. And the next
day there is candy left over for all the saints and the sinners – and more kids
being born into daylight every year. Here’s the question: Is love real? And
following on its heels, is love worth the risk?
Uncertainty and surprise.
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