The Place Called Halloween

Halloween had always been a favorite holiday growing up. My big sister Morgan and I would start building our costumes weeks in advance, often in collaborative duos like pizza and coke, Angelical Cats complete with full fur headpieces and even a homemade cell phone/beeper combo.

In the days leading up to the event, I’d proudly neglect the remnants of glitter and spray paint lodged in the crevasses of my fingernails. Just like Dad’s grease-covered hands after putting together bicycles in the garage, and my grandpa’s rubbery plastacine stink after a day in the studio, my markings reminded me that I was creating something.

I’d pass time in spelling class sketching my character’s imaginary script along the margins of my composition book, and fantasizing what theatrics could make Morgan’s and my costumes stand out. All the strange obsessiveness paid off; we'd have a great time and always win the costume contest at City Hall.

While McKenzie’s Halloween occurs in the same house and neighborhood, hers is a completely different holiday. She doesn’t have a partner with whom to raid Dad’s prized collection of electronics boxes to build a cardboard body suit. If she does steal a box, she can’t blame the absent sibling when Dad asks where his box went. She doesn’t have a sister in the top bunk with whom to stay up late brainstorming costume ideas from November to October, or a resident friend to trade candies with at the end of the night.

McKenzie in her Halloween costume "from the computer"

This morning there were no last-minute costume adjustments; Dad took Kenz fishing instead. Today she reported that she’s "going to Halloween at five," (Halloween is a destination rather than an event), and she will wear the costume she and Dad got "from the computer." At Halloween, she’ll find Joseph, who’ll be dressed as a gremlin “but not a scary one because [McKenzie isn’t] afraid,” and Parker and Kylie, who hadn’t picked out their costumes as of the time Kenzie last spoke with them.

The fab four will run around the same cold tile-floored auditorium space we’d looked forward to visiting each year. They’ll put candy worms in their punch and brave the haunted house maze as many times as possible before their parents tire, then on the way home they’ll collect silver dollars from the big house at the end of Codrington Drive.

The next day Mom will add a Baby Ruth from Kenzie's pillowcase of loot to her lunch bag, on which Dad will have carefully scribbled a cartoon reflecting the last night's events.