I saw four rabbits the other day.
Four women in rabbit costumes, to be honest.
Four women who had put on rabbit-eared headbands while in their little black dresses, to be even more honest than that.
They walked down a sidewalk in Lakeview, their heels clicking on the pavement.
They walked by a goofy, colorful Mexican restaurant with pretty tasty fajitas. They walked by a medical center, a record store, then continued down Belmont off into the darkness.
Children will run and squeal and gorge on mass-produced treats tonight.
Adults will dance and drink and gorge on each other.
It’s Halloween. Someone’s dressing up a cat. Someone else is going to have sloppy drunken role play sex after a party.
A friend of mine will drench herself in blood tonight.
She wants to be scary for once, she said. She wants to be gory and gruesome and frightening, get past the costumes for women that seem to either be skimpy or puns. So she’ll put on a prom dress and douse herself in fake blood before she goes out with her friends.
Another friend is having a party on Saturday. A costume box of silly hats for people who come sans disguise. Babies. Many babies dressed as pumpkins.
And children will run down streets as Spider-Men and the news will do a story about the line at Fantasy Costume. Zombies at various levels of sobriety will stumble through the Time Warp at “Rocky Horror” and schoolteachers will wear witch hats to class because, come on, it’s funny.
I might grab some beer and watch a horror movie. Rearrange my bookshelves. Pretend I’m not home if any kids ask for candy.
It’s Halloween, an odd little play we know so well, one that comes by year after year with the same cast in the different roles. The pumpkin babies become the shrieking Spider-Men become the debauched Time Warpers become the people dressing cats, rearranging bookshelves, dousing themselves in blood or dressing up their own little pumpkin babies to start the play anew.
Four different rabbits will be walking down Belmont 50 years from now.
Happy Halloween.
