Hollow Night

Although last night was the official start to a weekend without the children, it was Halloween -- and therefore, an important holiday to spend canvasing the neighborhood with Spidey and the Vampiress. It was the perfect night for it.  There was only a slight chill in the air.  Our friendly neighborhood couple pulled a wagon full of adult beverages tucked inside. The children hit all of the important houses (the ones that've been known to give out the full-size candy bars).  They covered all but a small cluster of the 200 houses.

Afterwards, the neighbors seemed to be in a spirited mood.  Two doors down, Fred Flintstone handed me a bottle of cinnamon whisky.  It seemed like the right thing to drink when it's cool outside.  That warmed me up quite a bit.  Here it was only closing in on 9pm and the whole community seemed to be opening its doors.  Spidey and Vampiress dumped their respective pillowcases onto the dining room table and began sorting through their loot.  I took a photo of the Twizzler collection and sent it to my mother.  

It seemed like a good idea to text Fred's wife.  After all, we've got children the same age that hopscotch from house to house.  She had drifted into a neighbor's party.  I walked with a fellow neighborhood mom and my sweet Spidey across the neighborhood.  We heard bass and laughter in the distance and we followed the sounds of revelry.  Wilma and Fred were there on the dance floor along with a handful of other neighbors I'd never met in the decade I lived there.  I still feel like an outsider -- and now, I am the outsider. 

Fred waltzed over to the Radio Flyer chock full of premixed margaritas, bottles of beer and whisky. He handed me the Fireball and I took a few swigs.  It was the devil's hour. So while my son played with his little friends, I danced around the driveway with Wilma wishing I was somewhere else, somewhere quiet.  I wanted to be a ghost this Halloween, not some afro-wigged 70s girl. My costume was as mismatched as my emotions.  It was all wrong -- the whole thing.  It was the start of a very conflicted weekend.  

Fred mentioned, "I knew you were the cool one all along. You were one of the first people I met when I moved here and I could immediately tell."  

It was hard to take anything he said seriously.  After all, he was an oversized orange caveman with a blue tie using the light post to hold himself upright.  Something in the alcohol spoke truth though.  

"Good for you, C.  You deserve better." 

That seems to be a common thread.  Fred knew nothing of my marriage, and yet, he could surmise in the short bits and pieces of being two doors down that I had a challenging spouse.  I was the "cool" one.  

It was supposed to be quiet.  I was supposed to be a ghost in a quiet house with bedsheets and candles and soft music. I was, instead, in some disarray of obligations versus wants.  It was a hollow night that gave way to a hollow weekend.