The Hungarians believe whatever you dress up as for Halloween, a
spirit of that costume stays with you for the following year. Your ghost
sheets may get you ignored, or passed over for a position. Maybe you
become invisible to a lot of people around you, not seen nor heard as
clearly as, say, the clown outfit, which has it’s own serious virtues and
backlashes. I’m tooling around these labyrinthian streets on my bike like
Evil Knievel when I side-swipe a funeral procession led by the chief of
police, who is dressed up as a chief of police. The priest in purple is
dressed as the blood of Christ. Two priests in white dressed like wafers.
The casket on wheels is dressed for the cemetery with the man inside
dressed for the rest of his life. His family, friends, and mourners
solemnly walking behind dressed in their long life sadnesses. I salute
and peel out over the canal toward home, where I bang this out on my
borrowed Underwood, the old way, standing at the up-ended footlocker,
jabbing my fingers into uneven stubs, the anachronism I’m already
becoming. Scroll, stab, slam, stab, slam, stab, slam, rip, crumple, heave.
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