9 posts tagged “halloween”

Day of the Dead

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I met Bruce in small town Paragould, Arkansas. I can’t remember what year it was, possibly somewhere between 82 and 84, but it was October. It was Halloween and I was sitting on a front porch swing wondering why I was spending my favorite holiday in Paragould. My woeful thoughts were interrupted by a loud schwack-schwack-schwack-schwack sound coming from up the street. It was the sound of big flappy shoes slapping pavement. As the sound got closer I perceived the form of a 6-foot tall bowling pin making way down the sidewalk in the dark. By the time the bowling pin reached the walkway to the house, I realized I was not looking at a bowling pin at all, but Opus the Penguin from Bloom County. Opus made it to the front door. He was cursing. “What the Hell was I thinking?” The head came off and there was Bruce.

The rest of my Paragould visit was a dismal disappointment. I thought I had been summoned as a gesture to rekindle a sputtered romance. Boy, did I misread that invite. It was a long drive for nothing but embarrassment, rejection and just a little bit of confusion. Now, in retrospect, I am convinced that the reason I was there was to meet Bruce. The rejection was worth it.

Some years later I walked into Little Rock convenience store. Bruce was working as a clerk. I immediately recognized him and after a "Hey, Opus!" and a "How would you know that?" moment, we caught up as much as familiar strangers are allowed when one of the strangers is bagging your groceries.

Bruce would come to be referred to, by the locals, as that “bitchy queen down at the Circle K.”

In the late 80's I moved to the Hillcrest area of Little Rock. It was a leasing typical of most in Hillcrest - creaky, rundown, drafty with a bloated rent - but it was Hillcrest! Old houses housing new money and well allowanced street punks. The house on Palm Street was designed similarly to the one in the Amityville Horror film. It was in horrible disrepair. Some brainiac had split it up - sloppily - to have 2 apartments downstairs and one really big apartment upstairs. I was upstairs, and now, as a surprise to both of us, that bitchy queen from the Circle K was downstairs.

When I first met Bruce his hair was full and black. Now he was thinning on top and wispy tailed in back. His eyebrows were elegantly arched. He wasn’t a drag queen, per se, but his eyebrows suggested he could be ready for drag at the drop of a roll of duct tape. Surly, sharp, and sarcastic, he could shut someone up with a look. From time to time he seemed to channel Joan Crawford or Agnes Moorehead.

Bruce was, and always will be, the best neighbor I have ever had. We were catapulted from casual acquaintance to running buddy status nearly overnight. We seemed to understand each other’s moods. As friends and housemates, we never quarreled or found ourselves on opposite ends of an issue. How rare.

We drank big bottles of red wine and wore vintage hats around the house. We had hair dying parties where all attending left with purple hair. We went out with giant chalk sticks and circled the dog poop on the Hillcrest sidewalks adding admonishments and reminders to be more conscientious. My favorite was: PICK UP AFTER YOUR DOG, YOU BASTARD! THIS AIN’T PARIS!

Singing and Playing

I never bothered to have the gas turned on in that apartment and I cooked all my meals on a hot plate. The wind whistled through the gaps in the sills. The wood roaches were so plentiful and big I could hear them rattling around at night. It truly was miserable lodgings, but I was clam happy to have a good friend a staircase away.

Then the owners sold the house and we were evicted. He moved down the street and I moved up the road and we saw a little less of each other. He quit the Circle K and took a job at Your Mama's Good Food. We were coworkers at a dysfunctional family run camera shop for a short stretch. I moved to West Little Rock and he moved to Texas.

I spent a lot of time missing Bruce. Wondering where he was, what was he was doing, was he happy?
Just when I thought I would never hear from him again, he called me. He said that he was still in Texas.
He also said that New Braunsfels, a town founded by Germans, would be a great place to live “if it weren’t for all the dust and Nazis.” Then he laughed that big beautiful husky laugh. He gave me a number to a phone that wasn’t his and we stayed in contact for a few months. Then one night the person on the other end of the line said they didn't know who Bruce was, never heard of him. I verified the number and stumped, I never tried calling that number again. That was around 97 or 98.

Several times I used Google - and an odd assortment of other Internet searches – to find any kind of contact information I could. How do you find a guy who never had his own phone? There was even a time I was driving by New Braunfels on my way to San Antonio. I detoured through the town with the irrational hope that I would spot Bruce. I would recognize him by his walk…we would have a happy reunion…
My second bright idea was to call every restaurant in New Braunsfels. He had to be working in one of them.

I then relocated to Canada. How would he ever find me now? Was he looking for me like I was looking for him? I was so excited to tell Bruce about my big Canadian adventure. He would LOVE it. He would have to come and visit and stay forever…I had to find him.

On the morning of February 13th of 2006, shortly after midnight, I started a new search for Bruce Moore. After about 45 minutes of hitting nothing but dead ends and useless links (Did you know that the city planner of Little Rock is ALSO named Bruce Moore???) I was feeling glum. It was late, I was tired and I had a sudden realization that I may never speak to Bruce again. I may never find him. Chances are Bruce isn't even in Texas anymore. Maybe he moved back to Piggott. Maybe he had found that husband he was always lamenting about…

I decided to give it one more search then go to bed, this time on Yahoo. And there he was.

I found Bruce Moore’s obituary. My beloved friend had died 11 months earlier.
And now I can do nothing but miss him every day. We met on Halloween, a holiday we both loved. This year I remember him, most fondly, on Día de los Muertos.

Bones

How are you celebrating Halloween today?

Wedding Cake

Bright orange pumpkins with carved scary faces
Graveyards at twilight and old haunted places
Black rubber bats dangling from strings
These are a few of my favorite things...

Fiddle Player

Halloween Party

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Small work on paper.

My earlier posting about David Bowie was just a sliver of my obsession for the man.

I once was a make up artist for a local David Bowie impersonator, a woman who did such a fine job that she was chosen to be on "Puttin' on the Hits." Something happened and she never made it to the show. I stopped hanging out with her as this was happening because she was getting too creepy for my own good.

I also made up my old boyfriend, Shaun, one year as Screaming Lord Byron (the character in the Blue Jean video) for a Halloween costume party. He looked fab and, if memory serves, he won the contest.

I found this pretender a few years ago:
http://www.davidbowietribute.com/
Now that is some gooood pretending!

Did you dress up today?

I will, but I haven't decided exactly what, yet.

I was telling the husband the other day that when I was a kid I would start planning on my Halloween costume the day after Halloween. I was that into it. The first and last costume I had that was store bought and with a mask was a Ben Cooper or Collegeville princess ensemble. I guess I was about 5 or 6 for that. Man, I wish my mother kept more of my childhood. She liked to give things away to "less fortunate" children, which in retrospect must have been her way of denying the fact that we were the less fortunate children!

These days I do less full body costuming and simply paint my face up and wear black. I started doing this when my custom fangs broke a few years back...

I was a part-time clown for a few years so I can whip on a clown face in about 15 minutes

Do you believe in ghosts?  Have you ever seen a ghost?

GHOSTS!!! I have had some weird things happen around me so...Sometimes I believe, sometimes I don't.

My wedding anniversary is Halloween. Just about every year we go somewhere "neat." Atlanta, Boston, New York, Las Vegas and so on...

One year we went to New Orleans. We stayed at the Hotel Maison de Ville in the Carriage House Suite. (if you go to the link you will see a fine picture, which will add much to the story where my description fails)

The hotel is over 200 years old and boasts that Tennessee Williams slept and, more importantly, wrote there. John James Audubon painted there. And as one might imagine, some of the rooms are former slaves quarters. Needless to say, the place has history. The hotel is almost fortress like and if you weren't looking for it, you might very well wander right by without notice. Once behind the walls, you can't even hear the rowdy Bourbon street crowds.

Upon entering the main building you are met by a stairway to the left and off to the right is the check-in desk. This entry way is barely wide enough for two people to stand side by side and the check-in is more of a cubbyhole than a room. Passed that is a parlor where you can serve yourself a port in the evening. Beyond the parlor are doors that lead to the rest of the hotel and a brick paved courtyard complete with a variety of botanicals, a fountain and wrought iron furniture. If you don't want to take your port in the parlor, you can sip it in the courtyard. It is as Southern Gothic as you can get, it is also very pleasant and inviting.

The Carriage House Suite is set off to the back of the courtyard. It stands alone and is the most private room in the hotel.

I do not know how much damage Katrina caused the hotel, but when we stayed there the Carriage House entrance was secreted behind a 7 ft tall privacy hedge or ivy covered wall. The door to the suite was secured with an old-fashioned key and lock. It had a lock cover that slid to one side in order to insert the key. For some reason I was unable to open the door to our room. I would struggle with it then hand the key over to my husband who seemed to be able to twist the key and open the door with ease.

One evening we walked around the French Quarter and happened upon a very nice liquor store. I was keen on picking up some Blackened Voodoo beer, and maybe a few other drinkable fun things I could only find in the Crescent City, to take back to Arkansas. By the time we were through shopping we had picked out so many things that we couldn't carry it all back to the hotel so we arranged for the purchase to be delivered to us.

We got back to the hotel an hour or so later. We were halfway across the courtyard when my husband stopped and said he needed to go back and alert the night clerk to give us a ring when the liquor arrived. I told him to give me the key and I would open the room up for us. He did and I made my way down the dark and creepy path to the suite. I could hardly see what I was doing. I bent close to the lock and slid the cover to the side and after several attempts at inserting the key managed to do so. Once the key was in place I began struggling with the lock. The key would turn but the latch wouldn't retract. I began to get aggravated. I felt a presence behind me that I assumed was my husband. I didn't look up or behind but I acknowledged it by saying something like, "Why does this door hate me so much?" There was no answer. After a few more seconds of jiggling the door and key, I felt a hand press firmly on my right shoulder. I took this as a silent gesture from the husband to, “Step aside and let me do that." I waved my hand and said something like, "NO! I know I can do this! I can do it!"

This time, when there was no answer, I straightened up and turned around. There was no one there. I called my husband's name. No answer. I walked to the edge of the secluded walkway and scanned the courtyard. I was alone.

Just then my husband came out of the main building.

"Were you out here a minute ago?"

"No."

"Just now while I was trying to open the door, you weren't with me? You didn't touch me?"

"I have been talking to the desk clerk this whole time."

I laughed and said, "I have a story for you."

The invisible hand on my shoulder event didn't scare me, but there was something about that suite that was unsettling. It just felt wrong. It was uncomfortable and constricting. The stairway to the second floor was narrow and steep and almost spiral in its design. I envisioned myself falling down the stairs every time I encountered them. I was uneasy in the bathroom, checking and double-checking the window to make sure no one was watching me. I noticed our moods changing when we were in the room. We argued about stupid things and at the drop of a hat. During one particularly ugly and exasperating argument, I found myself changing from my nightgown into my street clothes. I grabbed my coat and went out the door; my husband did not try to stop me. I walked the streets of the French Quarter at 2:00 am, alone. When I returned to the hotel I sat in the courtyard for the longest time because I didn't want to go back in to the carriage house. I wasn't afraid; I just didn't like the feeling of the place. I was even more irked when I climbed the creepy staircase and found my husband in bed, sleeping soundly, not a bit concerned that I was wandering around N.O. for hours by myself at night. New Orleans is a dangerous place. As a bartender named Shaun told us, "People come here and disappear all the time!" Either way, these days when the husband requests I call for a check in if I'm going to be out late (after 9pm), I just remember the time I was "big girl" enough to amble the streets of New Orleans by myself with out his concern!

I have no idea if the Maison de Ville is known for ghost activity, but New Orleans is easily one of the creepiest towns in America. If any town is going to have ghosts, N.O. is it. Katrina will certainly be the catalyst for a new generation of ghost stories.