Good and Scary, or Scary and Good;

A Brooklyn Halloween

“Django! Sit!”

We’re in front of a house with spooky lighting and styrofoam tombstones. There’s a crowd of little princesses and scary types of all ages crowded on the sidewalk. I’m standing back with the grown ups. I’ve got ghostly white face, bloody lips and a spiffy black cloche hat with which I fancy myself Lady Edith — the Undead. Next to me is another grown up and he’s also in ghostly white and bloody lips. His daughter has a pretty blue dress and tiara. My two boys are a scary pumpkin-head and a spider.

The pretty princess returns from the doorstep to her dad who’s standing with their brown and white boxer dog.

“Daddy,” she says, “If you let him go, you could call him Django Unleashed.”

“Yeah,” he says, “But there’s too many people on the sidewalks for that.”

“That’s right,” I thought, “As parents, we stick to the public safety perspective — never mind your joke, you clever minx.”

It’s prime time on the trick-or-treat circuit. 6:30 p.m. The sun is fully down. It’s no one’s bedtime yet. Admittedly this is a well-to-do neighborhood with actual houses. But since it’s Brooklyn, it’s just a pocket. Walk three blocks in any direction and you’re in Caribbean Brooklyn, Orthodox Jewish Brooklyn, or Bangladeshi Brooklyn. I’m visiting from a different neighborhood too because my sons are invited to go with a little gang of buddies. And honestly, this place is turned out for the party.

But still. It’s 2016 and we’re walking around in the dark with gobs of strangers and I lose sight of my kids almost more than I see them. Scary? Yes. But then again, something else is happening too.

Me and that dad, we’re in the same face paint. And that feels great. Why? Because, the rest of the year, I walk around with the face of white lady privilege. And that guy? He’s a black man in Brooklyn. We need this day.

Further on down the street there’s a house with a card table and a big sign over it, looking, for all the world, like a lemonade stand. Except the sign says: “Vote For Me!” Underneath it is a lady in a blond wig and a pantsuit passing out candy. She’s saying, “Vote for me! Happy Halloween!” And I’m thinking, “Really, Liberal Brooklyn? Do you have to use this for a campaign moment?” Then a teenage boy walks out of the house in a suit and a red tie and a different blond wig. The lady makes a big show of rolling her eyes and says, “Here we go. Never mind him, kids. Vote for me! Happy Halloween!” And the suited-up boy pays her no attention, elbows right in under the sign with his own bowl of candy and starts, “Happy Halloween kids! Vote for me! Happy Halloween!” And then I get it.

I mean, the kids actually pause. For just a second they don’t know what to do when faced with these two characters elbow to elbow — each with their own bowl of candy. It’s not like with the houses where people have rubber knives sticking out of their heads and fake blood. Most kids run straight up to those people. Suddenly the whole thing feels like the true message of the holiday — play with what scares us the most, dance with our demons.

And I’m starting to feel a warm glow. It might be because it is exactly the most perfect 55 degrees so that it feels like fall but a light coat will do. Or, it is because this is wonderful.

There are houses with scary music. There are cobwebs everywhere. Front yards (the strip of grass next to the sidewalk called a yard, in Brooklyn) have skeleton bones sticking up out of them. Babies are dressed as adorable monsters. Kids are running from house to house shrieking and shouting and pointing to scary things. Periodically we lose one kid and have to stop and regroup and find the missing one. I mean, there’s scary for young and old.

I think it helps that this year Halloween is on a Monday. This greatly reduces the party-all-night and get-wild vibe of a weekend Halloween. Saturday night Halloweens feel like fraternity parties — a little sloppy and dangerous. Monday night Halloweens feel like elementary school parties. It’s about dressing up. It’s about the costume parade. There’s candy. It’s going to end at 8:00 p.m.

So then I decide to really lean in to this good Halloween. I decide that I am going to make as much eye contact with the other parents as I possibly can — especially across racial lines. We are so many white people and so many black people all out with our kids. Do I feel corny? A little. But how often do we get to have this relaxed time where everyone’s scared and laughing at the same time? You can’t be heavy handed with this. The best way to swing it is to overhear some kid say something cute. “That dude was freaky!” Then smile, make eye contact with parent and then look away. That is a targeted positive encounter. This isn’t the Midwest so you don’t have to start a conversation. But still, the evening keeps feeling friendlier and friendlier in that unspoken mood-on-the-subway…way.

7:30 and it’s time to head back to our friends’ place for candy sorting and exchange. The crowds are thinning. Our group of boys are like a pack of wild dogs. They’re everywhere — up on lawns, in between cars — some already with suckers sticking out of their mouths. Approaching us is a group of black ladies with their own swirl of costumed children orbiting around them. Our boys start barreling straight at them and I’m thinking, “Oh Lord, please don’t mow them down!” but I only manage to shout, in a complete waste of breath, “Boys! Watch where you’re going!!!” As we pass, one of the ladies throws her hands up and gives me that one-mother-to-another half smile. She says, “All the kids are doing it. Happy Halloween!”

It’s like that scene in the Grinch where my heart suddenly grows another size. For just a second my breath stops. I think, “Don’t run back and kiss her. She won’t like it.” But still and all, this is the very best Halloween I’ve ever had. Speaking for myself, I really needed this night, right now, to celebrate and play fun with all the things that scare us the most: ghosts, spiders, death, weirdo politicians. And oh yeah, other Americans. Sprinkle it with sugar and walk around with strangers after dark. For one night, I feel it deeply: People are good.