The Fright Stuff

On moving here about a decade ago, I immediately noticed that Providence, Rhode Island, is best suited not for Thanksgiving, Christmas, the Fourth of July or St. Patrick’s Day, but for Halloween. The city looks the part. Creepy neighborhoods of eighteenth-century houses give way to large murky swaths of nineteenth-century mansion mania. Ill-lit streets, dead leaves swirling through the air, memories of native son H.P. Lovecraft and frequent visitor, Edgar Allan Poe, a large population of former art students with a love of the elaborately macabre and just a general crow-in-the-graveyard feel to its black autumn nights… the place is ideal for good, dark fun.

Take last night. After the kiddie stuff – though even that was punctuated with cemeteries on lawns and “statues” coming to life and screaming through their gore at the terrified trick-or-treaters – I decided to take a stroll with my younger daughter down a commercial street near our place (The elder, Pippi Longstocking, was at a friend’s watching Texas Chainsaw Massacre).

We passed someone with an axe buried in her head.

At a tea-shop we saw a sign: “Alice in Wonderland.” Fortunately, we had not changed out of our costumes. My daughter was still an orange and I remained Amelia Earhardt. As she loves Alice, we decided to go in.

At the counter, on barstools, no fewer than five shapely rumps clad in clinging vintage. A head turned… full scarlet lips. The women of Mad Men.

“What’s this got to do with Alice?” the orange asked.

“Look,” I said quickly, “There are playing cards on the wall.”

A Playboy bunny appeared before us.

“I’m the rabbit,” she said.

The orange looked at her dubiously.

“Want a cupcake?”

As the bunny jiggled off, a black guy came in wearing a suit of armor. His sword looked bloodstained.

“Here you are.” The bunny handed us two cupcakes, dark, dark haemoglobin-red.

“Maybe we should go?”

The orange nodded.

We walked back home, eating the cupcakes. From the doorway of a sushi restaurant, we heard a woman’s voice.

“Mmmm, those look soooo good!”

It was Morticia Addams.