The Hungarians Believe

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 its 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.