A Hallowe'en party, and Hogwartz resort

[vaneramos]

Photo: the mummy and Prunella.

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Last night Danny and I went to the monthly dance. This being October, it was a Hallowe'en costume party. I finally got myself organized to put together a costume, with Danny's help, that I've wanted to try for years. I went as a mummy made of Saran, duck tape and tensor bandages. He was Prunella, in a lovely, sparkly purple dress and lacy black bra his sister gave him. The hat was something else.

I had hoped people wouldn't recognize me quickly, so I dropped Prunella off at the door all gentleman mummy like, parked the car and followed her in a couple minutes later. But I hardly fooled anyone. Sylvie's jaw dropped. She was dressed as an alien pretending to be a human; just Sylvie with a couple feelers sticking out of her lush, black hair. Apparently my eyes gave me away. A woman I met at the Pennywhistle on Wednesday night recognized me as soon as I approached her. "Your eyes are too nice," she said. And Crystal said she recognized me from a distance by the way I move and nod my head. So those low moans I had been practising, to breathe in people's ears, didn't shock anyone. At least Sylvie thought I was creepy. Sarah thought I was a broken condom.

One of the best costumes was Jon's. He had hit the thrift store and picked up a fabulous magicians hat to pair with a long, black-and-white striped nightshirt. He had fluffed his hair in a wizardly way and applied some eye shadow. I thought he was supposed to be Albus Dumbledore, but he said he hadn't thought of that.

When it came time to judge the costumes, we were supposed to walk in a circle for everyone to see, but Jon cut out and headed for a shadowy corner.

"Come on," I said. He protested, but I pulled him back into the circle anyway. "You have a good costume," I told him.

But on the other side of the circle he slipped away. I tried to pull him in again, but he refused quite firmly and moved into the crowd.

The winners were Michelle and Michelle, as Martha Stewart hand-cuffed to her arresting officer.

This morning I had another one of my Harry Potter dreams, but everything was different. There was no Harry Potter and Ron; instead I was Tom Sawyer and my friend was Huck. Hogwartz was not a castle, but a large summer resort with low green-shingled pyramidal roofs, big screened-in porches and a number of guest houses sprawled around. The white siding had that spiderwebby, stained look of seasonal cottages.

But it was not much fun. The headmaster was a pig of a man who played favourites with his son. The son at least was Draco, but his father looked like a bald, fat banker in a dark grey suit. We were writing our art history exam, were supposed to recognize a bunch of paintings and compare them with another series that had already been given to us. The headmaster and art professor had given Draco all the answers ahead of time. I was appalled. There was a series of scenes in which we attended various exams, and I was barred from writing one because I had been late, when in fact I had been on time.

In one scene I was inexplicably running alongside the highway at the top of the road where I used to meet the school bus. We had a lot of cottagy houses along our road. Missing the bus was a particularly catastrophic and embarrassing event when I was a child. Apparently Hogwartz was supposed to be where I grew up.

Then, in front of the entire class, the headmaster stated Huck was such a bad student that he might as well hang himself.

Huck did not show up for the next exam, and I went running around campus looking for him, peering up at screened attic windows where I expected to see my friend hanging from a noose.

Then the train arrived. I ran to the platform to meet Albus Dumbledore, who had finally returned from vacation. I seized him by the arm and started to tell him all the outrageous things the headmaster had done, and that we had to find Huck. But Dumbledore just laughed and started to walk away. I still hung from his arm. I knew he would eventually listen to me. This was some kind of test. He headed downstairs to the subway, me still clinging to his sleeve. And then I woke up.

Dumbledore was Jon.




Magician Jon with our friend Greg, another choir member