Red Room Where the Writers Are

One of my first workshop projects in graduate school was a short story about a character who crashed a Halloween party wearing a sheet. I was feeling nostalgic for New England and the red and yellow leaves of fall. The temperatures on October 31 in Fairbanks had reached fifty-below-zero. The kids near the university canvassed the streets dressed as little Michelin Men, each of them awkwardly carrying plastic bags in their little gloved hands.

Gourds, yellow and orange carnations and pumpkins were on sale at the Fred Meyer on Geist Avenue, but they were pricey, dented, and rejected looking. Some farmer in Pennsylvania had loaded them onto a truck before piling them onto a plane and shipping them to the Arctic.

Meanwhile, the workshop concluded that my short story was “missing something.”

No kidding.

I returned to Connecticut for Christmas, sat wedged and stoic in my assigned place for the fifteen hour plane excursion. I contemplated the state of my soul and the intelligence of my decisions. I had burned bridges and damaged relationships to make my break for the far north. A week later, I flew back to the total darkness of Fairbanks.

A year passed. On October 31st, the light ebbed to seven hours of day. I decided to not sit home. I dressed as the Michelin Man and piled into a friend’s Subaru for the trek to the Howling Dog Saloon, a roadside joint fifteen miles north of the University in a town called Fox. The Howling Dog closed for the season after the 31st and people filtered out of the bush and the military bases to celebrate before winter officially took the population in its clutches.

A few pirates, vampires, nuns, and death brides rose from the pile of coats near the door and joined the Michelin Men, Paul Bunyans and Ted Kacynskis already at the bar. The etiquette was to shove your gear under a chair so people didn’t walk over your purse or wallett. The band played R&B covers. Most of the buildings in the area were built on pilings because the shifting of permafrost split concrete sub-basements. The floorboards at the Dog bounced but no one went through. I danced in my Gortex lined hiking boots.

“Step up for the Jagermeister and Jack Daniels and God help you if you order a Strawberry Daiquiri.”  Somebody pretended to be Jack London.

Later in the night, people hot from dancing poured out the side doors to watch the Northern Lights. Several cars were abandoned so that more bodies could huddle together to make the cold ride home. I hitched with someone and we bounced over the washboard pavement of Farmer’s Loop. The car took flight in a frost heave. We might have seen a moose or someone’s dog startle in the gloom of the ditch.

At the cabin I had rented to escape student housing, I waved goodbye to my friend, stumbled toward my steps, unlocked the padlock on the door, let my husky out for a pee. I kicked the oil drip stove and called it a name for not working. A pumpkin I had purchased because I felt sorry for it sat on the porch rail. Halloween makes for great fiction. I picked the battered soul up and tossed him at the hard ground. It’s difficult to hurl well when you are dressed as the Michelin Man. I heard a thud, but not a crack. When I pulled my hood back to look, Jack was still there, grinning and hard, his guts bravely un-splattered.