On an Eerie New York Halloween

People dressed up as zombies place orders in a bar during an event in New York. (Eduardo Munoz / Reuters)

Upon hearing the news, I recalled one of my first Halloweens in New York, when I dutifully showed up at the Village Parade with the intention of observing from the sidelines. But this was impossible: the streets were teeming with ghouls, belligerent and sweaty, filling the neighborhood as though it were a political rally: a thousand arms waving furiously at the sky. It was my mistake—after all, in a city, one can never merely be a spectator—you’re always a participant, one way or another. I was hardly able to make it out of the subway station, and when I finally reached the surface, was swept up into the mob, where I was trampled on by a rotund Tooth Fairy whose belly shirt revealed his hairy chest. I felt lost in the throng—as one often does in New York—but then he pointed his wand at me and smiled, and I couldn’t deny his odd charm. I wonder now if that Tooth Fairy is without electricity, or if the hurricane’s gusts lifted him into the air by his fairy wings, like a cotton witch that went flying by 14th Street.