the booty

Many of the doorbell rings were followed by a shuffling sound, then the uniquely loud silence made by a human trying not to breathe at a door, one eye of the pretending-statue-face straining to see through the peephole if the costumed children have given up and left.  In this way, trick or treating in Lyon* resembled Halloween back home.  But that's about the only similarity.  We were a ragtag crew tonight - two moms (one French, one me), one blonde Frankenstein, one cat in a stripey dress, one sweaty dog with a smeared nose and a sticky face, and one doe eyed baby, perched on a hip, holding a really terrible monster-clown mask.  

For a few weeks now, I've been trying to politely stop the dwellers of our high rise to prepare them for an imminent round of Halloween trick or treating for my poor, American-culture starved children.  I will spare you the details of how these conversations went, for although my French is getting much smoother, a description of trick or treating stretches it in very ugly directions.  Ugly.  Like when you stare at a word for too long, rushed, unrehearsed explanations of trick or treating in a foreign language without context in an entryway begin to feel pretty darn abstract and in each case, I merely trailed off into pause - one of my main transitional strategies in French conversation.  

With disappointment prevention in mind, in the end, we decided to conduct our little tour of this very quiet building BYOC style.  That is, bring your own candy.  To further confuse those fortunate few who had been enlightened by my lectures on Halloween, we offered candy.  

And doors opened; they did.  Not so many, but the brave souls who ventured to turn the knob gave us something quite unexpected.  We were clearly breaking protocol (and believe you me, the French wrote the book on protocol), but then, we were bringing our own little expectation of protocol with us, now, weren't we?   

The effect was always the same - a swirl of awkward human contact and good intentions.  There was the interrupted bridge game - four women seated around an elegant table; they asked the kids to enter, introduce themselves, and parade around to show off their costumes.  There were those who scrounged for something to offer, insisting upon giving a few coins.  Our concierge had prepared a special, tiny bag for each child.  Another woman, clearly one of my more enthusiastic listeners in the foyer, baked us - and I kid you not - a cake, presented in slices on a glass plate that we carried with us.  Our favorite was a little, bespectacled boy, who ran away, then came back with his own personal stash of candy.  We tried to refuse, but he simply wouldn't take no for an answer. 

Of course, we banked on the fact that no child present had an idea of just how far this trick or treating gig can be taken.  Dawn, Kim, Deena, and Bobby, I didn't recount how we, our hair wild and cheeks flushed from the exciting, Halloween night air, would dump those heavy bags in heaps on the floor upstairs on Sunset Avenue, organizing first by type, then by eating priority, the wingspan of sugar reaching a few feet, at least.  I can't recreate that here, but I guess that's not the point.  The booty** was different, but the booty was good.  

*Did she say Lyon?  We moved to Lyon!

**Get your mind out of the gutter. I meant booty as in pirates' treasure.