The Raging Elitist

This ended up being one of the years that I dragged myself to the pumpkin patch with Danyelle and the boys. More often than not, I avoid the slow-moving stream of cars pulling into Boone Hall Farm, the march across the pitted lot to wait in line for admittance, and the minor sea of people milling about the row of attractions. Every year it’s the same thing: surprisingly hot mid-October weather, a bumpy hayride with kitschy skeleton exhibits, a corn maze, the smell of greasy food trucks mixed with petting zoo manure; the only difference from year to year is that the crowds seem to increase. It’s as if the pumpkin patch carnival exists in some alternate plane, never really being taken down or set back up again, the throng never actually leaving but instead always there, hivelike, mindlessly pulsating and growing. For whatever reason, its call was irresistible to my household this season. Not only was I drawn in, upping the Lupton party from three to four, but Granny (my mother) tagged along. So too did the boys’ friend Bennett, as well as another, unexpected guest, a neighborhood boy named Nelson, who proved a direct contradiction to the festivities’ droning sameness and the carnival-goers’ dimly lit stares.

I hardly noticed little Nelson in the backseat during the drive to Boone Hall, but once we emerged from the car and got a good look at each other, his inner nature revealed itself, and it was decidedly not meek. A large personality wrapped up in a small package, Nelson can often be seen walking his family’s oversized Bernie doodle around the neighborhood, barely clearing its head as he treks down the street holding the leash taut, firmly in command of the beast. On the day of the pumpkin patch excursion, he wore several plastic bands of various colors high on both ankles, and he flashed strikingly assured brown eyes from beneath his thick mop of blond hair. Not about to be talked down to, he met my dry humor with assertions such as, “You’re going to die,” and “That’s why you don’t get me,” the latter of which he delivered as we looped our way through the corn maze. Granny and I were taking the group deeper and deeper into the maze despite Nelson’s insistence that we turn around and head directly to the exit. Unmoved by his demands, I hustled around corners and hid myself among the stalks, jumping out at him and the boys and scaring them. The first time I pulled this stunt Nelson threw an ear of corn which hit me squarely in my lower back. The next time, he jumped and did a twirl as he lightly put both hands on me, and I couldn’t be sure whether it was the start of an embrace or the thought of a takedown. Either way, he seemed very pleased.

It turned out that Nelson’s need to exit the maze wasn’t so much predicated on boredom or fear as it was on a requirement for French fries and shaved ice. Once his appetite for simple carbohydrates was satisfied, and having eschewed the cheeseburger we got him and which I dutifully ate, he took charge and led the group back into the maze for a second trial. He had a contest in mind and was very explicit about the rules. We were all to walk to the center together, and then to race to the exit as two separate parties: kids vs. adults. Danyelle acted as place judge, sitting on a bench at the exit while Granny and I carried the banner for the adult team, confident that we would prevail. Once we were deep in the maze, and Nelson, that wee natural born leader, gave the word, the two of us thrashed through the rows of corn, abandoning the looping paths in favor of a beeline. A neat row of pines towering overhead abutted the field on the exit side, making it impossible to get lost, and Nelson was no doubt aware. Granny and I heard him giving the other three boys orders the entire way as we plowed toward the exit. Despite our best effort, they were always a step ahead. When we came to the end, Nelson stood waiting and gloated. He couldn’t suppress a smile when I accused him of cheating by cutting through the corn, but he quickly covered it up with a look of righteous indignation.

“I know you used your phones!” he said. Then, those striking brown eyes gleamed, and he smirked a little silent laugh when I asked if he really thought the path through the corn maze was on Google Maps.

I’d been making similar jokes to some of our fellow maze-goers before the race, and my attempts seemed to go right over everyone’s heads. “It’s actually this way,” I said to people walking the opposite direction. Confused or sometimes unaware looks ensued. One lady had her phone out and was bent over pointing it at her toddler. “You can’t use GPS,” I said.

She turned and looked at me disgustedly. “I’m taking a picture,” she said, as if I’d been serious.

I stepped around her and her baby without retort. In another world, one not governed by pumpkin patch hive mind, I might have responded, “I really don’t give a shit.” No doubt Nelson would have had some such answer at the ready. Admirable little fellow.

Class President

As soon as we took our costumes off, Danyelle was already plotting what we could do for next Halloween. “Honestly, I’m kinda over it,” I told her. The thrill of Halloween just isn’t what it used to be when the kids were younger. In years gone by, we walked the neighborhood with the boys and their cousins, all of us dressed according to some theme orchestrated by Danyelle. We did The Wizard of Oz, and Danyelle was Dorothy in her frilly blue dress and red slippers; we did Peter Pan, and Danyelle went in a little green tunic and tights; there was the Jurassic Park year when Danyelle was the Laura Dern character in hiking boots and short shorts. I did my part and dressed as Scarecrow, Smee, the male archeologist – whatever was required, and I enjoyed keeping one eye on the kids and the other on Danyelle. This year, I barely saw the boys, and Danyelle went as Napoleon Dynamite, donning a curly blond afro wig and baggy pants. The usual distractions were missing, and as I walked down Scotland Drive toward the small crowd gathered five houses down, I was a little extra self-conscious about my getup.

It was the cross hanging around my neck that made me the most uncomfortable, that and the fact that I didn’t have the excuse of dressing up for the kids. Uncle Rico was an adult costume all the way, a spectacle for our grownup neighbors, not the children. I grew my beard out for weeks, just so I could shave it Halloween night and leave a broad broom beneath my nose. I liked the silly facial hair and the irony of being Danyelle’s inept babysitting uncle; tossing a football to myself was pleasant enough too, but I felt like the effort I was making was more appropriate for an all-night twenty-something affair, not a forty-five-minute gathering at the street corner where little kids were getting pizza and someone was bound to get offended by my joke of a religious accessory. I ended up putting my foot in my mouth with a strange man, a formerly suicidal father of four who wears an angry smile and leans into social niceties with unsettling enthusiasm. I apologized for my gaffe by pointing out my ridiculous costume, basically inviting his ridicule. He didn’t seem to like the cross.

Other conversations I managed with more aplomb. In social settings with neighbors, there’s always the question of how much the other person wants you to keep standing nearby talking, whether you’re providing them relief from or adding to the awkwardness inherent to the situation. There are those neighbors whose company I genuinely enjoy, but one doesn’t want to be annoying, clinging desperately to a conversation for too long, and thereby becoming an object of avoidance in the future. One of the ways I have of dealing with this little conundrum is to get people talking about their kids, which is why I was so glad to see Nelson’s parents at the edge of the crowd just as Danyelle and I were ready to make our getaway. “Just who I wanted to see,” I exclaimed in earnest approaching them, and I forgot completely about being an embarrassed Uncle Rico.

“What did he do?” they asked, trying to feign worry, but it was obvious they were eager to hear whatever Nelson story I was about to tell. They were excited to talk to another Nelson enthusiast. They told me that he organized an election for class president last year, not an election that was sanctioned by the school, one that Nelson simply conjured on his own. He, of course, won the election, and he went on to appoint a cabinet. For the rest of the year, he signed all his papers, “Nelson, Class President.”

By the time I talked to his parents, Nelson had already made an appearance at our house. He’d set out early like all the boys over the age of seven or eight do, knowing that the best candy goes first and that sometimes, bowls are left on stoops unattended. He was with a group of five or six others, and Danyelle and I were sitting out in the front lawn when they approached. I recognized one of the other boys, and I started teasing him that we were “fresh out” of candy, when a disaffected voice said, “Yeah, sure,” and a little hand reached into the bowl.

“Ha!” I said looking over to Danyelle. “This kid! Who is this?”

“Don’t you know? It’s Nelson!” Danyelle said.

“Nelson!” I yelled in delight. “I didn’t recognize you! What are you supposed to be?” He had on blue jeans and suspenders and a beanie that was flopped over to one side. It was one of those minimalist costumes that could almost pass for everyday wear. I thought I saw him smirk a little as he mumbled and quickly took his leave of me. Wee Nelson was a lumberjack, and he wasn’t about to take any shit off anyone. He had Halloween business to conduct.