Body in Mind: A Halloween treat

October 31, 2008

A Halloween treat

"US stocks plummeted again Thursday and the Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped below 9,000 points for the first time in five years, as a series of US and global efforts to tackle the financial crisis have failed to calm investors..."

I leaned forward and snapped off the car radio, irritated by the clipped and almost frantic edge in the news announcer's voice. Yet another disastrous day, yet another global scramble to get money out of the market before 1929 hit all over again. Great. If it wasn't the stock market or the bailout it was the price of oil or the guests in Obama's living room. Good Lord.

I rubbed my forehead to ease the headache threatening to bloom there. I turned the car off the main road and headed down the familiar country lane that would bring me to my sanctuary. My sub-prime mortgaged, worth-less-than-I-paid-for-it, unsellable piece of the American Dream. The place where two weekends a month I played dad to my two sons and the rest of the time tried not to think about how my ex-wife had actually done herself a favor with her magnanimous gesture of 'giving me the house'. If I didn't find a buyer for this...

Oh shit. The boys were coming this weekend, tomorrow morning actually, and I'd promised to have pumpkins for them to carve. They'd be doing Hallowe'en with their mother and "Glenn", the new man in her life, but at least I'd be able to carve some jack o'lanterns with them. If I had remembered to get some damn pumpkins.

Where the hell was I going to get pumpkins? The grocery store? If memory served, their selection this close to Hallowe'en would be a rag tag assortment of dented, scarred, pale yellow lumps of vegetable matter that I swear were actually squashes. The kind of thing you didn't need to carve scary faces into it, they were already heinous enough.

Wait..there was Brant's farm, a few roads over. Did they grow pumpkins? I remember their lovely daughter Marina selling raspberries and strawberries over the summer, but had I ever seen pumpkins? It was worth a try.

I drove through the golden afternoon light, through the rolling hills of what was probably the last little bit of undeveloped countryside in the whole area. How long would it be before this was all flattened and monster sub-divisions put up instead? I tried not to think about it. As I drove over crunching gravel towards the small hand lettered sign that read simply "Brant Family Farm", the familiar produce stand came into view.

But something was odd. There were cars everywhere, lining both sides of the street, some haphazardly parked on a precarious angle alongside the ditch. Men milled about, or stood frozen, all of them gazing in one direction.

Marina was at the produce stand, talking and laughing as she took money and helped customers pick out pumpkins. She wore a long flowing white skirt and nothing else.

I must have stared for a full thirty seconds, the car idling beneath me. Marina was topless, standing out there in the afternoon sun without a care in the world, her beautiful full breasts uncovered for the world to see. Maybe it was her lack of self-consciousness about it, or maybe it was the way the warm golden light played off the soft tan of her skin, but somehow she didn't look naked at all. She looked completely and appropriately dressed for an autumn afternoon selling pumpkins.

I turned off the engine and got out of the car, trying to think of what I would say to her. I knew her only in passing, but maybe that made it worse. What do you say to a half-naked woman selling you pumpkins? Would I be able to take my eyes off her lovely breasts? Would she care if I didn't? Was she having some sort of psychotic break? My grandmother had a stroke and wore her underwear outside her clothes for a year, was this something like that?

A man in front of me finished his transaction but hesitated in the act of turning away. It was as though he were looking for some reason, any reason, to stay and talk but could think of nothing. The smile on his face was as luminous as any I'd ever seen. When he finally wandered away, looking back all the while, I approached.

"Marina" I said, trying to sound casual. Idiotic banter ran through my head: How's it going? Great pumpkins you got there.

"Hello" she said pleasantly, "haven't seen you in a while."

"No, no, working hard." I said affably, keeping my eyes on the pumpkins arranged on the table before me.

"Crazy what's happening to the market, isn't it?" she said earnestly. It's like a roller coaster, one day up, down the next."

"A roller coaster." I nodded.

She leaned across a row of pumpkins. "Are you doing Hallowe'en with your kids this year?" she asked. "These ones here are some great carving pumpkins. Nice and juicy, but firm too."

"Firm but juicy" I said, I wanted to die.

She laughed, and her breasts jiggled slightly. They really were the most perfect breasts I'd ever seen, and I found myself unable to look away. I couldn't stop smiling either.

"Marina" I finally said. "I'm not sure how to say this but..you do know that you're half naked right now...don't you?"

"Of course" she said. She tilted her head back and closed her eyes, letting the sun bathe her face in soft light. "This is probably one of the last nice days we'll have this year. The perfect temperature, the perfect amount of sun. I want to enjoy it while it lasts."

Sure, that made sense, I thought happily, feeling even more license to look at her. But my eyes darted away quickly when she lowered her head again.

"I also thought people could use some cheering up after all this bad economic news." she said. "I've never seen anything make a man smile more than a nice pair of boobs and a pretty smile."

"Can't argue with you there." I said, wishing I had my camera phone.

"And you could say I'm doing my part for capitalism" she added. "I've sold more pumpkins this afternoon than the last two weeks put together."

My time with her was up. Other men were crowding around now, holding out cash and balancing pumpkins under their arms while trying to look suave. I paid for my pumpkins and took them back to the car, where I sat for a moment watching her engage with her customers. She was a beautiful sight.

As I turned over the motor I realized that, for a few minutes at least, I hadn't given a second thought to the economic crisis or the worthlessness of my house or my ex and her Glenn. I looked down at the firm, juicy pumpkins nestled in the passenger seat and for the first time in a long time, felt really, truly good.

by L. Bell

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