Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 63, No. 11 & 12, November/December 2018

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Have you ever heard a Halloween parade? It went up our suburban street, slow and almost stately, the only sound coming from three drums at the front beating a slow, high-pitched rhythm, high-pitched because the drums were those tall, cylindrical ones hipsters used to tap on. Jimmy Boggs, who was the neighborhood stockbroker, was in the lead. The air was cool, the Sunday afternoon still bright with sunlight slanting between the frame houses. I didn’t recognize the man behind Jimmy on the left. Gary Becker, the second-grade teacher, was on the right. They led a string of a hundred or so neighbors, mostly kids in costume with just enough adults to supervise street crossings. As they got closer I heard the children’s excited piping and the occasional parental admonition. I had been napping on the porch — reading a book, I told myself, but mostly napping.

“The drums are new,” my wife said. The sound had brought her out. She waved to somebody, said to me, “It’s a nice tradition, nice for the kids.”

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