The Bar Car

Everything about her was nice. Pentecostal pretty, with a great name like Erica or Erin, I can’t remember which.

She smiled her extra teeth smile at everyone she passed on the street, leaving them all wishing they knew her, or at least struggling to think of something moderately interesting to say next time she passed them by.

Every morning, she visited the waterfront  to feed the children’s clothesline Jack-O-Lanterns that swung on a rope in the alley behind the Old Sailor’s Home. The children needed clean Jack-O-Lanterns for trick-or-treat.

She fed them one at a time, like the good caregiver that she was, placing a black and orange crepe bib on each pumpkin lovingly as they swung sleep-eyed, fat and lazy in the early morning sun, pushing sloppy mashed Halloween candy into their craning grins.