Tuesday, 02 November 2004 | Dialogue

It got dark early on Halloween. Neither of us felt like putting any energy into dressing up this year, in part because I was out of town on Saturday night. Instead we spent the evening creating a long dialogue, full of difficult decisions. We talked on the couch, we talked on the porch, and we talked on the sidewalk.

At one point, we decided to take our dialogue to Fort Greene park. We sat on the edge of the monument at the top of the hill (alone) and noted the orange leaves glowing around the lamp posts, the unusual number of Brooklyn stars, and the fact that dialogue in a place like that had become rare.

Some teenagers gathered about twenty feet from us, laughing and jumping on benches. We ignored them and concentrated on words.

The first one flew through the air, forming a crescent, and then popped on the concrete. What was that? Another white streak, and another popping noise. I felt a streak of liquid brush my face as the frequency of bombs increased, and I could see the oval silouhettes as they coasted toward the ground at our feet. We were being egged.

They were fifteen years old or so, and there were seven of them, two of whom (I think) were girls. They followed us and pelted us until we drew a cell phone (the inferential weapon), and then they scattered.

We cleaned the goo off our clothing (I wasn't hit directly, but he was), pissed off and incredulous. We continued our dialogue from the safety of a bar, where we were served by a tattooed wolf.

***

The voting machines in New York resemble old high school lockers, and have levers and switches that creak when you pull them. They make you feel like you're doing something technical and clever, like flying a plane, or emulating the Wizard of Oz. (In North Carolina, you get more of a standardized test feeling, since voting is done with paper and pens.)