After leaving work I observed Halloween from a mental and emotional distance, examining the costumed hordes as they progressed gamely, station to train to station. There's something funny and what's the word. About someone who's all dressed up and waiting. All dressed up with somewhere to go. A man wearing a mask and a ridiculous, long hippie wig, its black synthetic strands shiny in the fluorescence. I scrutinized him as he – poignant? – gathered up his fake mane and took a seat beside his similarly dressed girlfriend. No. Arresting?

Women, young women, scuttled across the crowded subway halls in fishnet stockings and mini skirts with a little knowing smile, ever so slightly self-conscious. All sexy and shit. I mean. There seemed among them a great desire to dress slutty. The license you get this night to play, to regress and play, be cops and robbers, cowboys, Indians and whores.