Guy Fawkes Night
Childhood memories better than any Halloween…
When a kid, I don’t ever recall celebrating Halloween. I do remember celebrating Guy Fawkes night, November 5th, making bonfires and stuffing straw into a pair of old trouser legs, and the sleeves of a jacket to create an effigy of Guy Fawkes, which we would then tout around the streets asking: ‘Penny for the Guy’, and on the big night, burn Guy’s effigy on the fire.
We watched fireworks, baked potatoes in the fire, and played games of hide-and-seek.
After my adoption, I experienced November 5th as a whole town gathering.
It was never scary, though Grandfather was indeed a haunted character. I’d seen strange things at the orphanage, especially the night an oak tree was split down the middle by a single bolt of lightning. I was eight years old and remember wanting to have that same power in my fingertips so that I could deal with the school bully, who loved Susan Rafferty much less than I did.
I was always slightly terrified of Grandfather, though he was mostly amusing and exciting. He told me if I didn’t eat creamed asparagus or boiled codfish, a lightning bolt would come down and strike me to charcoal.
I never did eat it, so I still wonder when the lightning comes, and the thunder of my heart starts to beat, if some blue-white flash will sneak up on me and cut me down for all the boiled codfish I never ate.
Despite these dire warnings, Grandfather loved me; I know this for sure, the way he would pull me into him, making the contours of my body fit his. He had only one arm; the other being severed by a mad Russian whale woman with a flensing knife. That’s what he told me. Dad said he lost it in a fishing boat accident. I preferred to believe a mind haunted with old age, and the next story more fantastic than the last.
The scariest, the most unbelievable story, he told in the year I turned twelve years old. There is something about the crackle of a bonfire that made his stories so real. You see, Grandfather was a great storyteller. He said it was his job after retiring from fishing. He was a vicar. He taught Sunday school.
Along with other kids I attended church on Sunday mornings, listening to Grandfather tell us about sins and other intriguing possibilities. Stories of sin scared the living crud out of me.
I sat in the church wondering if Grandfather knew what other boys had told me; that Susan Rafferty never wore a bra under her blouse. Such silly indiscretions were then, and probably still today, the mindless occupation of a boy’s thought.
Certainly mine.
I grew up, not knowing what other boys knew, and always believed what they told me. Or it seemed this way.
It was my third year as an adopted child on the island when the church held a massive bonfire night, built by the townsfolk. We piled up rubbish and wood and cardboard for days ahead. Everyone prayed it wouldn’t rain. It did.
Hard.
I never dared ask Grandfather about that, all the praying we did and all.
On the eve of the big bonfire, it snowed. I felt a huge feeling of disappointment. When I woke on November 5th morning, freeze from the night before had left all the trees coated in ice, like the crystal chandelier in the library. The first rays of sunshine glistened through them. Sixty years later, in the writing, I feel my eyes flooding, remembering that long ago frustration.
On a pale November day, the falling snow hid the lane to the church. I knew every inch of the lane’s turns, even though the white sheet of winter was a foot deep. Come the night, with snow still falling, the town gathered around the bonfire.
I learned fire magic.
It was called Paraffin!
Up went the fire, oh how splendid. The heat, the flames, sparks flying. We ran and jumped and chased around and around.
I Imagined a night that would never end.
Up into the sky went the rockets, into the fire went the potatoes, and if midnight had a door, I was headed right through it. The whole evening burning into smoke.
Once every rocket had been fired off to Mars, the potatoes had crisped their skins, we kids, smoked-dusted and hot, and finally quieted, were called to sit down upon a circle of turned up metal milk crates, warmed by the fire.
Grandfather told us a hell of a scary story about a Father who gave up His Son to the world. The story ended with the Son being nailed to a cross, he said. I didn’t cry, though the way Grandfather held his hands up, asking us to imagine nails being banged through them, forced tears to brim. Susan was sitting across from me in the flickering light of flames, and I didn’t want her to see me a weakling.
At the end of the evening, we said a prayer. Then we threw Guy’s effigy into the fire.
I felt relieved.
Nailed to a cross and being burned on a bonfire seemed a whole lot more acceptable to me than Grandfather knowing I was thinking about Susan Rafferty’s breasts the entire time.
