{"id":123883,"date":"2022-10-19T21:36:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-20T02:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/?p=123883"},"modified":"2022-10-20T11:34:54","modified_gmt":"2022-10-20T16:34:54","slug":"the-view-from-the-balcony-interview-with-a-pumpkinhead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/the-view-from-the-balcony-interview-with-a-pumpkinhead\/","title":{"rendered":"The View From The Balcony: “Interview with a Pumpkinhead”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Sometimes the story comes to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was out late the first of October. Fall was in the air and the post-Homecoming revelers were still going strong as closing time approached. The door to The Balcony opened and out stepped one of the strangest looking characters I\u2019d ever seen. I figured he was doing a test run with his Halloween costume because at the top of his neck sat a full-fledged Jack-O\u2019-Lantern. Unceremoniously he plopped down in a seat across the table from me and let out a deep sigh.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI hate this month!\u201d he said.
I was dumbfounded. His face actually moved like a living being\u2019s.
\u201cThat\u2019s some costume,\u201d I said. \u201cMusta cost you a bundle.\u201d
He shot back, \u201cIt ain\u2019t a costume.\u201d
He pulled on the stem at the top of his head and removed the crown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLook,\u201d he said, leaning over so I could see inside the hole. Sure enough, it was empty\u2014hollowed out.
I quickly tallied up the number of drinks I\u2019d had. Only three, so I figured I wasn\u2019t drunk yet. I stared at him. Further confirmation of his story: his top and bottom teeth didn\u2019t match up. \u201cI\u2019ll be damned,\u201d I said. \u201cYou\u2019re an honest-to-goodness real Jack-O\u2019-Lantern!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy name\u2019s not Jack,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s Steve. I\u2019m a Steve-O\u2019-Lantern. Jack was the first one to gain notoriety back in the Middle Ages. Sleepy Hollow came a long time later. Jack took the place of the head of the first Headless Horseman. Screwed it up for all of us, damn his empty noggin\u2019. Not one ounce of orange matter in his skull. He couldn\u2019t hold on while the horseman was riding. Hit the ground and splattered into a thousand pieces, his name accursed ever since. Now every October you humans hack, slit, slice, and gash us to pieces. We\u2019re sick of it. Totally sick and tired of it. It\u2019s vegetable ethnic cleansing!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI-I-I\u2019m s-s-sorry?\u201d I stuttered.
\u201cThat\u2019s right. You are sorry,\u201d he said.
\u201cI know your past. You\u2019ve put a Ginsu knife to dozens of us and gouged out our insides. Just threw our guts away like they were some kind of slime. Then you put a candle in us and show our massacred head off on your front porch. When you\u2019re done with us it\u2019s trash heap time.
I played the ignorance card. \u201cSteve, I had no idea.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s an understatement if ever there was one,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve read your column. Your ideas suck! You\u2019re probably gonna write this up as one of your stupid fake interviews.\u201d
Steve-O\u2019-Lantern grabbed me by the collar and pulled me nose-to-nose hole. \u201cLook, Ichabod, all we want is some R-E-S-P-E-C-T. We\u2019re planted, we grow, we\u2019re picked, we\u2019re used, we die. Ain\u2019t all that different from you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I cogitated for a moment. \u201cYou\u2019re right, Steve. It\u2019s the circle of life.\u201d
\u201cGive me a break, Weeks!\u201d he jabbed. \u201cYour stupid tangenital references bore the hell out of me.\u201d
I hung my head in shame. An orange tear slipped down Steve-O\u2019-Lantern\u2019s cheek. He turned his gaze to The Courthouse then looked back to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOn Halloween these streets will be filled with children and adults all in costume, and your homes will be decorated with Jack-O\u2019-Lanterns, Steve-O\u2019-Lanterns, Jane-O\u2019-Lanterns\u2026Just reach out and touch us. Rub the back of our heads. Smile at us. That\u2019s all we ask. That\u2019s all we want.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steve-O\u2019-Lantern downed the last of his Bloody Mary and stood to leave.
\u201cYou can count on me, Steve,\u201d I said. \u201cYou can count on me.\u201d
Steve looked long and hard at me. \u201cPumpkin lives matter, too, Randy. Don\u2019t you ever forget that!\u201d
\u201cI get it, Steve,\u201d I replied. \u201cPumpkin lives matter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2026and that\u2019s the spooky view from The Balcony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Randy Weeks is a Licensed Professional Counselor, a Certified Shamanic Life Coach, an ordained minister, a singer-songwriter, and an actor. He does not now, nor has he ever, owned a Ginsu knife. Randy may be reached at randallsweeks@gmail.com<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sometimes the story comes to you. I was out late the first of October. Fall was in the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":118752,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11902],"tags":[10286,10878],"class_list":["post-123883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-randy-weeks","tag-randy-weeks","tag-the-view-from-the-balcony"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/ViewFromTheBalcony-2.jpg?fit=996%2C650&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123883"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123883\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelocalvoice.net\/oxford\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}