Primitive People by Francine Prose Page A

white glare suggested a freezer, with gangs of costumed little mites swarming over the shelves.
    Many women were dressed like cats, young mothers in black tights and pointy ears with curled tails and drawn-on whiskers, often with several toddlers dressed like a litter of kittens. These women seemed not to know each other or to be surprised by each other’s presence, or even to find it interesting that they’d all had the same idea. Each time they passed one of these cats Simone looked at George as if to say: Behold what you might have been, a fate far crueler than Eskimo furs in the steamy mall. George understood what Simone’s look signified, and their wordless communication made Simone feel connected with him and chosen.
    “Mom?” George ventured, without hope. “Carry my harpoon?”
    “I will not,” said Rosemary. “I’ve already got the guitar. Besides, it’s part of your costume. You could have left it home.”
    “It’s the only part of my costume I liked,” said George.
    “What did I tell you?” Rosemary asked Simone. “Boys! If the Eskimos had hand grenades, he would have liked that better.”
    In the doorway of every shop costumed teenage employees doled out candy. The children darted from store to store in an acquisitive frenzy while their toddler siblings stumbled after them, drooling and confused. The craving for foul-tasting sugar treats was irresistible and contagious. George and Maisie were soon drawn in, filling orange plastic bags. Rosemary dipped into Maisie’s bag, fishing for Tootsie Rolls. She tossed a candy to Simone; it was medicinal and delicious.
    “Admit it, Simone,” Rosemary said. “Black Orpheus, USA.” She was pointing to a tall figure carrying a sickle and wearing a long gray robe with a peaked hood over his domelike forehead. His lantern face was chalky white; his bloodshot, charcoal-encircled eyes were caked with the dust of the grave.
    They passed a child disguised as a computer desk, half hidden by a huge cardboard box topped with cardboard office equipment. A family of dinosaurs followed with backs and tails of foam packing material spray-painted like reptile skin. A woman in an eyepatch and a cocked hat pushed an old-fashioned baby carriage rigged with masts and flags, a rolling pirate ship in which an infant pirate lay sleeping. An elderly Indian woman in a white sari sat outside an import store, dispensing bright green coconut treats and having her photo taken with children. In Port-au-Prince there was a roti shop where Simone and Joseph sometimes ate. Once Simone took Miss McCaffrey there and watched with admiration as she mopped the curry with the roti and never spilled a drop.
    Rosemary cried, “This is the avant-garde cutting edge of American creativity! All the wasted talent, the buried gifts, the juice with nowhere to flow. One holiday a year for all this talent to come pouring forth!”
    Behind the window of the novelty store a teenage boy in black leather and spiked hair was flipping through greeting cards. George and Maisie watched, fascinated, as he searched for the right birthday or anniversary message.
    “Wouldn’t you know it?” Rosemary cried. “All this color and creativity and my children gravitate to the garden-variety low-rent teen heavy-metal fascist. God, I hate sugar and how it affects them. Look at all those poor kids zapped on Red Dye #2. All right, George and Maisie, that’s it. The minute those bags of poison are full, we’re out of here, I mean it.”
    On the drive home George said, “Did you see that guy dressed as Death?”
    “The Grim Reaper,” Rosemary corrected. “That’s what the sickle is for. The idea is that he goes around harvesting lives like alfalfa. Totally primitive, obviously. I don’t know where it comes from. Do you know, Simone? I know Mr. Bones is big in Mexico. What about in Haiti?”
    Simone said, “In voodoo there is Baron Samedi, the god of mischief and death. He wears a top hat and tails and plays evil