Little Red Riot-Hood

So yesterday was two things: 1) the two Paris wards' Halloween party (they don't celebrate Halloween here but there are enough Americans to at least merit a party for the kids), and 2) the one year anniversary of the Paris riots when the two children were killed. Both these things were significant in my life yesterday.

I decided that I could dress up as Little Red Riding Hood for the party, but with my meager resources and borrowed clothing, I ended up in a red shirt, red tights that were sort of fishnets, a black skirt, two braided pigtails, black heels (my only black shoes), a red hat and a red/pink scarf. Now, walking down the street to meet my friend to go into the city for said party, I must have looked a sight in my red and black and fishnets, which didn't even occur to me. A fellow driving by honked and slowed his car enough to grin and wink at me. I thought in despair, "Oh no! Little Red Riding Hood gone prostitute!"

To add to this, upon arriving at the party, someone asked me if I was supposed to be a hooker. I glared at them, and then decided to succumb to my fate. Someone let me use bright red lipstick and dark eyeliner, and then we found some masking tape and put a large letter "A" on my shirt. For those of you who don't know, I was now Hester Prynne of the Scarlet Letter, but I looked far more adulterous than she ever did. And that was me for Halloween. Bear in mind as I continue this story that this is what I wore on the way home, minus the tape which I pulled off.

Now, in various suburbs of Paris including one close to my little suburb, people have been burning various busses in response to this one year anniversary. This was not a safe night to be out alone and there were police EVERYWHERE. So though it wasn't a scary day, it was a tense day that made you more alert to be scared.

We stopped for a crepe at a stand that happened to be on the edge of the street that is filled with sex shops and the several blocks down is the prostitute area of Paris. This was right next to our metro stop, however, so it wasn't as though we were deliberatly asking to be solicited. My friend Esther had been the person in the haunted house who "killed" someone with garden sheares, so she had thick eyeliner, black lipstick, and all black clothes on. I noticed a greasy, oily, and scruffy looking man oogling her, and realized that the sorts of people who are on this street are the ones who are looking for certain things from girls, and indeed he sidled up to talk to her. He kept trying to talk to her but the creperie man (bless his soul!) kept interrupting and glaring at this man. Esther was oblivious that she looked like an easy girl if not a real prostitute due to her get-up.

Finally as we were leaving, the man asked if he could have another minute of Esther's time. Esther, just thinking "Oh, I can speak French!" said yes but the rest of us all said "NO!" and dragged her away from this man, who was rather sketchy. I think we all looked like rather easy girls, being dressed as we were.

On the metro home, the train did not stop in Nanterre (which is where some busses were burned and where those children who died last year lived) and there were so many police in all the stations - and scent dogs, too, even on the train. That was a bit startling. Getting off the train, my carte orange, which is my metro pass that costs a lot of money got stuck in the machine and we couldn't get it out and it's pretty much my LIFE, so thankfully some fellows stoped to help us. One of them looked at Esther, still blackly clad, during this and asked in English, "Do you want to go out?" and she said, "YES!" thinking he was referring to out of the station. But no, upon the lovely retrieval of my life, using bobby pins and eventually my earrings, the three men asked us if we wanted "to go, how you say?, drinking? or eat some crepes?" but we showed them the remainder of our crepes we'd just gotten. We felt a little beholden to them, them having saved my carte orange, but at least Esther said "no" this time.