My cancer support group (no worries — it's a zodiac-, not an oncology-thing) had a little pumpkin carving party last night, and I realized as soon as we'd divvied up the pumpkins that it's no longer enough to just make an old-school jack-o-lantern, like when I was a kid.  Especially when you live with a Mass Art alum, a Mass Art drop-out, two psychologists and “Craft Corner Death Match’s” Craft Lady of Steel. 

So, yeah, I'll admit that I did a quick flickr search for pumpkin carving ideas beforehand.  Something sort of post-modern preferably, some clever little comment on the traditional jack-o-lantern.  Something that took it to the next level, you know?  I thought about doing a Jackie-O-lantern, but I didn't have any of those superfly sunglasses she used to wear on Aristotle's yacht. 

That's about as far as I got by the time the party started.  And I was like, feck it.  I'm not giving it another thought.  I'm going to let whatever's in that pumpkin work itself out — like Michelangelo's slaves — I will let the pumpkin guide my knife.  I will surrender to the jack-o-lantern within it.

One of my housemates is from the Islands and had never carved a pumpkin, believe it or not.  She was a tabula rasa.  Hers could be whatever she wanted it to be (she decided to carve little hearts into it).  But the rest of us didn't have that luxury. 

CLOS seemed particularly tense going in, and while she swore up and down this would not end up a competition, I had noticed her furious pumpkin sketches lying around for weeks in advance.  She was the one who'd gone out and picked the pumpkins, choosing wildly different sizes, instead of ones that were roughly equal, knowing that some of us would have to end up with little ones.  A couple hours before the carving I saw her doing squats and stretches, and cracking her knuckles.  She was definitely in it to win it.

The Ass Mart alum could not join us, mysteriously.  Our Art School Drop-Out was pretending to be cavalier, but I could tell he had something up his sleeve. 

After some baby backs from Redbones and a couple of Octoberfest brews, we got down to it.  I decided that for me the competition would be who finished first.  So after gutting my little pumpkin I set to carving.  The rind fell away with surprising ease under my knife.  The lines were crisp, and I watched as, seemingly by magic, the outline of a simple, unironic, but totally badass jack-o-lantern emerged (you can see the result in the photo above).   

I declared myself The Winner By A Mile, and cracked open another beer.  CLOS glared at me from over the enormous McMansion-sized pumpkin we had deferred to her, which she had yet to even scoop all the guts out of.  The Pumpkin Virgin giggled and hacked out another rough-hewn heart.  ASDO, reeking of the Axe Effect, grinned maniacally, up to his elbows in pumpkin guts himself.  He was glad to see me go.  It wasn't me he was after.  It was CLOS.

I popped a candle in my jack-o-lantern and stuck it in the window.  "Oh, how nice," said the Virgin.  "It's cute, it's small," said ASDO. "It's..." CLOS struggled to come up with a nice way to put it: "charming in its... simplicity and utter lack of... "

"... personality," ASDO added helpfully.

I must have looked stricken.

"I'm not empty!" I gargled.

"Dude, it's a compliment," he assured me.  "Personality just gets in the way of a good fuck!"

"Please don't talk about my pumpkin like that" I said. "If I had wanted that kind of company tonight I would have just carved a glory hole in it and gone upstairs." 

Hmm, there's an idea.

My pumpkin crit complete, I was now free to stride from one pumpkin-carver to the next doing my best Tim Gunn impression.  "What's happening with this?  What's going on with that? The whole thing looks like faux bois."

Meanwhile, CLOS and ASDO were locked in an unspoken death match.  Both had decided to do pumpkin tableaux. You know, black cats and witches in silhouette.  That sort of thing.  Unheard of in the days of my Indiana childhood.  Neither was about to reveal what sort of tableau they had in mind, either.  CLOS was scribbling notes and had the tape measure out, and a toolbelt with all these fancy carving knives.  ASDO was scribbling right on his pumpkin with a felt-tip marker. 

"Is that Pangaea?" I asked, looking at some blobs he'd mapped out on the surface of his.  They were obviously breasts. 

He chuckled, knowingly. 

CLOS glared over at him, clearly thinking: "what has he got up his sleeve?"

Soon the actual carving was underway.  ASDO hacked away at his like a machete-wielding psycho, chunks of pumpkin flying. CLOS whittled away at hers with the precision of a brain surgeon. 

Thriller screeched from the turntable.

When it was over, CLOS presented a meticulously carved black cat with arched back and puffed-up tail in silhouette against a full moon.  Shivers ran down my spine.  All bets were off.

Then came ASDO's reveal.

"Oh my God!" The Virgin cried.

CLOS was speechless. 

I couldn't believe it myself.

"Dude, that's the mudflap girl!"

We all stared in awe. None of us had even suspected we were in for a raunch-art masterpiece of this order. 

"Dude, this belongs in the ICA."

CLOS nodded vigorously.

"Yeah, it's way too, um, artistic to put in the window here."

The Virgin added: "You could keep it in your room."

I handed him a knife. 

"What's this for?" he asked.

"The glory hole," I winked.  "Careful you don't get burnt."