My homegrown pumpkins drew smiles on Halloween, when 175 trick-or-treaters walked through cold rain for individual bags of candy and a welcome from the jack-lanterns glowing on our porch. The week before Halloween, Lee and I harvested and weighed 42 pumpkins — 360 pounds total — and then designated each of them for assignment. Three tiny ones, which already showed signs of squishiness, headed straight to our compost bin. Lee chose five classic pumpkins for his jack-o’-lantern art, carving logos of the Seattle Seahawks and UW Huskies, a sneering pumpkin with jagged teeth, and two silhouettes of train engines, with steel-wool smoke drifting from their stacks. Nobody was going to stab a knife into my jade-green Cinderella, though. I displayed it on the porch with the other pretty pumpkins, green, pink, yellow and apricot, in a waist-high brick planter.
We gave four orange pumpkins to our grandchildren, and I entrusted a fifth pumpkin, along with a heavy burden of expectation, to our son-in-law. That cheeky pumpkin had lain, wedged for most of the summer between two sections of a decorative wire fence at the edge of our pumpkin patch. By August, the fence wire had etched a distinctive gluteal crease in the pumpkin’s backside, and our son-in-law shared my childlike glee at its decorative possibilities for Halloween.
That weekend, he, our daughter and grandchildren collaborated to create a showstopper. On trick-or-treat night, kids and adults pulled out their phones to photograph the back view of a guy in a long brown wig, sitting on a patio chair and wearing a ball cap, flannel shirt and saggy jeans. Our creative family used padding to fill out most of Pumpkin Guy’s shape, but his exposed backside was all genuine pumpkin — a salute to the most entertaining and risque member of the Rozen pumpkin team.
Lee and I were grateful that a killing frost held off until this week, so that Lee didn’t have to dispose of our jack-o’-lanterns until after Halloween. The thick rind on our uncarved pumpkins protected them from freezing, and they’re still on display in the porch planter. Inside our home, a well-fed gold cat lies curled on the bed in my office. Lee named him Marlon (as in tough, hulking Brando), and he’s ours now, warm, safe and neutered, after years of roaming the neighborhood, scrounging for food. I think of the big guy as a living legacy from Benjamin BadKitten, my companion and spirit animal for 15 years. BBK first met the semi-feral tomcat on our porch three winters ago, and they gradually formed an unlikely friendship. Benjamin seemed as fascinated by Marlon’s toughness as Marlon was by Ben’s privileged life. They got along so well that Lee and I eventually allowed Marlon to eat and sleep in our laundry room. In the months before Benjamin died, Marlon seemed to sense his buddy’s growing frailty, and he took on the role of Ben’s protective older brother.
Maybe I already knew in my soul that last year’s pumpkin harvest would mark BBK’s final season as my chief garden staffer. To commemorate his long, though slothful, tenure, I asked Lee to photograph him among the pumpkins. While Lee arranged the photo setting in our side yard, I smeared bits of Benjamin’s favorite cat food onto a few pumpkins, to lure him to the spot. With the camera poised on its tripod, I set Ben among the doctored pumpkins and eased out of the frame. But instead of sniffing the food and posing, BBK threw a full-out snit, leaping over the pumpkins and stalking off, out of camera range. He didn’t go far, though. My jealous Maine coon cat crouched nearby, glowering at the fat yellow cat who wandered across the grass, caught the scent of the food and beelined to the scene, ready for his closeup.
That evening Benjamin lay in my lap, still sulking over being upstaged. “You’re much more photogenic than he is,” I said, “and your black and brown coat is shinier than his fur. You could have been the star, but the yellow cat just faded into the background. Probably no one even noticed that he was in the photo at all.” BBK’s ears perked up, and he purred for the first time that day. He passed into peace seven months ago, and I have missed him every day since. Whenever I see Marlon, curled up and contented on Lee’s lap, I say a silent thank-you to my BadKitten. As his own spirit faded, Benjamin’s friendship changed the yellow cat’s life.
Craft Rozen dedicated this year’s gardening season to Benjamin BadKitten, who would have tried to claim credit for growing 360 pounds of pumpkins. Email her at scraftroze@aol.com
