Muerto

So apparently nobody told the folks on the West Side that they should have their Day of the Dead parade on the actual Day of the Dead.

Here we are, a week into November, and here are the Dead marching along in their hundreds— and when they’re not marching, they’re riding in vintage cars, speeding by on bicycles-built-for-dead, or zipping along on scooters.

Whole sections of the community participated: high and mid schools, businesses, radio stations, Indian dancers, and sometimes folks who want to remind us that being dead isn’t just all polkas and spun sugar skulls.    There were gay and transgendered dead carrying photos of recent suicide victims.   There were dead oil workers from the Deepwater Horizon.  And there were the dead victims of a serial killer who murdered and buried a pile of women out on Albuquerque’s West Mesa.

The parade ended at the West Side Community Center, where there were vendors, Indians dancing in extravagant costume, and a series of Day of the Dead altars set up by families and community groups.

I had a great time getting cozy with all the dead, and I can only hope that, when I’m dead myself, I can get to ride in some of those cool cars.