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In front of the Mosley Motel, Snow White waited in line for candy apples, and a toddler in pink butterfly wings waited for a heart-shaped balloon — just steps from a sex offender's room.
James Sherwood and Angel Talbert steered their daughters through the giddy bustle, past a bounce house and a popcorn-maker. Alora, 7, dressed as a head on a platter, licked a snow cone. Athena, 11, a zombie, stuck clouds of cotton candy in her mouth.
"I love Halloween," she said.
The carnival was a treat provided by the motel's management to down-on-their-luck families like James and Angel who have found refuge in the Mosley's grim corridors. At a motel where drugs and prostitution have been so rife the city wants to shut the place down, most days aren't quite as festive.
Angel, 32, earns $298 a week working nights at a Sunoco. James, 34, recently finished school to become a medical technologist but hasn't found a job. Since July, they pay $230 a week for the four of them and their pitbull, Bella, to live in Room 104. It isn't the cheapest way to live, but at least there are no rent deposits or power bills. They eat Rice-A-Roni purchased with food stamps and spent the better part of each week with little or no money. The girls' costumes, made with supplies from Goodwill, had left them with $30 that week.
"Okay, let's go," Angel said, and they headed out to the bus stop, back to their old neighborhood.
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They held hands, walking alongside the bustle of cars and exhaust on U.S. 19. Angel clutched the zombie's hand. Miss Head-on-a-Platter reached for her father's hand.
"The only thing good in my life are my wife and my kids," James said.
They'd moved to Florida seven years ago, fleeing Utah and meth addictions that for him stretched back generations. As James put it, "I'd do anything to break that cycle."
They walked half a mile to the bus stop, boarded a bus, got off at Williams Park. They walked into their old neighborhood and past their old apartment, which they'd moved out of after James lost his construction job. They trick-or-treated at 50 houses and walked 4 miles.
Alora's head started to rest on her platter. Athena's head fell on her mother, smearing white paint on her shoulder.
"I love you Mommy," she said.
They made their way back to Williams Park, passed a group of men drinking out of paper bags and a woman slumped at the base of a phone booth with the phone still in her hand.
They boarded a bus, and a half hour later they ended up in the dark streets behind the Mosley. "I want to go home," said Alora, as they trudged by a parking lot of glittering glass, tampons and a filthy bra draped on a fire hydrant.
"A couple more blocks," said Angel, "and we'll be home and get ourselves all comfortable."
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