The autumnal equinox arrived in Tampa at ninety-one degrees, full sun, not one cloud brave enough to show up and pretend otherwise.

Gary held the full ceremony anyway. He always does.

There is a folding chair. There is a thermos. There is, since two years ago, a single artificial maple leaf that lives in the glovebox specifically for this occasion, because Florida does not reliably produce a real one on schedule and Gary refuses to let a season go uncelebrated on a technicality.

At 9:14 AM, the official start of fall by Gary's watch and nobody else's authority, he stepped out of the cab, walked to the middle of the street, and released the leaf into the air.

It fell four feet and landed on the hood.

"There it is," Gary said, like he'd witnessed a total eclipse. "Fall."

The Full Ceremony

Russ has stopped questioning the ceremony and started documenting it instead, which Gary considers a promotion in respect.

This year's addition: a small paper sign taped to Bertha's mirror reading "OFFICIALLY FALL," hand-lettered by Russ the night before, complete with a hand-drawn pumpkin that looked more like a confused orange.

Ralph parked Loyal a few feet back and watched the whole thing with the patient amusement of a man who has learned that some rituals do not require his understanding, only his presence.

"It's ninety-one degrees," Ralph observed.

"It's fall in your heart, Ralph."

"My heart runs about ninety-one degrees too, then."

Mrs. Kravitz Files an Objection to the Calendar Itself

Mrs. Kravitz was waiting at stop thirty-one, as always, with a position on the matter, as always.

"The equinox is a solar event, not a temperature guarantee," she informed the crew, apropos of nothing anyone had asked her. "You may complain to the sun. I cannot help you."

Then, from behind her, produced with the theatrical timing of a woman who had been planning this for a week, came an honest-to-goodness pumpkin — real, orange, sitting on her porch step since Saturday, watered daily like a house pet.

"It is decorative," she said. "It represents nothing. I simply enjoy pumpkins."

Bertha Says Hello to the Pumpkin

Bertha's headlights flashed once at the pumpkin, which everyone agreed was an appropriate greeting between two round orange things trying their best in ninety-one-degree heat.

The route finished on time. The plastic leaf went back in the glovebox for next year. And somewhere on Cypress Street, a real Florida fall carried on exactly like summer, the way it always does, fooling absolutely nobody and stopping absolutely nothing.