 |
Halloween '97 |
|
I came in a half hour ago, to the smell of burning wood. I parked the car and locked it up. And I could smell burning wood, like in a fireplace. It's a brisk night, not yet winter but coming soon. It's a nice fall night. I started thinking about Halloween, this Friday, and that had me thinking of Halloween past. Halloween was one of the best holidays for me as a kid. I could dress up and be something else. And as the vanguard of the whole holiday season, it can't be beat. When Halloween hits, you know Thanksgiving is nearby. Then Christmas (if you celebrate Christmas). Do Jews celebrate Halloween? I'm not sure. I suppose I was the standard kid in that I would run home after school on Halloween, throw on my costume and be out trick-or-treating by 3:30. Then I could get in two or three solid hours before it was too dark. I went out with my neighbor, Tommy, and two or three other kids I can't remember. It was different every year. Sometimes my friends Jeff would come along. Sometimes I'd go out with my brother. That was usually the worst. Trick-or-treating with my brother was terrible. He'd always shoulder me out of the way to get to the door first. He always be right up front and he'd shake his bag in an extortionary "more, more" gesture if he didn't get as much as he wanted. When he was sated he shoulder you out of the way again and run down the steps and shoot off to the next house, leaving you to play catch-up. It was exhausting. I think he was hoping - just once - to get to a door just as someone was running out of candy. So you could get there after him and get nothing. The one Halloween incident that sticks out in my mind more than any other was one of the last years I went out. I was probably ten or eleven, my brother one year older. We went to a corner house with a high brick stoop. It was probably a good eight or nine steps up. The front door was a story above the ground. On either side of this wide stoop were bare hedges. They were what we called "sticker bushes". I can't remember if these were rose bushes in summer. Or if they only had stickers. I remember that the sticker hurt like hell. You'd push your way in a football or frisbee were at stake. And you'd get just what you'd deserve: cut to hell. So my brother and I were standing at the top of this high stoop and this woman comes to the door. She wasn't old but she was a real crotchety lady. Like she had been bugged one too many times that night. It was dark and she opened the door and scowled at my brother and I. The cnady bowl was still brimming, just inside the front door. She had nice stuff too: Hershey's miniatures - Krackel, Mr. Goodbar, Hershey's Dark and regular Hershey's bars. And full size Nestle Crunch's and Forever Yours'. It wasn't crap. Like some people feel a good Halloween treat is (get this!) pennies. What the hell kind of cheap, lazy bum gives pennies to kids for Halloween? Why not just give them empty cans and tell 'em to return them for nickels? I swear, every kid I knew would chuck those pennies as soon as they got off the stoop. You'd keep nickels and chuck pennies. Other crappy candy (to me) were candy apples, jawbreakers, gum balls, licorice and anything marshmallow. Give me chocolate with some Smarties or Pixie sticks thrown in. I'd even settle for some nice cookies, properly wrapped. So there we are, my brother and I, awaiting the good stuff, when this wiseass lady ask my brother to do a trick. "You want a trick lady?" my brother says (probably dressed as a pirate) and he shoves me off the stoop. Right into the sticker bushes. The lady and my brother both laughed and she gave him lots of candy. I struggled in the sticker bush (probably dressed as the all-purpose, never fails, bum - or maybe an astronaut) for awhile and then my brother extended his hand and hauled me out. When I shoved him back and called him whatever I did, he just opened his bag and said, "Look!". "Whoa" I said, and knocked on the door. The lady opened up and laughed at me again. Then she held the bowl up to my bag and tipped it in. I made out pretty good. When we got home my mother demanded that we feed our own bowl before over-turning our bags for private gorging. She had run out of treats for the kids still coming to our door. My brother and I stuck our heads into our respective bags and pulled out all the bad stuff and fed the bowl. That was the last time we went trick-or-treating. We were given the task, in years hence, of dispensing the candy ourselves. One year, we filled those little Halloween bags up with dirt from the yard and laughed ourselves silly as we gave them out. We only did it for a half hour or so before we got scared some adult would come and beat the crap out of us. |
