Trickee Treats

This is the first year that Michael began to understand the glycemic glory that is Halloween. His holiday fervor had been building up for several weeks, since I’d been reading the Berenstain Bears’ Trick-or-Treat story to him every night, and as we’ve been putting up various Halloween decorations.

We had every intention of dressing him up like Napoleon, since we’d failed to make that happen the year prior. But with the ever-consuming struggles of day-to-day life, there was just never enough time or strength to get to that costume.

So we dressed him as a ghost. Correction: his mom did. It was her idea, and her efforts. She bought a sheet (of a meager 250 thread count), concocted a plan, snipped here and there, ran a few hems under the sewing machine and in what was for all the world like fifteen minutes, Michael was all set with a ghost costume. I was amazed.

A little face paint and a white long-sleeved shirt and he’d be all set to go.

For days leading up to the 31st, he asked if it was time for “trickee treats”.

When I started setting up the spider lights over the entryway and hung the skull chandelier by the door, he asked me if he can go “trickee treats” tonight.

While he carved his pumpkin (actually, his mom cleaned it and carved it; his contribution was countless small holes where he repeatedly and viciously stabbed it with a pumkin-carving awl), he asked whether it was time for “trickee treats”. When we raked the front yard and I set up tombstones, a giant spider-web, a fog machine and atmosphere-enhancing spotlights, he asked if we could pleeeeeeeease go “trickee treats”.

Finally, the big night arrived. And it was grand chaos. While there’s never enough time on a day-to-day basis, tonight even less so. I had to be sure all my props and effects were in place; I had to cook dinner; I had to be sure to man the door when people came; I had to get my own costume going (15 bucks at Goodwill for a jacket, shirt, pants and shoes which I very carefully and gently torched, hacked, ripped and grimed up to complete the “freshly-clawed-out-of-my-grave” zombie look), and be sure that my wife didn’t stroke out trying to help the kids with their own costumes.

Before going out himself, Michael took some pleasure in helping out. He loved handing candy out to kids, particularly the ones he was eye-to-eye with. There’s something magical about being able to drop a handful of chocolate in another kid’s bucket. And he never ceased being alert for approaching trick-or-treaters: “I think someone’s coming!” he’d say, even if there were only leaves blowing around out in the street.

I had a lot of decorations up this year, including a seven-foot-tall “menacing butler” we nicknamed “Lurch” standing in the entryway. His job was to hold a tray of severed fingers in a pool of blood, and to say things like “Please help yourself to these finger foods,” to approaching trick-or-treaters. This made many of them turn and leave. Michael loved waving his hand in front of the little light sensor to make him speak one of his many phrases. In our bedroom window upstairs, my wife and I had constructed a ghost out of cheesecloth soaked in Rit whitener, which glows very effectively under the two fluorescent black lights that flanked it, out of sight. Coupled with a small fan to cause the ghoulish raiment to wave about in true wraithlike fashion, it was an artful creep fest. It prevented Michael’s older sister from entering our room even under threat of punishment. But to Michael, it was nothing more than a curiosity. I was assured that Michael was unimpressed with the horror we’d created of our home.

But even though he appeared to be perfectly good with all of the spooky decorations we’d set up, we discovered that he hadn’t quite grasped the pretend nature of the whole thing.

In the living room, next to the candy cauldron by the front door, I had lit some special candles in a spider web-festooned candelabra. They were white tapers that dripped red; obligatory gore for the season. In a previous year these same candles had toppled over onto my oldest daughter’s plate of spaghetti as we had dinner; she was unable to bring herself to eat spaghetti for months.

So before taking the kids out on their appointed rounds, my wife took a shift watching the door while I sat down to eat dinner. I was joined by my step-daughter, her dad, her step-mom and her half-sister. They had come to visit and go along with the trick-or-treating since they live in a rural area.

I hadn’t gotten three bites into my meal when we heard Michael cry out from the living room. I heard my wife call my name in a pleading, but not urgent voice.

And then Michael ran into the room bawling.

He came right over to me, motioned for me to lift him up to my lap. He heaved huge sobs, barely able to catch his breath, let alone speak. We all mused what might be the matter, whether he’d bitten his tongue, burned himself, got his finger smashed or got in trouble for touching something.

Michael was not offering any suggestions as to what might be wrong, choosing instead to continue his hitching weep.

Finally, his mom called out from the entryway: “Michael, it’s all better. I put bandies on them.”

Michael hopped down, obviously relieved, and ran into where his mom was.

I called out to my wife: “Honey, what did you put band-aids on? What got hurt?”

She came into view, stifling a laugh.

“The candles. He thought they had gotten hurt because they were bleeding,” she said.

We all burst out laughing.

Poor Michael, the sensitive soul, he has empathy even for wax.

Epilogue: Michael collected about a quarter-full bag of candy from the neighborhood. He has opened nearly half of it, and eaten nearly half of what he’s opened. As of this writing, he has still not come off of his sugar high.