A little Halloween Treat For You…..
Allan stood alone watching the group of thirteen children meander around the church parking lot from auto trunk to auto trunk in a few loose cliques of two or three children each, feeling depressed and old, knowing for certain that he was now one of those men who despised the world for being so much less now than what it had once been. He was convinced that the world of his youth was wondrous and daring, and that children now were being given a world both bland and lame.
He felt like a Fuddy-Duddy.
A woman dressed in black approached and nodded. “You look just thrilled to be here,” she said, friendly enough.
She may have been one of the Mommies here running the show. There were more adults supervising than there were children having “fun.” Some of the women took the children around by the hand. A few walked around and talked, as they were probably all members of this church.
Allan smiled. “I was just thinking about Halloween when I was a kid. We never heard of such a thing as ‘trunk-or-treat.’ And at a church parking lot, no less. When I was young it was grab a pillowcase, get on a mask, and go.”
Just mentioning it brought back the memories. He remembered walking with his sister and brother down the gravel sides of a dark country road. He remembered looking with wonder at the Jack-O-Lanterns with their flickering faces; at the cars with windshields which someone had soaped; remembered the whispered stories of razor-blades in apples; then remembered the people who dropped home-made popcorn balls and candied apples in wax paper into his paper sack; remembered the sweet anticipation of ascending rickety stairs onto strange front porches; remembered the glimpses into half-opened screen doors at the assortment of front rooms, some of which had strange elderly men and women lolling about in overstuffed chairs, some of which had framed pictures on the walls of long dead ancestors, antiquated faces which stared back into the world of the living.
But these children today weren’t given a country road and strange delights. These children moved listlessly amongst the god-awful SUV’s and mini-vans with their trunk lids popped open to reveal little bowls of candy — and even some of these presented crowning examples of insipidity in a tableau remarkable for its insipidity. Some trunks contained trickster disappointments such as evangelical pamphlets, or toothbrushes. Only one vehicle seemed to be remotely in the spirit of Halloween. A solid black sedan was parked off by itself, and had the trunk open, but no light on in the trunk, and no church elder Mommy standing beside it to make sure the children didn’t reach in without supervision. It looked like a man sitting in the front seat, with no radio on and no dash lights. He even appeared to be smoking. The children avoided that car.
“But isn’t this so much safer?” the woman asked Allan. In the dim light he thought he could see her smile. She was shapely enough, under a frilly lace poncho, and tall, and she appeared to have well-toned legs, with knee-high boots and some stretch leggings or pants. Allan couldn’t tell if she was an older sister or someone’s Mommy or maybe even a youngish Grandmother. He didn’t want to go full Fuddy-Duddy on a woman much younger than he.
“So kids these days can’t cross a street? They can’t talk to a stranger? I’d take my granddaughter Susan — that’s her in the Princess get-up — out in my neighborhood, but these days you have to walk two blocks between houses that are giving out Halloween. Just a few years ago I would get nearly a hundred kids at my house on a nice night. Now if I turned on my porch light I’d get fewer than five. And most people just put a bowl of candy on the porch if they do anything. Seems like people do less and less every year.”
“What about taking your granddaughter to one of the haunted houses? Wouldn’t they be scary?” the woman asked.
“Seems like there’s just two types of those these days,” Allan said. “You have some that are obnoxious with gore and gallons of fake blood and heavy metal music blasting loud enough to split your ears, or ones put on by a church, where you get to walk past somebody who lectures about someone who committed suicide or had an abortion or went mad from drugs. Neither one of ’em seem appropriate for a kid. I couldn’t take Susan to either of those.”
In the parking lot a trunk lid slammed, and the dark sedan pulled out of its spot and glided silently toward the exit of the parking lot where Allan stood talking to the woman.
“Churches can be pretty bland,” she said. “They don’t even let kids come to this trunk and treat if they’re wearing anything violent or supernatural. And a cowboy with a six-shooter or a knight with a sword is considered too violent. My boyfriend couldn’t even get out of his car — we’re going to a very intense party later. But abortion, and suicide — aren’t those things frightening?” the woman asked.
Allan detected something in her tone. She almost seemed to be mocking him. He regretted opening up.
“I just wish there were some middle ground,” Allan said. “Everything isn’t all good, or all evil.”
The sedan pulled up alongside them, and the woman signaled to the driver. In the parking lot there was more of a commotion now, and the dozen children were running around, pointing, and tugging at the adults.
“There’s an alternative view of looking at these things,” she said, flashing a grin which was too alluring, too pleasurable, too familiar to have been appropriate to show to a stranger within a church parking lot.
“Maybe people are too protective of these children because you sense, deep down inside, that you’re losing them. Or maybe they’re being raised to be upright and stiff because you can sense that they’re growing up to be the last of their kind, and they’ll be fighting evils so sweet and so tempting that people like you can’t even imagine them. Or maybe people know, deep down inside, that there still is evil, and it’s going to be good or bad, and they just have to choose.”
Allan felt profoundly uncomfortable, and wanted to turn to the woman and ask her what she meant, and challenge her for an explanation, but the all-black car was beside them now, and slowed down. It didn’t stop, but it slowed just enough for the woman to pull open the door on the passenger side and slide in. She looked back at Allan and he saw the for the first time that she was beautiful in her way, but also profoundly ugly, with reddish eyes and a wide gash of a mouth with long, long teeth. Allan only looked at her for an instant, looking past her to the driver, with his reddish, leathery skin, and cold, blood-red eyes.
And then the sedan pulled away, and sped into the main road, and Allan watched it speed away without lights, instantly lost in the traffic. He looked back into the parking lot for Susan.