I Remember Halloween

Grow­ing up in those days, every kid on my street knew Hal­loween was a big deal. Every yard and every house was dec­o­rat­ed. The ones that kept their porch lights off or refused to give can­dy were marked ahead of time for win­dow soap­ing or tee-pee­ing. We chafed at school, eager to get home to dress up as vam­pires, ghouls, and mon­sters. No mod­ern wor­ries about sug­ar and processed foods. My cousins had caries and fill­ings from drink­ing Pep­sis and eat­ing can­dy every day. Back then, “fam­i­ly size” meant you could sink your arm to your elbow into a bag of chips and not hit bottom. 

Uncle Bud­dy lived with us at the time. He’d been to Viet­nam. The Army dis­charged him and shipped him back. My father grum­bled some­thing about Agent Orange, which sound­ed like a new fla­vor of Kool-Aid. My two sis­ters and I were told nev­er to men­tion the war, but Uncle Bud­dy didn’t talk much to us. I broke the rule once when I asked him about a fatigue jack­et in his clos­et that had a patch with a large grin­ning rat on it.

“That’s a tun­nel rat,” he told me. “See the mot­to under­neath? Can you read it?”

Being an altar boy, I knew some Latin from serv­ing Sun­day mass. “Non Gra­tum Anus Roden­tum,” I repeat­ed. I knew anus from school. Who didn’t? “An ungrate­ful rodent’s … behind.”

“Close,” Uncle said. “Not worth a rat’s ass.”

He flopped on his bed,  his hands crossed behind his head, mut­ter­ing it like a mantra: “Not worth a rat’s ass … not worth a rat’s ass …”

I didn’t think he noticed me walk­ing out of his room. “Hey, Paul,” he said.

“Yes, Uncle?”

“Watch for razor blades in apples when you go Hal­loween­ing. Lots of crazy fuck­ers out there,” he mum­bled. I closed the door; he was repeat­ing it to him­self: “… lots of crazy fuckers.”

In our house, my par­ents were devout, nev­er drank or cursed. The world was chang­ing fast. Tele­vi­sion pro­gram­ming shook off bor­ing vari­ety shows like Lawrence Welk and “His Band of Renown.”  Sit­coms once halfwit jokes and canned laugh­ter gave way to edgi­er com­e­dy. Nobody’s fam­i­ly on our block looked like The Brady Bunch.

My sis­ters and I went up and down Wal­nut Boule­vard like always on Hal­loween. North­town was years from impos­ing a two-hour time lim­it for trick-or-treat­ing. Some old­er kids stayed until mid­night, bang­ing on doors ask­ing for “left­over can­dy.” The stan­dard “trick or treat” line came with a lit­tle threat because win­dows were soaped, car tires deflat­ed, and—though rare—real dam­age was done to hous­es and prop­er­ty: Day-Glo graf­fi­ti on walls, vehi­cles, or turfed lawns. Last year, some sicko killed the Neu­manns’ Siamese they let out at night. 

We didn’t have to go past Wal­nut back then to get our bags filled with can­dy. Not just the despised can­dy corn but Snick­ers, Three Mus­ke­teers, and Mars almond can­dy bars. The reg­u­lar-sized ones, too, not the mini­bars of today.

After a cou­ple hours, we had worked our way close to High­land Beach at the end of Wal­nut. The street­lights shed an upside-down cone of hazy orange light onto the streets. The wind picked up a chill from the open lake and my ghost costume—a shod­dy affair with noth­ing but eye­holes cut into a sheet my moth­er reluc­tant­ly surrendered—was whip­ping around my legs and send­ing chills up my back. 

The biggest house, the one we hoped to score the most can­dy from, was the Kop­ko Man­sion, a mas­sive house over­look­ing Lake Erie. It was the biggest house in the city and home to the wealth­i­est fam­i­ly, all of whom made the soci­ety pages of the North­town Her­ald-Tri­bune at one time or anoth­er. The prop­er­ty extend­ed on both sides and across the street with a man­i­cured expanse of lawn bor­dered by hedges cut to math­e­mat­i­cal pre­ci­sion in sum­mers. Years ago, my sis­ters and I decid­ed one day to have a pic­nic in their Japan­ese gar­den. We walked to the back of the estate and crossed an arched stone bridge that looked like some­thing from a land­scape paint­ing. I recall walk­ing up to the back of the house to ask for a “church key” because we’d for­got­ten to bring a bot­tle open­er for our Coke-a-Colas. They gave away can­dy in bun­dles. It was the cap­stone of the night’s house-to-house begging. 

The hand­made sign taped to the huge front door said: PLEASE NO HALLOWEEN SICKNESS HERE.

I went back down the long wind­ing side­walk bor­dered with mums and told my sisters. 

“Let’s go home,” my old­er sis­ter said. 

I argued for more can­dy but we took a vote and I lost. We trudged home, slight­ly dis­ap­point­ed that the Kop­ko manor hadn’t pro­vid­ed the grand finale we expect­ed while dress­ing to go Halloweening.

My par­ents were at a church ser­vice of Our Lady of the Sev­en Sor­rows and hadn’t returned. Uncle Bud­dy was in the kitchen smok­ing and drink­ing. As soon as my sis­ters spied the beer bot­tles and ash­tray on the table, they retreat­ed upstairs with­out a word. Uncle Buddy’s eyes looked glazed. I won­dered what our par­ents would say when they returned. Smok­ing and drink­ing in the house were on a par with Baal wor­ship. My father was much big­ger than his younger broth­er, but there was an aura of sup­pressed fury about my uncle that remind­ed me of the rac­coon John­ny O’Keene and his broth­er Joe trapped down by the breakwall.

“How it go, punk? Get a lot of can­dy tonight?”

He’d nev­er called me that before. Sud­den­ly the glassy stare in his eyes didn’t seem alto­geth­er owing to alcohol.

“Pret­ty good, Uncle,” I replied. “All but the last house.”

I told him about the sign on the Kop­ko man­sion door.

“Hal­loween sick­ness, huh. We’ll see about that. You wait right there. I’ll be back in a second.”

I didn’t like the sound of it, but I was afraid to defy him. Part of me admired his murky past like Jack Palance in his all-black duds in Shane. Shuck­ing my cos­tume, I sat oppo­site his chair, tucked the dirty ends of the sheet high­er to keep the mud­dy fringe off the floor, and stared at the Stroh’s emp­ties on the table. He came down the back stairs fast, the tromp of his boots heav­ier than I remem­bered. He moved like a cat around the house, accord­ing to what I over­heard my father say to my moth­er one time. 

Uncle Bud­dy car­ried a bed­sheet in his arms. Before I could ask what he was doing, a knife came out of nowhere and he slit a pair of eye­holes in the sheet. 

“Let’s go,” he com­mand­ed. “Put your cos­tume back on. Show me that house.”

My stom­ach fell. I did what he said and led him up the street past the hous­es that had shut off the porch lights to sig­nal an end to the can­dy give­away. Rov­ing teenagers behind us yelled in loud voic­es to one anoth­er echo­ing in the night air.

On the way, he talked to me. But to this day I can’t recall much of what he said. I must have stored some in my neo­cor­tex to digest lat­er. It was about the war. I remem­ber the tone and the empha­sis he put on cer­tain words like rich peo­ple, grunts, and lowlife son­sof­bitch­es. I didn’t con­nect his war expe­ri­ences with the words I was hear­ing. I was too afraid. I kept pic­tur­ing that knife blade flash­ing out of nowhere. My uncle was some­body I didn’t rec­og­nize anymore. 

Around Myr­tle Avenue, a cou­ple old­er boys approached. Their cos­tumes were lit­tle more than grease­paint on their faces.

“Hey, check out the ghosts,” the big­ger one said. “Give us your can­dy, ghosts.”

My uncle ignored them, split­ting them apart on the side­walk like a bow wave with me in his wake.

“Hey, ass­hole, watch it,” the big boy said. 

We kept walk­ing. My mind was in tur­moil. I decid­ed that, if I got the chance, I’d bolt as soon as I had enough dis­tance between us. I fig­ured Uncle Bud­dy would go straight up the side­walk entrance to the front door. 

I was wrong. As we reached the edge of the shrub­bery fence, he grabbed my tri­ceps hard enough to make me yelp and hur­ried me around to the back where a stand of birch trees shield­ed the house. 

“We’re going in this way. Stay behind me. Make sure I know you’re there.”

The last was as clear a threat as I need­ed to obey. At that moment, I hat­ed my uncle. But I feared him more.

We walked along the hedge line, backs humped to avoid detec­tion from the upper win­dows. Waves crashed against the shore­line like huge bags of mar­bles scat­ter­ing. I shiv­ered from the cold wind. 

“Wait here,” he hissed. “I’m going to check it out.”

With­out a moon or light from the dis­tant street­lights, I couldn’t see where he went in the pitch-black. I sensed he was gone and felt a mix of relief and fear he’d return. 

Long min­utes passed. Time seemed either frozen the way it felt at school sit­ting in my desk or it skipped ahead with my thoughts rac­ing to keep up. Then I thought of the sign that put me in this posi­tion: PLEASE NO HALLOWEEN SICKNESS HERE …

We called one anoth­er “morons” and “idiots” all day long at play, whether a bro­ken pass at a foot­ball scrim­mage in the school­yard or down by the water build­ing forts in the cattails.

It hit me. The sign wasn’t insult­ing Hal­loween­ing. It was what my teach­ers often rebuked me for and upset my  par­ents, fanat­ics over our edu­ca­tion in those days, even half-senile Sis­ter Regi­na, who wrote “slop­py punc­tu­a­tion” all over my essays. 

“Please, no Hal­loween. Sick­ness here.” 

But it was too late to call Uncle Bud­dy back and explain it to him.

I nev­er heard him return. He grabbed at my shoul­der, bunch­ing it in his fist, and shoved me ahead of him toward the house. When I opened my mouth to explain the sim­ple mis­read­ing of the sign, he squeezed my jaw shut with his free hand. “You give away our posi­tion, sol­dier, I’ll gut you like a fish.”

… like a fish …

The words were ice inject­ed under my skin. I had images to go with them, too—rotting, smelly carp and sheepshead washed up on the shore­line at the beach. Fish­er­men often tossed them away off the break­wall as garbage fish, not good eat­ing fish. For fun, we fil­let­ed them, pulling their guts loose and throw­ing them on the sand to rot in the sun. My dog would roll on the fish­bones and come home stink­ing. I was told to scrub him and he wouldn’t be allowed in the house until every trace of stench was gone.

Bud­dy lift­ed one of the met­al hatch doors and forced me to go down ahead of him. I couldn’t see any­thing in the black­ness. I remem­bered the rat patch in his clos­et and won­dered if he had some super­nat­ur­al abil­i­ty to see in the dark. A wood­en door was pried open at the bot­tom of the steps. He pushed me into a large space, a cav­ernous black­ness that smelled of must and brisk dust. 

“I’m going to sneeze,” I said.

My uncle’s hand clamped my mouth shut so hard I felt warm blood in my teeth. 

“Don’t make that the last thing you do, Paul,” he hissed in my ear.

A red veil began descend­ing over my eyes, and I knew I was about to faint. I had done it once at Christ­mas mass after fast­ing for Holy Com­mu­nion and embar­rassed my old­er sis­ter. When I woke, I was still in the dark. But I was sit­ting down. My ghost cos­tume was in my lap, wet. I tossed it aside, thought I must have uri­nat­ed on myself while uncon­scious. The room seemed dif­fer­ent from the one we’d first entered, nar­row­er. I made out cer­tain oblong shapes in the dark, some rec­tan­gles of gray­ish light from those glass block win­dows, the kind that bor­dered an aban­doned tex­tile fac­to­ry in the har­bor we played war games in. It seemed a cru­el irony for me to reflect lat­er on that, like my tun­nel rat uncle, I had crawled beneath the floors of that old fac­to­ry like a rat myself. 

Sounds above my head, foot­falls, the mer­est whis­per of creak­ing floor­boards. I made out steps lead­ing to the upstairs. I was ter­ri­fied that, any sec­ond, some­one inside would fling open the door and expose me sit­ting there. 

This was my chance to escape, run for my life. I got up, tried to feel my way along the walls. I kept bang­ing my shins into things—boxes, equip­ment, tools. I couldn’t find my way back to the oth­er room. It was like a maze down there with rooms lead­ing off of oth­er rooms. Some clut­tered, oth­ers emp­ty. I slapped my hands against a dozen wood­en doors but nev­er the one that led out from the cel­lar. Every door felt sticky to the touch, as though it had been fresh­ly painted.

Like a lost hik­er in the woods, after what seemed like hours of wan­der­ing blind, I returned to where I’d start­ed. The same ris­ers lead­ing to the upstairs floor. I couldn’t take anoth­er minute down there. Des­per­ate to flee, I crept up the stairs like a slug pulling itself across a pane of side­walk. My plan was to crack open the door, look for a door to the out­side and run for it. With a house this size, if lucky, I’d be out and gone before any­one in the house knew I was there.

At the top of the stairs, I eased the door open and held my breath. The house wasn’t dark like the base­ment but it was in semi-dark­ness with lit­tle light from near­by win­dows. A tele­vi­sion set played some­where. I didn’t know whether I was fac­ing the front or the back. 

Inch­ing the door open far­ther with my fin­ger­tips, I felt the same stick­i­ness. I must have touched paint down­stairs and had it on my hands. My palms appeared black and felt tacky. I entered look­ing for a door­way.  The car­pet­ing was plush and baf­fled any noise I made. I crept along the walls. I had no idea where Uncle Bud­dy was and thought he did this to play a mean joke on me.

Pass­ing through two spa­cious rooms with heavy fur­ni­ture, I came to a step-down room off to my right where the TV set was. I glimpsed the top of a bald man’s head lean­ing back in a reclin­er like the La-Z-Boy my father insist­ed on buy­ing. Unlike my father who snored with a rack­et, that man must be deep asleep. The elec­tric blue light from the TV set­tled on a bright patch on his head. I held my breath and kept moving. 

Hold­ing a hand up in case of anoth­er sneez­ing fit, I saw my bloody palm and it pan­icked me. I did an awk­ward stut­ter-step and bumped into a table with a vase of flow­ers and pho­tos in frames. The vase tipped over, hit the glass table­top, and shat­tered. Pho­tos and shards of vase rolled to the floor. I was already in a sprinter’s stance set to run. At the same instant, I real­ized the blood on my hands wasn’t mine. The man in the chair had not moved an inch despite the noise a few feet away. 

The wet bed­sheet in the base­ment, the ghost costume—not mine …

The real­iza­tion hit me in a flash: Uncle Buddy’s sheet. He had car­ried me to that spot and had thrown it in my lap. Where had the blood come from?

I can’t explain my curios­i­ty to this day. I wasn’t known for courage. But I had to see for myself. I knew the man in the chair wasn’t going to get me even if he woke up. I’d be out the door before he was out of his chair.

It wasn’t sleep that immo­bi­lized him. He was dead with his throat cut. The TV gave enough light for me to see the hideous smile that gaped below his chin. The red blood appeared dark, almost black. The urge to vom­it was sti­fled by the sound of foot­steps com­ing down wood­en steps—heavy foot­steps.  I flat­tened myself to the wall near the fireplace.

Car­pet­ing muf­fled sound after­ward but when the door to the cel­lar was flung open and then those boots began descend­ing, I knew my uncle was going down the steps look­ing for me.  I raced to the oth­er end of the house as fast and as silent­ly as I could go. Anoth­er room that blurred in the periph­ery of my vision, a kitchen. Had to be a door to the out­side somewhere …

A small­er din­ing room off the kitchen. French doors behind lacy sheers, a patio. If I could reach the han­dle to unlock it, I’d be out­side in seconds—

Some­one run­ning. Choose: fum­ble at the sheers, try to unlock the door—and be run down from behind. Or hide. I hid.

The pantry was sep­a­rat­ed from the kitchen by a slat­ted pair of swing­ing doors. I went in, closed the doors as soft­ly as pos­si­ble and moved back­wards uncon­scious­ly, bump­ing into card­board box­es and loose cans spilled all over the floor. I sat down against the shelves along the back wall. I whim­pered, clamped my own hand over my bruised mouth and wait­ed for the foot­steps. They were in the kitchen now. I thought of my father’s words about Uncle Bud­dy and how he moved around in the dark like a cat.

Sounds in the kitchen, no attempt to be silent. Fum­bling at the French doors, slid­ing along the rails and bang­ing into the frame. Boots run­ning over the flag­stone patio, search­ing.… Search­ing for me.  I was about to dive under the oppo­site shelf and hide behind box­es of paper tow­els when I saw a foot stick­ing out from behind. A small foot like a girl’s attached to a slen­der leg. An old­er woman’s face, pos­si­bly a maid, her thin body bent and twist­ed under the shelv­ing. Her mouth open as if she died screaming.

I opened the pantry doors and saw the bot­tom of the sheers flut­ter­ing in the wind. I ran the way I’d come, aim­ing my body for the front of the house. My brain lost in the citadel of my ter­ror. I’d have jumped through glass to get out of that house at that point. I was almost to the front door when I heard him on the front steps com­ing fast—Uncle Bud­dy back­lit from the streetlights. 

Before he could see me, I veered left off the mar­ble foy­er and bar­reled up the stairs. My sneak­ers made squeak­ing nois­es as each foot hit a var­nished step. I took them three at a time like a hur­dler. The glass in the front doors rat­tled and shook as Uncle Bud­dy tried to pull the big door open.

From the top of the stairs, I heard glass break­ing.… Go right or left?

I went left, dip­ping my shoul­der into the curve and kept my feet mov­ing fast. I went down the long hall­way with­out break­ing stride. It felt like run­ning in a tun­nel. Por­traits in paint­ings on the walls ticked past my vision. I aimed for the far­thest door at the end of the hall. 

Push­ing it open, I saw two peo­ple in bed sit­ting upright. They stared at me. I lost my bal­ance, skid­ded on a throw rug, and slammed down hard to the floor, arms flail­ing and knees buck­ling. I col­lid­ed with a night table and sent lamp, books, and a small clock to the floor. 

Strug­gling to my feet, I splut­tered inco­her­ent­ly, beg­ging these two peo­ple before I under­stood what I was see­ing in the dim light. Their faces were stiff, the woman’s eyes at half-mast; pools of blood col­lect­ed at the sheets and stained their waists in jagged crim­son haloes. With­out for­mu­lat­ing a thought about what to do next, I pulled up the quilt and threw my body over the two corpses to tight­en myself into a ball between them. They were nude, still warm.

I don’t know why I did it or why I knew that hid­ing under the bed would have got­ten me killed sec­onds after Uncle Bud­dy stormed into the room look­ing for me. I had only sec­onds to worm my way between their slick bod­ies and try to adjust the cov­er­let to look the way it did when I glimpsed them lying so peace­ful­ly mur­dered in their bed.

His boots thud­ded down the hall with a roar com­ing out of his throat that was an anguished cry of frus­trat­ed rage.

The door banged against the wall when he entered. Despite my deter­mi­na­tion to lie still, to be invis­i­ble in the space between the dead, I shiv­ered. He swat­ted the light switch. In my dark cave, I felt the light­en­ing above and around me in the room.

“Paul! Paul! God damn it, where are you!”

The bed sank low­er as he placed a hand on the edge to look beneath it.

“Come out, come out wher­ev­er you are! Olly, olly oxen free,” he sang.

I heard him mov­ing around the room. He opened the clos­et and root­ed among the clothes, toss­ing, and kick­ing shoes and items into the bed­room. I took silent, shal­low breaths and tried to still my noisy heartbeat.

“Fuck.”

More glass break­ing. Some­thing big thrown out a win­dow. Time did that crazy, war­bling thing again, stop­ping and speed­ing up. I pic­tured him star­ing at the faces of the two peo­ple he’d killed. Had he flipped the cov­ers down to expose me curled in a fetal posi­tion, I have no doubt the next thing I’d feel would be his knife plung­ing inside me repeat­ed­ly. But noth­ing happened. 

It seemed like a day and night had passed before I knew he had left the room with­out mak­ing a sound.

False dawn enveloped the room in a gauzy haze. I sensed my body’s adjust­ment to the cir­ca­di­an rhythm. Hours of tak­ing in the cop­pery smell of blood from gap­ing stab wounds had dulled my wits and sick­ened me. I had been breath­ing through my mouth with­out real­iz­ing it. One of his vic­tims evac­u­at­ed the bow­els after his blitz attack. Added to the blood was the pun­gent stink of feces. I was grate­ful to be so addled that sen­so­ry over­load held nau­sea at bay. I thought I’d slept when I came to but it was my mind return­ing from wher­ev­er it went. A dull buzzing on the sheets above me informed me that flies had dis­cov­ered the scent of death and were com­ing through the bro­ken win­dow to feast and lay eggs.

With the last of my strength, I rolled off the bed, falling to the floor. I stag­gered down the hall and left that house of hor­rors in a mind­less daze, obliv­i­ous to the stares of pedes­tri­ans and cars pass­ing me. I not­ed the out­lines of two bod­ies lying in someone’s dri­ve­way on the way back home: the boys from the night before. Their reprieve from the Dev­il was short-lived.

I fell down in the front yard. My father came run­ning out of the house and car­ried me inside. 

I don’t remem­ber any­thing after that.

#

They told me in the hos­pi­tal that my par­ents found Uncle Bud­dy hang­ing from a rope made of my father’s neck­ties in the shower. 

I don’t do Hal­loween well nowa­days. I check myself into the psych ward before and after Octo­ber 31^st until the screams inside my head stop. My recur­ring night­mare is the same: I’m run­ning in a dark tun­nel with my uncle chas­ing me. He nev­er catch­es me. My shrink tells me that’s a good thing because I am the sole cre­ator of my fears and my own rescuer. 

He nev­er met Uncle Buddy.