Chapter Twenty-Four: Halloween

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     While Christmas was my favorite childhood holiday, Halloween was my favorite adventure. More important than the candy, costumes, and scary movies, Halloween was the one night all year I could walk the neighborhood unsupervised with my friends.

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     It wasn’t that we pulled off any noteworthy pranks. Our neighbors knew us too well for tricks to be an option. Nighttime mischief aside, however, Halloween was our first real taste of freedom. As kids, we would savor it to the hilt.

 

     Alma grew up in a different household, with a different emphasis on Halloween. My Halloween costumes consisted of a plastic monster mask from the local Target or Walgreens. In Alma’s family, costumes needed to be meaningful - the more consequential, the better.

 

     Unlike my mother, Alma’s wouldn’t dare step foot in Target. A perfectionist in all things, she instead spent weeks preparing inspirational Halloween ensembles perfect for little girls destined for success.

 

     An amateur photographer with no noticeable picture-taking skills, Alma’s father would immortalize every one of his children’s Halloween ensembles. Thanks to his efforts, I viewed photos of Jane Fonda Alma, Martina Navratilova Alma, Ruth Bader Ginsberg Alma, and in a rare moment of mother-in-law whimsy, Cher Alma. I once made the mistake of showing these photos to our children, and my wife didn’t speak to me for two days.

 

     Viewing young Cher Alma for the first time, I said, “Your mother must have been on a bender when she made that one.”

 

     “She and my father were fighting that October – Cher was my mother’s way of lashing out. My sister Ellen went out that year as Sigourney Weaver from Alien.”

 

     “I would have pictured your sister more as the alien. Regarding Cher, do you still have the wig?”

 

     Alma did not have the wig, nor was she interested in carrying on her mother’s tradition of current affairs-based costumes. As the marketing guy, costumes became my department. When I was working, that meant a trip to the costume aisle in our local drugstore. Now that I was at home, I was determined to give my kids something better.

 

     I considered all the usual suspects – Snoopy, Donald Duck, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, even The Hunchback of Notre Dame. All were beyond my artistic talents, and a couple might get me killed. That being said, I needed to come up with something. Then I remembered my Mrs. Kuhar conversation with Bob and Mike.

 

     It was simple. We would need a long black robe for Emily, some white and black cloth for a hat, and a yardstick to use as a weapon. Jack would wear the charcoal grey suit he wore the previous Easter, along with sunglasses and a fedora. As for me, I would don a suit with some belly padding, a similar pair of sunglasses, and a hat large enough to fit my amply-sized head.

 

     Beyond ordering the costumes, I would need to keep my intentions hidden from Alma as long as possible. There was the possibility my wife might not object. Theoretically, she might not object to Leatherface. Miracles could always occur, but neither scenario appeared hopeful from my end.

 

     While ensuring confidentiality, I would also need to sell the kids on the story and bring them into the conspiracy. To accomplish that goal, I would have to tell them about the Blues Brothers.

 

     The easiest thing would have been to show them the movie, but even I knew that would be inappropriate.  Instead, I settled for a verbal, non-profane re-telling of the story taking a more theological approach to the tale. I began after lunch, about three weeks before Halloween.

 

     “I thought for Halloween this year, we could all be characters from a movie. The story I had in mind is about two brothers, Jake and Elwood, who are Blues musicians. The brothers were recruited by a nun, that would be you, Emily, to raise five thousand dollars to save their old school. The nun is very strict, and the boys call her the penguin because of her black nun outfit. After the nun talks with the brothers, they spend the rest of the movie trying to get their Blues band back together to earn the five thousand. They call it a mission from God.”

 

     I then showed them a picture of Jake, Elwood, and the nun and waited for the inevitable questions.

 

     Emily started things off. “Why is the nun wearing that outfit?  Are those the black ones you told us about?  Other than Sister Catherine, none of the nuns at my school wear those clothes. This one looks like the nuns we saw at the zoo.”

 

     I did the best I could. “I told you about nuns before you started kindergarten. They’re the female version of priests, with a little more attitude and a different set of job duties. When I was your age, most nuns wore those black outfits.”

 

     “How come they don’t say mass?”

 

     Out of reflex, I looked for Alma, currently miles away at school. This one was on me.

 

     “That’s a good question. In part, it’s because nuns are a little bit scary, so the church was afraid no one would come to mass - imagine your Aunt Ellen dressed in black. Someday the church might reconsider, especially since most nuns don’t wear their all-black uniforms anymore.”

 

     I wasn’t sure my explanation would pass Vatican muster, but it possessed a grain of truth nonetheless. Jack chimed in next.

 

     “Do I get to play a guitar?”

 

     “You get to play a harmonica. It’s easier to play, and it’ll be much lighter to carry when we walk around the neighborhood.”

 

     Jack was satisfied - I had him at Blue’s musician. Emily was a tougher sell.

 

     “I don’t want to be a nun. The ones in my school are okay, but this one looks scary.”

 

     I couldn’t dispute her there. “What do you want to be?”

 

     “I want to be a unicorn.”

 

     A unicorn?  Other than the ice cream cone nose, I had no idea how to make a unicorn. I tried misdirection.

 

     “How about a princess or Donald Duck?  You like Donald Duck.”

 

     “I want to be a unicorn.”

 

     I was stuck in costume hell. “How about Ruth Bader Ginsberg?  We could ask Grandma if you could borrow mommy’s old costume.”

 

     The look on Emily’s face said it all. Either she had no idea what I was talking about, or the Supreme Court wasn’t as big as it used to be.

 

     In any case, Ruth was clearly out. At Emily’s insistence, we were now the Blues Brothers and the unicorn. It sounded like a really awful sequel - not as terrible as Blue Brothers 2000, but pretty bad, nonetheless.

 

     I started by going on Amazon. To my amazement, they had a unicorn costume, a tiny little girl-sized tutu with a pink unicorn horn headband. I showed it to Emily, but she was less than impressed.

 

     “It’s just a dress with a horn. Unicorns have four legs – they look like horses with horns on their heads.”

 

     My lesson in unicorn attire complete; I realized Emily had a point. Emily and I looked together this time until she found what she considered the perfect outfit. It was a blow-up unicorn, all four legs included, that came in a size small enough to fit Emily and a long, pointed beak sufficient to satisfy my daughter’s sense of unicorn anatomy. The costume also came with its own air pump, so I had all my bases covered.

 

     Aside from Emily’s costume, I also ordered large-sized fedoras for Jack and me, along with two pairs of sunglasses, a toy harmonica, and two plain black ties. The Blues Brothers and the unicorn were ready, and we still had two weeks to Halloween.

 

     As would be expected in any operation as complicated as this, we still experienced a few mishaps. The first involved my wife. After all our costume items were delivered, Alma asked for a trial run. With some trepidation, I brought Jack and Emily upstairs, and we prepared for our debut. There we ran into our second, more serious misadventure.

 

     While it once seemed advantageous, the air pump included with Emily’s costume possessed all the lung power of a dying asthmatic. The instructions were simple – after inserting the batteries, have the child put on the costume while the parent attached the pump. A button press later, the costume would start to inflate with the process complete in under five minutes.   

 

     I inserted the batteries as Emily put on the costume. I then attached the pump, pressed the button, and listened as the pump made a noise.

 

     It was not a good noise. A cross between a whistle and a sigh, it was the sound you hear in horror movies when the ghost comes out to play for real.

 

     Hearing the same thing I did, Emily looked at me crossly. I was the father, and it was time to earn my spurs. With no idea what to do next, I pressed the button again. This time we heard a satisfying whoosh of air and waited for the costume to inflate. We kept listening and waited some more. Thirty seconds later, the wooshing stopped, only to be replaced by the machine’s original ghostly sigh.

 

     Desperate, I started stabbing at the button like a telegraph operator sending an especially critical message. Eventually, the pump began cycling through a series of different sounds, some weak, some more threatening. Just as I wondered if the machine really was haunted, the pump farted.

 

     This wasn’t a small, ladylike fart. This was a fart of the major league variety, a noise typically requiring a meal of baked beans and sauerkraut with a brussel sprout chaser. As our pump had feasted on none of these items, I disconnected it quickly before one of our neighbors showed up to see which of us had died.

 

     The fart noise brought Alma running up the stairs. Arriving, she stared from me to Jack to Emily, assessing the culprit in terms of likelihood of guilt. Seeing his mother’s face, Jack finally started to laugh.

 

     “Emily’s pump farted,” he said through a mouthful of giggles.

 

     Prodded by Jack, Alma finally noticed the small air pump now disengaged by the side of Emily’s costume.

 

     Looking at me, she asked, “What is she, a shark?”

 

     Holding back my own laughter, I said, “I truthfully have no idea. Emily, what are you?”

 

     Now aware her costume resembled an undersea predator, Emily stared in my direction, the upset building on her once hopeful face. It was again time for Dad to step up.

 

     After explaining to Alma her daughter was, indeed, a unicorn, I grabbed the nozzle of Emily’s costume, placed the plastic tube in my mouth, and started to blow.

 

     A short while later, the costume was still uninflated. Jack was still laughing, and I was in need of an oxygen tent.

 

     Fortunately, my wife had a solution. “Remember the new bike you bought me a few years back?  The pump you bought with it included a bunch of attachments. One of those might inflate Emily’s unicorn.”

 

     “You couldn’t have reminded me of that fifteen minutes ago?”

 

     “I was enjoying watching you roll around in agony on the floor. You haven’t had that look on your face since I made that spinach souffle.”

 

     “Souffle aside, I think this was Halloween revenge for making fun of your Cher costume.”

 

     Whatever her motivation, I found Alma’s solution worked - one bike pump adapter fit the standard-sized nozzle on Emily’s unicorn costume.

 

     After I took care of my daughter, I turned my attention to Jack. Luckily for me, my son’s costume issues were more pedestrian than his now-inflated sister. After gagging when I fixed his tie, he willingly put on his sunglasses, and we were done.

 

     Jack looked at himself in the mirror. “It looks like nighttime, and this tie hurts.” 

 

     “Don’t worry, Jack, ties are supposed to feel that way. You only have to wear it the night of Halloween.”

 

     “You sure people will know who I am?

 

     “Everyone knows the Blues Brothers, and I’ll be dressed the same way. After you say trick or treat, just tell people you’re on a mission from God.”

 

     Alma was dubious. “People will think you’re Mormons. They’ll slam the door in your face.”

 

     “We live in a tolerant neighborhood.”

 

     “You go dressed like that; even other Mormons might shun you.”

 

     Emily then discovered another advantage to her brother’s sunglass-induced blindness - a unicorn horn made a handy weapon.

 

     Alma and I yelled in unison, “Emily, quit hitting your brother!”

 

     Emily quit, but not before Jack winged her with the toy harmonica. Before a full-scale riot could erupt, I deflated Emily’s costume and confiscated the harmonica – show and tell was done for the evening.  

 

     Alma’s concerns aside, Emily loved her unicorn, and Jack adjusted to his sunglasses. On Halloween evening at precisely six pm, the Blues Brothers and the Unicorn set out on their maiden voyage.

 

     Regarding Jake and Elwood, we experienced an interesting gender disparity. Without exception, all the guys handing out candy identified the Blues Brothers, while all had problems with Emily’s unicorn. For the women we met, their costume recognition worked in the opposite direction.

 

     We started our candy-seeking journey with Mike and Bob. Both took a long look at Jack and noted his harmonica. Jack, always good with a part, said he was on a mission from God.

 

     “I’m sure you are, little dude, though Jake back there looks a little uncomfortable.”

 

     I shook my head. “You try walking around with all this padding and look natural. Can’t be done, at least not by me.”

 

     “I have no doubt. Emily,” Mike added, turning his attention to our daughter. “I love your horse.”

 

     “It’s a unicorn,” Emily responded, quick to point out her horn.

 

     “So it is; I haven’t seen many of those.”

 

     After Mike and Bob, we moved onward to Mrs. Kuhar’s house. It was then things became truly weird.

 

     Opening the door with a slightly suspicious gaze, Mrs. Kuhar noticed Jack’s suit, followed closely by my own.

 

     “Are you undertakers?  I’m not dead yet, you know.”

 

     “We know, Mrs. Kuhar, I was just taking the kids trick or treating.”

 

     “And you dressed as undertakers?  Don’t you think that’s a little morbid?”

 

     Knowing it was a lost cause, I said, “We’re the Blues Brothers, Mrs. Kuhar.”

 

     “I like the Blues. My husband took me to my first Blues concert in nineteen-fifty-two. Can you play?”

 

     “Not really, Mrs. Kuhar. These are just costumes.”

 

     Having lost interest in the phony Bluesmen standing before her, Mrs. Kuhar’s attention moved to Emily.

 

     “I like your costume. What is that thing on your head?”

 

     “It’s a horn. I’m a unicorn.”

 

     “Oh – it reminds me of my husband.”

 

     We left before she could elaborate. No candy was offered, but I told the kids not to take offense. From what I could tell, I’m not even sure Mrs. Kuhar realized it was Halloween.

 

     We continued our walk around the neighborhood. No one else believed we were undertakers, though a few did peek out their windows and duck furtively away. Whether afraid of miniature morticians or an unexpected Halloween influx of proselytizing Mormons, I really couldn’t be sure. I myself had never seen a proselytizing Mormon, but I’m sure some of our neighbors were convinced they were out there.

 

     For the doors that were opened, the men consistently exclaimed over Jack’s costume, the women over Emily’s. All were generous with their candy - in the two hours we were out, the kids collected quite a haul.

 

     By the time we arrived home, Alma had also returned. After taking pictures of the kids and deflating our daughter, we supervised as Jack and Emily divided and traded their loot. All in all, not a bad evening. After the kids went to bed, the real work began.

 

     “Do you suppose,” I asked Alma, between bites of a Snickers bar, “our parents stole some of our candy every Halloween?”

 

     Eating a Milky Way, Alma said, “I once caught my mother with an unopened candy bar when I went downstairs for a drink of water. That was the only time in my life she ever looked guilty.”

 

     “Did you get her to put it back?”

 

     “Did you ever see my mother with candy?  Trying to tear her away from that bar would be the equivalent of separating a lion from a downed wildebeest. Actually, the lion might have been easier.”

 

     Fortunately, we survived that evening without any guilt-inducing intrusions from our children. Going to bed later on, I thought we got away scot-free. In true Halloween tradition, it was then I had my nightmare.

 

     I was walking along a grassy plain, the sun beating down unmercifully on my exposed skin. As I continued, I saw what looked like an animal up ahead.

 

     Drawing closer, I realized it was a female lion, her face partially obscured as she feasted on some unfortunate prey. I prepared to run, but found myself frozen in place, helpless as the lioness continued to chow down her meal.

 

     As if hearing my thoughts, the big cat suddenly turned in my direction. It was only then I realized I wasn’t looking at a lion after all. Instead, the beast was Alma’s mother, gazing at me with all her barely repressed mother-in-law fury.

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     Chocolate dripping from her jowls, she finally spoke. “Do you want to share a Snickers, big guy?”

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     I woke up covered in sweat. The next day was Saturday. Getting up early, I drove to the drugstore and replaced every candy bar Alma and I had eaten.

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     Who said Halloween was no longer scary?