TRICK OR TREAT by Janet Feldman
Here it is again, October thirty-first, my favorite holiday. The candy spills out of four ceramic bowls. The pumpkin, it’s single-toothed grin and triangular eyes aglow, peers out the glass panel alongside my door. The moon is obliging, bright and full.
It’s almost seven, time for the little ones. Dressed as ghosts, bunnies, and tiny devils, they stare at me, eyes wide, saying nothing. Their parents, standing protectively behind, coach them.
“Say ‘trick or treat,” they tell them.
“Twick aw tweet,” say the tots, clearly amazed that a stranger is dropping candy into their plastic pumpkins.
“Say thank you.”
“Tank oo,” say one or two, while the others run back to Mommy.
By eight o’clock, the seven-to-twelve-year-olds have appeared, ballerinas and princesses, pirates and clowns. They come in clusters, giggle a lot, and always know which candy bar they want in their bags when I let them choose. The parents wait in their cars.
I reminisce. No parents, no cars, no x-rayed candy, just me and my best friend, Alice, walking house-to-house, all the way up the hill to the Ontells, Schaeffers, Touheys, and Picoras. Then back down again the other side, to the Sniffens and Spectors, the Millers, Burkes, and Wessels.
Some years we collected for UNICEF, not sure what UNICEF was, but knowing it was good for children when folks dropped a nickel into the little wax carton.
We were ballerinas and princesses, Snow White and Cinderella. We trudged along, tripping over our store-bought, scratchy, non-fire-retardant costumes, our oblong masks of red and yellow slipping down over our mouths. The paper bags from the A&P became limp, and tore at the edges, but oh, we had such fun!
After 8:30, the teenagers arrive, wearing fright wigs, and horror masks dripping with blood and slime. They’re noisy, sassy, and ask for doubles, checking out the candy as it joins dozens more just like it in their pillowcases.
It’s almost over. Three candy bars are left. I reach to turn off the front light when the bell rings—a latecomer.
The child sits in a wheelchair, his mother smiling behind him. His legs, covered by a thin blanket, appear withered and lifeless. One arm is strapped to the chair, while the other moves spasmodically. His plastic pumpkin is tied to the support belt that holds him upright.
The boy’s mask has a gaping, twisted hole for a mouth, and eyes that veer off into different directions. But—there is no mask. The cruel disease that has ravaged his body has deformed his face.
I place the three remaining candy bars in his pumpkin.
“Happy Halloween,” I manage.
“Thank you,” says his mother.
Allowing her a few moments to push her son down the walk, I turn off the porch light, blow out the candle in the pumpkin, and pick up my favorite ceramic dish. It slips from my hand, breaking on the tile floor. I roll my wheelchair into the living room, turn off the light, and weep.
