Halloween, Past and Present
It's nearly Halloween, and I'm a little too old for trick-or-treating. Halloween is inescapably a kids' holiday. Grownups try to impose activities of their own upon it – they decorate their houses, carve pumpkins, throw costume parties – but October 31st remains foremost a day during which a child can show up at any home in the United States and demand of the adult therein that he relinquish a handful of candy. Since juveniles prize candy over all other eatables and perhaps everything else in the world, this, to an eight-year-old, is tantamount to becoming royalty for an evening.
The prime trick-or-treating years, for me, were 10 and 11. After school, I'd embark upon a peregrination roughly equal in my mind now to that of the children in the movie "Rabbit-Proof Fence," determined to plunder every house along my circuitous route. I was old enough in my parents' view to permit them to take the night off, which in turn allowed me to run around town with friends as stupid as I, wandering onto streets I barely knew and extending this sugar-crazed bacchanalia beyond my bedtime. I remember once outrunning a group of older kids who threatened to take my candy and my friend's, dodging streetlights and ducking through backyards. The pillowcase in which I carried my load weighed so much that I had to be careful not to swing it with each stride; it hurt when it hit my leg.
Upon arriving home, I'd dig into my hard-won collection of confectionery like a rabid dog, tearing off wrappers with my teeth. I would wake up the next morning with their shards scattered across my sheets, and my legs, head, and stomach would ache too much for me to consider cleaning them up. Kids are fortunate when Halloween falls on a Friday, as it does this year: Going to school on November 1st is the childhood equivalent of going to work with a hangover.
I wore, in my best years, the goriest, most disgusting masks I could find at the local mall. Axe wounds, gouged eyes, and unsightly deformities captivated me. I wish I still owned these masks, but my mother threw them away when my little brother was in preschool or kindergarten. Though they sat in a box in the basement, just having them in the house frightened him.
Although I didn't begin to sport these repulsively blood-stained items until at least age eight, I can't recall any other costumes I wore, except one I had early in my Halloween career, when I dressed as the Rocketeer, a superhero who wore a golden helmet and a jet-pack. My inexpensive ensemble looked remarkably like the costume from the film, but I've still never met another person who confesses to having worn it. It must have been the least popular movie-inspired costume of the year.
Of the Halloween candies I regularly received, I liked Snickers best, but I have a special fondness for candy corn, whose waxy kernels taste good for about three minutes and then abruptly transform into gritty, nauseating pellets whose digestibility seems highly questionable. The strange thing is that, even when I've reached the point where candy corn has become repugnant, I often cannot prevent myself from consuming more of it.
It strikes me as unfortunate that trick-or-treating cannot last for us. It is, of course, necessary that we make the transition from acquiring candy to distributing candy. If we all trick-or-treated, no one would be around to answer doorbells. But I'm a little wistful. If I ever have a child, I will force him to trick-or-treat with me from four in the afternoon until four in the morning. He will be the only five-year-old capable of trudging fifty miles in one night. As it is, a part of me dies with every Snickers bar I give to someone else.
Still, I have some advice for the youngsters who'll be trick-or-treating this year. With the success of "The Dark Knight," I suspect Batman will reemerge as a popular costume; my warning is that, if one of your friends should suggest you dress as Robin, you must refuse resolutely, or you will forever be regarded as less cool than your friend. If you can construct a plausible Iron Man suit (Robert Downey Jr. did it under captivity in a desert cave!), you're sure to impress your peers. But don't go as the Hulk. No one saw his movie. In the old days, my friends frequently liked to dress as hobos for Halloween, but with today's economy, it may seem insensitive to make light of what now seems a plausible fate for many of us. I propose dressing up instead as one of the following: superstar quarterback Matt Cassel, professional disgruntled citizen Joe the Plumber, or Nobel Prize-winning novelist Jean-Marie Gustav Le Clézio. Each of these costumes is a surefire hit.
Have fun out there, and go easy on the candy corn!