My parents are crazy.

When I was a kid, they would play bridge and drink with Mr. and Mrs. Slater (their best friends who lived across the street). Which is not all that crazy, per se, especially in the little town I grew up in, but leave it to George and Pat to make it crazy.

One year, they apparently got a few hands (deals? rubbers? tricks? I dunno, I only hung out with ’em to get to the bridge mix) under their belts, along with a few belts, and they got to thinking about Halloween. They decided that they’d get a little…creative, shall we say, about dishing out candy.

It was simple. Kids would knock on the door, and instead of being greeted by an middle-aged homeowner with a bowl of candy, the kids would be ushered into the house. (You couldn’t pull this off in this day and age, and the only reason it worked was because everyone knew us. Or thought they did, at least.)

It was pretty normal, except for the part where there was a really old lady sitting on a rocker, next to the end table. And except for the part where the living room was dark, lit by a single candle on that end table. In her lap, she held the Bowl of Candy. All the kids had to do was walk over to the old lady and pick their candy out of the bowl. They could have as much as they wanted to take.

No one took any. Kids fled, screaming.

No one thought much about it the next year, until Mr. Slater was bowling and was asked by his teammates if the Stockings were going to do another ‘haunted house.’ He reported it at Bridge Night and, after several bourbon and sodas, Halloween At Our House was born. (Every year, they all swore they wouldn’t do it again, but then there’d be Bridge Night and several bourbon and sodas later a new epic was born.)

Over about ten years, my parents and Randy and Irene put together routines like…

House of Wax. (my personal favorite) Kids were greeted by a museum docent, who led the kids through the dark downstairs of our home viewing ‘wax’ figures like the Boston Strangler, King Tut’s slave, and Lizzie Borden. Show ended with Lizzie and Co. chasing the kids out of the house with an axe. (To this day, dad’s hatchet has red paint on it.)

Even *I* didn’t know that, as the group was led around the house to the ‘exhibits,’ that the already-seen monsters were picking up and following the group. We were at the end of the ‘tour’ and collecting some candy when I looked up to see Lizzie (Mom, in a mask) raising the hatchet up over some unsuspecting kid’s head. King Tut’s slave and the Boston Strangler are right behind her in the dark. I scream. The candy bowl flies, and kids flee screaming.

“Kids flee screaming” is the way every sentence ends when my parents are involved.

Mourning Lady. Kids were greeted by Aging Homeowner in darkened home and told there’d been a death in the family, but they still wanted to get the kids the candy. Would they have a seat on the couch while he got the candy? In front of the fireplace a coffin sat, and presently a mourning lady came down the stairs, softly weeping and settling by the coffin to grieve. She doesn’t notice, but the kids on the couch do, that the coffin is opening and O MY GOD THE CORPSE IS GONNA KILL HER! and the whole thing ends when aging homeowner comes tearing in with a cap pistol and shoots the corpse.

Head in a Box. Kids were admitted one at a time. (My older brothers were the bouncers.) Kid was led through the first floor of darkened home until they got to the kitchen, where they saw a big box on the kitchen floor with a smaller box on top. Kid was told that they could have all the candy they wanted; just had to open the smaller box to get the candy. Kid doesn’t know that a neighborhood teen, “S”, is sitting in the box with a flashlight under his chin. It doesn’t help anything that “S” looks like Charles Manson. So kid opens box, sees Uplit Cult Murderer grimacing at her, and flees screaming out the back door.

Halloween for one of the Stocking kids meant that you were a crash test dummy for their dry runs, helping them work on timing and blocking, etc. (It’s a testament to some of the good scary they produced when you consider that they scared me to death even when I knew what was going on.) And when you got home from trick or treating you would have to hide in your closet upstairs without turning on a light until the creepshow was over. You’d hide your candy because, in the event that someone actually stuck around to demand some candy and Mom and Dad had eaten it all, they’d come get yours. You’d have to sneak in between shows or you’d get pressed into service, stomping around in big boots through dry ice fog yelling at little kids or screaming into a microphone so Mom could go have a cigarette in the basement.

We moved to Arizona in 1972 and a nice, little family bought our house. A doctor, and his wife, and their two little girls. For all the world, they looked like they wouldn’t say ‘manure’ if they had a mouthful. (Apparently my parents would have had no such compunctions.)

I can only imagine what happened on Halloween night, 1972, when the doorbell rang and they opened the front door, expecting to dish out some candy and pretend to admire the Barbie doll costumes, and were greeted by the dismay, shock, and pain of 500 trick or treaters (I’m not making this up; we would count) who were expecting to, well, flee screaming.

© E.S. Evans 2010