One Trick Too Many

Story by R. P. Singletary

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He remembered the first. It still was not funny. To him, never funny the first time and not worth the treat.

“You put your right hand here and your left over there.”

The older kids tried to see in the dark, the leader loving the inner circle’s light.

I couldn’t see much, with the right-eye patch slipping, the scarf and big fake scar, borrowed tricorn hat flopping down in my face, and I was nervous, my first time trick-or-treating with kids, and the weather had chilled after rain.

“I put my right hand here and my left over there.” I repeated the cool boy’s script, word for word.

“That’s right, Roger.”

“My name’s not Rog--”

“Today it is,” another bully of a boy said.

“Jolly Roger the pirate,” a nice girl whispered in my ear. She was dressed like Cinderella, which I liked, so I remember that part and her cute silver slippers.

“He can be Blackbeard if he wants,” another boy shouted from the darkness beyond the circle.

For safety, the leader held my hand firm in both places. I knew it was a test, a ritual, and I wanted to go afterwards to all the big houses with all the fun kids. I hoped I would pass. He removed his hands from mine. I struggled with words and numbers at school, and I was embarrassed because I thought they knew I didn’t belong.

“He can be Steve Bonney if he wanna,” another classmate said.

“It’s Stede Bonnet, stupid,” the leader said.

“He can be Anne Bonny if she wants, haha,” another chimed in.

I didn’t know what that guy meant, even after most of the kids laughed.

“Ready,” someone said, as if beginning something important.

What I knew was shock. They had shocked me, my hands on metal, the ready-guy had switched on some electricity. I jerked in the dark. Clamor. The kids laughed until one switched on the light. When I jerked, I’d hit Cinderella in the gut, she’d tripped over forgotten tools in the old garage, decorated for a haunted house.

“Turn on more lights. Somebody!” someone shouted.

I was too young to remember much more, but I know what I do, and the next Halloween her Mom told my Mom she didn’t want to dress up like any Cinderella, buy pumpkin candies, or even eat one or two. I had told mine I didn’t want to go out, we could eat snacks at home for days. We had our own party, just she and I, no costumes or candy, that year or after.

We don’t celebrate big the day with the kids, oh sure bobbing for apples in fresh water, piles of clean leaves raked high to jump in, all in our backyard away from trouble out there, but last night my wife said our daughter had spotted her old silver slippers in her seasonal closet. She didn’t need her Christmas sweater yet, she told Mom, but the shoes felt the right size. Her feet had talked in the girl’s dreams, sweet whispers of candy and kids and fun, Halloween could be a ball!

R. P. Singletary is a lifelong writer from the southeastern United States, with work in Bumble Jacket Miscellany, CafeLit, Ariel Chart, Last Leaves, and Syncopation.