Yes, it is All Hallow’s Eve.
All the little ghosts and goblins and Supermans are at home, sifting through their chocolaty loot. I used to do that every year—dividing my Halloween candy into three categories: 1) all chocolate products not containing coconut; 2) Starburst types of sweets (including Laffy Taffy); and 3) Smarties and Lemonheads. It is the start of candy season.
Sharon Olds writes about a scary encounter with between a father and son . . .
Leaving the Island
by: Sharon Olds
On the ferry, on the last morning of summer,
a father at the snack counter low in the boat
gets breakfast for the others. Here, let me drink some of
Mom’s coffee, so it won’t be so full
for you to carry, he says to his son,
a boy of ten or eleven. The boat
lies lower and lower in the water as the last
cars drive on, tilts its massive
grey floor like the flat world. Then the
screaming starts, I carry four things,
and I only give you one, and you drop it,
what are you, a baby? a high, male
shrieking, and it doesn’t stop, Are you two?
Are you a baby? I give you one thing,
no one in the room seems to move for a second,
a steaming pool spreading on the floor, little
sea with its own waves, the boy
at the shore of it. Can’t you do anything
right? Are you two? Are you two? the piercing
cry of the father. Go away,
go up to your mother, get out of here—
the purser swabbing the floor, the boy
not moving from where the first word touched him,
and I could not quite walk past him, I paused
and said I spilled my coffee on the deck, last trip,
it happens to us all. He turned to me,
his lips everted so the gums gleamed,
he hissed a guttural hiss, and in
a voice like Gollum’s or the Exorcist girl’s when she
made the stream of vomit and beamed it
eight feet straight into the minister’s mouth
he said Shut up, shut up, shut up, as if
protecting his father, peeling from himself
a thin wing of hate, and wrapping it
tightly around father and son, shielding them.
It’s amazing what kids will do to protect or defend their parents, even mothers or fathers who are physically or emotionally abusive. It’s almost as if the boy in Olds’ poem doesn’t know what to do when the speaker says something kind to him. He interprets the speaker’s words as a criticism of the father and thus goes into full defense mode: Shut up, shut up, shut up.
Tonight, all the parents were bundled up while their little Elmos and witches and dinosaurs went begging for candy door-to-door. I didn’t hear an angry word or criticism, except the occasional “What do you say?” when I handed out the Twix bars, followed by a sheepish “Thank you!”
Holidays, even ones steeped in blood and ghosts and serial killers, seem to bring out the best in people. And, really, Halloween started as a time to honor and remember the dearly departed, at a time when, supposedly, the veil between the here and hereafter is the thinnest. That’s why All Hallow’s Eve is followed by All Saints’ Day and then All Souls’ Day.
My kids have outgrown trick-or-treating. This year is literally the first time my wife and I haven’t trooped around the neighborhood with one or both of them. Instead, we stood outside with our bowl of booty, became that old couple who fawns over all the cute little goblins coming to our front step.
My son? He invited a friend (who happens to be a girl) over for the evening. They had pizza and did whatever teenagers these days do to entertain themselves. (I remember what I did at my son’s age on Halloween, so I’m hoping he’s being a little more responsible.) He carved our pumpkin this afternoon, so he did his filial duty. So I don’t begrudge him his hormonally charged night.
Saint Marty wrote a poem for this Halloween night, based on the following prompt from The Daily Poet:
Write a poem about a specific moment that could happen on Halloween. It could be about stealing a pumpkin, walking through a graveyard, or giving out candy to trick-or-treaters. Pay attention to specific details, sounds, or sights that might be present on this holiday.
My Teenage Son Carves a Pumpkin
by: Martin Achatz
He doesn’t want to do it, hates
the viscera inside with its
almost human membranes,
cold as December. But he does it
because he wants to spend
this All Hallow’s Eve with a girl,
watch Jason hunt horny teens
or Regan baptize Father Merrin
with split pea, hoping the girl
clings to him the way pollen
clings to a bee’s leg. His pumpkin
sits now on the front stoop,
mouth big as a super moon,
eyes just tiny stars, candle
inside—a flickering tonsil—
while he and the girl carve
each other in the dark upstairs,
bodies blazing like Druid bonfires.
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