Trick or Treating 1987

My innocence clung defiantly to my hairless weakling’s frame. It seemed I was refusing to grow up.

Each morning my smart ass spiked hairdo would come alive with a car wash of hairspray. I used so much hairspray that magic sores began to live underneath the spikes on my scalp. In homeroom I picked at the scalp sores with my too-long-for-boys fingernails.

Each day I put on the same beige jacket, a Marshall’s knock-off of a Member’s Only number, and pushed the sleeves up just past my elbows. The sleeves created girly Renaissance poofs out of my nonexistent biceps and remained on my bony torso for the entirety of the school day.

Each Sunday I scoured the coupon section of the Chicago Tribune for corporate logos. Kraft, Aunt Jemima, Speigel’s. I would clip the logos out and set them aside for the week. Each day before school I would take a piece of transparent tape (our family didn’t go for the shiny kind) and apply a corporate logo to the breast pocket flap of my famous beige jacket. I thought it a funny concept to be a 7^th grader sponsored by a corporation.

Halloween rolled around and I decided it would be weird to dress as Judge Bork, a funny looking judge who had been nominated for a Supreme Court justice. It was indeed weird. I got a black robe and taped a grey square of construction paper on my chin to emulate Bork’s ridiculed billy goat beard. None of my classmates knew who Judge Bork was. The few teachers that followed current events got it and laughed and later shed a tear for me in private.

The actual trick or treating took place on a Saturday. It was a sunny, brisk day. I found two friends to explore the great suburban landscape of townhomes, swingsets, and cement canals.

One of the first homes we hit was a ranch style townhouse not far from mine, but in a part of the neighborhood I had never been. A white guy in his late 20’s or early 30’s answered the door. He seemed nice and gave us candy. I don’t really remember much about him. I don’t remember much about the candy either.

All I can remember clearly is the man lying on the floor, just past the candy bowl. He, too, was in his late 20’s or early 30’s. Only he stared at the ceiling and held his head. He moaned. And then he wailed. It was the first time I had seen anyone on drugs.

“That was weird,” one of us said.

I don’t remember much else about trick or treating that day. My tape and construction paper beard ultimately failed, I know that much.

That guy on drugs freaked me out for some reason. At the time I didn’t know why. But looking back, maybe I knew that if I didn’t want to grow up, I would end up being that guy on his back. Trying to recapture my childhood imagination only to have it turn horribly into a burning, screaming ceiling.

The weird thing is the guy wailing at the walls would probably have enjoyed my conceptual corporate logo humor.