When I Found Out That Not All Adults Are Good People

              From Kindergarten through second grade, I attended Wilkes’ Academy in Little Rock, Arkansas. Most days, transportation came via carpool. However, on occasion, I rode the bus. To be fair, the bus was really a powder blue (with white lettering and logo) 15-passenger van, but for all intents and purposes, it was the bus. In fact, Mitch, the driver, got a touch upset if you called it a van. And although I don’t recall many of our daily trips aboard the fun bus—most days were nondescript—for some reason, I do remember you didn’t want to make Mitch mad. He was, though, the adult, the one in charge, and therefore, the ultimate word in what we were supposed to do...right?

He wore ratty t-shirts and jeans every day, perhaps a jacket in the winter. An old-school green mesh ball cap with a foam front with a faded logo, like one of those generic pieces of hud they give you in little league molded his hair to his head, only a curly mullet strung out the back. Mitch had absolute control over the radio (loud), too, and he made sure everyone know it. And I remember that he was loud—louder than Van Halen or the Oak Ridge Boys. His ultra-loud nature disquieted my shy, quiet nature on a daily basis. 

Two other kids in my class rode the bus—Shawnna and Kira. The only other kid I remember by name was Stephanie, who was a third grader, who coincidentally looked like my wife did when she was in third grade. Somehow, Stephanie always got Mitch to crank up the volume when “Abracadabra” by the Steve Miller Band came on. No one else could get him to relent his music dominance. The rest of the bus riders were older. Due to my timidity and my unfounded fear of big kids, I usually hunkered down in the back until my stop came.

The mighty Mitch didn’t talk to me much. He had too much fun yelling at (and with) the older kids. I do remember, though, that every once in a while that he and/or one of the older boys would say something that I wasn’t allowed to say. I remember being perplexed about why an adult would let other kids use words like that or even use words like that himself. Adults were supposed to correct inappropriate behavior, not encourage it, right?

Another time Mitch had a shouting debate with one of the older girls about whether taking the Lord’s name in vain was really breaking a commandment. For a kid who was trying to learn to do what was right, the time on the bus really confused me.

              I don’t remember much of the route, or how many stops we made, but I do remember one distinct spot along a woodsy bend. This was where Mitch pulled over, leaving the motor running. He scurried across the busy, two-lane road, almost becoming a stain on the wood paneling of a white station wagon. Those of us in the bus who hadn’t been paying attention were alerted by the blaring horns and the one-fingered salute Mitch waved back with. He continued and ducked under a no trespassing sign into a yard surrounded by barbed wire with no trespassing signs. He came back with an armload of political campaign signs. He opened the back door of the bus, directly behind me and shoved them in, muttering to no one in particular about how the no good *expletive phrase* wasn’t going to win anyway. A pit opened in my stomach. We stopped a few minutes later where Mitch stuffed them into a dumpster. I about swallowed myself. Was this an adult I was supposed to trust?

              However, the event that completely messed over my malleable mind was one time when Mitch had had an extremely hard day, I suppose, because the yelling started before we had left the parking lot to go home. He quickly detoured to a 7-11, one of his usual stops, and came back with two brown paper bags. The first, he shoved under his seat. The second he held up as he pronounced, “Listen up. I’m going to try something different today. If you are good, I’ll give you a piece of this candy. If not, you get nothing.”

              My young brain kicked into gear. I was always good. I never caused any trouble. I was going to score a Now-and-Later or a Tootsie Pop!

              It was one of the quietest bus rides I ever experienced. Even the normally rowdy crowd settled down for the afternoon. I distinctly recall cute Kira getting dropped off in front of her house, Mitch turning around, and giving her a treat as she exited. Shawnna got one, too. And Stephanie. And a few others. When my stop came, I reached for the door and paused, waiting for my candy. But when he didn’t even acknowledge me (not that it was anything new), my candy-loving, adult-trusting soul got crushed. Whether there was any blatant favoritism or not is up for debate. Wasn’t the promise that if I were good, I would receive candy? In my little mind, I didn’t get a piece of candy, so therefore….well, you figure it out.

              Why am I sharing this story? That is a good question. It has been on my mind for a while, but I don't know where to take it from here. I have literally typed and deleted eight different conclusions to this tale. Some were more didactic than others. All just felt wrong, though. That said, I will leave you with your own reader response. Whatever you get out of it is fine with me. I’ll just say this, though:

              Think about the messages you send to others, especially the direct statements or promises you make.

Back from the Dead (Halloween Hater)

Like a zombie from the crypt, this blog--dead or undead--has new life breathed back into it. It's part of my efforts to get back to writing more frequently. So how should I start it off? With a little personal narrative ramble, of course.

For the record, Halloween has never been my favorite holiday…even as a kid. I didn’t really get into jump scares or monsters. Truthfully, on the whole, the horror/slasher genre of lit and film bores me. Suspense, I like, but for me, horror involves no real fright—just frustration and consternation at how demented people invent such stories. The gross-out factor didn’t even make me gag (much). And yes, I tried haunted houses and corn mazes as a teen and as an adult, but they didn’t do anything for me either. Maybe I’m concerned that people actually enjoy these “scary” things. To me they aren’t scary, just lame.

Dressing up in a costume never did anything for me either. I simply don’t enjoy it much. Sure, I dressed up as the obligatory superhero or clown or vampire (I believe those were the only personas I donned for trick-or-treating or class parties.), but I didn’t really get into it. Too much work for so little return.

                The only payoff for me was the candy. And I only ransacked the neighborhood until I was ten. My parents had a rule that trick-or-treating was done after you turned twelve. I ended early, opting at age eleven to drag my younger siblings around, and by the time I hit twelve, I opted to stay home to answer the door and sugar-load the roaming hordes of diaper-sagging Supermen, pillowcase-toting Princess Leias, and demons nearing diabetic comas.

                My last year of candy retrieval we lived in military housing in Japan. I was a vampire (again): white Sunday shirt, dark Sunday slacks and shoes, a plastic bargain bin cape and false teeth that Mom had grabbed at the base exchange. No makeup. I have no clue what my brothers wore.

Dad escorted us around some familiar blocks, and I grew impatient. My younger brothers lagging behind—Marc stopping to examine his haul after each house and David was just tired. We were coming near the end of the night (Trick-or-treating was only allowed on base from 1800-2000 hours.), and I still wanted more candy. As long as we were out, it needed to be worth my time, right?

The homes were all your standard, military four-plexes, and the blocks consisted of sets of two buildings facing each other with a parking spaces between them. Each set meant eight doors to knock. Eight treats. However, the two four-plexes we approached all looked dark. Dad wanted to move past them and head for home. I wanted candy. I was out here going through the motions, wasn’t I? Maybe David’s fussing wore on his patience, or maybe I was an impertinent little ten-year-old, but somehow I convinced Dad to let me try the darkened complex anyway. The three of them moved on, and I was allowed to continue by myself.

So I ventured to the first door alone.

Nothing.

I went to the next. Again, nothing.

The third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh doors all remained shut.

At the eighth and final stop, frustration started creeping in, and I felt like an idiot for wasting my time with the darkened doors. Despite the blackened windows, my stubbornness knocked anyway. As I stood with my foot tapping, tapping at the concrete floor, I heard but silence, nothing more. Yet once again I started rapping, rapping at the darkened door, wanting candy, nothing more.

When I was about to admit defeat, the porch light flicked on burning my vampire eyes, and the door opened.

“Hey, kid.” A man in a ratty Chicago Bears T-shirt and sweats stood before me, beer in hand.

“Hey,” I responded.

“We haven’t had anyone come by tonight. Probably because the light was off, huh?”

I didn’t know what to say. Fortunately, he saved my caught-in-the-porchlight dumbfoundedness by turning, setting down his bottle, and picking up a large Tupperware bowl, hundreds of Tootsie Rolls heaped above the rim.

“So, uh, why don’t you just take the whole thing?” he proffered. “Then I can turn my light off and go to bed.”

Before I could speak, sweet, chewy goodness spilled out of the bowl, into my plastic pumpkin, and onto the ground.

Caught in a trance, I mumbled a thank you, and the door closed. The light went out. I scurried about, collecting as many more Tootsies that I could stuff into my pockets. Persistence paid off that night. But that was the end of the story—no more trick-or-treating for this kid.

I figured that my siblings would always bring home candy. And if I really wanted some cavities that badly, I could buy my own sugar. It always went on sale on November 1^st anyway (as long as it wasn’t candy canes or Chocolate Santas). In high school I even sold Halloween surplus out of my locker for a while, which for me, was much more beneficial than sweating through makeup or a freezing in a cracking plastic suit while hiking from house to house.

 (from http://www.disneyfilmproject.com/2009/06/skeleton-dance.html)

What? This from a guy who enjoys writing zombie haiku? I know. It’s weird. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not an absolute hater. Garfield, the Great Pumpkin, and the Headless Horseman all make regular appearances. And I’ve been known to set up a spook alley or design the occasional Viking shield, false bloody knife, or other costume accouterments. One of my favorite cartoons of all time remains Disney’s Silly Symphony “The Skeleton Dance.” When I was younger, I enjoyed helping my younger siblings create homemade decorations. One of our favorites included constructing haunted houses with working windows and doors out of construction paper. Sounds like I might (hypocritically) enjoy Halloween. Nope. I love when others enjoy Halloween. All the effort is for the kids. It does nothing for me.