Almost everyone I know remembers how much fun Halloween was when they were kids, and I join them in this without reservation. However, my most memorable times came about in my young adulthood when energy and outrageous imagination combined to inspire better than box-office horror. My friends and I, in other words, were good by the only measure that counted. Nobody stayed for the candy.
For several Halloweens three of us gathered at the bachelor digs of one or the other. Variously costumed from the romantic to the horrible we did our best to make the candy cravers pay for their addiction. And pay they did for daring to demand "treats" of Evil Incarnate! Year by year we got better and better, battening on their wails of terror, 'til in our pride we believed we were invincible.
Then came the Halloween of our greatest effort. Our script was inspired, our costumes and props were convincing, our special effects anticipated George Lucas. The Night was upon us, and we ruled.
Imagine yourself as a member of a party of three foot tall, costumed revelers, approaching with excitement a doorway where, for the simple formula of saying "trickortreat!" you expect your sack to be filled with heavenly delights. You knock. Suddenly the door swings wide, hinges groaning like the gate of a crypt. Blocking (and backlighted by) the light from within stands a tall black-caped figure. He opens his mouth to reveal hideous fangs, and as his red lips move a hollow voice that strangely seems to come from behind the door drones in an accent familiar to every devotee of the Saturday matinee, "Good, evening. I am the Count Drrracula. Vhat may I do to you? Ah-hahahahahaha!"
The view from the other side of the footlights is, of course, different. A normal living room door is not going groan on command, nor was I (the caped one) going to be intelligible with a mouth full of plastic teeth. That's what the tape recorder behind the door was for. At the end of my brief soliloquy, I stepped to one side and with a sweeping gesture beckoned my callers in.
Several things then occurred in sequence more rapidly than I can describe them. First, my friend who owned the antique foot-pump organ began to play random keys and chords. This truly horrible sound drew the attention of the audience who then realized that he had no head! Well, his coat was buttoned up above it, but how were they to know? In the back of the room supported by two saw horses masked by black crepe paper was a coffin. It had been "borrowed" from his employer by my second friend who now reposed within. As the organ pealed its awful dirge, he threw back the lid, sat straight up, and turned his gruesomely painted visage upon the door. He didn't look natural.
If at this point anyone still remained at the door, they would'nt for long. Although we had plenty of "treats" at the ready, no one ever stayed to collect. We were a success, but something was missing.
We soon found out what that was. There was a knock. The door groaned wide. The spiel began, but as I looked forth I beheld many of my former audience members, and their parents, lining the side walk. Behind them at the curb sat a police car. I was at that moment showing my teeth to the occupant of that car.
"Excufe me," quoth I, spitting out my dime-store dentures and reaching behind the door to throttle the Count's evil laugh. My blind partners nevertheless sensed something was amiss, and were soon peeping out from between button holes and from under a lid. "What", said the cop, "do you call yourself doing?"
Have you ever not known what you were doing until that information was demanded of you? And has that knowledge come to you suddenly by the grace of the question? Well, I dunno. I told the policeman that we had been putting on a show. A "free" show, I said. He said, "Oh, really?" Then he said, "O.K.", start it up.", and he stepped to one side of the porch and stayed right there.
I shut the door and rewound the tape. After a few minutes there was a timid knock.
The door groaned open, the vampire gloated and laughed, the headless musician serenaded, and the dead guy refused to lay down! And the kids stayed right there and got their candy, because guess who else was there? Right.
It didn't take from then to now for me to know what happened there. It just took from then to now to learn how to write about it. It hit me right away that no matter how good an actor you might be, you can't expect success if you don't respect your audience. We hadn't taken into account that they would expect a hero to arrive in the knick-of-time, so we wrote him out of the script. Guess what? He showed up anyway.
Lookout.
Regards, Daddy.
