Thanks Mr. Demon! Mr. Scary man! Happy Halloween!

“I’m not coming up there! You scared me last year and you’re not going to scare me again!” yelled the young girl dressed as the Cat in the Hat. Her friends, dressed as Thing 1 and Thing 2 taunted her.
“Come on! He’s giving out really good candy. He just looks scary.”
In a deep raspy voice I call to her, “I’ll give you two pieces of sweet, sweet candy.”
“No way! You’ll jump at me!” She’s at the end of our walk, easily fifteen feet away and yet she backs up some more. I reach into the bowl of chocolates and take two more. I extend my hand offering her the chocolates. “Four piecesssssssss of sweet, sweet candy,” I hiss and I press the button on the fog machine. A cloud of fog envelopes me and I throw the switch on the Lord of the Rings sword. It glows blue. The Cat in the Hat screams and runs away from me. Her friends laugh and I call out, “’Fraidy cat!” Her friends laugh and run off after her calling her name.

The kids all know that I am real after three years of doing this and they know the tricks (or so they think), but they are still afraid, or at the very least they are hesitant. Even the boys are cautious. Surprisingly, it’s the kids in the middle group, five to nine, that are the most brave. They stand tall and strut right up our walkway calling out, “trick or treat!” The wee little ones are pretty brave too. The cutest of them was a little girl with Down Syndrome. She was dressed as a princess and was more fascinated than frightened. I released a puff of fog and she waved her arms and spun around in it laughing. When I turned on the glowing sword she was all wide eyed and smiles. I handed the little princess a bunch of chocolates and created another puff of fog. Her mom gave me an approving smile and nod and off they went. Our neighbor’s two-year old daughter, Kali isn’t scared of me at all. She waved at me and smiled all night. Each time she heard me speak, even in my raspy voice, she called out my name, “Meeeser Weeel,” and giggled like her costume’s namesake, Elmo.

The evening picks up and groups of super heroes, movie monsters, fairy princesses and miscellaneous creatures of the night take to the street in search of tricks and treats. As they approach our house I hear them warn each other about what lies ahead.
“This is the place with the scary man. Remember, from last year?” They stop at the end of the walk, stare at me and nudge each other towards me.
“You go first,” one says to another.
“Not me, you go!” the other taunts back.
“Go on kids. It’s just Darth Vader,” says a parent. I will grant that I am in black and that my sword does glow (it glows blue, not red), but I am wearing a skull mask and hissing, not breathing like I’m in an iron lung. The kids know better.
“Jeeeez, dad, that’s not Darth Vader, that’s a skeleton man, or a demon or something,” the kids will chide their uniformed parents, who try in vain to be hip to what’s what in their child’s world.
“Well go and get your treats,” the parents will say. “Or are you scared? Does dad need to hold your hand?”
“Noooooo!” But the kids still hesitate, not sure what to make of me this year because the routine is a little different.
This year I move and motion to them. I call to them in a deep raspy voice, sometimes hissing at them, “happy Halloween. Come and get your treats.” This seems to freak them out more than when I was just sitting still like a mannequin.
They slowly come up the walkway and stop a foot or two from me. The fog machine is at their feet, hidden in the bush with the nozzle pointed right at them. They start to extend their bags and that’s when I hit the button. The fog machine hisses and a cloud envelops them. They scream and jump back. Then I light up the sword and hiss, “happy Halloween ahhhhahahahahhaa!”
Another scream and then they laugh and hold out their bags again. I drop two miniature Hershey chocolates in each child’s bag.
“Thanks Mr. Demon! Mr. Scary man! Happy Halloween!” they reply and scamper off to the next house where Lt. Dan is wearing a Bill Clinton mask and an anti George W. Bush tee shirt. The parents smile in my direction, say that I’m doing a great job and that they love the addition of the fog and the glowing sword. A couple of my neighbors ask if I have been poked with any sticks yet this year. We have a laugh and I tell them no. Some of the parents told me that their kids talk about me for months afterwards and that they have been talking about our house and the “scary man” for the past week while preparing for Halloween. I have a reputation. Next year I must get more elaborate. I can see this growing.