Note: For a wonderful story to fit this spooky day, please read the well-written and imaginative “Piper and the Gren” by our very own Moksha Gren.

For a shorter read, see my own “Talk With a Killer,” a thriller that some here have read already.

One Bad Halloween

Whatever you do tonight, do not get into a biscuit dough and raw egg fight in a church parking lot across from the Mayor’s house. The Mayor, and subsequently the police who work for him, will not like this.

In one of the ensuing years after Trick-or-Treat had become uncool for my age, I walked around town with a group of kids armed with toilet paper, cans of uncooked biscuits, and raw eggs. Like some kind of war correspondent, I watched while they chucked eggs at homes of people doing nothing to celebrate the evening. There was an unwritten code of honor that kept anyone from aiming for windows.

In quick, strategic bursts, this ragtag bunch dotted the landscape with toilet paper streamers when not smacking it with a Grade A Extra Large. I may have got caught up in the moment and helped hurl a roll of toilet paper over a tree limb here or there, particularly in yards of friends.

The biscuits? Along with a number of eggs, they were reserved for hand-to-hand combat. I lost count of how many times I heard the familiar, and until then innocent, pop of the biscuit can’s cardboard sides splitting open with a good whack on the street curb.

We ended up in a battle royale in the First Baptist Church parking lot a couple blocks from downtown. Boys and girls alike felt egg shells crack against their skulls. Biscuit joined in to make a tangled mess of hair. The smell reminded me of a big breakfast back home. Our shouts and screams echoed off the church and surrounding houses.

I lost track of time, but probably less than 10 minutes in the cops descended upon our rowdy group. No arrests were made, but they confiscated all our supplies and called a few parents.

My complicity in the affair was the result of self-imposed peer pressure, if that makes any sense. In other words, nobody had to convince me to play along, but I worried what they would think if I didn’t. The most heinous practices (egg-bombing the houses of innocents) I avoided but did not attempt to stop.

Prior to that night, I always stayed out of trouble on Halloween. I walked from house to house, usually with my brother, until my bag was full and before my parents started worrying. We lived in a town and a time where parents pretty much let the kids out of the car (or just the front door if they didn’t live out in the country like I did) to go Trick-or-Treat thing, and nobody had mobile phones to check in during the festivities.

There was that one house that was known to scare the bejeepers out of us every year. The owner put a fake zombie at a different spot each Halloween night, so we never knew where he was going to jump out.

A few homes could be counted on to leave their entire bowl of candy right outside the front door. To my surprise, each kid just took his or her share and went on to the next house. The delicious popcorn balls, now a no-no, were my favorite treat.

After I got married, Halloween took on a new meaning. This time I was the one handing out the candy to the costumed kiddoes. Our home has never been victimized by egg-hurling adolescents and, as far as I remember, we’ve never been “tp’ed.” I finally bobbed for apples after age 30 at a party we threw. I recommend that for indoors unless you live in a very warm climate.

Most of all, at some point I added the pretentious apostrophe when typing the word (Hallowe’en) and then dropped it because it’s already an abbreviation, for crying out loud.

Whatever you do this Halloween, don’t hurt anybody and have fun!