Costumes, Candy and an Untimely Death

Trick or Trick

Let’s imagine it’s Halloween, and you just ran out of candy. If the neighborhood kids (or anyone else, really) were to truly scare you, what trick would they have to subject you to?

1973 was an infamous year in our family.

That was the year my Grandfather got into that accident on the Duwamish Bridge.

Something hit his card pretty hard from behind and his car was forced off of the bridge into the water.

That happened on Halloween Morning.

After the Police came by and told us that he was gone, where to collect his body and how sorry they were my Mom sent me and my brother outside to bring in the pumpkins.

She and our Aunt took down the decorations Dad was to busy to buy candy because he was talking with the Funeral Home  and for the rest of the evening relatives came by and our house went from Holiday to Mourning in less than three hours.

As darkness fell me and my brother could see our friends darting from house to house in their Halloween Masks made from plastic and swinging their Trick or Treat Pumpkins wildly in the air.

” Grandpa would say we should be out there.” My Brother said ruefully. ” He’d have bought us eggs and TP too. Grandpa knew how to do Halloween right. Remember the time  he stuck those fake heads on poles  Because Mrs Green gave us toothbrushes and apples?”

” Yeah. He said he was surprised the old bag didn’t hand out socks and underwear too.” I remembered out loud. ” And remember the time the Brices forgot it was Halloween and he helped us wrap their car in plastic wrap

Just then my best friend Prixie waved as she ran by our window.

I flipped her the bird in return.

” They’ll be sorry, we’re gonna get tricked for sure and you know who will have to clean up the mess right?” my brother said with some satisfaction in his voice. ” I’ll bet this time our house gets tricked and I’ll bet eggs and shaving cream are in our future. THEY deserve it.”

“Serves them right for keeping us in doesn’t it?”

” Right.”

We ran up the back stairs to our bedrooms- I put on my  thin plastic scary witch mask complete with scary witch plastic costume and met my brother  was dressed up as race car driver on the way back down.

” Your costume is dumb” I told my brother.

” You don’t need to wear an ugly mask he told me.

Then  snuck down into the basement and out the  basement door  that let us out into the  alley and disappeared into the chilly Halloween Night.

When we got back our family was stunned.

” Do you know what tonight is? ” they asked us all at once.

Actually they were yelling it.

” Um. The day Grandpa died.”

” Yes. ” My Grandma said patiently. ” It’s also Halloween “

” That’s why we went trick or treating. It’s Halloween.”

” And you two should have been home a half hour ago.” Grandma scolded us ” Kids your age shouldn’t be out after seven-thirty alone.

My Grandma took my plastic jack-o-lantern and shook the candy out on the table.

” I hope you two didn’t eat the good stuff on the way home…”

” Hey!”

” Your FATHER ” Grandma said pointedly at her son
“didn’t buy any candy and if we don’t have any of those chocolate bars your Grandpa liked-“

We heard a knock on the door-

There’s  going to be Hell to pay.”

The 511

They were two ladies- about the same age with the same  hair style and both had the same type of phone and both were riding the bus to work on what would turn out to be a very hot summer day.

The woman who sat close to the window looked over to her seatmate and smiled and said:

” I really like this phone, don’t you?”

Her seatmate looked up from her phone ( they had the same models ) and down into the hands of the woman who sat close to the window and she saw ” Proverbs” and lots of writing under Proverbs in bloody red bold print. The woman smiled. Her eyes were dark, her smile was darker and her voice was as cool and refreshing as first breath of Spring.

” I love it. You can find anything you need to know on this, can’t you? “

The woman near the window looked down and saw that the screen on her seatmate’s phone was black.

Her Dark Eyed Companion said,  ” You wouldn’t believe what I have on this thing. Notes. Pictures. More notes. It’s just chock full of what I need to make it through my work day.

They rode in a comfortable silence and then  the woman next to the window said, ” My name is Lia Anne. “

Her seatmate smiled. ” Embers. Embers Eastman.”

” You have a very interesting name.”

Embers shrugged. ” My Father has a very unusual sense of humor. For example, I wanted to travel. I ran away a few times. I was quite the upstart. He said if I liked traveling so much I could hit the road for the family business and do all the traveling my heart could stand. So here I am. Working the family trade. “

” Well you know what they say, Spare the Rod and spoil the child.”

Embers rolled her eyes up and shook her head.

” What sort of business are you in?”

” Import/Export. Do you know the Sardo Building on 6th and Main? That’s where my office is.”

Ember’s phone pinged and she honestly looked surprised. She turned and looked around and she even stood up and looked at the people seated in front of her. She shook her head and sat back down and then  she held her phone up and squinted at it with annoyance running rampant all over her face.

She made a clicking sound with her teeth  and then she pushed the little silver bar on the side and the screen popped up. When it flashed on she squinted at the sudden burst of light and read what was there.

” Oh hey. This is was an easy one and look here’s our stop.”

” Mine is the next stop.:”

Embers Eastman was  her father’s  protégé and his favorite child- which was hard for the people who knew them to believe. On her good days, it was said,  she even had his charm.

This was not one of those days.

She held her phone up and showed it to Lia Anne, ” Murdering your lover’s wife and killing her dog…her DOG Lia Anne is a sin. Now get up. Follow me. “

” No. I’m not going anywhere with you. You’re insane. “

 ” Very much so.” Embers assured her seatmate ” And if you want to see how bad I can really get, I can crawl into your skin like a maggot going to town on road kill and you can see for yourself exactly why Father chose me to go from one end of the Universe to the other to pick up the trash.”

” He keeps me as far away from pleasant company as he can.”

Embers put her face so close to Lia Anne’s it looked like they were going to kiss.

” You are not pleasant and you are coming with me.”

Embers pushed her palm against Lia Anne’s chest, just over her heart and they were gone- just like that.

Embers- as her Father would say-  was a handful but she was an efficient Little Devil when it came to doing her job.

Today’s Special

Five a Day

You’ve being exiled to a private island, and your captors will only supply you with five foods. What do you pick?

This took me awhile to figure out. But when I did I went straight for my bathroom mirror and kissed my reflection.

:::DRUMROLL PLEASE:::

I would take:

J sometimes referred to in some circles as G

( old , tough and  probably gristly but  it’s soaked in wine so I’m sure it’s  good for broth making )

C

( definitely good for roasting )

S

( a little of this goes a long way )

T

( Oh, why not)

and of course

E

( no taste at all- for garnish only  )

So is this me being clever?

Do I intend to take as many food stuffs with those letters with me to the nowhere place that I’m going to be sent to?

Uh.

No.

All I can say is, I’m well schooled in human anatomy, corpses hold no fear for me I’m one hell of a cook and I’ll eat like a queen till help arrives.

You know.

Help for me.

Not them.

For them it would be too late.

 

And The Truth Shall Send You Straight To The Principal’s Office

Daily Prompt

Truth or Dare

Is it possible to be too honest, or is honesty always the best policy?

Of course honesty is the best policy.

Honesty earns you trust and respect.

On the other hand, we’ve seen honesty used as a blunt instrument in many a murder of the heart and mind haven’t we?

So, that led me to wonder, are you being honest when you take the truth, twist it around someone’s neck until they turn blue and their tongue pops out of their mouth and they are for sure dead?

I don’t think so, I think at that point you used honesty for your own personal gain that makes it a lie.

 

When I was a kid one of my classmates referred to me as ‘ the black cat sitting on a Cadillac’. It was a TV jingle at the time. But before you knew it I was being called a Black Cat by everyone…she would not stop. So one day I hauled off and punched her in the eye and ended up in the Principal’s office with my Teacher- who was very fond of grabbing me by hair on the top or back of my head and shaking it  from side to side to get my attention.

In fact, that’s how she got me to the office that day. Dragging me down past my classmates, other teachers and a janitor by the hair on the back of my head.

Nobody looked surprised.

So, we get into the office and the Principal and Teacher tell me, in all honesty ( they said )  that it wasn’t my classmate’s FAULT that I was different. I was told -almost kindly- by our Principal that I looked different and what I NEEDED to do was develop a sense of humor about BEING DIFFERENT from everyone else.

And then they brought my classmate in – with her Mother who they called right away ( my Mom got a note two days later) and told me I needed to apologize.

I looked into those self righteous  faces, and into my classmate’s smirking expectant one- and from the bottom of my racing little heart-  in all honesty-  and on the verge of tears said with amazement

” That shiner is a beaut, isn’t it?”

I’m Pretty Sure You Don’t Want To Do That

Daily Prompt

Buffalo Nickel

Dig through your couch cushions, your purse, or the floor of your car and look at the year printed on the first coin you find. What were you doing that year?

 

About 17 years ago I lost 50.00.

I was shopping and I’m pretty sure that when I reached into my unorganized purse and pulled out my unorganized wallet the 50.00 dropped out.

Do you know what really made me mad?

It wasn’t that I lost the  50.00- though that did sting. No. What really made me mad was that some lucky ducky found 50.00.

I have never looked down and found anything larger then a penny.

That’s what really made me mad- in my life I have never been that lucky but on that day I sure as Hell made sure somebody else was.

So ever since that black marked day I don’t carry cash.

I use my debit card.

And here’s the reason why.

When I was in high school I went to church with my friend.

Her Church was one of those people speaking in tongues and writhing in the aisles with snakes kind of church.

It was better then any horror movie because  the feeling in that church was dark and oppressive and if something would have reached up through the floor  in an explosion of brick and mortar  and faded plum colored carpeting and pulled us down  one by one and  kicking and screaming and dripping entrails all the way through the gates of Hell..I wouldn’t have been surprised

But on that day they were going on about people being marked with numbers- specifically credit card numbers.

That was how Satan was going to mark us…so whatever you do, don’t get one of those cards.

No problem. I was like 17 at the time. I didn’t see myself to ever be in a position to be ‘marked by Satan’.

It was shortly after I lost that money and made someone else very lucky I remembered that day in the Church- how we would be marked and cursed and turned into Demons doing the Devil’s work for all of eternity  if we got numbered.

Oh really? I thought. Is that how it works? Because I was tired of being the softie who gave in ( most of the time m)  with just about everyone in my life…my kids, my job, holding the doors open for people, and now apparently I am throwing money around like confetti at a New Years Eve Party.

I dug through my desk drawer, found my Debit card, activated it and since then I haven’t carried cash. I’ll be damned ( literally ) if I ever make someone’s day like that again.

I must say though:

When I pull that card out I feel wicked.

Very wicked.

And it feels….good.

The Clown Car

DAILY PROMPT

First Light

Remember when you wrote down the first thought you had this morning? Great. Now write a post about it.

 

 Every morning I take the same bus with the same people to the Transit Center ( they don’t call it a Park and Ride anymore ).

I like my bus driver, I like most of the people I ride with.

” Most ” being the keyword here.

One of the passengers is, as a very young commuter once pointed out,  a ‘motor mouth’.

She will ask me a question and then answer it herself.

So I let her do all the talking.

Does she do that to the other passengers?

Nope.

And in the event I can get a word edgewise I’m always wrong.

Brother.

And then there are the three jackasses on the second bus I catch.

These three guys all get on the commuter bus together- they each take a seat, put there backpacks or jackets or whatever next to them and then they lower the backs of their seats so far that it’s impossible to sit behind them.

And then they pretend to sleep- so nobody sits next to them and you can’t get to the seat behind them without climbing over  one seat to take the one they’re not using as a futon.

So this morning when my alarm went off and before I opened my eyes I saw those four doughy faces and I wondered if it was possible that today is the we get hit by a planet killer asteroid and the earth turns to dust or we get zapped by a gamma ray  and if today is not the day, what can I do to make it happen?

But I got myself up, did my morning routine went to my bus stop and did I play with my phone, stand on the corner away from the Motor Mouth like a couple of other people have taken to do after hearing her ‘talk’ to me?

Nope.

 I said my good morning and looked straight and stood a few feet away from her.

When she started with our one way conversation I stopped her mid sentence and said, ” I’m sorry. Were you talking to me?”

When the bus showed up I got on and prepared for round two on the Commuter Bus.

My little sleeping beauties were settled into their seats and I chose one, sat right behind him, pulled out my notebook ( and not the electronic ones, it’s an old school binder and weighs about five pounds ) and used his head rest as a table.

When he turned around to glare at me I said ” Oh gee, I’m sorry. Did I wake you up?”

” Can you move that?” he asked.

” No. It’s pretty heavy and I’m stuck.”

He got up, moved to the seat occupied by his jacket and as he did a woman with the big, I mean a HUGE purse sat next to him.

She proceeded to pull her phone out of her bag and and as she did I saw her elbow her seatmate a few times.

With my compliments, I thought merrily to myself.

At this point I may have said it out loud though.

At least, I hope I did.

So this morning before I opened my eyes I guess I had revenge in my heart.

And when my eyes were completely opened it sort of poured out of me like chocolate from one of those giant chocolate fountains they have had weddings and fancy parties.

It’s funny how that happens sometimes.

 

 

Death Lives In A Haunted House

DAILY POST 

Free Association

Write down the first words that comes to mind when we say . . .

. . . home.

. . . soil.

. . . rain.

Use those words in the title of your post.

 

I know this house with the missing windows, the door that only locks from the outside, the yard chocked with sand and weeds.

It’s a warm house, this house with no windows. The wooden stairs plunge  down to a basement that is painted a dull blue and there is a clutch of skeleton keys hanging from a hook shaped like a lady’s hand in the kitchen above the sink. I think one of the fingers is missing.

The water still runs, rusty and fetid from aged pipes, the electricity still flows up and down rotted copper wires and the radio in the basement works sometimes.

The House with the missing windows, the one with the well used stairs that lead to the basement with the dirt floor where there is one chair sitting in a  dark corner festering with spider webs,  was never a nice house.

It has always smelled of death and decay and the attic roof always leaks  when it rains and rats seem to come from miles around just to decompose in it’s walls.

A lady named Miss Giuliana  Coffin died there.

A few times.