Halloween in Buffalo

Judging from children's movies and storybooks, Halloween should be a fairy tale holiday. A radiant princess with a ball gown and polished toes or a pirate with capris and tank top set foot into the warm and breezy weather of their cul-de-sac. They walk with friends through the safety of their leaf-adorned neighborhood as friendly neighbors welcome them at a festive doorstep lined with classic jack-o-lanterns. There is no snow.

However, as a seasoned veteran holiday, I can say that Halloweens in Buffalo were much more interesting.

When I was little, I'd always pick out my costume from the Spencer Gifts collection. Scanning the selection of masks on the store wall, I'd choose the head of someone who looked like a Mafia torture victim. I even owned a rubber torso piece, so that when I opened my cape I exposed a full diaphragm of rotting internal human biology. It was heaven.

Of course, our Catholic grammar school did not sanction such a practice, and at every year's Halloween party I was forced to conform to a dopey witch hat. Thinking back, I wonder why they allowed Wicca symbols and not a sin-infested soul; the latter conflicted less with the Old Testament.

I remember the warning given by my third grade teacher, a nun who believed the holiday mascots worked under the punishment-reward system of the Catholic Church.

"Don't eat all your candy at once, boys and girls," she said, "Or Santa won't give you what you want for Christmas."

I raised my hand.

"What if you don't believe in Santa?" I asked defiantly, still slightly irked about the costume situation. One classmate sighed. Another started to whimper.

"Then you get coal," said our teacher.

Pumpkin carving was an intricate process. My family would carefully scrutinize the stock at the Niagara Produce Market, taking into account the weight, width, and height of the gourds we would soon be disemboweling. We bought the kits with the pre-plotted patterns, and would often argue over who got to do the kitty design.

The kit also came with plastic carving tools, but the blade usually broke off mid-incision, and after a couple years of frustration Father resorted to power tools. The Thanksgiving turkey would soon follow suit.

"You have to screw the legs in," he said, holding a screwdriver over the 20-pound bird, "So that they stay put."

It was usually snowing on Halloween, which made trick-or-treating a highly rewarding series of obstacles. Every year, my sisters and I tried to squirm out of the heavy winter dressings that our mother was stuffing us into, but in the end Claire was Cinderella With a Ski Coat, or Becky was Little Mermaid With Eskimo Boots (my mother peddled Disney the way others might peddle cocaine).

In our more ambitious years, we covered the length of Capen Blvd., stumbling over mounds of frozen leaves and the occasional soggy political sign that had somehow detached itself from a lawn and struggled towards the street, only to collapse in defeat on the sidewalk.

Becky's socks dampened in her glass slippers. My breath condensed inside my rubber mask, freezing as it pooled around my neck. Claire, an indistinguishable bundle of Sears winterwear, tripped over her own boots, spraying the contents of her trick-or-treat pumpkin across our neighbor's lawn. She stood back up, shrugged, and started to gather up Snickers and M&M's out of the snow.

We were always good at judging what kind of candy would be given at each house. The lawns with mood lighting and spooky music playing were a guaranteed success. However, you learned to avoid the houses that had "Peace" or "Hope" carved into their pumpkins and vigil light candles in the windows.

You couldn't stay out too late, even with your parents. Demons would begin to seep out of the subway. But we always returned home safely. And with our hair plastered to our foreheads, we'd pour our candy onto the living room floor, proudly surveying the earnings of our night.