The Halloween Children

by Brian James Freeman

  To reinforce his point, Mattie traced the room’s unspoken border with the toe of his shoe. “Her guy shouldn’t be on my side.”

  “I know, son. Question is, what are you gonna do about it?”

  That surprised him, I could tell. I guess he expected me to take action: call his sister up here and yell at her, maybe bring his mom into it, too. Instead, I decided to give Mattie a few things to think about. Maybe help teach him to stand up for himself now and then.

  “You could just put it back,” I told him. “That’d be the easiest solution. No need to make a fuss. You wouldn’t even have to bend down to pick it up. Simply nudge Mr. Man with your foot until he’s back on Amber’s side of the room.”

  Mattie nodded—that kind of circle nod he did, where it wasn’t clear if he meant yes or no.

  “Easy in the short term,” I said. “But Amber probably wouldn’t even notice. Your mom cleans up after your sister all the time, and now you’d be doing the same thing. Is that what you want?”

  “She’ll just do it again,” Mattie said.

  “There you go.”

  Mattie scrunched up his face. I could tell he was thinking hard, but he didn’t say anything. I waited awhile before I decided to help him a bit.

  “You know, some countries have this official border crossing.” The metaphor had been in my mind for some reason, so I decided to go with it. “You need to get permission to cross into the country, with official documents. At the gate there’s maybe bloodhounds and armed guards and such. If you do things according to the rules, there usually isn’t a problem. You understand?”

  He waited for me to continue.

  “But sometimes people don’t follow the rules. They don’t have permission, so they sneak across at night, when the gate is closed. Or, they find a different place to cross where the guards can’t see them. Sometimes, though…sometimes these people get caught. What do you think happens to them? Do you think they’re just sent home with a pat on the back?”

  “I don’t know,” Mattie said.

  “Look at it this way: If you’re nice to Mr. Man after he broke the rules, then isn’t that the same as telling him the rules don’t matter? And not just him, since the rest of Mr. Man’s family is watching. If he gets away with it, they know they can get away with it, too.”

  Mattie looked at Mr. Man. He considered the dividing line across the bedroom and the stray multitude of toys and clothes on Amber’s side.

  “Your choice,” I told him.

  As I left the room, I heard a grunt and the snap of plastic as Mattie’s shoe stomped into the carpet.

  Email from Jessica Shepard

  From: Jessica Shepard

  To: Jacob Grant

  Well, you wanted me to tell you all about my “new life” here in Maryland, and since you’re never on Facebook anymore and you still won’t replace your broken phone on “principle” because you blame the bus driver for it being broken, I figured an email would have to do the trick.

  I’m living in this place called Stillbrook Apartments. It’s only a few blocks from campus, which is great. This complex isn’t as pretty as it looked in the photos on their website, but I guess that’s to be expected.

  There are a dozen brick buildings surrounded by a green lawn and tall trees that have probably been here since before the apartments. In fact, it kind of looks like an extension of the college campus if you didn’t know better.

  There are six apartments in each building, two on each floor. My apartment isn’t as nice as the one on the website (again) or even the model apartment in the leasing office. We have a laundry room in our building, though, and a big lounge area in the basement. Not all the buildings have that, so it almost makes up for the small apartment. Almost.

  I actually went back to the leasing office to make sure they hadn’t given me the wrong keys when I opened the door to my apartment and saw how small it was, but the lady who works there was already out to lunch and I never saw her come back that day. Her name is Shawna and she seems to take a lot of long lunches. I’m not exactly sure what she does here, so I’m thinking she might be related to the owners or something.

  I’ve already met the handyman twice. He’s this middle-aged dude named Harris, and he lives one building over with his wife and kids. Really nice, but I don’t think he’s an actual handyman by trade, because he still hasn’t fixed the noise I keep hearing in the walls at night. It’s like there’s something whining in there, but the more I think about it, the more I think the sound is coming from the apartment upstairs, which is kind of weird because it’s vacant right now. Or supposed to be. (Cue scary music!)

  In all seriousness, I kind of feel like there’s a lot of odd things around here that I wasn’t expecting.

  Like there’s this woman who might be faking a disability to rip off her old employer or maybe an insurance company. At least that’s what everyone says. She lives on the floor above me, and the one time I bumped into her in the hallway she was moving like she was in slow motion, but she looks pretty young to be having any kind of mobility problems.

  So, yeah, there are definitely some “features” the fine folks who own Stillbrook Apartments didn’t mention on the website, which makes me wonder what else might be happening around here!

  Gotta go, late for class. Will email soon. Or you could, you know, join Facebook like everyone else. I’m posting tons of pics. Love you!

  —Jess

  Harris

  The following morning, I stopped in the leasing office for my daily printout of tasks. Sometimes there’s nothing, sometimes there’s two pages (especially after the weekend), but mostly it’s a small Excel list, with building and apartment numbers in the first thin columns, then the resident’s complaint or problem in the wider blocks. Shawna will type her own comments on occasion—what she told the tenant or what solution she thinks I should try—but that’s mainly so she feels like she’s a boss. I always know what to do.

  It’s worth clarifying that I wasn’t a janitor. I didn’t do the lawn service, either, or anything with plumbing or internal wiring. Stillbrook Apartments hired contractors for those kinds of jobs: Standard practice was to call whoever’s cheapest and hope they’d be quick about it. I basically ended up with the smaller tasks—stuff that supposedly didn’t need “expert” attention. I’d fix a fallen shelf here and there, oil a door, change a fuse or hallway lightbulb; lay down mousetraps or set off a roach bomb; easy cover-ups with paint, window caulk, or tub sealant. I might turn off the water on an overflowing toilet or put a bucket beneath a roof leak until the professionals bothered to show up.

  Basically, I was the on-site guy for the eight apartment buildings in our complex.

  It gives you an idea what kind of place I’m talking about when I mention my job was part-time, with no benefits. With nearly a hundred apartments, each one bringing in a thousand-plus dollars each month, you’d think they could have hired a full-time handyman.

  Sure, there wasn’t always a lot for me to do—sometimes it was nothing—but after a holiday weekend or some random alignment in the stars, this place would go crazy with complaints. To make up for the slow days, I told Shawna I’d do the grass cutting, some of the minor electrical and plumbing repairs. Then they could take me on full-time. I’d get health insurance and paid vacation, and with my extra pay Lynn could cut back her tech-support hotline hours.

  Shawna’s answer was always the same: “It’s not in the budget.”

  And yet her job was full-time, and I guarantee Shawna wasn’t busy all day. Everybody’s rent money funded her time with online crossword puzzles and Bejeweled on Facebook, plus lengthy personal phone calls. Oh, and these management conferences she attended twice a year. She’d come back with a suntan and new ideas: a resident satisfaction survey, an ice-cream social for the younger tenants, a monthly newsletter she wrote for three months, then abandoned. These conferences were also her source of authority for impromptu policy decisions: “I’ve spoken with managers in other
communities, and they’re all adding the same processing fee” or “I attended a workshop on this issue, and for legal reasons we can no longer accept package deliveries in the leasing office.”

  When I stopped in that October morning, Shawna quickly minimized something on her computer screen. Too late, since I’d already heard the click of a five-jewel match when I pushed open the front door.

  Like with most small apartment communities, our leasing office was simply a ground-floor unrented apartment with an office desk in the front room and the remaining space decorated as a model unit. High-wattage bulbs ensured all the rooms were bright and welcoming, and some consultant helped pick soothing colors for curtains and bedspreads, with accent pillows for the living room sofa and chairs. Because the furniture was mostly unused, it stayed clean, and the flowers were plastic, so they always looked fresh. The television and stereo equipment were those cardboard stand-ups you sometimes find in furniture stores: “Yeah, we don’t sell TVs, but here’s what one would sorta look like on this entertainment stand.”

  Shawna smiled as I entered—the same smile she gave potential renters, and equally sincere, I’m sure. As always, she was well put together, like the display rooms: professional, solid blue dress, with a gold spiral brooch for accent; hair pulled back from her face and a modest coating of blush and lipstick. She had my work list already printed out and at the top of her IN tray, and without rising from her chair she handed it to me across the desk.

  Only a handful of tasks appeared on the page, but she called my attention to the first item. “All” was listed in the building and unit columns, with “Distribution of flyers” in the explanation box. Shawna then handed me a filled manila envelope with a single orange sheet taped on the outside to identify the contents. “Hand-deliver one of these to every door,” she said. “And pin one to each of the building’s announcement boards.”

  Hand-delivery, meaning my delivery, was Shawna’s favored means of “official” communication. It saved the cost of a stamp, but, more important, it saved her from actual contact with residents. No immediate follow-up questions, as she’d get on the phone. And with email, you could never be sure the message didn’t fall into someone’s spam filter. Legally, as she supposedly learned in one of her seminars, a hand-delivered note was nearly as good as a certified letter.

  I examined the outside of the envelope, reading the first few lines of the flyer. “Oh, my kids aren’t gonna like this.”

  “Can’t be helped.”

  “There’s still two weeks. The families could take up a collection.”

  Shawna shook her head back and forth. “It’s not just money. See, if we have a party in the public area, it means Stillbrook has sanctioned it. We could be held responsible if anything went wrong. Legally responsible.”

  Hard to miss that emphasis on her favorite word. “That’s ridiculous. There’d never be parties if that’s the case. The kids love the Halloween party. We can decorate the lounge ourselves, and the food can be potluck…”

  “All part of the problem, I’m afraid. At Terrace Green in Jersey City two years back, a resident fell off a ladder while hanging a black crepe streamer. She sued the management company and won—with the settlement costs eventually passed along to other residents in the form of rent increases. Would you want that?” Shawna didn’t wait for my answer. “At one high-rise community in Tampa, people got E. coli poisoning from a spoiled-meat appetizer provided by one of the tenants—guess you would call it a potluck surprise—and the reputation of the building suffered as a result.”

  I barely listened to her when she got like this. I knew she was practicing on me, so the excuses would sound even better when she repeated them. As she listed a few more party-going disasters, I stood there and read the memo in full.

  NOTICE: Due to limited funds, unfortunately there will be no community Halloween party this year.

  As a safe alternative, we will allow trick-or-treating within our neighborhood, on a limited basis.

  Rules for the evening of October 31 are as follows:

  · No distribution of unwrapped candy.

  · No fruit or homemade baked goods.

  · Respect your fellow tenants: Children may knock on doors between the hours of 7:00 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. ONLY.

  · No paper decorations on doors, as these can be a fire hazard.

  · Only plastic pumpkins are permitted. In previous years, fresh pumpkins have been smashed in the street or parking lot, causing cleanup problems.

  · Do not hang decorations from the courtyard trees.

  · No in-ground decorations, as these create a hazard for our lawn crew.

  · “Think before you Trick”: No vandalism of any kind will be permitted.

  Finally, adult guardians must accompany and supervise their underage children during all trick-or-treat visits. To participate in this holiday event, the adult guardians must sign and return this form to the leasing office, waiving Stillbrook Apartments of any legal responsibility pursuant to damages or injuries that may result from the evening’s festivities.

  The more I read the memorandum, the angrier I got. I pictured Shawna taking notes at one of her stupid legal workshops. Afterward, scouring the Web for further anecdotal evidence to support her arguments. Cutting-and-pasting rules and legal language she could apply to the Halloween situation, supplemented with her own small-minded ideas.

  This should be a holiday for the kids to enjoy. It wasn’t fair to take it away from them, especially while pretending you were doing it for their own good.

  Besides, the idea of restrictions never quite appealed to me. It’s like putting a loose cap on a liter of soda pop, then daring people to shake the bottle.

  Things are bound to explode.

  —

  I guess you’re wondering what all of this has to do with what happened. Get to the point, Harris. Right?

  Let me take a stab at answering.

  I’m no expert, but I think the environment in our apartment complex had everything to do with what happened.

  Not just our management policies and our neighbors, but maybe even the issues that had been simmering within my own family.

  You go through life thinking you’re essentially invincible, the star of your own personal little movie, and then from out of nowhere you’re tossed into chaos that you can’t predict or control.

  When this sort of thing happens, you have to make perfect decisions from imperfect information or you might just end up in a padded cell, talking to a headshrinker who thinks you can tell him where the bodies are hidden.

  I don’t know.

  At least, I don’t think I do.

  There’s a lot I remember about that Halloween, but the last hour, the minutes leading up to midnight when the fire department was kicking down doors and everyone was screaming—so loud, all of those horrendous cries—and the police were shouting…

  Well, there’s not a lot I remember about that.

  I might have done any of the things they say I did.

  Or none of them.

  But that’s why I’m making these recordings, isn’t it?

  Let’s find out.

  Lynn

  To be safe, I’m going to call you Mr. Therapist in this file. I hope you don’t mind.

  Or should I call you Doctor?

  Either way, I don’t want to use your real name, since I can’t be certain someone else won’t find this little homework assignment.

  You want to know about the problems I see in the marriage?

  A major one is that Harris doesn’t even realize how destructive his son can be.

  I know for a fact that Matt has broken Amber’s toys on purpose.

  You wouldn’t think the boy had it in him, not that scrawny little kid, but Matt has a temper.

  I haven’t exactly seen it, but I’ve found the destruction left in his wake.

  I also think Matt tries to sabotage things around the house, like the time someone loosened the hot water connection under the k
itchen sink, which would have been a huge mess if I hadn’t been there when it disconnected.

  When I’ve pointed these incidents out to Harris, he denies the mere possibility of Matt causing trouble.

  He says it’s just as likely that the neighbor upstairs did something to Amber’s toys, maybe more likely.

  What a load of crap.

  Have I told you about the neighbor upstairs?

  Harris has all of us calling him Mr. Stompy, but I think Amber originally came up with the nickname. Isn’t that cute?

  His real name is Mr. Johansson, and I’ve only met him once, but I’ll never forget that meeting because it was such a bizarre afternoon.

  The kids were at school and Harris was at work, and I thought I’d surprise everyone with a cake.

  A real Coconut Pound Cake, made from scratch, like my mother made when I was a kid growing up on the farm.

  This wasn’t something I’d normally do, but, to be honest, that morning Harris had made a joke about me being addicted to my “As Seen on TV” kitchen contraptions, so I wanted to remind him that I could really cook if I wanted.

  I walked to the corner store to get my ingredients, including real cake flour like mom would have used, not all-purpose flour.

  I borrowed a stand mixer from Mrs. Tammisimo, one of the other mothers in this complex, who chewed my ear off for a good half-hour about all of her favorite cakes before I could delicately excuse myself and get to work.

  I followed the recipe my mother had jotted down in the back of the only cookbook I own, The Joy of Cooking, which had been her wedding gift to us.

  After mixing everything together, I poured the well-creamed mix of eggs, sugar, flour, shortening, vanilla extract, and coconut into our only cake pan, popped it into the preheated oven, and then went to pour myself a glass of wine and sit on the couch to celebrate my achievement.