She has been cooking all day and she doesn’t want Wracks underfoot in her kitchen.  The turkey is in the oven and she likes to cook it for an hour at 425 degrees to sear and seal the skin and then turn the oven down to cook the poultry for the rest of the time.   In a sauce pot are turkey necks and giblets, basil and parsley, garlic and onion because a broth brews for three hours to make gravy and then sauce for Italian dinners tomorrow and the next day.  The classic green beans steam in a cauldron with crushed garlic and more crushed garlic adorned with sea salt.   A large soup pot holds a myriad of potatoes, boiling happily to become mashed potatoes and the Wracks wait expectantly to mash them.  

Wracks, don’t let me overshoot the cooking time.   The turkey has to cool for at least thirty minutes before carving.   I won’t Mom, says the Wracks

The doorbell rings a ding doing.   The grandparents are here to share a holiday meal.  Grandpa and Grandma show up bearing sacks of food to feed the Wracks.    Outside a Ford Fairlane deluxe town coupé in alabaster white parks, it soon will be converted by the Fonz into a rolling brothel but the Wracks is too young to understand.   All he understands is that he has family and they are here together on the holidays and everything is so special.  Grandma walks over to him and gently kisses him on the forehead and says Happy Thanksgiving.  She is small and has reddish blond hair and green eyes just like him.  Grandpa is here, he has been sick all his adult life and had to leave Australia and then Northern California to come here.  Wherever someone goes, it is all the same.   It is to run from money.  He sits down and vegetates.  Father Wracks hands him the daily newspaper and he reads it the Wracks sit with his grandmother on the sofa and wait for dinner.  

Come mash the potatoes says Mother.   Dinner is ready.

Everyone assembles the convertible dining room table to the dining room table lengthened for the holidays.   The Fonz appears from the bedroom, he leaves through the window and doesn’t think anyone knows and sees the girl next door.   The Fonz sits opposite the Wracks on the side next to Mother and Grandpa and Father sits at the head of the table.   The food stands on the walkthrough, ready to be served and eaten.  A fresh bottle of wine opens, it is a Johannesburg Riesling and the Wracks gets a quarter glass of wine mixed with water as it is a European custom to serve the children water and wine on holidays.    Father Wracker pours wine, passes it around, and then says, let’s say our prayer.   Everyone crosses hands and thanks the Lord for this meal and then father says “Manja” which is the Italian word for eat and everyone gets in line to mound their holiday dish with luxurious gourmet cooked food.   The Wracks gets a wing and a leg if he wants it, this is the way his parents want it, tons of mashed potatoes and gravy and a log cabin of garlic and parsley steamed green beans.   After everyone cannot eat anymore, Mom says, I have a pumpkin and cherry pie from Marie Calendars.

The Wracks go inside the kitchen and bring the dessert plates, the serving utensils, and the two pies and set them on the table next to Mother.  She asks everyone what pie they prefer and finally, when she gets to the Wracks, he says; both.   Evening coffee perks in the automatic coffee percolator and the Wracks pours the fresh coffee into the decanter and brings it to the table.   Coffee cups are already there for the grownups.   The Wracks bring all the dishes from the table to the kitchen, because they are English china, they have to be scoured before being put on rinse hold in the automatic dishwasher or they will chip.   The sterling silver cutlery, that Mom received at her wedding, has to be washed by hand and then dried. Grandma helps the Wracks clean the kitchen, removes the China from the dishwasher, places it in the pots and pans, and then starts another load.   The Wracks load the remaining food into storage containers wrap the turkey in aluminum foil and place it into the Whirlpool refrigerator. 

Grandfather moves to the reclining chair, sits down, and lights up a huge Roi tan cigar.   He prefers Roi tan to Cuban hand-rolled blends.   The house fills with smoke, father opens up the sliding glass door and turns the thermostat up and Grandfather puffs away with a big smile on his face.  The other adults’ station in the living room with light green shag carpeting in French chairs given to them by the grandparents.   They each have a glass of cognac or aperitif wine.  Time passes in sublime happiness.  The family is all here, all together for the holidays. 

Finally, the grandparents say they have to leave because they don’t like to drive when it is late, and the Wracks fetch their overcoats from the hall closet and present them to them.  Even the Fonz is here and the Wracker family waves goodbye to the grandparents as they roll away in the Ford Fairlane.  Father is now sitting in the recliner smokes a Pall Mall cigarette and watches television on the color set brought to them by the grandparents.  The Wracks goes and puts away things and straightens things and clears the table as is his custom and constant task.  The Fonz always disappears, he goes and visits the neighbors and will never admit to visiting them.  The Wracks moves to his bedroom which will soon be his grandmother’s bedroom, takes off his pants and shirt, puts on pajamas goes to bed watches as the stars twinkle through the transparent shutters that shroud his room, and finally falls asleep.  

This is one of many to be had, a long time ago, with important people doing important things, and the past slowly slips away.  The Wracks thanks the maker he had a family to live with and have a somewhat normal life.  Many of our beautiful children don’t.  Like our forefathers, who hunted turkey because their crops failed, and the Indians who brought corn and beans to the first Thanksgiving, and lived in harmony with the European colonists, the Wracks want to thank everyone who made his Thanksgiving possible and hope all children will have a good thanksgiving, like he had.  Like water under the bridge, it is all gone now, and what we have are beautiful memories, to share with our offspring.   Happy Thanksgiving.

We the 80 percent demark a proportion of our hourly earnings into funds so he and she can live into retirement and their children will have enough money to be educated upon their demise.  What is the appropriate way for the government to sponsor so the people who fight for the nation and support the infrastructure have enough funds to live into their golden years?   The 20 percent are smarter and have the love of God so they holier than thou can decree how public money is used.   The result of the fruitful meanderings and altruistic research is the mutual fund.   A mutual fund is an investment business staffed by the 20 percent who have the money, had time, had location to attend an Ivy League college and become the financiers of our great nation.   The government which continually tells us that they are on our side says that any interest accrued in a mutual fund is tax-exempt until his or her 65^th birthday.  The 80 percent that believe the dogma of high finance blindly put their hard-earned cash into 401k, 403b, SEP designated cash-exempt funds.  What happens to these billions of dollars that a day laborer or fast-food employee relies upon to give them sustenance during hard times?

Mutual funds are divided into various designations depending on how much time the investment allocates or the amount of risk the investor wants to assume.  Growth funds invest in companies that are productive and rapidly expanding.   Asset allocation funds invest in blue chip giants that use their and mortar base to make money.  Once someone has money, they can lend it or leverage it to make more money and this is what mutual funds do.  Index funds use stable giants that guarantee returns and are less susceptible to stirring.  What is stirring?    Students of psychology note that human beings will endeavor in anything that offers financial returns.  The staff of mutual funds, all highly educated, buy and sell stocks and bonds and make a commission on their buys and sells so naturally they will use derivative methods to buy and sell stocks, bonds, and commodities so they can earn six-figure incomes gambling the grub stake of wage earners.    Has anyone ever heard of a poor investment banker?   Probably not, because they live in exclusive gated communities in large houses with a pool.  The as they stir the more investment staff make and index funds are composed of entities that do not need to be stirred as much. 

Overseas stocks are highly speculative no matter what investment bankers state.   They do not fall under United States government jurisdiction, so the money can not be appropriately and exactly quantitated.  This means that third-party players and middlemen take a cut as the money happens from other countries and eventually finds its way to the United States where it can be taxed.   What is better than having money make money in a foreign country and no one, even the government knows how much cash is being generated or reinvested in infrastructure?   Only the 20 percent know.   Only the shadow knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men.   Let the giants of industry outsource the economy so no one knows how much cash the companies generate, they can employ slave laborers, and they take a cut and put it in a Swiss bank awaiting retirement and no one knows.  Stir, stir, allocate with abandon, and store the booty in overseas accounts along with drug traffickers. 

My grandfather was a man of few words and I was too immature to appreciate him.   What he said is that men only do what suits them and that if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

Enter the dragon.   If public money is to be invested unscrupulously, the government should do it.   If hard-earned cash is to be stolen, the government should steal it, not Ivy League investment bankers. 

We shall establish mutual funds based on NET INCOME as demarcated in the yearly prospectus.

We shall establish mutual funds based on slope as given in a Cartesian coordinate system with an x and y-axis.

We shall establish mutual funds based on capital because profit derives from capital and large companies are stable entities for all.  Owners’ equity in the equation Assets = liabilities and owners’ equity is a sum that can be taxed and leveraged.  Like one of my mentors stated; “it takes money to make money.”

Mathematical quantities like ROI. Quick ratio and others are merely guides for an intelligent investor to proceed because like all math, figures lie and liar’s figure.   

One of the most pertinent places to put a nest egg is a certificate of deposit in a FIDC-accredited bank and label the money as an IRA.  Bonds are merely debentures that float around, and never go away and the working class pays the interest when they are tagged onto the property tax.   Money is money and when this author was a child a peer said he would teach him about money.  The author gave him five dollars on loan and the person said to ask for it back and when the author did, he got punched in the face.  This is how money is. 

This author is not a rabble-rouser or politician.  Let him play the devil’s advocate and state empirically that he is mad he never got a piece of the skullduggery.   We the people vote to ensure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity do ordain and establish……

Estranged to a lonely room

Littered with trash and splattered gloom

Fettered and sentenced to early doom

Distressed and distraught to a sordid mood

Creeps and crawls and stalks at night

To make sure the windows latched

To make sure the door to match

Hope to God to soon to catch

Before settling to an unworldly nap

Creeps and crawls and stalks at night

Late night battered darkness broken

Metallic taste in my mouth beholden

Bathroom rush with my mouth open

Rinse the mouth and nose thus salted

Creeps and crawls and stalks at night

I never see the imp come or go

Only disturbance in light or dark shadow

Low to the floor  slither  and flow

Dash under the bed, I don’t really know

Creeps and crawls and stalks at night

Maybe it is up on the ledge

Or under the bed or behind the case

Or cowering in a corner or place

Peeking out  from a closet embrace

Creeps and crawls and stalks at night

In my dreams I see a sordid face

Withered and shriveled and contorted with hate

Laronian imp with purpose of fate

In my mouth it squirts the paste

Creeps and crawls and stalks at night

Again I wake and bolt for the sink

From the corner of my eye I see the imp

He disappears in wink or a blink

Invisible to the man with a limp

Creeps and crawls and stalks at night

Pint sized demon un happily  born

Raised to hurt and kill with poison

Never seen in a man with reason

Punished in a life of torture and scorn

Creeps and crawls and stalks at night

In the darkness I see a leap

Up to the ledge an amazing  feat

For a tiny thing at most two feet

Hiding until I fall asleep

Creeps and crawls and stalks at night

Needles inserted into my feet

Slow painful  sore legs they do  retreat

Hope to lord my soul to keep

Late at night in darkness deep

Creeps and crawls and stalks at night

In the blackness I hear a click

Grab a sword and after it

Under the bed in a squealing fit

Damaged with a warbling tweet

Creeps and crawls and stalks at night

Should I slowly pass away

Hopefully my children remember me

Horrible taste with it at bay

Awakening to a brand new day

Creeps and crawls and stalks at night

Should I survive to tell a story

Of terror, pain and faith and glory

Unbelievable unreasonable stodgy and gory

Peers in as I swoon with sedated foray

Creeps and crawls and stalks at night

sinking in a stormy sea Lord Jesus

Bailing suits me just fine.

Sitting in a little row boat bailing

One step over the line

I want to have a good time Mother Mary

I want to have a really good time

Going way down in a subway station

One step over the line

I want to say hello Saint Peter

Say hello one more time

Sitting alone in a subway station

One step over the line

I never wanted to offend old Smoky

I want to give him a piece of my mind

Keeping to myself in a railway station

One step over the line

Saint Micheal says I have a long way to go

don’t pay people no mind

Sitting by myself at a railway station

One step over the line

Blue blood doesn’t suit me, lord Jesus

I need help most of the time

Lost with myself on the internet

One step over the line

There exist words that everyone speaks but only a few practice or believe.  Words like truth, honesty, friendship, and mostly justice.  Justice looks truly beautiful and I have seen her and she tells me that truth lives and waits for you.  She doesn’t have to posture or take off her clothes or say anything because her smile her eyes and her manner reveal all that is good and real.  Justice lives where the light shines and light shines brightly for those who want to see and sight shines in the world for everyone who wants to look. Where the light is, is where your heart lies, and it is your heart that cannot lie to you.  Follow your heart, think with your mind, and believe with all your feelings and the future will become real and all yours.  Transcend obstacles because hurdles are only to be surmounted and death does not hurt.  Evil, prejudice, and inequity are the pains that we might have to live with.  Goodness leaves a good feeling and the others don’t and the integral of positivity and optimism yield a positive first derivative and a second derivative in the fourth dimension.  What it is all adds up to and positive values add up and non-positive values subtract.  What I am trying to say, is that the way is toward the light and no other path exists or matters and this is why.

He does not want you to look at him because he has become horrible to behold.  His hands warp into claws and he has eyes like a cat, a dark complexion, and thick black wavy hair.  His teeth are all canines because he eats meat and nothing else…  He wears black and purple clothes because black is his color and purple signifies royalty and the only colors, he sees are orange and purple, grey and black, and nothing in between.  His demeanor breeds horror, death, and wanting and a hunger that never can be satisfied and he asks you to denounce your religion and follow him.  He shows a bag of gold and a handful of jewels.    In this revelation and the horror, God installs a cruelty that cannot be cured, forever.  His friend is tall and slender and reminds someone somewhere of a snake. The blond has blue eyes, a long head, and hands like him transfigured by the lord into claws of revulsion, hate, deception, and torture. He wears a long robe with nothing underneath.   He too, asks a soul to denounce his faith and follow him.  They promise riches beyond the imagination, hot women that never satiate, and a life of action, adventure, lust, and carnage. This life does not last forever.  They don’t accept no for an answer. They never have and never will, and any pauper looks for time to end and for his children to grow up, be educated, and start their families so they can finally find rest. 

Life is beautiful and offers something to everyone.  What this life offers a soul is the truth and a truth that no one can ever cloud, obfuscate, purvey, or destroy.  In this life and the truth with justice, beauty, and faithfulness, the powers manage to support until ends and means are met. However, who wants to be a Shaolin monk holding a rice bowl in the streets? Better are the other 80 percent. Aphrodite wears a white Russian mink she has blond hair and she promises something somewhere forever.  The Chinese girl is here.  She likes to ride horses and wields a sword like a man and has no other.  She carries a dagger in a leg scabbard and stabs anyone who tries to approach the Rendu Temujin. When you see the light, dreams, and hallucinations are enough to satisfy this life in the promise of something better, longer and faster. In the acceleration of life to the speed of light, someone can love, and in this love is everything and much more.  Numbers, strategic assessments, the way, the weather, the seasons, and discipline.    The Meek shall inherit the earth.  It is all real and apparent in the 4D.  The real is probably a dream, or nightmare, or hallucination that exists in the eye of Allah and to him, it doesn’t matter anyway, because the game is not really a game.

In the twentieth century Bells

In twinkling render hell

And sad melody dothe foretell

 In the dark and endless night

Beginning heartless tearing fright

 I hear those bells bells bells

I hear the wind-driven shameless shaking bells

In the day they merrily ring

With a ding a ling a ling

And my mind imagines things

Please my soul don’t fearfully wing

I hold my ears to stop the din

Of those bells bells bells

Of those piercing grinning banshee-driven bells

Of bells with ringing chime

Ting ting shrilling sordid rhyme

Allah, please deliver a sign

Marking the end of this time

Instruct the fates to be so kind

At the yelling and the shrieking of the bells

Of those horrid screaming profane tingling bells

I always hear the bells

When I am sick or when I am well

With a flinch or with a yell

May my sanity be weld

Or my future be foretold

With those bells bells bells

Of those merciless tearing ringing pinging bells

Of course, bells are only noise

And disrupt my natural poise

May their sounds I  will avoid

Until I go unto my lord

In the far and distant future

O those bells bells bells

Of those bing bong binging evil bells

Inside the gift reclines love inviting. Around the gift reside space and Om and the Om live in quiet harmony with the gift and the all.  The all changes into everything and everything becomes an arena for the all, the gift, the ego, and the mind to fraternize.   The all exists as a wave function that was and will always be after the end of time and the new beginning. The all lives as itself and inside the all lives the love that the all insists upon in his or her loneliness and perpetuity.   If the space becomes a screen and the gift caresses the space then the result returns a picture of what happens in an in-phase sine wave projection.  The gift sees and does not know a master, the gift only knows truth, justice, and harmony and sees only them when awakening and when falling into complete slumber.  The other side of the gift yields mercilessness.  The gift knows no sides, takes no hostages, and makes no bargains, it only sees what happens in reality and is delivered in the space given to it by the all.  The all can be benevolent and shield the gift from what the all does not want the gift to see. The all screens the content of the gift because the master of the gift born mortal has weakness and human failings and viciousness. Inherent in an incarnation of a human being.  The all gives an ego to the gift to control the output of the picture the gift provides the incarnation.  The ego hopes the gift will not see the truth and only deliver a feeling or volume of the existence of space-time at the instant of arousal and focus.  The gift can be evil. After all, it knows no master because they all want it that way.  In the imagination of the all, the whim becomes the gift and the gift sees what it is not supposed to see and the ego scolds it for seeing it.  In the recklessness of the ego as a mortal being comes weakness because the ego only reasons with the anagrams of experience provided by upbringing and the environment and the life of the gift in a human stems from the imagination of a lonely all.  During sleep, the gift looks around unbridled, uncensored by the ego, and sees what truly happens in the darkness and shadows of the night.  The gift as a mind’s eye reacts to stimuli appropriately without regard to race, creed, or color only in the intent-based upon a vector gram in a 180-degree Cartesian coordinate system given to it by the all.  Because the gift has no feeling, no empathy, and no prejudice, it can seem to act inappropriately to a casual observer.  In unconsciousness or during an attack, the gift sees and may choose not to arouse the ego in rapid eye movement slumber because death does not register as a permanent state to the gift.  The gift sees death as a necessary or paramount experience that returns the gift to all for safekeeping.  Should the gift decide to arouse the ego in everything surrounded by ether and the undertaking of mortals then appropriate action ensues instantly, drastically, and completely.  The ego feels the gift likes to kill and the ego tries to shield the gift from any information that sets it on a collision course with reality. In the world of the gift lives a woman because a woman in a male gift transmits love and love is the sound that makes life worth living.  In the mind’s eye lives a woman and her image becomes one instantly in the space-time continuum no matter the time of day or night or distance from the modular transmission station.  The all let the gift see the love and show the ego the beauty of the word in its entirety.  All this occurs instantly without lag, upload, and delay on the bus because they all want it.   This vision given to man or woman debuts not as 3D but as 4D because the experience transcends time, space, or matter.  The Om equals the vibration of matter at an instant in the space-time continuum. The vibrations of humans may be in phase or out of phase with the Om.  The gift senses out-of-phase variations in the environment of the all.   Who can believe that humankind lives in the world only as a dream in the mind of the gift of God.   

4D sees you in a mind’s eye even when I sleep.   And it can feel love.

From a long adventure bearing Bottled up my youth and yearning in my home alone and fearing Screaming, hissing, writhing, Fitting Crucifix in my hand I do the implore Came a tapping at my window floor

So I looked outside and nothing more

 In a  bed in a  room alight Demons hissing, flitting then alight Turn up the juice for  more light Monsters from the darkness come alive and, in my weakness, I might die Comes a rapping at my window floor And

I know for sure there is nothing there.

 It is like a peculiar tapping, not a coarse and raucous rapping not a loud and boisterous crashing A little pecking, clicking thrashing directed at the window floor I dare not look outside for gravest fear

I am sure there is nothing there.

 Lying in the hospital bed insane Roommate dearest also a bane Booming air duct sounds along with pain Darkness madness freedom maimed Others here they are the same Comes a tapping at my window floor

So I scream out loud and nothing more.

 In this hotel, they shock and twist and drug and startle and slap and rip They come back shadows through the big oak door Grinning devils bare and bored, and in the night returns the rapping A little trite peculiar winking tapping Tapping at my window floor

So I start to pray and nothing more.

 Back at home in just a wink Once a week I see a shrink Asking what I see and hear What I think and what I fear and my future goes amidst the tears and in the blackness comes that tapping the familiar simple shortened clapping A click-clacking at my window floor

And I am sure outside there is nothing there.

 Even in the morning early While I awaken slow and surely Before the sun rises so sweet and cheery.  The sound appears that I abhor I hear a tapping at the front door A little trifled intentioned clacking. A peculiar light and constant tapping Tapping again at my front door

I am afraid to look and nothing more.

 Reading in the night so deep No sounds, no light no insects creep No mice to remind of loss of sleep Then returns the peculiar click and ticking Alight and brusque and sickening pecking A tap tap tapping at my window floor Gone and back and rotten fear

I am scared to death and nothing more.

 And this before the sounds and words Are peculiar things that I have heard in the blossom of my youth Came a loving brush with death and to this day sometimes I hear a tick and tapping Always a light and affectionate clacking A click clack clacking at my new front door and now my soul is not so bare

So I look away because nothing’s there

Let’s go trick or treating tonight, Kool, Wracks drawls, It’s Halloween
Yeah, I have Cranks shaving cream and a carton of rotten eggs, promises Kool.
Wall be sold me some tear gas, says Wracks, I can’t wait to try it. We need some pretty young girls to
terrorize on Alls Hallow eve.
We can live on candy, says Wracks and Nate can come along.
See you at the dark, screams kool, I have cherry bombs.
Kool runs away screaming “Cherry bombs”, and he disappears up Mellow man’s street.
Wracks, I don’t want the police to call me from jail like the day you and Timey were hunting deer down
in the Canyon with Bows and Arrows, says Papa Wracks.
I promise I won’t do anything radical except have a good time, says Wracks
Be home before curfew or they will run you in, says Papa Wracks.
Tonight, Cool, Wracks, and Nate will ascend Bacon way and try to draw out the opposition. Bacon Way
winds uphill, the incline increasing until Bacon Way becomes Disenchanted Drive and Way of the Saint
Inez. Almost all the homes on Bacon Way celebrate Halloween. Some carve spooky pumpkins and set
them out front with candles blowing eerily in the night breeze. Others display lights and banners or play
scary sounds through intercoms and hidden speakers. Others just leave a huge bowl of candy out front
under a light and next to a lighted jack-o-lantern because they are somewhere attending a Halloween
party. Kool Wracks and Nate walk up to houses and level their shaving cream at the door of the
celebrants. When the door opens they yell “trick or treat,” level their weapons and pull their bandito
masks over their faces. The usual reply becomes a bowl of candy and the three scoop handfuls of the
prizes and transfers the goods to their backpacks. A little child dressed like an Indian walks by and Kool
throws a lit cherry bomb inside his full bag of candy. The bomb explodes with a loud wham and candy
flies like shrapnel everywhere, and the little kid sits down and starts to cry. The child’s parent starts to
chase Kool but Kool outdistances the adult and hides in a bush.
What is his name demands the distraught adult with a crying child dressed like an Indian.
His name is Barney and he lives on Deadman’s says Nate. Five houses up.
You will all pay for what just happened, promises the adult.
About half an hour later, Wracks finds Kool talking to one of the neighborhood girls who is dressed like a
Cat with a long black tail tight leotards and a cat mask. They both smoke cigarettes and turn to look
over wracks and Nate who are now nearing the top of the hill.
Hello, I am Wracks, Happy Halloween.
The pretty little cat bats her eyelashes at him and then blinks.
Kool, why did you blow up the kid’s bag of candy, asks Wracks
The devil made me do it says Kool. Besides, I do not like his dad.
He says he is going to call the Police, says Wracks.
They cannot prove a thing, says Cool, not a thing.
Let’s head over on Disenchanted, command Wracks.
The three cross the street from Upper Bacon and start on Disenchanted Drive. The first house on the
hill has lights on and looks open except that the owner has a huge dish of candy with a sign of
“Eat at your own risk.” The three youngsters dressed as hoodlums take handfuls of candy from
the bowl and then Kool takes the bowl and empties the entire contents into his backpack.
Yeah, says Kool. Happy Halloween.
The house across the street situates on an alcove and lush foliage shrouds the entirety of the house. Only
a small entrance niche and a long living room window show the main extent of the house. The
three gangsters knock on the front door where a small iron pumpkin with a candle within
flickers in an odious and ominous way. The door slowly opens and a woman with curly hair in
an evening gown greets them. She holds a small dish with candy in front of the three and says,
“Take one only.” Wracks takes one, Nate takes two, and Kool scoops a handful off the tray. The
curly haired woman smiles and withdraws. Behind her sitting in the shadows is a man with a
goatee dark black beard, dressed in a suit with a black hat and black boots, almost like he was to
attend a party, on a large chair that looks almost like a throne. The shadows shroud the man’s
features but his hands are long, almost feminine, with nails shaped like claws. The door closes
and the three walk off.
Nate says, that man in the chair looks just like the devil. I can’t believe it. What a radical costume. I bet
he wins first prize at a party.
A wrack says that man looked really evil. His hair was black, he had claws and he dresses in a business
suit on Halloween. He must be really rich to afford a makeup artist like that. I was ready to run
in case he lunged at us and tried to grab our throats.
Cool’s eyes turn up in his head and he screams out, “Twisted,” twisted on Halloween. He then
masticates a tootsie roll up into a wad in his mouth and spits the soft food on Nate. Nate in
disgust wipes off the sticky mess with a paper towel and glares at Cool. “Don’t you ever make a
fool of me again?”
Up away on Disenchanted live the Pickle family and the Van horror. The pickles live like active
sociopaths and ride motorcycles out in the desert with Wrack’s brother. The van Horrors have
motocross bikes too and the youngest van horror daughter has a beautiful face, nice figure, and
fine brown hair almost like angel vellum. However, the Van Horror beautiful woman is the
subject of a supernatural horror film and no one dates her. Wracks cannot figure out why. She
looks unbelievably attractive. Maybe if he had an income, he would be able to date her although
no one else does. She looks at him and waves on this Halloween and Dike Pickle heaves a
spoiled tomato and beans Wracks square on the chest. With that initial sighting round, a hail of
tomatoes, lemons, and rotten eggs rain upon the three from behind the gate at the front of the
house.
Retreat says Wracks, we are outnumbered. The three-turnabout face and run-down disenchanted Drive
and then flip off their victorious adversaries from a safe distance. In the distance Wracks sees
three people with a huge slingshot muster a large water balloon. The loader pulls back on the
elastic cords holding the sling to the shot and then let it fly. A water balloon arcs towards the
three from about one hundred yards away.
Take Cover yells Nate. They have artillery. A large water balloon filled with house paint impacts and
explodes ten feet away. The three-turnabout face and run for their lives. They have lost the
battle of disenchanted drive and have been driven away. Back down on Bacon way the three
hunts for another gang upon which to take their revenge. The only adversaries to be found are
three pretty young girls dressed as nymphs in skintight leotards with makeup and wigs. Cool
proceeds to inundate each of them with shaving cream and then toss firecrackers at them. A
wrack sprays one of the girls who jumps away giggling. The loud explosions of the firecrackers
drive the pretty young girls away running. Within ten minutes an adult in blue jeans runs at the
three. Cool sees him first and leaps away into the bushes. The man is Nate’s next store neighbor
and he applies a headlock on Wracks and leads him away.
Why are you attacking my daughters’ girlfriends he asks Wracks.
Because it is Halloween, and everyone has to play pranks. Says Wracks
Where your shaving is cream, asks the man.
I must have dropped it when you put a headlock on me, explains Wracks.
I am going to call the police and complain, says the man. Now be on your way
Go ahead says Wracks, I haven’t done anything illegal.
Down the street, the two other cronies wait for Wracks. What happened, they asked. An adult attacked
me then let me go, says wracks. They were looking for your Cool, but they got me instead. Kool
smiles and shoves another piece of candy in his mouth. On Wraks watch he sees that the time is
about ten thirty P.M. Cool says, I have to be home for curfew. So do I, says Nate. The three
then shake hands and split up. Nate walks back up Bacon way to his house. Kool runs up
Mellowman’s and disappears into his driveway and Wracks enters his house from the front. His
mother lets him in the front door and Wracks spies a Snickers candy bar treat, grabs the candy,
tears open the wrapper, and throws it into his mouth.
Happy Halloween, says Wracks and he exits to his bedroom where his brother lies asleep already,
wrapped up like a mummy and snoring. Wracks takes off his shoes, pants and shirt and
slides into the small bunk bed on the wall opposite the Fonz. Sleep rapidly overtakes him.
How was your Halloween, asks Father Wracks at the breakfast table over a cup of coffee.
I was ambushed and pelted in an artillery barrage and then the neighbor beat me up.
Don’t say I never told you so, says Father Wracks. You should have stayed home and handed out candy.
I should have, could have would have, and then life wouldn’t be the way it is thinks Wracks.
Today strikes as All Souls Day, the day of the Dead. This day chronicles as a day the dead walk the earth
and check up on their families. If on All Souls Day, a stranger walks up to a person and tells them
something unbelievably poignant or entirely strange, then they are an angel. God lets the
departed circulate freely amongst the living if they do not meddle or contact anyone. Once a
soul speaks to a mortal man or woman; they must be reincarnated and relive an earthly
existence. If someone who isn’t an acquaintance relays important information to him or her on
All Souls Day, please listen. As punishment, they must be reborn. Happy Halloween.

You are too old to go out and trick or treat, say Papa Wracks.  Now that you are in college why don’t you man the fort and hand out candy instead? 

That is a good idea, says Wracks.  I can read my textbooks, watch TV, maintain the special effects, and hand out candy all at the same time. 

The kids start to come around dusk and then the flow peters out around nine o’clock, says Papa Wracks.  Your mother buys a lot of candy to give the kids so help yourself while you wait.

The special effects at Wrack house this year include pumpkins, lights, and a boiling cauldron with Fog.  A plug-in device when set in water bubbles and makes fog which slowly oozes out of the cauldron.  Luminous light inside attached to the device flickers with different colors and gives the bubbling cauldron an eerie and magical look. The carved pumpkins sit outside on the doorstep with candles lit inside.  The flames flicker diabolically when the wind wafts past the grinning mouths and mischievous eyes cut into the orange jack o Lanterns. On the window sill inside sits an electric pumpkin of plastic that emanates different colors with time out of a toothy mouth and slant-cut eyes.  Orange lights blink hanging from the rain gutters outside near the entrance and as night begins the entrance to the Wracks house becomes an aperture to the spooky and occult that waits inside.  Tonight the breeze blows minimally and the candles glow and wane with an ominous look.   The large harvest moon looms luminously high in the night sky and the immense glow gives the earth a semi-lighted appearance, light enough so that an observer can discern moving clouds seething in the darkness above.   Already the trick or traders start to move in the neighborhood.  Families from less opulent neighborhoods an hour away drive in and bring their children to trick or treat here because of safety issues in a crime-infested neighborhood.  The smell of the ocean seems distant but arrives succinctly as the clouds move scurrilously across the night sky.  The stars twinkle and loom distantly behind the clouds projecting a three-dimensional theatre in a sky illuminated by a huge yellow moon set in October on Halloween in the twentieth century.

The door chime rings.  A wrack opens the door.  Outside a little princess with her proud father and mother smile as the child shouts out, Trick or Treat.  Wracks holds the large bowl in front of her and she peruses the candy and chooses a handful of her favorite confections.  Mother Wracks buys expensive candy with coupons and the result means Milky Way bars, three Musketeer bars, snickers, butterfingers, and more.  The pretty little prince says thank you and the family moves on and the door closes.  Next, the bell rings again, and this time a group of teenagers dressed as indigents appear at the front door.  Two girls in rags with dark makeup and two gentlemen in bowler hats, cut gloves, and linen shirts shout, Trick or Treat and Wracks brings the bowl and lets the hungry kids grab a handful each.  Their eyes gleam with delight at the candies and they turn and run away to the next house.  About fifteen minutes later the bell rings again and this time a bunch of hoodlums is present at the front door. All have masks on like raccoons and have obscured their faces with rouge, giving a rough and haggard look.   They wear old clothes and sports hats of different characters.  For candy bags, they all carry potato sacks with drawstrings as petty thieves do when they enter a house and liberate away personal goods with some resale value on the black market.  Each criminal has a can of shaving cream on their belt to enforce the possibility of retaliation for a lack of commensurate trade.  A wrack holds out the bowl and they each greedily grab a handful of candy bars.  They then turn and quickly evaporate into the night.  Approximately every ten minutes a group of trick or teeters walk up the steps to the front door.  The candy bowl looks low so Wracks opens another bag of candy bars and pour them into the mix.  The night moves on, the doorbell rings and the Halloween celebrator fills their door with costumes and frivolity.  Mainly young children trick or treat with their parents as chaperons and the costumes range from royal figures to puppies and tiger costumes to devils and monsters, depending on the age of the children.  Teenagers appear sporadically in rushes to obtain the most candy they can hold in their market bags and savor the next day.  A wrack sits in Grandfather’s old chair, watches Halloween sitcoms, glances at his textbooks, and slowly adds to the pile of candy wrappers stolen from the main bowl. 

Around nine o’clock the frequency of guests starts to diminish.  Revelers start knocking at the rate of one every fifteen minutes.  After nine o’clock, Wracks hears the bell ring repeatedly and fists knock on the large oak door that frames the entrance to the Wracks house.  A wrack opens the door, swings it back, and beholds a motley assortment of celebrators that appear in front of him.   These tweeters stand out due to the difference in their costumes and the degree of elaboration on the theme of Halloween.  The first crew is dressed like a skeleton, a specter of death.  This tall skeleton steps forward and holds out a large black plastic trash bag.  A wrack presents the bowl and Death scoops a large handful of candy into the sack.   The second reveler dresses like the devil.  A red skin-tight leotard costume with a tail behind, a black goatee, and an accompanying mustache, with two prominent curved horns on his head, steps forward with a large black purse.  Wracks holds out the bowl and the diabolical figure takes a few select candy bars. Next a pretty tall woman with bracelets, jewelry, and a black-cut evening town steps forward.  She has white makeup on and a large French handbag which she holds out open.  A wrack takes two handfuls of candy and drops them inside the purse.  She smiles and two large vampire fangs spring out of her mouth she laughs cunningly and then retreats.  Finally, a small ghost holding a small pumpkin steps forward.  The ghost wears a white sheep with holes cut for eyes and a thick manila rope holding the sheet around his or her waist.  The ghost has a brown paper bag with handles, like that obtained from the liquor store, and then sets the pumpkin down on the ground and pulls a small J frame Smith and Wesson revolver in 38 special from the bag.  The replica looks amazingly like a real policeman undercover firearm issued by the LAPD.  Trick or treat the ghost whispers as he holds the toy gun up to Wrack’s head.   A wrack says, treats, and pours half the bowl into the brown liquor bag.  The ghost drops the gun back into the bag, picks up his pumpkin, and says Happy Halloween.  The gang turns away. The wracks closes the large wooden door.  Only one or two revelers more showed up for candy later that night.  At approximately ten thirty Wracks opens the door, steps outside extinguishes the candles in the pumpkins, and unplugs the fog maker in the cauldron.  The night cools off; the moon diminishes in size and sets in the Northeast.  The wind whispers slowly and the wispy clouds linger somewhat and Halloween ends at the Wracks’ house.  Wracks steps inside grabs another piece of candy, slams the bar in his mouth, and chews.  He then walks to the brown bathroom, brushes his teeth, and moves to the second bedroom that he shares with the Fonz.  The Fonz is not home and lives in a VW camper van on campus somewhere near the Frat House. A wrack takes off his shoes, removes his pants, and slips inside the covers on the bed.  The setting moon indirectly casts light through the shades into the bedroom and Wracks falls deeply into a slumber as is his habit of living.  Wracks will be on the 7 thirty RTD tomorrow on his way to school and he survives another Halloween.