Trick

         We don't like Halloween, Gus and I.  It's a day for sick people.

         If I didn't have to buy candy for you little bastards I damn sure wouldn't.  I only do it for Gus's sake.  Hell, he probably hates Halloween even more than I do, but every year around the first of October he shows up and starts screaming like he did on the night he died, all high and screechy, every night until Halloween was over, every year for ten years. 

         And you think I’m a mean old lady getting stir crazy living by myself in old house at the end of the road.  Don’t think I don’t get wind of what you little shits call me:  “Old Bag Landry, the crazy lady.”  Well, I guess if somebody killed your cat, your best friend, you’d probably end up a little pissed off at the world, too, wouldn’t you?

         I loved Gus.  He was the only friend I ever had.  We just kind of found each other after That Cheating Son-of-a-Bitch divorced me (don’t get me started).  Actually, it wasn’t long after we separated that this big, charcoal-grey furball came tiptoeing around my front yard, and what he was looking for I don’t know.  At first I wanted to shoo him away, but there was something about him.  He just looked up at me with those eyes and I let him in.  Never heard anything around the neighborhood about a lost cat so I just adopted the little booger.  He was a perfect little cat, more kind, more loving than my husband ever was.  And did I spoil him rotten.  Sometimes I can still feel him curled up on my lap, purring his little heart out.

         And I still remember that morning after Halloween I found him on the side of my house next to an open can of tuna with an arrow through his chest.

         You murdered him.  You sick, little kids with your sick, cruel little minds and your devil costumes...you murdered him.  Why?

         Because I wouldn't give you candy?

         You litter my house with toilet paper and rotten eggs, you put a stinkbomb in my garage...for candy?  You kill my best friend...for candy?

         All right, I've got your damn candy.  Lots of it.  Big, gooey chocolate bars…all for you, just like last year.  Oh, you remember last year, don’t you?

         Tell me, did they ever figure out what happened to Corey, the only kid who had the nerve to come trick-or-treating at my house?  The one who got his eyes scratched out?  Probably just some wild animal, huh?  Some coyote came up out of nowhere and wiped its claws on his face and blinded him, is that how you think it happened? 

                You’re all stupid.  You have no idea.  Gus knows the real story.  And he’ll tell you…sure as hell.

         Yeah, sometimes I can feel him curled up on my lap.

         Gus and I, we don't care much for Halloween, but we'll play along with you.  If you decide to come up to "mean old Mrs. Landry's house," you'll find a big bowl of candy sitting on the front porch.  Take as many as you want, I don't mind.  I'll be inside looking out from the upstairs window.
         
         Oh, and if you put your ear up to the door, you can hear my Gus screaming his life out.  Screaming.  I can hear him now.

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