Last year Alex was content to answer the door. We wiggled when dropping the tiny Baby Ruths and Snickers into the bags and orange plastic bins of kids who were suddenly much, much shorter than Alex.
But when he answers the first few this Halloween I have to hold Alex– and not by the wrist anymore, either, but firm and hard by the shoulder, hard enough to make my 50-year-old shoulder ache, to keep him from bolting after the trick-or-treaters who come to our door and who seem even smaller than last year. One is a sweet little girl from the first floor who has Downs Syndrome and who throws back our Snyder’s ‘Ween pack of pretzels (I thought kids would like these!) in favor of some mini Milky Ways.
Alex doesn’t answer the door. He sits at the dining room table. “Halloween!” he keeps saying. “Halloween! Halloween!” Once again my sense of progress twists as I turn to Jill and say that Alex would like to go trick-or-treating. Is it wrong for someone who shaves to go trick or treating? Alex asks for little and half the time when he does ask we can’t understand what he’s saying. Jill says take him and I grab Ned’s toxic zombie mask from last year. “Okay Alex, let’s go.” All we have for him is a small paper Container Store shopping bag.
We take the stairs floor to floor; Alex knows the number of each floor before we reach the stairwell to walk down. Each floor he counts, pulling up his toxic mask on the stairs to not trip. “Say, ‘Trick or treat!’ Alex,” I have to tell him at almost each door. “No,” I say, reaching in to grab his outstretched arm, “don’t turn on their lights!” We finish with one tower of our apartment building and head to the elevators of the other tower. I really thought Alex would want to stop at one tower – and I sort of thought he didn’t know where the other tower was.
In the other tower’s elevator, we head immediately to the top floor. Most other times when we ride the elevator in this building – end of the day, morning to catch the schoolbus – Alex punches extra buttons to stop at extra floors. On his Halloween he punches no extra buttons. “Hi Alex!” they say at door after door. Guess they know him from his bolting. “Say, ‘Thank you,’ Alex,” I tell him at door after door.
“Thank you,” he says. “ ‘bye!” In the Container Store bag Alex collects a heap of candy that he will never eat.
Posted by Jeff Stimpson
at 4:00 PM EST
Updated: Monday, 12 November 2012 4:02 PM EST
