For the past couple of nights, Kate told me, her mom had been sleeping in her bed. Every night, her dad came home after they’d fallen asleep, like he’d been waiting, watching from his car for the lights to go off. It didn’t matter because Kate woke up every time the front door opened. Last night Kate’s mom woke up too and she and Kate stared at each other for a second before her mother closed her eyes and Kate understood she should do the same. Kate pretended to sleep, but listened to her father open her bedroom door and stand there, staring at the two of them. She could hear his breathing and smell booze. Eventually he closed the door, so quietly and slowly Kate thought it might take him all night. Almost as soon as the door was closed, he opened it again and walked right into the room. Her father picked her up out of bed like she was a young child and shook her. He didn’t say anything. He kept shaking her, Kate staring at him silently, and as he carried her out of the room, she saw her mother’s eyelids flutter. In the living room her dad set her on a chair while he made up the couch for her to sleep on. “He was just drunk,” Kate said. “But this morning he was gone and there was all this snow.” It was the first time I realized Kate’s life wasn’t perfect.
“WHAT ARE YOU SUPPOSED to be?” Carlie’s out the window smoking a cigarette. All I can see is her bum, but I can tell from her tone she thinks my costume is stupid.
“A corpse bride,” I say, threading a needle to stitch feathers to the hem of one of Mom’s white nightgowns.
“Aren’t you a little old to dress up for Halloween?” Carlie says to the oak trees out the window.
“Aren’t you a little old to still be living at home?”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.” Carlie leans back into the room and gives me an uncertain once-over. “Hm.”
“What?”
“You need a veil. I think I was ten the last time I wore a costume.”
“Do I look like I care?” I say under my breath, concentrating on getting my stitches evenly spaced.
“Shit,” Carlie says as Dad clomps up the stairs. She butts out her cigarette and grabs perfume, spritzing it around the room. I wave my arms in front of my face, saying, “Quit it.” The door swings open.
“Dad,” Carlie shouts. “Remember knocking?” He wrinkles his nose at the perfume, stepping back into the hallway and closing the door behind him before knocking. “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” Carlie says, zipping up her boots and grabbing her purse.
“Do you ghouls still need a ride?” Dad yells through the door.
“Let’s go,” Carlie says, flinging open the door and checking herself in the mirror one last time. She pops a piece of gum into her mouth and I hold open my hand for some, but she walks right by me. “What are you supposed to be?” Dad asks me, peering around the doorframe as Carlie stomps past him down the stairs.
“A corpse bride,” I say, annoyed. I put the last feather on the slip and throw on my hoodie.
“Dad, let’s go,” Carlie shouts from downstairs.
The doorbell rings and I hear a bunch of little kids pushing each other around on the porch. “Trick or treat.”
“Mom, where’s the candy?” Carlie screams.
Dad asks me if I’m coming, but I tell him I’d rather walk and I follow him down the stairs as Carlie opens the door and Mom brings a big bowl of treats from the kitchen. I squeeze past all the kids with their hands out. “You hoo, Frankenstein’s Bride,” Mom says, holding out a candy bar for me. I ignore her and make my way across the street. I can hear her behind me, saying, “Just one, now. Everyone gets one.”
THE STREETS ARE SMOKY; bottle rocket squeals shriek across the night sky and the cul-de-sacs feel like war zones. I hurry along the sidewalks and cut through the park to stay off the roads, which burst with hot firecracker colours. Kids from another school are hanging out on the jungle gym. A girl with long blond hair smokes while she hangs upside down on the monkey bars, the tips of her hair brushing the dead leaves on the ground. There’s a group sitting in a concrete tube in the middle of the sandbox, smoking weed. I can’t see them, but I can smell the smoke and hear their voices echo out of the hollow cylinder and into the park. Someone’s boots hang out one end and some guy’s saying, “Can you see me? Can you see me?” Everyone’s laughing like it’s the funniest thing they’ve ever heard, but it doesn’t sound like the guy is joking. Someone jumps out one end of the tube and stalks off through the park. “Fuck it. You guys are fucking fucks.” From inside the tube a girl says, “Relax.” The guy walks off to a car and sits in the front seat for a minute blaring metal and then comes back carrying something behind his back. A lighter flicks and he throws the thing gently into the tube. There’s machinegun pandemonium as everyone shoots out the opposite end, whooping and screaming, holy shit. Loud pops and hot green light go firing through the tunnel and I leave the park and cross to the far side of the street. The guy who lit off the brick of firecrackers jumps onto the concrete tube and yells, “I’m the army, yeah! Fuck, yeah.” One of the other guys pulls him down and they start fighting. Across from the park, little kids in fuzzy bear costumes and pirates dragging their swords knock on the neighbourhood doors, their voices sweeter than candy.
At the house party I don’t recognize any of the kids sitting on the front stairs, so I duck through the hedges on the side of the house and go around the back. Kate and I were at a party here once. A bunch of guys built a bike jump in the backyard and they all smoked dope and fell off it all night. Kate got drunk on Slippery Nipples and puked in the bushes by my front porch. My mom thought it was the neighbour’s golden retriever when she found the vomit the next morning.
Elgin’s with friends in the kitchen, sitting on the counter beside a sink full of beer cans and a dinner plate overflowing with cigarette butts. He’s dressed normally, but he has a cardboard sign around his neck that reads serial killer. “Good costume,” I say, hopping up beside him. When I look around I realize most of the people at the party are out of high school and almost no one is wearing costumes. “What are you supposed to be?” Elgin says.
I take a sip of his beer, pretending not to hear him. “Where have you been? You haven’t been at school all week.”
“Thanks, Mom,” Elgin smirks and his buddies laugh. While he talks with his friends about the new skate ramps they’re planning to build, I pluck the feathers off my slip, letting them drift down to the kitchen floor. When I ask Elgin to follow me, he comes reluctantly, his fingers laced limply in mine while his friends make blah blah gestures at my back.
Outside, kids lie on their backs in a circle in the yard, their heads almost touching and their feet fanned out like the rays of a sun. Elgin leans against the side of the house lighting a cigarette and watches them. “By the way, I’m suspended,” he says.