“Here comes one,” my friend whispers as we sit on the steps to my front porch Halloween night. She is speaking to my teenage son who is splayed out on the grass in front of us, his head hidden beneath an enormous carved pumpkin propped against a bale of hay. She is an elementary school teacher and one of her students is coming up the walkway.

            The boy is costumed as one of the popular modern-day vampires from television, more swagger than scare. My friend greets him warmly. “Take a piece of candy from the bowl but remember Mr. Pumpkin Head doesn’t like it when you take more than one piece.” My son is motionless beneath a pair of old baggy pants and plaid shirt, shoes on the wrong feet, and large white gardening gloves. Straw pokes from beneath his shirt and pant cuffs, and from the waist of his pants. An overflowing bowl of candy sits in his lap.

            The boy hesitates sensing it might be a set-up, but the lure of miniature Snickers and bags of M&Ms is overwhelming and as he reaches down Mr. Pumpkin Head sits up and grabs the boy’s hand.

            High-pitched screams are followed by peals of laughter from parents and other trick-or-treaters standing nearby.

            My friend and I have been scaring children like this for years. We look forward to it. That my friend is a teacher who tells her class to “come to the red brick house for the best candy in town” just so she can scare the bejeebers out of them is, to some, perverse.  But the kids like it. Really. They do.

            My father did the same thing when we were growing up in Washington, DC, in the 1960s and 1970s. He dressed in an old raccoon coat and Frankenstein mask and crouched in a dark corner of our porch. Sometimes he’d lurch out at the trick or treaters as they held open their brown grocery-store bags to my mother at the open door, other times he’d move unnoticed behind them until they turned to leave. Often he remained motionless in the corner. He was an unpredictable monster. Princesses and goblins eyed him suspiciously not sure what might happen, and they took the steps from our porch to the street two-at-a-time just in case whatever they saw lurking in the dark suddenly moved.

            The unknown. The unexpected. Fantasy. Adventure. That’s what I like about Halloween. There’s something tempting about the evening, and even more forbidden than unlimited sweets. I remember how I felt a mixture of excitement and near terror at the prospect of being able to venture beyond the familiar (with a parent or older sibling close by) to explore what seemed a dark and frightening world. Even the neighborhood houses I knew, and the people who lived in them, became something different just for that night.

            The little boy clutches his chest in a mock heart attack and my friend gives him a hug. They laugh together like old friends. Some children come close to inspect Mr. Pumpkin Head, the smaller ones keeping their distance until he waves them close. Cinderella and Hannah Montana pat his head and try to give him their candy. A cautious Thomas the Train Engine peers deep inside the pumpkin’s dark triangle eyes. One little girl is more interested in me. She looks through the open door behind me and her eyes widen in wonder. “You live here?” she asks.  

            I know that Halloween isn’t always innocent adventuring wrapped in candy and cartoon characters. Sometimes things get nasty, and dangerous. Too much scare and senseless tricks can turn into nightmares.

            One year my father caught some teenagers soaping his car’s windows and he took off after them, long raccoon coat flapping at his sides. He kept slipping on wet fallen leaves but managed to catch two of the perpetrators and drag them back to the car by the scruff of the neck. I remember the boys frantically wiping the windows with their forearms, their jackets smearing more than removing the soap, and repeating, “sorry, mister, sorry,” the fear rising in their voices as my father held them tight. My father’s face burned crimson and his chest heaved.

            What he yelled at them between gulps of air I had never heard anyone say before and it scared me more than anything ever had. His anger was menacing and palpable, and I knew even then, out of proportion to what had happened. He gave them a shove and they sprinted down the dark street. Had my sisters and I not been watching it could have ended very differently.

            My friend and I call it an evening and turn off the porch light. Even with the lights off, the doorbell rings. “Where’s that pumpkin boy,” I hear from somewhere. Before me stands a body wrapped in white gauze. Word has spread. Some trick-or-treaters have come back for another scare. “Not there?” I say, looking surprised. “That’s strange.” They take their treats as we all cautiously scan the dark front yard.        

            I know that some of the parents on my street worry about sexual predators and poisoned candy. Every year I notice, too, that more of my neighbors draw their blinds against the hundreds of kids who descend on our neighborhood and send their children instead to private parties.

            But sometimes I wonder if their fears aren’t exaggerated. And I wonder if the kids who don’t experience the thrill of exploring their community and their imaginations beyond the cul-de-sacs of familiar faces and daily routine aren’t missing out on some important part of growing up.       

            I sit down with the last of Mr. Pumpkin Head’s candy. The taste hasn’t changed since I was a kid, and neither has the feeling of excitement, and victory, as I eat piece after piece of candy letting the wrappers accumulate like colorful autumn leaves around me. I was never one to limit candy eating on Halloween night.

            I know in the morning I might find some eggs broken in the driveway or maybe a pumpkin smashed in the street in front of my house, innocent tricks that can turn unpredictably into something very different. But right now all I think about is the vampire boy, how he tipped his head back and opened his mouth wide, bloody vampire teeth gleaming, and howled in fright – and delight.