Suckers - Jack Kilborn [18]
“Hi, Jack. Me again. Marietta Garbonzo’s husband just broke into my place, tried to kill me. Yeah, Happy Roy himself. No, he doesn’t look so happy right now. Can you send someone by? And can you make it quick? He’s bleeding all over my carpet, and I just had it cleaned. Thanks.”
I hung up and stared down at the Chicken King, who was mumbling something into the carpet.
“You say something, Happy Roy?”
“I should have stayed single.”
“No kidding,” I said. “Relationships can be murder.”
An Andrew Mayhem Thriller by Jeff Strand
The most bizarre Halloween of my life began with me chaperoning a party at my house…one that consisted of a dozen second-grade girls. Obviously, that alone was enough to push it way over the top on the shriek-o-meter, but to my astonishment there was something even worse in store.
My daughter Theresa was seven and she’d been allowed to invite her friends over for a party, as a “safe alternative to trick-or-treating,” which was the current catch phrase in our little town of Chamber, Florida. This was not my idea. I was, quite honestly, appalled that my kids would be robbed of one of the greatest joys of childhood.
When I was a kid, my friends and I took trick-or-treating with deadly seriousness. We’d start planning our route in late August, drawing an incredibly detailed scale map of the neighborhood and plotting the best course to attain the maximum candy in the minimum time. But this wasn’t simple geometry…oh no, far from it. We also had to factor in the homes that were stingy with their candy, which had to be hit early, and the homes that regularly overbought, which were saved for last so we’d get them when they were desperately trying to get rid of their stash to avoid having stale Milk Duds until February.
After our parents had checked the candy for razor blades and small explosive devices, we’d each take a section of whomever’s bedroom was acting as our home base that year, spread our treasures out onto the floor, and bask in the glorious wealth. Evil “muahahahahaha!” laughs were essential. And then the trading would begin, which we took far more seriously than Major League Baseball ever has. After the negotiations, which could go on for hours, we would commence with the Feast…and lo, what a feast it was!
But this year there would be no trick-or-treating for Theresa and Kyle, which meant I lost my ten percent cut for checking the candy. I’d tried desperately to convince Helen that they’d be safe under my “adult” supervision, but the neighborhood mothers had made up their mind, and it was stupid safe alternatives for everyone. So Theresa and her friends sat in the living room accusing each other of liking certain boys, while Kyle and I hid upstairs watching Blood, Blood, Blood! on television.
Kyle was five and probably too young to be watching the movie, but I felt an exception could be made because a) it was Halloween, and b) Helen wasn’t home. She was working at the hospital, leaving me alone to deal with the second-grade girls, who were behaving themselves surprisingly well.
“UMMMMMMMMMM!!!” they shouted as one. “Theresa likes Eric! Theresa likes Eric!”
“Do you know this Eric guy?” I asked Kyle.
“Uh-huh.”
“Does he work hard? Will he provide for your sister in the manner to which she’s become accustomed?”
“He can burp songs,” Kyle explained.
“Good songs?”
“I heard him do ‘My Country Tis of Thee.’“
“Cool, your sister’s dating a patriot,” I exclaimed, nodding my approval.
“He got in trouble and the bus driver said not to do it anymore and he said if he did it again he was gonna get a misconduct slip.”
“Yes, well, Abraham Lincoln’s bus driver tried to give him misconduct slips, too.”
The doorbell rang, and a dozen seven year-old girls shrieked in unrestrained terror. “I’d better go get that in case it’s Mr. Boogedy-Bones,” I told Kyle. “Do you want another Coke?”
Kyle nodded.
“And what do we tell your mother you drank tonight?”
“Milk.”
“What kind of milk?”
“Skim milk.