Boo Hoo Hoo

It's Halloween. So how about a scary story for you? It's from my teen years, -which explains 'scary'.

I was real boy hungry as a teenager. Not a surprise--I know--as the words 'boy hungry' and 'teen' go together like 'church' and 'late' for a girl.
But man, I could develop crushes the size of small third world countries.

In high school Spanish class, ninth grade, my object'd'crush was Mark. He was a senior, on the football team, and hardly made a peep. In fact the only time I heard him speak was when Mr. Garcia had him say something in Spanish. To think of it, I can't even be sure he spoke English! But, when he'd turn his head to smile at his buddy behind me, --his smile had to go through me to get there -- and that was all I needed. I was a goner.
I interpreted Mark's quiet nature to mean a deep maturity and super high IQ. Don't ask me how I made the leap, but I also figured he'd make a great husband. (I obviously had very tight standards then by which to measure a man. The only thing else he needed to be a perfect 10 was a car and prom tickets.) Oh, and did I tell you? Mark had a full grown beard. Now that - that was a man! The facial hair alone, was fonder for hours of daydreams.

There was the pesty problem though, of Mark having a little brother my age. And it seemed to me if I was to love one of them -- I was probably supposed to love the one that was assigned to me.
But I just couldn't!
Little Bro was barely my height and his chin was pasty and hairless. I knew in my heart I was doing the right thing in pining for Mark.

As is usually the case in a school that has other girls, --I was not the only one to notice Mark . . and out of all the luck, --the other woman was his age, blonde, and a cheerleader.
I was none of those things.
I could best be described as a ninth grader.

Now here was the pickle, even further, ---eight weeks into ninth grade, comes Halloween. When you're grown up, like I was, you can't be a little kid and go door to door begging for candy. Buuutt, at the same time, when you need the candy, it can put you in a real predicament.

(Let me just insert here, for the children reading along, --this was all back in a day when the world was not ours on stick. Teenagers didn't expect to do or get whatever they wanted, and at any age. --Like nowadays even with lights off - a band of wild-eyed teens might just as soon climb through a window for candy or whatnot if so inclined. There is no respect for Halloween anymore. Ask your parents.)

Sooooo, after much debate my girlfriend and I knew we had to do what we had to do. . . Dress up as either a baby or a hobo (--our same choices, every year), and get busy. We went with baby, and decided to hit the neighborhood blocks away so nobody would know us. I was the most adult looking baby ever to don a pacifier.

We weren't having a ball however. It probably truly was the year we had needed to quit rather than keep looking for Mr. Goodbar. After a dozen houses, and at least enough booty to make a dent -- we knocked on one last door.

I do not remember her name (an obvious mental block, I'm sure) but Blonde Senior Cheerleader (let's just call her Bertha), threw open the door to a porch spotlight of this baby ninth grade trick or treater - who loved her MarkMan.

"Oh My Goooooo*****!!! You guys are toooo old!!" I heard a hundred peers behind Bertha laugh at me, and winched, as she slammed the door on our faces.

I could have wet my diaper.

My life as I knew it (okay, -it wasn't that great yet. But still!) was over! I imagined Bertha running back to Mark, sitting on his lap and petting his beard, as they both threw their heads back with belly laughs at my childishness.

"I always knew she was just a little girl,--not old enough for true love, or winter formal," Mark would comment to Bertha, and the others. " . . . somebody bring me a mustache comb . . . "

That night, I cried myself to sleep in a bed of sticky Twizzlers wrappers, as the horror of my misadventure sunk in deeper, and I knew Mark was to be no mas. That tender woolly face ---forevermore gone from the grasp of my sticky hands because of this Halloween's bitter trick.

Indeed.


*****
True, as Halloween tales go
this one rather less scary -
rather dull, rather slow
But when you trick or treat
this year, in fun, in glee
be thou ever fearful -
as your own Bertha,
you may see!