Brother Silas: My Halloween Story

BROTHER SILAS

 

     "So is your last name really Butt-house?" asked Steve Jones as the bus door wheezed shut behind them.

     The other boy set his jaw and knotted his brows.

     "No, but that's the sort of name you've got to expect from ignorant jackasses when your name is Butzehauser," said Bazzell. He hefted his pile of books as they started down the street. "My dad says there've been Butzehausers in Gothenberg since forever, but hardly anybody seems to know how to say it anymore. Even when they're not just calling names."

     "Well, at least nobody makes that mistake with Jones." Steve adopted mocking tones. "'How do you do, Mr. Joons? Or is it Joe-knees?'"

     "My cousin's family just got tired and gave up. Even they say 'Bootshouse' these days. But I figure if you got a weird name you might as well fight for the right way. Boot-ze-HOW-zer."

     "It's not that hard."

     "Mr. Benson mispronounces it every time, and you should see the stink-eye he gives me when I correct him every time. In fact, you probably will."

     They came to the turn into a side street, and to Bazzell's surprise, Steve turned too.

     "You live on the Loop?"

     "We just moved in. To Riverside Apartments."

     "We're almost neighbors. Why did you transfer in the middle of the year?"

     "It's not so late," Steve corrected. "It's only about a month in. Dad's a pilot; he goes where they need him, he says. That's the Air Force base in San Antonio, now."

     "That's a long drive from Gothenberg," Bazzell said. He added, casually, "My Pop works at the steel mill."

     "Only about half an hour. He says it's worth it, not to live in a crowded old city." He looked at the tree-shaded lane and overgrown empty lots they passed through. "Not a lot of gangs and graffiti out here."

     "Not a lot of anything. Do you know there's not a single bookstore in Gothenberg? I get most of my stuff off of racks in Baenecker's grocery and Sac-n-Pacs."

     "Is that where you got the Peanuts?"

     Bazzell pulled the paperback off the top of his books. Its huge letters proclaimed "You're Something Special, Snoopy!"

     "Yeah, it's usually not a good idea to bring anything personal to school, unless you watch it every second of the day, 'cause somebody will steal it, good country folk notwithstanding. But I got to have something to read between stuff." He proferred the book. "I'm done reading it. You want to borrow?"

     "Wow, cool. Thanks." Steve took the book, flipped a few pages, and carefully put it in his book bag. "It won't be long before the Great Pumpkin rolls around. I watch that every year, no matter where we go."

     "Me too." Bazzell stopped in front of lot with a gray and white ranch house set back from the road. "Well, this is our house."  

     Steve squinted through the shady ash trees at the covered porch. "Who's that sitting there?"

     Bazzell laughed.

     "Oh, that's Brother Silas. Come up and meet him."

     They crunched up the gravel driveway.

     "He's awful still. Is he okay?"

     "Good as he ever is."

     They walked out of the glare of the afternoon sun into the shade. Steve stopped and turned accusingly to Bazzell.

     "Hey, man, that's just a dummy!"

     Bazzell laughed. "We make him every year. Come up and have a look at him."

     "I hate dummies...Aw, shit!" he cried in horror as the scarecrow stirred and seemed about to rise up out of its lawnchair. A black cat, that had blended in with the figure's dark coat, jumped off its lap and zipped away towards the back yard.

     "You all right, man?" Bazzel dropped his books on the bottom step. "That's just Dodger, he likes to sleep there."

     "Damn," said Steve, breathless. "Why do you have that creepy thing at your front door?"

     "Well, he keeps the Jehovah's Witnesses away." Bazzell joked wryly. "Come on up and have a look."

     Steve followed cautiously. Brother Silas up close proved to be mostly a long sleeved shirt and work pants, tied shut and stuffed with fallen leaves, and supplied with broken boots and old work gloves. What really made him an alarming personality was his long black formal coat, spotted with mold, and the ragged plastic Halloween mask that was his face. This was a scowling wolfman, painted with ghoul-green highlights and fringed with curling black plastic hair.

     "Brother Silas, this is Steve." The figure crackled as Bazzell patted its shoulder, then moved his hand to its neck.

     "'Hi, Steve,'" he growled huskily as he puppeted the scarecrow's head, swivelling it to stare directly at Steve with blank eyes. "'Can you spare a bite...of your FLESH?'"

     "That's just disturbing, man. What's holding that mask up?"

     "I made a crappy old pinata in second grade out of a balloon. You know the kind you make with glue and newspapers? I never could get the candy to fill it. But it's a perfect skull for old Brother Silas here. See? It's stuck on a broom handle. His arms are held in place with string."

     Steve didn't come any closer. He wrinkled his nose.

     "Why 'Brother Silas'? There wasn't a real Brother Silas, was there? Is that the coat he was buried in?"

     Bazzell laughed.

     "Heck no. It's from Scooby Doo. You know, 'Here lies Silas Long, Half Man and Half Wolf.'" He laughed again, then a thought seemed to strike him. "I don't know why we started calling him Brother. Just part of the family, I guess."

     He shrugged it off. "Want to come in a minute?"

     "Naw, I better get on. My mom's expecting me home pretty soon."

     "See you at school tomorrow. The apartments are pretty nice, I heard. They've got that swimming pool, though I suppose it won't be swimming weather for very long. Watch out for the doberman at the trailer house on the way. He won't come out of his yard, but it's better to just walk on the other side of the road."

     "Okay, thanks. I'll get that Snoopy back to you as soon as I can."

     "See you tomorrow."

     They saw each other the next day, and the last of September, and into early October. Steve had a hard time making other friends; the cliques at middle school had already solidified by then, and some had cores that went back to kindergarten. He hung out mostly with Bazzell, and he found that didn't help with the other kids, either. They called Bazzell weirdo and holy-roller.

     "What does that mean?" Steve asked at lunch.

     "We're Old Rite Lutheran, in the sense that that's the church we're not attending right now." Bazzell was reluctant to talk about it. He pulled a sandwich out of his lunch bag. "They're pretty strict. No holidays, no birthday parties. In fact, you'll hear the Baptists call us the 'Always Right' Lutherans." He took a bite and chewed in silence.

     "You guys don't seem like that," said Steve. He had met the rest of the Butzehausers by now, Mina the superior older sister and Kevin the little brother, Mrs. Butzehauser, nice but always a little anxious, and the elusive Pop, who came and went erratically because of his trucker's job for the mill.

     "Mom put a stop to the ultra-observant bit when Mina was in third grade. Mrs. Rappaport thought it was un-American, and they got in a big fight. Mom upheld her rights, but after that she laid down the law to Pop that we could participate socially. Not that it really helped. We were already branded as weirdos."

     He took another bite, and a slug of milk. Now that he had started talking about it, it seemed easier.

     "After that, we didn't go to church so much. Pop was a little embarassed, 'cause Oma and Opa are really hard-line. Our church may be the only Old Rite Lutherans in Texas, and they don't want to see it die out. Mom wasn't raised O.R. and had gone along so they could get married, but she wasn't about to see her kids ostracized."

     "'Ostracized,'" said Steve. "You keep coming out with these double-jointed words, but you had to have Vogelbaum explain what 'fuck' meant so he'd be sure you knew how much he had insulted you."

     Bazzell blushed. Vogelbaum had explained it, in crude and explicit terms, using his parents as examples.

     "Don't tell Mom that. I don't need another civil rights case."

     "You really are Linus Van Pelt, you know? Strapped to the Great Pumpkin." He clicked open a can of soda. "So what do your grandparents think of Brother Silas, then?"

     "They never come around in fall. Lest their eye offend them, I guess. They'd probably think he was a false idol."

     "If it would make you get rid of Brother Silas, I'd agree with them." He shuddered. "How can you sleep at night with that outside your window? Just knowing it's down the road sometimes creeps me out."

     "Nah, it's actually kind of reassuring, like having somebody always on watch," said Bazzell. "Brother Silas really bothers you, doesn't he?"

     "Anything that looks human but ain't, does," Steve said, his mouth grim. "Ventriloquist dummies, department store mannequins, scarecrows--they always look like they're up to something, behind your back. You ever watch Twilight Zone?"   

     Just then the bell rang, and it was time to drop the intricacies of real life and attend once more to the mysteries of mathematics. Steve was glad. He didn't want to discuss it any more.

     Bazzell was glad Steve was good at math. Steve helped him with Math and Science, and he helped Steve with Language and History. Under the guise of study sessions, they did quite a lot of visiting. They listened to the Beatles and Bob Dylan at Steve's, and Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard at Bazzell's. They swam in the apartment pool twice before the first coldfront came in, and polefished off the pier with Bazzell's poles. Bazzell taught Steve how to write runes from The Hobbit, for secret messages. Steve tried to interest him in airplane lore, but it didn't really take. They exchanged comics constantly, and offered reviews and defenses.

     It was a homework session that brought Steve up to the Butzehauser home one Saturday in mid-October. The cartoons were over, and it was time to work on a History report. As he passed, he waved casually at the doberman, who had come to accept him as part of the block routine. The sun was high, and he wasn't thinking too much about Brother Silas as he came up the driveway. In fact he tried not to think of him at all as he sidled past its garish scowl. He got to the door and reached for the bell.

     "Give me your blood," rasped a voice from the figure.

     "Je-sus!" he yelled, jumping back and falling off the porch into the Chinese jasmine. Almost immediately there was laughter, and the face of Mina at the windowscreen behind Brother Silas.

     "Gotcha!" she yelled between laughs.

     "You asshole!" he screamed back. The front door squealed open quickly, and Bazzell poked his head out.

     "What's all the cussing?" he hissed. "If Mom hears that, both our butts are toast!"

     "It's your goddam sister and that goddam Brother Silas," Steve rage-whispered back. "I swear to God I'm gonna burn that dummy one of these days!"

     "Never mind that, just get in here. And tone it down, will ya?"

     Bazzell hustled them back to the kitchen, and they set up their books on the table. He poured a couple of glasses of iced cherry Kool-Aid and they sat down to it.

     "So what is Bohemian Days, and how are we supposed to know about it? I looked through the textbook, and there's nothing."

     "That's 'cause it's local," said Bazzell. "You've heard about Oktoberfest? It's kind of like that. The part in the schoolbook that applies is German Immigration. You see, when Gothenberg was founded...what is it, Kevin?"

     His little brother had inched in behind the table and was staring at them with soulful blue eyes.

     "Want some Kool-Aid."

     "Well, ask Mom, why don't you?"

     "Can you get it?" He looked bashfully at Steve. "Hi."

     "Hello, Kevin."

     "Oh, poop." Bazzell got up and dashed him out a cup. "Now leave us alone."

     "What ya doin'?"

     "Homework. Now beat it."

     Kevin slurped his drink. A red ring appeared around his mouth.

     "Momma says I gotta stay in the kitchen with Kool-Aid."

     "Lord John help us. Come on. Let's go to the cornfield. No one will bug us there."

     They put their glasses on the sideboard, picked up their books and papers, and headed out back.

     The cornfield was twelve rows of stalks in half of the backyard garden where Mr. Butzehauser recreated his rural boyhood among small town suburbs, fenced in by their neighbor's lots. The cornstalks stood, picked and parching in the autumn air, next to a growing burn pile, sharing the plot with the sad remains of tomato frames and pepper plants nearing their end. A pitchfork stood abandoned at the end of a line of potatoes. Once the boys were in the stalks, it felt private and almost hidden.

     "Here we go," said Bazzell as they sat down crosslegged on the packed dirt between the rows. "The only one who'll bother us out here is the Corn Ghost."

     "Corn Ghost? Now what the heck is that?"

     Bazzell laughed. "Just something I made up. You know that the Corn Ghost is passing by when he rustles the leaves."

     As if on cue a momentary breeze started up. The stalks bent their heads slightly, as if bowing, and the leaves rattled shushing together.

     "See? It's just the wind. That's all the Corn Ghost ever does, as it goes from field to field, over the whole world. Just checking on things."

     "You guys come up with some weird things."

     "Wait till I tell you about the Little Hoofer that lives in the closet..."

     "Don't. I have enough traumas for one lifetime. Now, what about Bohemian Days?"

     "That started about World War Two, but really its roots go back to when Gothenberg was founded." Bazzell pulled out some sheets of paper, neatly typed and stapled, but dog-eared and a little crumpled. "Here's Mina's famous award-winning essay from two years ago. This has everything we need to know."

     "Sweet! Can we just copy it?"

     "No, I'm pretty sure Mrs. Richter will remember it. But I bet with a little finagling and a bit of cannibalizing we can come up with a passing grade. And we won't have to do all the research that Mina did."

     He flipped the papers, doing a quick review.

     "Okay, so basically what you need to know is that both Germans and German-speaking Poles founded Gothenberg in 1840. Blah-blah-blah, started celebrating Deutscheland Days in 1899, blah-blah-blah, World War One, anti-German feeling, changed to Bohemian Days in compromise between German and Polish inabitants."

     "Why Bohemian? Isn't that hippies and Beatniks?"

     "Bohemia was an old country, before the German states united. Plenty of Poles and Germans there. Bohemian Days saw an upsurge during World War Two, to show solidarity between neighbors after the Nazis took Warsaw. They wanted people to see not all Germans were nasty."

     "You know a lot about it."

     "I had to listen to Mina's essay read out loud about a zillion times. She even read it on the radio, for the festival. She won a copy of Under the Old Pecan Tree, by our local historian. That's why we've got to handle this like plutonium, or it'll blow up in our faces."

     "So what's your family? German or Polish?"

     "It's complicated." Bazzell grimaced. "We're from a slice of land that was on the border, Silesia. The family was ethnic German, under Polish management, really a mix of both. Opa calls it Lord John's Land."

     "Who he?"

     "Nobody will tell me when I ask. Probably they don't know. Maybe somebody in Baron von Gothenberg's family. That's the guy who was in charge of the immigration and settlement."

     "So is Bazzell a Silesian name?"

     "Bazzell is the name you get when your great-grandmother likes the name Basil but can't spell, and then names your father's favorite uncle that."

     "Hey Butthouse! Heads up!"

     A firework came whizzing through the air, hit the ground between them, and spun in a mad whirl of green fire in front of their back-scrabbling feet. A Black Cat cracker followed immediately, exploding with a sharp bang in the air above them.

     "Donny Schmidt!" Bazzell shouted. "Schmidt-head! Pile of Schmidt!" He jumped to his feet, snatched up a clod of dirt, and hurled it over the fence at the straw-headed face guffawing through the weeds. The boy easily dodged it.

     "Hey, Jones! Hanging out at the Booger-house, huh? Seen any spooks? Ate any babies? Sacrificed any dogs?"

     "Shut up!" Bazzell screamed. His face was beet red. "Shut your lying mouth or I'll..."

     "Your Granmaw'll put a spell on me?" Donny taunted gleefully. "That old witch can't hurt me. I'll spit in her eye. I'll..."

     At that moment Bazzell's father came out of the backyard shed, carrying an old hoe. Donny went pale, turned, and disappeared running into his own house, door slamming behind him.

     "Come on," said Bazzell. He snatched the books up off the ground. "Let's get out of here."

     The boys went back in, not saying a word. Behind them, Mr. Butzehauser began chopping down stray Johnson grass and throwing it on the burn pile.

     Inside, Kevin had become ensnared in an afternoon movie, so they could sit down and work at the dining room table in peace. Bazzell grunted and growled, angry and obviously embarrassed. Steve broke the silence.

     "What an asshole."

     "They say all kinds of crud. The Schmidts are in and out of jail all the time, and in and out of jobs. They say anything to break other folks down, so they can build themselves up. They're trash."

     "Obviously." Steve opened his spiral History notebook to a clean page. "Forget him. Let's work on this paper."

     By the end of the afternoon, they managed to produce an essay sufficiently unlike Mina's, with only about two-thirds of her footnotes, done up in long hand form and in its own blue binder. Mina had refused to let them use her typewriter or type it herself. As they were putting their work away, Bazzell's mom was just finishing getting supper on the kitchen table.

     "Would you like to stay and eat with us, Steve?" she asked.

     Despite himself, Steve thought fleetingly of babies and dogs.

     "Thanks Mrs. Butzehauser, but Mom and Dad said we're going to Pizza Joe's this evening. I got to get home."

     She smiled. "Well, maybe next time."

     They went out the back door, Steve with books in hand, including a new House of Mystery comic Bazzell had loaned him. They walked out towards the street in the darkening gloom.

     "I hope you don't think..." started Bazzell.

     "Idiots," said Steve firmly. "Assholes."

     He turned his head as they came around the house, glancing at the front porch. "Aww, jeez, now what? It glows, too?"

     Brother Silas's pale phosphorescent mask hung there in the gloom, a smudge in the shadows, his black hole eyes and gleaming white fangs accenting his glowing green face. Steve turned angrily to Bazzell.

     "All the same, it wouldn't hurt your reputation if you torched that damn thing."

     "After Halloween, it's gone," Bazzell assured him. "We take out the stuffing and throw it on the burn pile, and put away the clothes and mask till next year."

     "Burn them, too. Burn it up, and be finished with it."

     Bazzell stopped at the end of the driveway.

     "Well, bye," he said lamely.

     Steve said nothing, but stumped on down the road. As he went, the ghastly illumination of the street lights clicked on, and began to draw late summer moths into their last, dying dance.

     He opened the apartment door to the waft of industrial cleaner and rayon carpeting. His parents were just getting out their coats.

     "Ah, Steve-o, right on time. Wash up quick, and get your jacket." His dad grinned. "Pizza night!"

     They ate surrounded by red velvet wallpaper and an endless loop of gentle pop music, piped over the speaker system.  The restaurant was full of cigarette smoke and the clinking of beer mugs, and Mr. Jones loudly greeted members of his new bowling team as they turned up. Among them Steve noticed Donny, weaving around the tables, visiting his friends. Every now and then he cast an insinuating look in Steve's direction, pointing him out. They would stare at him, then go on talking.

     "Dad," Steve finally said. "Why don't people like the Butzehausers?"

     Mr. Jones looked surprised.

     "Well, I hear they are kind of stand-offish, with their religion and all. And their name is against them."

     "What's wrong with it?"

     "Ah, right, you wouldn't know. It was when I was stationed in Germany. Remember, Patsy? We rented from that couple with all the kids."

     "Before you were born, Steve."

     "Yeah. They were always threatening the kiddos with the Butzeman. That's Boogeyman, in English. So Butzehauser means something like the Boogeyman's House, or folks who live with the Boogeyman, or something."

     "Booger House," whispered Steve.

     "But they're not like that," he said louder. "They're good people."

     "I know. But you can't help small town prejudices, sometimes. You stick to your pal. Make up your own mind."

     "Do we have a religion, Dad?"

     Mr. Jones looked at his son. Steve seemed engaged with the world for the first time since they found his Memaw dead in her recliner, still watching soap operas.

     "If I've got a religion, it's the Air Force." He laughed. "Want some pudding for dessert?"

     Their essay netted them a B-Minus, in the end. Bohemian Days came and went, with its carnival and stock show. Steve went with the Butzehausers, and ate sausages and potato dumplings on a cardboard plate with a plastic fork. The boys rode with Kevin through the Devil's Den, an embarrassingly mild haunted fun house. Kevin kept his arms over his head the whole time. They passed teen-aged Schmidts and Vogelbaums giving a midget carnie a hard time. At the end of the day, they agreed that this would be the last year they trick-or-treated.

     Windy, rainy days made them anxious for the weather on Halloween. Brother Silas got wet, and his coat grew splotchier and his earthy smell stronger as he dried out. Bazzell watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown for the first time in color on the TV at the Jones's apartment. Then out of the blue he heard that the family was summoned to church by his grandparents, on the very Sunday that Halloween fell.

     "Don't worry," Mom assured him. "We'll go to church, have lunch with Oma and Opa, and be home in plenty of time for tricks and treats."

     Despite that, Bazzell squirmed on the long drive into the country. He squirmed on the hard pews as the bony pastor preached. The man never actually mentioned the holiday, but it seemed obvious to the boy that he was talking against it.

     "Whoever hates, disguises himself and harbors deceit in his heart," he droned. "When he speaks graciously, believe him not, for there are seven abominations in his heart; though his hatred be covered with a mask, his wickedness will be exposed among men. Whoever digs a pit will fall into it, and a stone will come back on him who starts it rolling. A lying tongue hates its victims, and a flattering mouth works ruin."

     The old man paused, coughing drily.

     "See to it that no one takes you captive by vain philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ," he concluded.

     Bazzell looked around at the plain walls, the clear glass windows, the scanty congregation of thirty or so ancient farmers and their wives. There were no other children in the pews. It really is dying out, he thought.

     The pastor swallowed, adam's apple bobbing in his ropy neck.

     "Let us pray," he said.

     Outside, after the service, Oma kissed them all, and Opa shook the boys' hands.

     "We haven't seen you since Tchune," he said. Mina hugged him and kissed his scratchy cheek. "You want to ride on de truck?"

     They did, and relished each bump of the country road on the way to the farm, waving at the family car behind them, counting the cows they passed in the fields. At the house they greeted Oma's little chihuahua and Opa's big watchdog, then ran out back to see the sheep.

     Bazzell grew tired of them long before Mina and Kevin did. He went to explore the tilting gray barn where the horses used to live, that now only sheltered some musty hay and an asthmatic elderly tractor. He was trying to twirl the wheel of an antique hand plow when he heard the steady clump-clomp of Pop and Opa, walking in step, getting closer. He went still, hoping he wouldn't get swatted for messing around in the old building, or worse, lectured. The men stopped in the doorway.

     "Haf you had de talk with Batzell?" asked Opa. His accent seemed thicker than usual.

     "He's not even thirteen, Poppa!"

     "Years don't tell de man, de body tells de man. Younger than him had got de trouble."

     "I'm keeping my eyes open. I'm being careful."

     "Church helps. It make you mindful. Lord Tchohn, he always helps, if you call on him."

     He paused.

     "Me and Mutti, we ain't so young no more."

     "Whatever happens, Doris and I will take care of it."

     "Oh, so you de expert now?" Opa was amused.

     Pop wasn't.

     "I got some personal experience in the area," he said stiffly. Opa sobered up.

     "Ja. I guess you haf." He scuffed a milkweed down with his bootheel. "Let's see if de women is done." They turned away from the barn. Bazzell breathed again.

     "Haf de talk with your son," said Opa.

     For lunch, they had the best fried chicken in the county, with home-grown string beans and mashed potatoes. Oma said Mom was getting better at frying; Mom said no-one could ever match Oma's cooking. Bazzell saw the old couple looking at him sidelong now and then, and glancing away when he noticed. There was peach cobbler for dessert.

     About two in the afternoon they bundled in the car and headed home. Mina and Kevin fell asleep in the first ten minutes. Mom looked drowsy, a square Tupperware container of still-warm cobbler on her knees. Only Bazzell and Pop were fully awake, Pop because he was concentrated on driving and Bazzell because he was thinking about the talk. He was pretty sure what that meant; he had seen plenty of shows where a father had to give his son THE TALK.

     They were pulling into the neighborhood before Bazzell said anything.

     "So, why did Opa and Oma want us to come over all of a sudden?"

     "Just wanted to see how we were doing, I guess," said Pop, eyes fixed on the road. "Get us all in church once in a while. They like to see us."

     "Are...they okay and everything?"

     "What? Oh, sure." He looked back at Bazzell for a split second, then back to the road. "Of course, nobody lasts forever. You should enjoy them while you can."

     "Opa seemed kind of worried."

     "Oh? I didn't notice it." He turned the car into the Loop. "But you always have worries, on a farm."

     They pulled up into the driveway.

     "All right, folks, wake up. We're home."

     Bazzell felt something was wrong before he got out of the car. There was a peculiar bitter smell in the air.  He stood a moment looking around the yard, puzzling about it, while everyone else got out. He looked up at the porch.

     "Oh, man," he breathed, then raced up the sidewalk ahead of the others.

     Brother Silas sat, blackened and almost faceless, half-gutted by fire, but still held upright by twine in his chair. Bazzell looked at it in horror as the other family members came up behind him, memories of Steve's words unreeling like looping tape through his brain.

     "Now what happened here?" said Pop.

     Mom paled. "Oh my God, the whole house could have burned down!"

     "Is Brother Silas dead?" Kevin was round-eyed, Mina furious.

     "Who the hell did this? What kind of creep would do this?" She shook with rage.

     Pop was calm.

     "Now, we don't know that anybody did this on purpose." He looked around. "Plenty of people are burning stuff today. It could've been a stray spark on the wind. Or the sun shining the wrong way through the windows."

     He probed the figure's belly with a forefinger. "After all, he's made of burning stuff. We were lucky his leaves weren't completely dried out after the last rain."

     "You think so, Pop?" Bazzell said quietly. "Is it an accident?"

     Mr. Butzehauser shrugged. "Who knows? Nothing to do about it now, unless we find out something different. Maybe we have a gang of very incompetent arsonists running around the neighborhood, yes?"

     He smiled, then sighed.

     "In the meantime, I'm afraid this is Brother Silas's last round-up. Come on, Bazz, help me take him to the burn-pile. We'll finish the job tonight when we have the bonfire. Honey, go in and just check around on things right quick?"

     They put his charred boots in the dummy's lap, then waddle-walked him, chair and all, to the back. They left Brother Silas enthroned on the pile of dead leaves and cardboard boxes that had been growing all month, sitting like the slain monarch of the year's decay.

     As they waited for the evening and trick-or-treating, Bazzell watched his mother fretting around, worried, with nothing solid to concentrate it on. Mina was just angry. Pop looked on the constant verge of saying something, then stopping, as if for normalcy's sake.

     Kevin freaked out at first, but as trick-or-treating got closer and closer, he got distracted and more excited about his costume. He was a black cat that year. He got into his mask about an hour early, and went around saying, "I'm Dodger! I'm Dodger! Fsss!" They calmed him down enough to draw a picture of a cat on a grocery bag to collect his candy in.

     Bazzell sat next to him, drawing his own bag. He was going as a pirate, and he drew the face of his mask, with an eyepatch, and a bloody dagger clenched in its teeth. He felt like he could bite a knife in two himself. He couldn't tell Pop what he thought, but the more he thought about it the madder he got. For good measure he drew blood and fire like a halo around the pirate face.

     He burned him, he thought. He said he was going to burn Brother Silas, and he did. Now Mom's scared and Mina's mad and Kevin's Halloween is poisoned, and our whole house could have burned down! Some friend. He's probably got a record, that's why they keep moving around. I'd like to burn him!  He colored in extra blood, dripping, from the pirate's head.

     He picked the bag up and opened it, looking at the picture. He had drawn it upside down. Snarling, he ripped it in two, got another bag, and started over. Kevin looked up at him and laughed.

     Evening started to gather in, and Mrs. Butzehauser drove them around the neighborhood, sitting in the car with Mina (who was way too superior to trick or treat), while the boys knocked on doors and gathered their loot. She slowed down by the apartments.

     "Do you want to try at the Jones's?" she asked.

     "No. Steve said they'd be out," Bazzell lied.

     "Oh. Are they going to the school costume party? Maybe we'll see them there."

     "I don't know. I'm not going."

     "Why not? Even Mina's going. There's games and candy. You can see your old teachers."

     "No thanks." He looked out the car window. "This is the last year I trick-or-treat."

     "Aw." She started the car trundling forward again. "Well, let's make it a good one."

     By the time they'd made the rounds and come back, true evening had fallen. It was decided that Pop would drop off the partygoers, and then they would be brought back home by Kevin's friend's mother when the party was over. Mom seemed much better when she knew that someone would be at home, watching.

     The grade school looked weird and alien, lit up and inhabited after dark. Bazzell was briefly envious as the others disappeared into its decorated halls, into a burst of noise and laughter that rang out and then was shut away as the doors pneumatically closed behind them. Bazzell and his father drove off in silence.

     At the first red light Pop finally spoke.

     "I'm kind of glad you decided to stay home tonight. I've been meaning to have a talk with you. Man to man."

     "Is this about the birds and bees? 'Cause if it is, I've had the rough details explained to me at school by one of my little classmates."

     "What? No!" The light changed, bathing them in green. He drove forward. "Actually, this is much harder to talk about. Harder to explain. It's about our family." He paused. "About you."

     Bazzell said nothing, could think of nothing to say.

     Pop started again.

     "It's about the Butzehausers. Let me tell you about Oma. When she was a girl. Beautiful girl. Opa was in love with her. And when anybody tried to get close to her--or was mean to her--or insulted her--they had accidents. Some pretty bad accidents. Broken arms. Little fires breaking out, no reason. She would be miles away. But people started noticing. Cross Clara Bresslau, and you got trouble. Clara Bresslau was an ill-wisher. But it wasn't her. No. It was your Opa."

     He swallowed.

     "The Butzehausers have always had these powers, even back in the old country." He picked his words carefully, as if he were trying to understand it himself, having never put it in words out loud. "They were trying to escape it. It's sort of a curse. Because you can't always control it. It's like the pastor said today. The heart is deceitful. You don't always know what you're doing."

     "Monsters from the id," Bazzell whispered.

     "What's that?"

     "It's sounds like that movie, Forbidden Planet. The scientist is destroyed by monsters from his own mind."

     "Yeah, okay." Pop seemed doubtful. "Anyway Opa told Oma when they got married. She was mad at first, but then she decided to help him. They had been Old Rite before, but now they got really involved. And Opa got it under control. He watched himself. He was careful. And I was born, and I grew up and married your mom.

     "Your sister, thank God, inherited your mother's nature. We hoped--Opa and I--that the power had bred itself out. But. When you were a baby, your toys danced in your crib."

     "I--you're creeping me out, Pop." Bazzell studied him closely. "Is this a Halloween story?"

     His father looked over at him, his eyes tight, his lips thin.

     "No. It's not.

     "For two weeks your Oma and your mom watched over you, never sleeping. Whenever something started to happen, your Oma pinched you. Pulled your hair. Slapped your bottom. Your mother cried the whole time. But at the end, everything stopped. Your power was under control. And I was glad. But Opa and me, we knew it couldn't last.

     "Because there comes a time when you're no longer a child, but not quite a man. A time when the power surges up in you. I knew. Because when I was a boy, the Kinderschrecker walked again. And Ingo Schmidt died."

     "The Kinder--?"

     "Kinderschrekcer. The bogeyman that steals children, puts them in a sack, and roasts them alive. I hated Ingo, and my hate took that tale and made it true.

     "They found him down by the railroad tracks. In a sack. Dead. They said a hobo had probably done it. Maybe one had. Maybe my hate had possessed him to do it. But I knew that I had caused his death, that I had put him in the sack, as sure as if these two hands did it. And there were some others who thought so too.

     "I told my Momma and Poppa. I grew mindful. I grew careful. I try to be calm, never to hate. But even so, the power leaks into things, things you use. Sheep are the dumbest beasts on earth, but Opa's do what he tells them. My truck? I swear sometimes she stops or swerves on her own, to avoid an accident. I don't do it."

     "Aw, come on, Pop." Bazzell looked out the window, then stared. They had pulled into the home driveway and parked without him noticing.

     "So listen. Yesterday your Opa calls me. He's got a feeling. He wants to see us. Look you over. Tell me to have the talk with you. We come home, and Brother Silas is burned. And I think maybe, maybe. Mysterious fires from far away? So I decide to have the talk with you, before somebody is really hurt."

     "Look, Pop. I know you might feel guilty about some coincidental death in your past, but I know who set fire to Brother Silas, and it wasn't me. I don't want to be a rat. I don't even want to believe it. But it was Steve. Steve hated Brother Silas. He always talked about wanting to burn him. And I guess he finally did while we were out."

     "What, your friend Steve? No. Steve is a good boy. No, now I know who burned Silas, and it wasn't Steve or you. But I had been afraid it was you, so I decided to have the talk..."

     "Well, who was it, then?"

     "It was Donny Schmidt and his gang. Mrs. Kunkel called while you guys were out treating. She saw them from across the street. He was flicking fireworks at Silas, and one sparked up. They ran off, the fire died down, and the poor old lady fell asleep, thinking the excitement was all over. She called to tell me not to give them any candy."

     "Shit." Bazzell sat back.

     "Don't say shit."

     "All day. All day I've been..."

     They jumped at a knock on the driver side window.

     "What is this shit now?" said Pop, and rolled the window down.

     It was Mr. Jones, his windbreaker flapping in the wind, his buzzcut damp with sweat.

     "Hi, hi. Butzehauser, right? Hi. Jack Jones." They shook hands briefly. "Has my boy been with you? Is he here?"

     "No, we haven't seen him. We've been out all evening. Has he gone AWOL?"

     "We don't know what's going on. He went trick-or-treating hours ago. This is such a nice neighborhood, and he's always running around by himself. He's a big boy...I hoped...I thought he might be here..."

     Pop unhooked the house key from his ring. He handed it to Bazzell.

     "Here. You go in and turn on the lights. He might come by. You." He turned to Mr. Jones. "Get in. We'll look for him."

     Bazzell scrambled out. Mr. Jones scrambled in. Bazzell ran to the front door, and Pop waited until he was in and the porch light on before he pulled out, highbeams on, lights raking the front yard. Bazzell heard them drive off, and the fading voice of Mr. Jones, leaning out the car window and calling plaintively "Ste-e-eve!" over and over.

     Inside, the house was dark and empty. Bazzell clicked on a table lamp in the living room. It made more shadows than light. He felt his way into the kitchen, and turned on the light there. His abandoned costume lay across the table next to the treat bags, full now, and wrinkled with use. He pulled a jawbreaker out, looked at it, and chucked it back in. He sat down, and put his head on the table in his folded arms.

     He had been mad at Steve for most of the day, and now that he wanted to talk to him, he was missing. He wanted to tell him about the old church, and his Opa, and his last Halloween, and the Schmidts and Uncle Silas. Steve might kind of enjoy that. He even wanted to tell him about Pop's crazy story, though he didn't believe it; maybe brag about it and make his flesh crawl. It was like there might be some reason for the Butzehauser reputation, even if it was a superstitious old gossipy reason. But Steve was gone. He'd heard about kids that disappeared.  His stomach sank as he thought he might be gone forever.

     Pop's old story. He lifted his head.

     It was crazy. It couldn't be. Bazzell got up, ran over to the junk drawer, and rummaged around. He lifted the emergency flashlight out. He ran to the back door and paused, heart pounding, then forced himself to turn the lock and go outside.

     The backyard was a shifting pattern of darkness and distant light from neighbor houses and streetlamps, filtered through sheltering trees, half-bare and waving furtively in the stealthy night wind. The garden was mostly in shadow, but he could see, seated on the mound in the middle, the silhouette of the figure in the chair.

     He headed down the back steps, clicking on the flashlight. It flared and went out. He banged it a few times to try to get it started again. It refused to live. After a minute he decided that his eyes were adjusted enough to the dark. Something was wrong with what he had glimpsed. Had Brother Silas moved?

     He's mine, he thought. I made him. He wouldn't hurt me. I made him. I've got to check.

     He moved slowly forward over the withering grass to the dirt border of the garden. It was maddening. The house lights were like distant stars, surrounding the field of shadow that engulfed the burn-pile. The cornfield whispered and creaked next to him. He squinted hard, trying to make out details, inching closer. He could see very little, but something was definitely wrong.

     From the far corner of the block, he could hear a car turning into the Loop. For a second its headlights shot through the trees, through the corn stalks, illuminating the world like a bolt of lightning, then gone. But it had lit up the shape on the mound.

     It was Steve.

     He had on an aviator's helmet, and a red scarf with the ends stuffed in his mouth like a gag. He was tied to the chair with the same rough twine that had held the dummy bound. He was struggling against the cords, but weakly. Sweat was pouring down his face, his shirt soaked.

     Bazzell stood blinded for a second. "What the hell--" he started, and put his foot on the heap to climb up. An arm snaked out from behind the pile and grabbed his ankle, a dark body scuttled out and raised itself into a crouch. It was Brother Silas.

     The blackened remains of his mask were covered by the pale ghost of his garish paint, his face a green simulacrum. In its decayed glimmer Bazzell saw the gaping hole in his gut, re-stuffed with leaves and trailing weeds, his coat like black folded wings. The mouth moved, and Bazzell heard the harsh rasping voice he had so often imagined in his head.

     "Flesh...blood..." Silas hissed. "Burn!"

     "No!" said Bazzell. "No, he didn't do it!"

     He raised the flashlight to hit him away. With a snarl the thing easily knocked him back. Bazzell felt the arms strike him like a tree branch, not an old shirt stuffed with leaves. He landed on his back in the dirt, the flashlight spinning away. When it hit the ground it suddenly jolted on, incongruously lighting everything three inches off the ground.

     Bazzell wheezed for air, turned over, tried to get up on his elbow. He saw Uncle Silas slowly raising his arm, pointing his glove-hand at the struggling boy on the pyre.

     "Burn," it snarled. "Burn!"

     Blue fire ignited the glove, springing from nowhere at command. Deliberately, inexorably, the scarecrow shape lowered its arm and thrust it into the base of the burn-pile. The leaves began to smolder, little flames licking and yellow, starting to spread. Silas fixed his hate up at the bound boy.

     Bazzell lurched unsteadily to his feet, stumbling forward, trying to reach Steve. He wondered what, if anything, he could do if that startlingly strong thing tried to keep him from his friend. He had to try.

     Something grazed his leg as he took another shaky step. He looked down. It was the pitchfork, still jabbed in the broken dirt. He grabbed its handle, leaned on it a second gathering strength, then pulled it out. Determined, he staggered toward the back of the hunched scarecrow. He was only two steps away when Silas whirled, growled, pushed him away.

     Bazzell was braced this time, but he stumbled back a few steps. He steadied himself, and raised the pitchfork like a bat. The fire caught a piece of cardboard, blazing up.

     "Lord John help me," he breathed.

     Steve's eyes grew wide. Bazzell brought the weapon around in a batter's swing. Brother Silas raised his arms, but could not block the blow. It scattered the phosphorescent glow that had animated his face in a splatter of dying sparks and sent the hollow head and scorched mask sailing.

     The body stood for a beat, then collapsed writhing bonelessly. Bazzell raised the pitchfork again and brought it down, hard, pinning the squirming remains to the earth, shoving the tines in viciously with his foot.

     The burn-pile was already ablaze on one side. Steve had managed in his desperation to tip himself over away from it, but not to roll off the pile altogether.  Bazzell got behind him, grabbed the back of the chair, and slithered him down the leafy slope to a safe distance. He pulled the muffler out, and while Steve gasped for air he cut the twine with his pocketknife then lifted him to his feet.

     "Are you okay? I'm damn sorry. I.."

     Steve held up his hand, still gasping. He walked over to Silas's head. It was rolling back and forth feebly, like a tortoise trying to right itself. Steve brought his foot down, crushing it, the charred bits of mask shattering to black fragments.

     "I told you," he panted. "You should get rid of that thing."

     Bazzell picked up the remains of the head. They went over to the burnpile, and he threw them into the hottest part of the flame.

     "Well, you were right," he said. "I don't think we'll have another one next year."

     "Please don't."

     "How did he get you?"

     "I came over to see you when I was done, so we could compare our hauls and I could show you my costume..."

     "What are you supposed to be, anyway?"

     Steve snorted.

     "Don't you know a World War One flying ace when you see it? Well, it was dark and there wasn't any car, but I went up and knocked on the front door. The next thing I know dear old Brother Silas is jumping out of the bushes, and then the next thing I know he's tying me up to his chair."

     He shuddered.

     "He was damn strong. I thought we were goners before your big friend showed up. Where did he go, anyway?"

     "Big friend?"

     "The big guy with the beard. He was right behind you when you were swinging the pitchfork. He looked like he was pushing your hand or something."

     Bazzell looked blank.

     "He showed up right when you were saying something about help."

     "Lord John?" Bazzell whispered.

     The corn leaves rustled in the wind.

     "Steve!"

     Mr. Jones came rushing in from the front yard, Mr. Butzehauser following somewhat slower. He caught up with his boy, hugged him, then held him at arm's length.

     "Where ya been, Steve-o?"

     "Trick or treating, Dad."

     "For two hours?"

     "Well, I was doing so well, I thought I'd try a few more houses. I kept getting further out, and then I lost my way. By the time I found it again, it was pretty late, and I just dropped by here on my way home. Sorry, Dad."

     Bazzell looked at him in admiration. He wished he could lie as quickly as that. Pop came up beside his boy. He saw the headless dummy, pinned under the pitchfork, and raised his eyes.

     "Come on Steve, let's get home. I'm sure your mom's worried. Thanks, Butzehauser, for helping me look. Where's your candy, Steve?"

     "Stashed it in the jasmine bushes." He turned to Bazzell. "See you in school tomorrow?"

     "Yeah. I think I owe you a long story."

     Pop watched as the pair walked off, Mr. Jones's hand protectively grasping Steve's shoulder. He turned to his own son.

     "Sorry, Pop,” Bazzell said. He pulled the pitchfork out, and thrust the clinging remnants of Uncle Silas into the heart of the blaze. "I started the bonfire a little early."

     "That's all right. Time that old rubbish burned."

     "Yeah." They watched smoke and sparks disappearing up into the starry sky. Bazzel took the fork and poked a stray black sleeve back into the flame.

     "I'm learning to be careful."