Halloween

Photo by Yaroslav Shuraev

Happy Acres Trailer Park had two managers. Ed and Marsha were a retired couple who lived in a yellow double-wide right smack between Happy Acres’s entrance and exit. 

Nothing got past them. 

They viewed our little trailer community as a big, happy family and considered themselves our protective, well-meaning parents. 

And they knew everything. 

If you had a visitor, Marsha knew about it. If you weren’t supposed to be there, Marsha knew. If residents weren’t getting along, she knew all about that, too, and took sides. Not everyone appreciated Marsha, like the lady in space #23. She called her a busybody because she didn’t like how Marsha spied on her when her boyfriend showed up. 

But if something needed fixing, that was Ed’s department.

On my way to school every morning, I’d see Ed and Marsha drinking coffee on their porch swing. I’d wave, and they’d smile and wave back. 

I was their favorite.

Happy Acres Trailer Park closed on Halloween night. To prevent outside kids from trick-or-treating inside the park, Ed and Marsha set up decorated tables with carved jack-o-lanterns and paper skeletons to block the park’s entrances. For weeks, they collected candy donations from generous residents, and on Halloween night, they filled ten giant buckets with candy. At dusk, when the superheroes and bumble bees arrived with their pillowcases, Ed and Marsha handed out candy, ensuring the strangers remained outside of Happy Acres.

Happy Acres wasn’t located in the best of neighborhoods. Stories of razor-blades in apples, naked drunks throwing away dollar bills, and rat poison popcorn balls shattered my Halloween dreams of ever filling a pillowcase with candy.

Only the kids from Happy Acres were allowed to trick-or-treat in our park. We were a small group, but we visited every trailer, the good ones, twice until our orange pumpkins overflowed from their generosity.  

That year, I was an Indian maiden. Mom bought a McCall’s pattern at the local TG&Y and sewed my costume out of scratchy burlap. It had fringed edges and bright orange rickrack trim, just like the picture on the pattern envelope. I was supposed to have bare arms and legs and wear my Indian moccasins, but it was cold in Oildale that night. Mom made me wear a white turtleneck and tights underneath my costume, which didn’t look or feel right.

I didn’t even want to be a homemade Indian maiden in the first place. I wanted a store-bought costume like everyone else with a plastic mask I could hide behind. Instead, Mom braided my stringy hair and made a headband with an orange feather sticking up in the back. Then she painted my cheeks with war paint, took a picture with her camera, and sent me on my way.

Mom was outside waiting when the kids who lived in Happy Acres came to our trailer, dressed up as spooks and goblins. She had a wooden clipboard and a list with their names on it. She put check marks by the kids she’d already seen that night and crossed out the ones who were absent.

Mom didn’t hand out store-bought candy in a big bowl like everyone else did. Instead, she baked gigantic, pumpkin-shaped cookies for every kid who lived in Happy Acres. She worked for days baking and decorating until the cookies were perfect, like the picture in Sunset magazine: orange-glazed and personalized with each kid’s name in green cursive frosting. Mom craved feedback for her masterpieces, but to those kids, it was just a cookie in a baggie.

Later that night, Brother and I sprawled on the living room floor, surrounded by our Halloween loot. We traded candies, each of us eying the other’s pile with anticipation. After making our final deals, Brother meticulously sorted and organized his stash, calculating how many candies he could eat daily to make his haul last longer.

Brother still had candy at Easter. 

Mine was gone by Friday.