Stepma's Hallowe'en by Dan MacIsaac

We strong-armed our stepma. Halloween is all about blackmail when you’re ten years old. Gimme a treat or I’ll play a trick on you. So my twin sister Kate and I cross-our-hearts-and-hope-to-die promised our stepma not to tell Dad about her spending spree on Mary Kaye beauty gunk—a binge humungous enough to score the sales rep a Pink Caddy. All she had to do for us as part of a friendly swap was drive us out of the ‘burbs to The Pumpkin Ranch where we were sure that the ginormous jack-o’-lantern of our dreams loomed, pumped up on the vine, ripe for the picking. No store-bought bin rejects for us.

Stepma parked the van. My twiggy-legged sister hopped out and hurdled the farm gate and hopscotched through the patch, swiveling and peering, ever on the lookout for the perfectly wicked squash. I, the stumpy brother, trundled under the gate and tripped into a sprawl of pumpkins. At the far end of the patch, Kate spotted the One Orb. It was as malevolently round as a harbor mine and loudly orange as a traffic cone. My sister and I just about sprained our wrists rolling that maxi-gourd out of the wheelbarrow into our mini-van. Loaded up, the pumpkin looked big and bloated as a tractor tire.

We were a badly blended family of step-mum with a calico cat and bio-dad with two pre-teens. My sister and I just loved the orange ‘n’ black blotched tom, Mister Purrfect. Dad mostly loved the road—leaving us to wrangle with Stepma. Usually, Dad was off on chasing sales (or tail as Stepma slurred once when she was deep in the sauce). At least he always headed home eventually, unlike our bio mother who took off on hubby and kids for good, four years back. To make up for being away, soon as he got inside the door, Dad would hand out presents: hotel mini-soaps still in their wax paper wraps, motel towels raspy as a cat’s tongue and, once, a pack of slick casino playing cards with hootchie-kootchie girls on the back.

We hauled our old double baby stroller down from the attic so we could tote the pumpkin from the mini-van into the house. Mister Purrfect sidewinded through our legs as we lumbered the load along the hall to the kitchen. We left the One Orb glowing on the linoleum. On the kitchen counter, I lined up the knives like they do on the steel carts in those hospital shows. Kate and I grabbed hold of the heavy handles. Serial slashers, we sat down to scrape the pulp out of our pumpkin and butcher its neon rind. The One Orb got hacked into an orthodontic horror show—pain-crazed eyes and corkscrewing fangs.

Stepma, hovering nearby, said, Don’t make it too scary--I got a bad heart.

Bad hair, Kate muttered.

Bad teeth, I hissed.

Quietly we batted Bads like badminton birds, flitting back and forth--Bad breath, Bad eyes, Bad back, Bad plumbing--trying to one-up each other while keeping the hushed little chant going.

Stepma pretended she didn’t hear one bit of our rude patter. She waddled off down the hall as Kate and I hacked at the One Orb and sassed at each other.

We’d have kept at it till we’d ticked off all the bad body parts but Kate’s last Bad shut me up when she squirted out, Bad boobs.

It was either clam up or laugh out loud and maybe get smacked.

I told Kate, You got a bad attitude.

Her smug look said, You too.

I grinned. You’re horrible.

You’re horribler.

Horriblest.

            Stepma trundled back into the kitchen. We kept on carving. And Kate stuffed a wedge of pumpkin rind into the gourd’s gob so the chunk leered out like an obscene orange tongue. Stepma planted her pudgy fists on her tubby hips, staring at the One Orb, but not saying boo. Arms bowed out, she looked like the two-handled chamber pot in the Old-timers Museum.

                                                                *

Day after Halloween, us frat twins bellyached about gut pain from gorging on licorice twizzlers and vanilla twinkies. Stepma wanted us to dig the pumpkin shell into Mister Purrfect’s poo garden at the side of the house. We shrilled, No. Halloween was too short. We wanted the One Orb to gape on and on and on. So for a good while, our gourd glowered on our doorstep, frightening off brush salesmen and bible thumpers.

But after a couple of weeks, our scary squash, sloshed by slant rain, was getting very very gunky. We didn’t much resist Stepma’s offer to drive the One Orb out to the unofficial Pumpkin Graveyard at the bend in the spur road—an ungraded gravel highway to hell where locals dumped their castoff jack-and-jill-o’-lanterns. All along the soft shoulder and stuffed on the ledges of blasted rock cliff were oodles of partly pulverized pumpkins like tangled strings of dead amber traffic lights. Stepma brought the van to a lurching halt but nobody unbuckled.

That’s how it all turns out, Stepma said in a wheezy voice, After the party.

Kate and I squirmed on the back seat.

Stepma went on. Your dad’s up to his old tricks. So he and me are calling it quits. Ha! After I bought all that shit—excuse my French—for my face. And my bod.

Kate and I gawked at each other, each willing the other to keep his or her face blank as a TV on the fritz. Thinking about Stepma’s bod was very gross and very funny. Hard to keep curled lips then crooked grins from wrenching our mouths.

There was nothing shocking about Stepma’s news. The Mary Kaye rep was in our house more than Dad was. And I started thinking Stepma wasn’t so bad. She sure beat that old bag with the little bristly moustache that Dad used to hire to stay overnight with us when he was away. And I was also thinking that Kate might miss our stepmother a bit—though I bet she was hoping she’d see more of Dad—him likely having to stick around more once Stepma was out of the picture. And what about Stepma’s cat? She’d hijack Mister Purrfect. Out of our lives. Stepma had first dibs on the tom.

Stepma started to ramble: Married me on the rebound. He was bouncing checks like fleas on a drum. Sure he was loaded—with debt. And I’d come into some hard cash. My maiden aunt kicked the bucket early. Turned out I got handed enough to get your dad a down payment on a new muscle car and me a marriage license. Too bad he wrecked it—the Mustang—before he’d put a hundred miles on it.

Her voice went bitter, Sure, I got hitched. And I got to skip out on stretch marks. Instead, I got both of youse, a couple of ready-mades. And I’m way cheaper than a nanny. She hammered the heels of both palms on the steering wheel, not hitting the horn.

After about ten good hard smacks, she dropped her hands and said, Well, it’s been a treat.

Then Stepma gave a hollow little cackle. Don’t suppose he’d let me keep you kids.

Kate and I turned our heads toward each other. We stared. Double-stared. Sideways across the seat. Like a terrible glaring game to turn the other into stone. There was no way we were going to catch our stepmother’s eye. Or look out the car window again at all those guttered jack o’ lanterns. Lightless. Gruesomely melted. Ghosts of themselves.