Bryant Delafosse's Blog - Posts Tagged "autumn"
The Halloween That Changed My Life
Growing up, I simply loved the whole season. I love how after a long hot humid summer, the weather takes a change for the better and the breeze takes on that special snap that balances out the warmth of the blazing Texas sun. I wait expectantly for that sudden transformation of color the natural world around me undergoes, those reds and browns and the oranges. And then there’s the smells in the October air, of pumpkin pies and harvest bonfires and latex monster masks. I loved the spectacle and magic that produces that intangible quality just one step back from the sacred, like the dark interior of a magician’s top hat.
Halloween had commanded my attention the very first time I saw a simple spider web covered skeleton dressed in a tuxedo and displayed within an old wooden coffin outside an old T G & Y store in Austin--y’know, the ones that don’t exist anymore--back before every display moved, made sounds and emitted smoke.
It was only years later when a Great Aunt on my mother’s side passed away —Mom’s side of the family was the one with the long life genes, while Dad’s had the bad ticker genes--that I realized that the Halloween display I saw outside the TG & Y was, in fact, my first introduction to the concept of Death. That skeleton, something tucked away within every last one of us, is a reminder of our own mortality, of the hands of our internal clocks slowly ticking away toward our own personal expiration date.
Though at the time, I didn’t understand my own fascination with Halloween, it dawned on me that perhaps the holiday was nothing more than the way we human beings cope with the Unknown--that dark inviting corridor due south of the end of our long walk through Life.
A terrifying carnival-like journey with candy at the end.
Halloween had been my favorite holiday since that first Batman costume I wore when I was eight and tore it on a bush leaping from the Bradley’s porch when their Pit bull got loose. I could remember every costume I’d ever worn, every character I’d ever become, every memorable night from my youth that I spent trick-or-treating door-to-door.
When I was nine, I was a werewolf and diligently rehearsed my transformation in the weeks leading up to the night until I learned that Halloween night did not land on a full moon that year. Surely, that must be why I didn’t change as I had been led to believe I would.
With the vivid recollections of an introverted child, I can clearly remember the year I became Torr the Avenger, the super-powered robot from “Manheim’s Machine,” a Saturday morning TV series that was popular the year I was ten.
More than the costume I wore, my memories of my first encounter with injustice and the talk with my father are what return to me when I think back to that night.
Me, Greg, and Sonny were trick or treating under the watchful eyes of my mother in a neighborhood not far from my own. My mother had stopped to talk to Mrs. Gordon and with the impatience of boys missing out on free candy, we begged to go ahead without her to finish off the last two houses on the block. After she’d agreed, I rushed down to the next house and was so happy with the top-notch chocolate bar I got that I didn’t notice that Sonny and Greg weren’t with me until I started down the steps.
I ran through the yard guessing that they had gone on ahead to the next house when they appeared in front of me on the sidewalk. Sonny and Greg stood facing a pair of kids that looked to be at least three years older. While one of them got in Sonny’s face, the other snatched his official Batman Halloween sack away from him. When Sonny tried to take it back, the bigger kid laid his hand over Sonny’s face and shoved him backward to the pavement, laughing with the confidence of an experienced bully. When they turned and demanded Greg’s candy, he ran past me back the way we’d come.
Then they turned to me.
The one who was holding Sonny’s bag of candy turned to me and snarled, “What, you want to do something about it, shrimp?” They started away with the entirety of Sonny’s hard earned candy with no argument from me.
Lying there on the sidewalk crying, Sonny refused when I tried to help him up. Moments later, my mom arrived with Greg and announced that trick or treating was officially over. Despite the fact that my pumpkin was nearly filled to the brim, I screamed and demanded to know why I was being cheated out of more free candy, ultimately having to be dragged home by my arm.
That night, my father sat with me in the living room on the old leather couch. The silence was a physical presence, a stranger in our normally animated home. Dad—a man who, by that time, had already risen to the position of Sheriff within our county, and practiced at the art of speechmaking--contemplated the words he would utter for a good thirty seconds before he even opened his mouth. By his first breath I knew that in his eyes what I had done that night had been a serious offense, though I couldn’t for the life of me understand why. After all, it wasn’t me who had hurt Sonny.
“Do you know what you did wrong tonight?”
“But I didn’t do anything!” I exclaimed.
“Exactly, you didn’t do anything. Your mother told me what happened,” he stated, fixing me with the sternest expression in his arsenal. “The worst thing you can do in the face of injustice is absolutely nothing.”
Many years later, my uncle would express the same thought to me, just in different words. “Paul, the only thing necessary for evil to get a foothold in this world is for good men to do nothing.”
Now, under the hard gaze of my father, I lowered my head and allowed the shame that had been nagging at me to finally take hold. “I didn’t know what to do,” I admitted, my lips starting to quiver.
“Here’s what you never do. Never back down from a bully, no matter how overmatched you might feel. You stare them in the eye and if it comes to it, you fight back, especially in defense of a friend. Do you hear me, Paul? Always stand your ground!”
Suddenly, it struck me that life wasn’t all fun and games anymore and I damn sure wasn’t Torr the Avenger. From my new position, the world looked a whole lot messier than when the night had begun. My eyes glazed over and I stared at the string of framed pictures on the wall. All those Graves’ relatives, Great Uncle Philip & John, and Grandpa Milton, seemed to be giving me a look of assessment. They all knew what I had done tonight and were disappointed in the next generation of the Graves family my Dad had produced.
Dad and I had made a special trip to Sonny’s house so that I could give him half of everything I had collected that night from my stash of candy. Despite that gesture, the events of that Halloween when I was ten affected the way I was to view the world from that day forward.
Excerpt from the new novel HALLOWED by Bryant Delafosse, featured exclusively on Amazon Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Hallowed-ebook/dp/B009KN8BY0/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1350007425&sr=1-2
Halloween had commanded my attention the very first time I saw a simple spider web covered skeleton dressed in a tuxedo and displayed within an old wooden coffin outside an old T G & Y store in Austin--y’know, the ones that don’t exist anymore--back before every display moved, made sounds and emitted smoke.
It was only years later when a Great Aunt on my mother’s side passed away —Mom’s side of the family was the one with the long life genes, while Dad’s had the bad ticker genes--that I realized that the Halloween display I saw outside the TG & Y was, in fact, my first introduction to the concept of Death. That skeleton, something tucked away within every last one of us, is a reminder of our own mortality, of the hands of our internal clocks slowly ticking away toward our own personal expiration date.
Though at the time, I didn’t understand my own fascination with Halloween, it dawned on me that perhaps the holiday was nothing more than the way we human beings cope with the Unknown--that dark inviting corridor due south of the end of our long walk through Life.
A terrifying carnival-like journey with candy at the end.
Halloween had been my favorite holiday since that first Batman costume I wore when I was eight and tore it on a bush leaping from the Bradley’s porch when their Pit bull got loose. I could remember every costume I’d ever worn, every character I’d ever become, every memorable night from my youth that I spent trick-or-treating door-to-door.
When I was nine, I was a werewolf and diligently rehearsed my transformation in the weeks leading up to the night until I learned that Halloween night did not land on a full moon that year. Surely, that must be why I didn’t change as I had been led to believe I would.
With the vivid recollections of an introverted child, I can clearly remember the year I became Torr the Avenger, the super-powered robot from “Manheim’s Machine,” a Saturday morning TV series that was popular the year I was ten.
More than the costume I wore, my memories of my first encounter with injustice and the talk with my father are what return to me when I think back to that night.
Me, Greg, and Sonny were trick or treating under the watchful eyes of my mother in a neighborhood not far from my own. My mother had stopped to talk to Mrs. Gordon and with the impatience of boys missing out on free candy, we begged to go ahead without her to finish off the last two houses on the block. After she’d agreed, I rushed down to the next house and was so happy with the top-notch chocolate bar I got that I didn’t notice that Sonny and Greg weren’t with me until I started down the steps.
I ran through the yard guessing that they had gone on ahead to the next house when they appeared in front of me on the sidewalk. Sonny and Greg stood facing a pair of kids that looked to be at least three years older. While one of them got in Sonny’s face, the other snatched his official Batman Halloween sack away from him. When Sonny tried to take it back, the bigger kid laid his hand over Sonny’s face and shoved him backward to the pavement, laughing with the confidence of an experienced bully. When they turned and demanded Greg’s candy, he ran past me back the way we’d come.
Then they turned to me.
The one who was holding Sonny’s bag of candy turned to me and snarled, “What, you want to do something about it, shrimp?” They started away with the entirety of Sonny’s hard earned candy with no argument from me.
Lying there on the sidewalk crying, Sonny refused when I tried to help him up. Moments later, my mom arrived with Greg and announced that trick or treating was officially over. Despite the fact that my pumpkin was nearly filled to the brim, I screamed and demanded to know why I was being cheated out of more free candy, ultimately having to be dragged home by my arm.
That night, my father sat with me in the living room on the old leather couch. The silence was a physical presence, a stranger in our normally animated home. Dad—a man who, by that time, had already risen to the position of Sheriff within our county, and practiced at the art of speechmaking--contemplated the words he would utter for a good thirty seconds before he even opened his mouth. By his first breath I knew that in his eyes what I had done that night had been a serious offense, though I couldn’t for the life of me understand why. After all, it wasn’t me who had hurt Sonny.
“Do you know what you did wrong tonight?”
“But I didn’t do anything!” I exclaimed.
“Exactly, you didn’t do anything. Your mother told me what happened,” he stated, fixing me with the sternest expression in his arsenal. “The worst thing you can do in the face of injustice is absolutely nothing.”
Many years later, my uncle would express the same thought to me, just in different words. “Paul, the only thing necessary for evil to get a foothold in this world is for good men to do nothing.”
Now, under the hard gaze of my father, I lowered my head and allowed the shame that had been nagging at me to finally take hold. “I didn’t know what to do,” I admitted, my lips starting to quiver.
“Here’s what you never do. Never back down from a bully, no matter how overmatched you might feel. You stare them in the eye and if it comes to it, you fight back, especially in defense of a friend. Do you hear me, Paul? Always stand your ground!”
Suddenly, it struck me that life wasn’t all fun and games anymore and I damn sure wasn’t Torr the Avenger. From my new position, the world looked a whole lot messier than when the night had begun. My eyes glazed over and I stared at the string of framed pictures on the wall. All those Graves’ relatives, Great Uncle Philip & John, and Grandpa Milton, seemed to be giving me a look of assessment. They all knew what I had done tonight and were disappointed in the next generation of the Graves family my Dad had produced.
Dad and I had made a special trip to Sonny’s house so that I could give him half of everything I had collected that night from my stash of candy. Despite that gesture, the events of that Halloween when I was ten affected the way I was to view the world from that day forward.
Excerpt from the new novel HALLOWED by Bryant Delafosse, featured exclusively on Amazon Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/Hallowed-ebook/dp/B009KN8BY0/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1350007425&sr=1-2
