Saturday October 30th, 1982:

[jazzbox]

Saturday October 30th, 1982:

"Holy crap, H ..."

It's 7:30--the downside of dusk, and Jonesy's just standing there in the Clarendons' doorway, his trick or treat sack held low by the breeze of surprise, weighted by degrees, and he's looking at Henry's approach in ardent, slack-jawed wonder. "What the hell are you supposed to be?"

Henry Devlin, his normally sand-blond locks slicked up into what appears to be a damp, mousse-darkened mohawk gone horribly wrong, is shambling toward him, and he's dwarfed in what could only be his dad's leather coat, only it's way too big and far too long, and it's dragging on the gravel driveway. Tomorrow morning Hank Devlin would undoubtedly regret the loan, his prized apparel turned dusty and tattered at the hem from begging candy on Derry's main drag and worse, but for tonight his son would take some measure of youthful pride in the wearing of it, even if it was only part of a Halloween getup.

"Deckard," Henry lowers his voice and tries his best at the trademark Harrison Ford-Rick Deckard smirk. He's got the deadpan voice down pretty good, he knows it, but the smirk's not his best, and it's far from 100%, so he relies on the inflection, which he's been practicing for weeks now. "Machines can be helpful sometimes, but they can also be a pain in the ass. Ask for a trace on a forger and you might wind up at a steel-mill."

"Christ," Jonesy rolls his eyes, shrugging deeper into the tattered folds of his own costume. "Blade Runner? Man, the replicants'll sleep safe tonight, that's for sure."

"They don't sleep. And who are you in all that raggy nastiness anyway?" Henry defends, deflecting the critical spotlight and turning it, even as Gary hefts the makeshift, hastily stained papier-maché-and-sheet of a mask up over his head. "You supposed to be the ghost of Christmas past or what?"

"Try John Merrick, ok?" He eyes Henry dubiously, knowing full well his best buddy's not that cerebral. None of them are, really, but it doesn't matter, even as his eyes go wider in explanation. "The Elephant Man?"

"Oh. Yeah, ok ..." Henry nods, glimpsing the familiar flutter of caped blue and red, there at the threshhold as Beav skirts his mom's last minute warnings to be wary of strangers bearing razor-filled Clark bars.

"Yeah, yeah, Mom, I know, ok?" It was Derry after all, and everyone knew everyone else, so what self-respecting psycho would show his teeth here on Halloween night?

"Wasn't his head too big for the rest of him too? Merrick's?" Henry thinks he remembers. "Makes it a pretty good look for you, then, when you think about it, but ......... aww, Jesus, Beav."

Henry barely has time to bask in the glow of apt descriptions before Beav presents too colorful a target to resist. "Superman again? Man, don't you think it's time to get get a new M.O., Joe? You been wearin' the same getup for four years. I mean, even Kent washes his 'S' now and then, right?"

Gary's brow lifts a shade in scrutiny. "I hope you at least washed the tights."

"Funny, dickweed." Beav's eyes are shadowed and more than a little sharp in answer. "Not my choice anyway. The badass Green Goblin costume fell through, so I had to deal last minute, ok?"

Henry and Jonesy shrug in the share of a look, both lost in the noncommital nature of the night until they all spot their team's fourth rounding home with a demented grin.

"Pete? Is that ...?"

"Heeeeeeeeeeeere's Johnny!" he grins, doing the best Nicholson he can.

"Oh, you gotta be kidding," Beav snorts at the approach. "What kind of costume is that? Jesus, dirty dockers and a turtleneck?"

Pete's grin takes a downward turn in defense as he ascends to the porch, fingers mussing up the mess of product in his hair a little more. "Hey, come on, it's a great costume. It's inspired, even."

"Yeah," Jonesy smiles halfheartedly. "Inspired by the truly lame, I guess. It inspires me to ask who the crap you're supposed to be."

"Shit," Pete does an eyeroll, and his right arm swings out, hefting the weight of a wooden mallet. "I'm Jack Torrance--y'know, from The Shining?" And digging in his pocket, he pulls out a crumpled sheet of paper. "I even typed up one of his pages--from the play, see?"

"Uh huh," Henry peers at the prop's miasma of type, thinking it's at least passably better then Pete's own penmanship. "I know, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. But, what's with the big hammer? Didn't Nicholson have an axe?"

"Oh, yeah, like my mom and dad are gonna let me carry an axe around all the little kids on Halloween. Duh, H--and besides, in the book he had a mallet, so it's kosher."

"Could at least put a little fake blood on it," Beav thinks aloud. "And who's the poor sap has to be Wendy?" before ducking back inside for a moment.

Henry smirks, and for a split second he does look a little like Deckard, though he's no way of knowing it. "How 'bout that Rinkenheimer retard's sister--y'know, the one Gary likes?"

"I do NOT!" Jonesy's face has become an emphatic mass of denial, though his cheeks are also glowing redder than the fake blood Beav's retrieved to coat the Moore-Torrance mallet. "And it's Rinkenhauer."

"You mean Beth's friend?" Beav squints up at him, fingers still busy with the slopping on of blood. "Gary, you got wood for Jasmine Rinkenhauer?"

"No! I DON'T!" His voice has risen an octave or two, almost shrill enough to match the shifting shades of embarrassment he's got on display, but rather than rib him, Beav only shakes his head, tongue ticking against the roof of his mouth as he rises and lifts a sticky hand to Gary's shoulder.

"I feel for ya, Jones, but I hate to break it to you. She's had a crush on Moore since fourth grade."

"Who ... me Moore?!" Pete's caught the shrills now too, as contagious as sucking on a sneeze, though Gary's cooling cheeks still have his beat by a country mile, and he takes a half step back. "Nuh uh. No way."

"No, really," Beav assures him, and since Joe's apparently dropped the gauntlet of teasing for a time, Henry takes it up in stride and gleefully dusts it off.

"She's prob'ly at the haunted house up at the woods, Pete. Why don't we go ask her, I bet she'll let you bang on her a few times with that hammer of yours."

Now Beav realises, in the brief pause for the joke's collective digestion, what he's been missing out on, and he decides he'd rather jump on this particular haywagon than hang back and play devil's advocate. "Yeah, bang on her just right and she'll maybe even scream for ya."

Batting his lashes, he laces his hands and leans into Pete's shoulder, gazing up at him all adoration and goo. "Ooooooh, Petie sweetie, do that again!"

Henry's doubled over now, hands strapped tight over his stomach and against the laughter that's actually starting to hurt, and he already knows Pete'll at least have something more smartass than Gary to chime back with.

"Alright, shave it, Superjerk, before you make Gary cry." Turning on his heel, Pete leaps from the topmost step onto the cement of the walkway, more bounce than Torrance-like menace in his step now, and secretly brandishing a grin at the thought that any girl might have a crush om him, especially someone that pretty and popular. "Let's go before all the candy runs out."

"I told you, I don't even like her!" Jonesy's still trying to drive home his point, but Beav and Henry don't seem to be buying it, offering only sympathetic smiles as they leave him to stand there on the porch before eventually bringing up the rear.

One block, five houses, an eclectic collection of pixie stix, popcorn balls, bazooka bubble gum, candy cigarettes, hershey bars, wax lips and toothbrushes between them, though, and they've about been treated out. That, and the fact that old Mr. Rapelow had actually seen fit to scold them for trick or treating at their age had them wondering now if this had been the best option for entertainment after all.

"Guys," Henry figures it's at least worth the suggestion. "Maybe we should check out the woods, huh?" After all, all they're doing now is sitting on the curb, watching the kids in their dimestore plastic Disney masks and Kmart fairy princess gear anyway. "Gotta be better than sittin' here on our asses."

There's a moment of thought, then a collective nod of agreement as they stand and shuffle off in a unified front up 5th toward the north end of town and the woods just beyond it.

It's quiet of a sudden, mainly because they're all lost in thought, and the thoughts aren't quite as unified as the front is.

Beav, Pete and Jonesy are lost in the same landscape, but on three entirely different plains. Beav's wondering if maybe Beth'll be there, and if she is, what he'll say if she even acknowledges his existence. Pete, finishing off the last few gooey bites of candy apple, is thinking maybe he'd like to get another good, long look at the Rinkenhauer girl now that he knows what he knows--maybe at the hayride or the bonfire, if she's even there at all--and Jonesy, fully aware of what both of them are thinking, is trying his best not to care about girls at all.

Henry, though, digging through his sack for another of those wax bottles full of syrup and sugar, couldn't care less about girls or the secret life of crushes, 'cause he figures the woods'll be a good place to hang back and watch people--not to mention another chance to rag on his pals a lot more about girls, and that's the best part of all--well, that and the marshmallows, of course.