Devil's Night

I guess I’ve been talking about Devil’s Night so much that the words to follow will seem anticlimactic. It’s not so much that I have some amazing story to tell about a particular Devil’s Night; I just want to explain how amazing it is to even have a Devil’s Night and why it’s such a shame we don’t seem to have one anymore.

You first have to understand that Halloween was not always a night of simple trick or treating. And to that end I highly recommend all readers to watch the movie, Meet Me in St. Louis. Among the many fascinating scenes of turn-of-the-last-century-life depicted in the film is one involving Halloween night. The kids in this middle class neighborhood have built a massive bonfire in the center of the street. They’re dragging all the wood they can find – old furniture, buggy parts, tree branches, whatever – into that flaming mess. Dressed in hobo clothes and masks, they talk over which kids will “take” which houses, and by “take” they mean “kill,” and by “kill” they mean…well, I don’t want to give it away. But the cool thing is that the adults in the neighborhood all seem to accept the fact that these young kids should be out building fires, ringing doorbells, and “killing” people after dark.

I’m not sure if I remember my first Halloween, though I do vaguely remember dressing up in a Mighty Mouse costume at age three. The following year I was a devil, but I think it was all hobos each and every year after that. My brother, our pals, and I would go out for what seemed like hours until we filled up a pillow case full of candy. Not crappy little snack sized Milky Ways, but the big ones (I think they cost a nickel back then). And there were homemade popcorn balls, cupcakes, even miniature loaves of Silver Cup Bread. We’d try to hit the “fancy” houses or the ones where we thought famous people lived. For example, quarterback Milt Plum’s house (his candy turned out to be nothing special) or WKNR disc jockey Swingin’ Sweeny (he handed out old 45 records). Then there was the year when neighborhood punk Jimmy Yeagley handed out Ex-Lax….

But though my Halloweens were great fun, we always talked about Devil’s Night and how “next year for sure” we would all go out the night before Halloween to soap windows, ring doorbells, and pull the flaming bag o’ crap on the front porch trick on Roy Meyer’s dad. But somehow we just never got around to it; that is, until that one year, I think it was 1966.

I’m pretty sure that Jeff Biggers, John Kotlarczyk, and I must have been daring each other all week that we wouldn’t be able to go out on Devil’s night. Jeff would razz Johnny, “you’re mommy and daddy won’t let you!” Johnny would insist on betting five dollars that they would, then quickly withdraw the offer. I wasn’t sure if my parents would let me go or not. I just assumed I’d walk out the door after dinner with a bar of soap and two rolls of toilet paper under my coat, hop the back fence, and blend into the dusky darkness.

That’s what I did. And as I did, my mom just gave me one of those looks that all at once said, ok, be careful, behave yourself.

After meeting Johnny in the little traffic island right in front of his house, we cut through Schwartz’s yard and headed to the “staging area” – the field. Jeff was there along with a few other guys (I don’t think any girls went out on Devil’s Night). After standing around wondering what to do next, we spotted Johnny Mason walking toward us from Michigan Avenue carrying two large grocery bags. Johnny was Charley Mason’s younger brother. Just to recap, Charley leaned psycho, Johnny leaned socio. Johnny was the kind of guy who’d play like a puppy one minute, then snap like a cat the next. I recall one day him sitting in front of me in junior high math class. He had tied several short pieces of black string together so that each of the residual tied ends stuck out about an inch. Turning to me, and while holding the entire two foot long string tautly with both hands, he cackled in a creepy witch-like voice, “Nice fresh barbedwire!”

So anyway, Johnny Mason walks up to us with these two large bags, sets them down on the dirt, starts pulling stuff out, and in a sing-song voice says, “Here’s one for you, and one for you, and one for….” They were cartons of eggs.

This next bit I’m still a bit ashamed about. After passing out what must have been a dozen cartons of eggs, Johnny Mason says, “now gentlemen, on to Nearman’s!” Recapping once again, Beth Nearman was a smart, friendly, precocious girl who, for reasons known only to the gods of cruel little boys, was frequently targeted. Alas, amidst the boy mob electric night excitement, we all agreed and followed.

It’s one thing to soap a few car windows and TP an occasional house. But when we got to Beth’s house it was like a junior version of one of those movie scenes where the crowd surrounds the jailhouse. Instead of torches and rope, we had eggs and Charmin. I threw several eggs at Nearman’s roof. I think Johnny Kotlarczyk, perhaps struck by the total wrongness of it all, decided not to throw any. I threw a roll of toilet paper. If done properly, it unrolls and “tents” the roof. My first effort failed, then someone showed me how to do it correctly, and the next one sailed over the house. Police cars were spotted in the distance. Dropping the rest of our eggs, Kotlarczyk and I ran two blocks back to his house. Standing beneath the crabapple trees that grew on the small traffic island, we caught our breath.

Down the street we could see what strikes me now as dozens of guys moving hither and yon. We heard the sounds and smelled the smoke of cherry bombs in the distance. For a 12 year old Roger, it was all hell breaking loose – and yet he was drawn to it.

But I snapped out of it as two things happened. First, Jeff Biggers comes running up and in his typical deadpan style says, “uh… [Charley] Mason and Yeagley are out with BB guns.” Jesus. The psycho and the punk, together, like an embryonic version of In Cold Blood’s Perry and Dick. Next, as I fathomed this bit of info, a police car rolled slowly past the traffic island. Under the streetlight, with his window down, the cop gave us a look much different than the one my mom had given me when I’d slipped out the back door. It was time to flee.

So I hear you ask, "How can this kind of activity have any kind of value whatsoever?" All I can say is that it was real life youth drama, the sort from which kids develop experience, independence, and a sense of moral agency. We learned how bad we could be and why it's usually better to be good. Yet, soaking in a nightful of risky freedom and figuring out for ourselves what to do with it, we felt the power and joy of disobedience. Where today can young people gather this knowledge?

Coming Soon: Mr. Kodyk and some Oxford summarizing.