Chapter 25: Tricks and Treats

I was indeed paroled. I had a certain amount of my freedom back, but I had to call my parents and let them know where I was and what I was doing at all times. It was a pain, but it was better than it had been.

The next Monday, the Metro Times carried an even bigger story about our game, even though we had lost. I was embarrassed to read that I was being touted as "the defensive specialist who is also a scoring threat", after my assist in the first half.

I didn't want all the attention I was starting to get. Hell, I was only fifteen years old. I wanted to just go out and have fun playing the game.

By the end of October, the Rockton game was our only loss. We would be seeded first in the conference playoffs, and Rockton was seeded second. We might have a chance to play them again for the conference finals, with luck.

I still wasn't allowed to go out and hang out with just Molly, and we weren't able to wangle any time alone. Molly was complaining more and more about being unable to scratch her itch. I was beginning to think of her as being much more sexually driven than any other kids I knew, which was saying a lot. I was worried that the boyfriend- girlfriend relationship was suffering because of our inability to have any intimate time together. Besides that, I was getting pretty horny too, and her complaints didn't help much.

Around two weeks before the end of October, Molly and Tessa decided they would have a costume party at Molly's house on the Saturday before Halloween. I asked my parents if I could go. They called up Molly's parents to find out if the O'Tooles or the Navarrones were going to be there to chaperone. Since both sets of parents were planning on being at the house during the party, my parents reluctantly agreed to let me go. Now, I had to come up with a good costume.

In the end, laziness won out over creativity. My dad had a cowboy outfit, complete with holster and cap gun, tucked away in a closet. I pulled it out and tried it on. It fit well enough, and with a cheap felt cowboy hat that I found scrunched up and stuck in a corner of the closet, I was set for the party.

I got over to Molly's early to help the girls get the basement decorated. The Navarrones and the O'Tooles were all there, except for Heather, busy getting sodas packed in ice, black lights hung up, streamers and fake spider webs strung. Mr. and Mrs. O'Toole were creating a mini haunted house in the laundry room, with a mannequin's head painted to look like it had been decapitated from a body, a bowl of peeled grapes for eyeballs, and rubber bats and spiders hanging all around. Lisbeth, Josh, and Tessa were hanging streamers from walls and ceilings. I helped Mr. Navarrone get the drinks and ice set up, along with paper cups, napkins, and garbage baskets placed in the corners of the large room. Molly was in the kitchen getting snacks ready, chips and popcorn and nuts in big bowls. Later on, they would be ordering pizzas to be delivered for everybody.

We were just putting the last of the decorations up when kids started showing up for the party. Mostly ninth and tenth graders were invited, but these things had a way of expanding sometimes. Josh and Molly ran upstairs to their rooms to change into their costumes and came down just as the doorbell started to ring. Josh was a monk of some sort, wearing a hooded robe with a rope for a belt, his bare feet in sandals. Molly was a hippie girl, complete with a huge afro- style wig and rose-colored glasses. They greeted kids at the door as they came up.

The first to arrive were Jen and Sam, dressed like the American Gothic farmer and wife. They were both thin and tall, so it was a natural for them. Sam wore bib overalls and carried a pitchfork, and Jen had on a gingham dress that buttoned to her throat, her hair pulled back tight on her head. Toby, nearly the smallest kid in school, came in a Superman costume, complete with cape, which made us all laugh (which was, after all, the point for Toby). Eric was a priest, Keisha a nun. Jorge took the easy way out and came in his soccer uniform, but Kristina went all out, dressing up as Catwoman, just like Eartha Kitt. Jake was a pirate, with a hook for a hand and a stuffed parrot glued to his shoulder. Jake was still barred from seeing Jaimie, so Kayla came with him, looking absolutely amazing as Jeannie the Genie, complete with billowy balloon pants with elastic at the waist and ankles, a pink halter top, and a little cap with a wispy veil that fell behind her head.

All in all, there were about thirty kids at the party, more girls than boys. We had the music playing loud and there was a strobe light pulsing in a corner of the room. Some kids were dancing occasionally, mostly just standing in one place and jerking around. Some kids brought their disco moves with them and were working it out. Most of the lights were out, with just the strobe on one end and the black lights on the other, but either Molly's parents or Tessa's parents were circulating almost constantly, coming down from the kitchen with plates of snacks and chips, refilling the ice chest, checking on drinks, emptying filling trash containers, and keeping a sharp eye on the proceedings.

Mr. O'Toole stationed himself in the haunted house, where all the lights were off. He took great pleasure in guiding each kid around and through the spider webs, to the bowl of peeled eyes, and then to the severed head, where he switched on a spotlight to illuminate it in all its gruesome glory. Each time he did that, he got a very satisfying scream from every girl, and a few of the guys even jumped back at the sudden sight of it. I could tell he was very pleased with himself. After all the partygoers had gone through the room, he closed the door and went upstairs to join the other adults, leaving just the spotlight on the head as a deterrent to mischief.

After a couple of hours, it was apparent to the adults that we were reasonably well behaved. We had not brought any alcohol or drugs, and we were having a good time despite their presence. Our good behavior lulled them into coming down less and less to check on us. Molly and Tessa were still making occasional trips up to the kitchen for more snacks or sodas, so there was little reason for the parents to come down anymore. Besides, we were making enough noise. How much trouble could we get into?

Somebody suggested a variation on the old spin-the-bottle game. Since it was a big basement, there were two doors leading to the utility area, one by the furnace and one in the laundry area. After some negotiation, it was decided that all the boys would sit in a circle by the laundry room door. All the girls would be at the other end of the large room, sitting on the floor by the furnace door. There was a soda bottle in the middle of each circle. It was decided that there would be two spins of each bottle. The first spin would determine who would meet at the laundry room end, where the haunted house had been set up. The second spin would determine who would meet at the furnace end, where there was virtually no light at all.

There was a lot of squealing and giggling going on from the girls' end of the room as we guys gathered around in our circle, laughing and joking about who would end up with whom. When Molly gave the go- ahead, I grabbed our bottle and gave it a spin at the same time Tessa twirled the bottle by the girls. We weren't supposed to let the other circle know who was going to each area. Everybody wanted it to be a surprise.

The bottle ended up pointing at Toby first. He got up and went in the door to await his partner. I spun the bottle a second time, and it ended up pointing at Eric. He went through the door at our end and headed toward the furnace side. We could hear more giggles and low talk coming from the other end of the room. The agreed-upon time was the length of the next full song on the album playing on the record player, which was loud enough to be heard anywhere in the basement (and probably the whole house). The rest of us spent the time refilling glasses and grabbing another piece of pizza while we waited for the song to end.