The Librarianist

The seniors were asked to sit side by side in chairs set up in a long row in the center of the Great Room. Each had been supplied with a bag of candy to dole out to the children, who stood in a line and approached the seated seniors one after another, saying “Trick or treat,” and holding out their plastic jack-o’-lanterns. There was very little discourse. The children were frightened by the seniors, the seniors indignant at the fear of the children. Maria stood by anxiously. “Feel free to take time and get to know one another,” she instructed. Linus and Bob and Jill sat together in the middle of the pack. A boy in a colorful plastic costume was standing before Linus. There was a shallowness to his gaze which presented him as one unburdened by intelligence.

“What kind of living nightmare are you supposed to be?” Linus asked.

“Pokémon.”

“What?”

“Pokémon.” He pointed at the rolled-up paper in Linus’s hand and asked, “What’s that?”

“Yes,” Linus said, “you’ll probably never see one of these again. It’s called a diploma. Which is a certificate marking one’s graduation. Because I shall soon matriculate right out of this mortal coil.”

Another child approached, and he wore no costume, just his street clothes, which were not very clean. He looked tired. In a croaking voice, he said, “Trick or treat.”

“Where’s your costume?” asked Linus.

“Don’t have one.”

“Why not?”

“Because my mom ran away with my uncle.”

Linus made a face of impressiveness at Bob. He told the costumeless boy, “That’s unique, if nothing else. And it’s due to that uniqueness that I’m going to give you two candies instead of one.” Linus bowed his head to fish out the candies from his sack. The boy, sensing a potential weakness, asked calmly, “Can I get more than two?”

“Don’t let’s ruin the moment, kid,” Linus said. He dropped the two candies in the jack-o’-lantern and waved the boy on. The boy moved to stand before Bob. “What are you?” he asked.

“Dracula.”

“You suck blood?”

“Sometimes.”

“You going to suck my blood?”

“It depends,” said Bob. “It depends on how I’m feeling.”

The boy stepped down the line to meet Jill.

“Trick or treat,” he said.

“Can you tell what I am?” she asked. “I’m a cat.”

“Trick or treat,” said the costumeless boy.

After the candy was distributed, the children went away into a huddle to discuss and trade and ingest their bounty. Only the costumeless boy lingered; he and Linus had made friends. At one point he asked, “Can I touch your mask?” and Linus said that he could. The boy’s hand was small and fine in contrast to the broad pitted redness of Linus’s immense head. The hand reached up and gently touched Linus’s cheek — the boy gasped and yanked his hand back. He looked confused, amused, frightened. “Go on, kid,” said Linus, “give it a good pull.” The boy again reached up, and now took hold of the flesh of Linus’s cheek and twisted it around. “That’s your face!” the costumeless boy said. He told the other children, “That’s really his face!” Bob winced for Linus, but Linus found it hilarious, and he roared with laughter, and the children all were awestruck. From this point in time and until they left the center, they all watched Linus closely, marveling at his every word and action. He was a potentially magical monster, and they couldn’t get enough of him. Linus wore the adulation naturally: he came alive and made everything into a comedic performance. At one point he pretended to swallow a pencil. “Oh no! I swallowed a pencil!” he announced. Stunned silence, then Linus, patting his stomach, said, “Tastes pretty good, actually.” Shrieks of laughter from the children. And then, he kept “accidentally” knocking his own graduation cap off, six times, seven times, and each time, he’d pretend to get more and more angry, which made for more shrieks, more laughter.

The children’s candy intake had not been monitored or policed, and they now were achieving crisis-level sugar highs. A boy in a cowboy costume was wheezing raggedly and dragging his nails down the front of his face, only the whites of his eyes visible. Some children had collapsed and were rolling around on the linoleum floor. Where were the teachers, the chaperones? When it was announced the time for games had arrived the children cried out in what may have been an expression of joy but which sounded much the same as torment.