Halloween was last night. It was over, so taking the pumpkins actually seemed like a good thing. The neighbors didn’t have to spend their time getting rid of them all. I was doing it for them.
It was a Saturday and earlier that day I was messing around out near the house next door. It had been vacant for some time. I discovered the side garage door was unlocked, so I went in. I didn’t do anything but look around. The door going into the house was locked and it really did seem wrong to break it and go inside the house. But I didn’t have a problem with being in a big empty garage. It was there I came up with the idea to make a fort and have my own private place to hang out.
The power was off and it was pretty dark inside. There was only a small window on the side door going to the outside. That was how I got the idea to take the pumpkins. Most of them had candles inside and that would give me the light I needed to see at night.
After dark I went out to the back yard, which my parents didn’t think strange at all because I often went out there at night. I guess I was a pretty restless kid. I hopped the fence and ran to the nearest neighbor that had a lighted pumpkin outside in their yard. I blew out the candle, scooped up the orange squash and hurriedly took it to my new fort. I continued running and getting pumpkins for the next couple of hours. Some of them were very heavy and it was all I could do to carry them back to the garage. And many didn’t have candles at all, just a carved ugly face.
The more I gathered the more difficult it became because I had to go further and further from my fort to get them. I was tired after one hour, but I still wanted more so kept at it for another hour before stopping. I had collected a lot! There were 47 pumpkins in the garage of every size imaginable and with every kind of carved face that people could think up. I was looking forward to playing in there the next day. It was getting late so I left the dark garage and hopped back over the fence into my own backyard.
When I entered the house my parents were in the living room and barely glanced up as I passed by heading toward my room.
The next morning I was up and dressed early. After eating breakfast I stole a book of matches from the kitchen drawer when my mom wasn’t watching. Then I quickly did my chores. I am the oldest of five children, at least I am now. Back then there was just me, my sister and brother. I was the only one that had chores to do. But they weren’t difficult or time consuming, like taking out the trash. When I finished I asked my mother if I could go out and play. My father had to work so he was gone and my mother was busy with the other kids and cleaning up around the house. She said I could so I hurried out the front door and around the house to the garage next door. Our kitchen was on the other side of the house so my mother couldn’t see where I went.
The first thing I did was light all the candles that were still large enough to burn. Only about half had a good candle left in them. But it was enough to provide a decent amount of light in the dim space. Then I proceeded to arrange them around the room. The light from the carved faces was a little eerie to tell the truth but I figured I would get used to it. One big pumpkin, in particular, looked very scary and I hoped it didn’t give me nightmares that night. I almost blew the candle out inside it, but then I kept telling myself I wasn’t a big baby. I refused to give in to the fear that had begun to overtake me. But it sure was hard to stop looking at it. I felt my eyes being drawn toward that evil face time and time again throughout the morning. It was like an evil magnet!
It seemed all too soon the morning was over and it was time for lunch. Mom always made some sandwiches for the three of us and I was hungry. Many of the candles had burned down completely and it was a lot darker in the garage. I blew out the rest before I left so they wouldn’t be wasted while I was gone.
While eating my lunch I remembered the birthday candles my mom kept in the kitchen drawer near the matches. When she went into the other room I quickly opened the drawer and stuffed a box of them in my pocket. They weren’t very big and I knew they wouldn’t last very long, but they were better than nothing. Then I got the bad news. Mom had to go the grocery store and she was taking us with her. She would never leave me home alone, even though I thought I was more than old enough to stay by myself. That meant I wouldn’t get to go back out to my fort until after dark that night. After the store, my dad would be home and probably would be outside himself later in the afternoon. And I sure didn’t want him to find out about the fort. He would undoubtedly kill me!
Sure enough, after getting back from the store we pulled into the driveway and my dad was home, out mowing the lawn. I sulked around the house for the rest of the afternoon. I hurried through dinner and when it was dark went out into the back yard as I usually did. Once inside the garage I lit one of the candles already in one of the pumpkins so I could see a little. Then I went around and put one of the birthday candles I had taken from the kitchen in all the other pumpkins without one. I lit them all and there was a much stronger light in the garage than there had been that morning. The evil pumpkin still scared me a little but after being in the fort all morning I had pretty much trained myself not to look directly at it anymore. Five minutes hadn’t gone by and I heard a noise at the door.
“What are you doing in here?” my dad yelled at me. “Where did you get…put those candles out and get to your room, NOW! Don’t you know you could burn this house down and ours too?”
My butt was sore for several days after that. On top of it, Monday being a holiday, my dad made me go around the neighborhood and tell everyone I was the one who stole their pumpkins. And, of course, I had to clean up the mess in the garage. Boy was my dad mad! Apparently he had been looking out his bedroom window and saw me sneak in the garage door. I was also told I had to stay in my own yard until I was 18 years old! I don’t know if really meant that one since first thing Monday morning he sent me out of the yard to all the neighbor’s houses.
Author’s note: ‘Pumpkins’ is based on a true story. When the author was 7 or 8 years old he took all the old Christmas trees that had been placed out along the street for trash pickup and took them inside the garage of the vacant house next to his. He had to crawl under all the branches to get to the fort he built in the middle of his handmade forest. It was many days before his father saw him sneak into the garage. He did get in big trouble and his father was a little worried about fire. Most of the pine needles had fallen off or were so dry they were ready to. But during the time he was yelling, he was having a difficult time keeping the smile off his face. True story!
About the Author
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Don is a Vietnam Veteran. Just recently he spent several months in Vietnam working on his war memoirs - The Boy Died In Vietnam. He has written several novels and numerous short stories. His two favorite topics are love and life after death. Visit his website and blog at the links below. Please post a review - your comments are always appreciated!
Website - https://www.donbick.com/
Blog - https://www.donbick.com/wordpress/?
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