A Tricky Situation

by Michael Aaron Rockland   
Posted December 20, 2007

“Trick or treat?” It used to be a serious question, with consequences for those who chose the former. Where have the good old days gone?

When kids come to my door on Halloween and say,“Trick or treat!” I always say, “Trick.” They look at me, baffled. They don’t have any tricks. They may as well shout, “Gimme the candy!” Finally, I just hand it over.

When I was a kid in the Bronx in the 1950s, the trick was as important as the treat. My friends and I would go door to door in the big apartment buildings with an arsenal of tricks at the ready. People who were apologetic about not having any treats for us got only a spritz of seltzer in the face from the siphon we carried. People who didn’t apologize got hit over the head with socks full of  flour, looking like ghosts when we finished with them.

People who gave us no treats and were nasty about it got the full treatment: After they slammed their doors, we tied a rope to their doorknob, attached it to another doorknob across the hall, pulling the rope tight, then began ringing the bell and knocking loudly. We could hear them yelling, trying to open the door as we ran away as fast as we could, laughing all the way.

Halloween in the suburbs is a different animal, of course: Kids go house to house—most accompanied by parents—skipping homes that are dark and undecorated. And to all you parents, you’re doing your kids an injustice. I truly believe that I didn’t grow up to be a gangster or a maniac because I got a lot of mischief out of my system when I was young. I also learned an important lesson: Only half of life is treats. The other half is tricks—or worse.

The night before Halloween, known as Mischief Night, was in its heyday not long ago. The police largely squelched it by coming out in force, denying opportunities for even mildly antisocial acts such as throwing toilet paper rolls over tree limbs or egging cars. But even at its peak, Mischief Night was lame, because it separated the trick from the treat. Now, of course, Halloween is all treat.

A little mischief is good for kids. That’s what I told a neighbor of mine last year a week before the holiday. He didn’t seem to think much of the idea, but on Halloween I learned otherwise. His four-year-old, Sarah, showed up at our door in all her splendor. Beaming in her cute princess gown and rhinestone tiara, she rang the bell. “Trick or treat?” she asked merrily.

“Trick,” I replied.

There was a brief pause, then Sarah got a fierce, determined look in her eye. Balling up her fist, she hit me right in the… Never mind where she hit me. My neighbor, who was standing at the bottom of my front steps, laughed and asked, “Happy now?”

“Not exactly,” I replied, but I gave Sarah two bags of M&M’s instead of just one. She’d earned them.