Bitter Candy

This Means War
Being the new kid on the block, Ricky wanted so badly to be liked by the neighborhood kids, so he paid no heed to their snickering when they told him to fetch the kickball that had bounced over a neighbor's fence. He hadn't yet heard any of the stories of the creepy old man that had been traumatizing children for decades. He hopped the fence, spotted the ball, and rushed over to grab it. With his task half completed he triumphantly headed back towards his new friends.

That was when a tall, willowy wisp of a man came around the side of the house with a garden hose. They stood there staring at one another like some standoff in an old western. In this scenario, Ricky was the young, still wet behind the ears cowpoke twirling his pistols around like they were toys. The elderly man was the wizened old sheriff that wouldn't hesitate to shoot down anybody that thought they could waltz into his town and cause a ruckus.

Before the boy could pull his pistols, so to speak, the old man squeezed the trigger and blasted him in the crotch. He laughed wildly and blasted him in the face for good measure as Ricky reached for his tender little genitals. The damp little boy just stood there in shock with water dripping from his face and shorts. The old man dropped the hose and gave Ricky an annoyed look before leaning forward and uttering a quiet, raspy-voiced, "Boo."

Ricky booked it for the fence and frantically scrambled over. He landed on the other side and ran as fast as he could. A moment later the kickball he had forgotten in his panic to escape bounced off the back of his head. He spun around to see the creepy old man towering over the fence. The crooked grin on his wrinkled old face told Ricky that he wasn't done with him yet. Then, he yelled the line that made the boy's life a living hell for the next few weeks. "Hey, you brats, stop pissing your pants in my yard."

The kids called him Trickle Rickle after that. For the next month, the little boy wrestled for control of his emotions. The neighborhood kids were brutal with their name-calling, but the mean old man down the street affected him ten-fold simply by sitting on his porch day in and day out, glaring out into the neighborhood. Every time Ricky pedaled past the wicked old man's house that grit worn face would turn toward him and stare with eyes like two burning coals.

The solution to both of his problems came to him one day while he was blowing up balloons for his sister's birthday party. That Sunday he gathered all the kids of the neighborhood together. Amongst all the snickering and whispered utterances of Trickle Rickle he handed out water balloons. Like a scene from "Braveheart" he admonished their enemy and called them all to arms with the rallying cry, "Mr. Withers must die!"

The old man nearly swallowed his Black and Mild cigar when more than a dozen kids rushed his yard and began slinging water grenades at him. He stood up in protest, but that only made him an easier target. He angrily swung his cane and shouted profanities until he was completely soaked from head to foot except for a little area on the small of his back that somehow managed to stay dry. The barrage finally ended and the kids scattered with yips of laughter echoing throughout the neighborhood.

Ricky hid in a bush across the street and watched the whole battle unfold. With a few dollars from his piggy bank and a bike ride to the store, he had engineered the first step in his campaign to end Mr. Withers' reign of terror. He thought for sure the old grump would tuck his tail between his legs and stagger inside, but the stubborn old coot just sat back down, lit another cigar, and acted as if nothing had happened.

Nobody called him Trickle Rickle after that. Many more maneuvers were planned and executed on May Street that Summer with Ricky directing them all. Mrs. Talmage, who unfortunately lived next door to the old man was baffled as to how the neighborhood kids managed to afford the dozens of plastic pink flamingo lawn ornaments they decorated his yard with, but it was definitely her favorite prank of the Summer. Covering his front porch with plastic wrap and filling the make-shift pen with toads was a thing of genius that gave the mailman the chuckles for a week.

Many of the residents secretly enjoyed the perfectly harmless and inventive pranks that plagued the neighborhood grump. Eventually, the parents of the neighborhood stepped in and called a cease-fire, but they certainly took their time doing so. Some of them had suffered at the hands of Mr. Withers when they were kids as well. That's right, the bitter old man had spent decades honing his special brand of mean.

Punishments were dished out and every child involved was ushered up Mr. Withers' front steps and made to apologize. It physically hurt Ricky deep in his guts to apologize. What bothered him the most was that the old fogey didn't even remember him. He was just one of many faceless kids the guy had harassed over the years. The old grump sat there soaking it all up with a look of superiority stamped on his face. The lesson Ricky learned that day wasn't the intended one. From that point on he plotted and acted alone, except on Halloween.

A few dog turds strategically placed by his mailbox never gave the old man a whiff of any impropriety on the part of any neighborhood kids. A pale of salt water periodically dumped in his garden in the middle of the night only made him scratch his head in frustration with that year's wimpy squash yield. The number nine on the front of his house that kept falling off and altering his address was just one of many little nuisances that had cropped up since he unknowingly made an enemy of the little boy down the street.

Mr. Withers' actual name was Gerald P. Kramer, but the name kids had given him too long ago to remember fit him like a glove. His thin, withering white hair waved in the breeze looking as if it would pull free from his scalp at any moment and go in search of all the strands that had escaped years before. Plenty of elderly people go all to fat, but not Mr. Withers. He was tall as a lamppost and just as skinny. He seemed to sway on his feet like a tall blade of grass when he'd venture to his mailbox. Ricky had wished many times throughout his childhood that the mean old man would just blow away on a heavy wind and leave the kids of the neighborhood to play in peace.

Some kid who had grown up and moved away many years ago started the myth that Mr. Withers' hair was alive and it wriggled and writhed even when there wasn't a breeze. I'm sure you can imagine how a freaky detail like that could take on a life of its own amongst children who still feared monsters under their beds and behind closet doors. Typical stories of him being a vampire or even a werewolf ran rampant amongst the less imaginative children. Some said he was a wraith that wouldn't let go of this world; he certainly looked like one. Others believed he escaped from an insane asylum because he could no longer ignore his insatiable hunger for the misery of innocent children.

Ricky could never confirm anything supernatural or criminal about the old man. He just saw him as a mean old grump that deserved whatever bad things came his way. He was too young to understand that karma and revenge weren't synonyms for one another. The mischievous boy was well aware of how cruel some kids could be, but he had never witnessed outright cruelty from an adult until he met Mr. Withers. It was something that everyone learns eventually. Ricky might have learned that lesson a little too soon for his fragile young mind to handle. The angry little boy was playing with fire, fostering a bitterness that would eventually consume him if he didn't find a way to douse it.

Those Damn Kids
Gerald P. Kramer had been living in the neighborhood for nearly sixty years. His wife had only lasted eighteen. Every morning he would step into the bathroom to get ready for the day and memories of his wife would visit him. Ruth had known what kind of man Gerald was when she married him, but she truly believed she could change him. He really hadn't been a bad husband. He doted on her and gave her everything she'd ever wanted except for one thing. Eventually she gave up trying to convince him that adoption was a perfectly viable option for couples like them.

Over the years she grew less and less interested in day to day affairs like cooking, cleaning, and even basic hygiene. Her, "Laziness," as he called it sparked many arguments, but he never laid a hand on her. She eventually did that herself. Ruth's exit via the bathtub came one day while Gerald was out of town on business. Images of the scene he came home to that horrible day almost forty years ago greeted him on mornings when his guard was lowered. On those rare occasions he'd sit on the edge of the bathtub, looking into it, and sob like he'd done on that awful day all those many years ago.

On those days he couldn't bring himself to step foot into the tub. Disheveled and feeling lost, he'd eventually make his way onto the front porch where he spent most of his time smoking and making snide judgments, mostly to himself, on the microcosm that was suburban life. Those were the days he was most likely to rail against, in his words, "The spoiled, snot-nosed brats that littered the neighborhood like little bits of garbage." His seething rants on those days created the latticework for the myth of the decrepit monster of a man all the children called Mr. Withers.

Halloween was coming soon, and he couldn't wait for it to pass. He hated the holiday with a passion even before, as he put it, "Those snot-nosed delinquents in this rundown neighborhood started defacing my property." He'd put an end to that last year and he didn't figure any of them would be brazen enough to try it again. Still, he'd be standing sentinel on his porch that night primed to swing his cane at any kid stupid enough to step foot on his porch with a bag of dog shit and a lighter.

He stood up swinging his cane at nothing in particular and yelled into the neighborhood, "You rotten little punks better stay clear this year if you know what's good for you." No one appeared to be out in the neighborhood at that moment, but it didn't matter to Gerald. He knew that little brat that instigated the pumpkin tossing two years ago was within earshot somewhere nearby. He was the only kid that didn't cross to the far side of the street to pass his house. Sometimes he would even park his bike on the sidewalk and glare up at him.

He was wise to that one and his antics. He spotted him a while back dumping a soup can full of slugs in his garden and it dawned on him why his strawberries had done so poorly the year before. He didn't recognize him at the time, but now he was convinced he'd seen him before. Of course, he couldn't really be all that sure. They all looked the same to him except for Tammy Swanson whom he liked to yell, "Eat a salad" at when she passed by.

When he was a child, he respected his elders and feared them as well, but all he seemed to elicit in children was fear. That was fine by him. He supposed fear was a kind of respect. He was convinced kids these days didn't know what the word respect meant anyways. They needed a healthy bit of fear drummed into them now and again to keep them in their place. Even though he felt it really was the parents' fault their kids were such little jerks, he stuck to the strategy he'd always used, terrorizing their children.

"Idiot kids nearly burned my house down with all those damn orange projectiles; useless vegetable, the pumpkin. You'd think they would have thought to put out the candles in them before they went tossing them into my bushes. It's a sad world we live in when parents are too busy trying to be best buddies instead of teaching their kids proper behavior. Seen and not heard was the rule in my day." His thoughts went on like that with a word or two occasionally blurted out loud until he went inside to try and take a shit.

Ricky poked his head around the corner of the house, counted to ten, and then quietly slipped onto the porch. He tossed Gerald's cigars into the bushes, dumped his drink, scattered a few cat hairs on the table, and then stole away as quietly as he'd come. 'The strategy of a thousand annoyances' as he called it was his favorite pastime and what he loved most about it was the old fart didn't have a clue all those little accidents over the years weren't anything of the sort.

Tricking Mr. Withers
Ricky's favorite month of the year was in full swing, and he had been wracking his brain for the penultimate trick to top off his final year of trick-or-treating. Mr. Withers was going to get it one more time, and he was going to get it good if Ricky had anything to do about it. He nearly bubbled over with excitement every time an idea came to mind, but nothing yet seemed right. He was going to hit Mr. Get Away From My Lawn's house so hard, the neighborhood would still be talking about it when he set off for college in five years. It didn't even matter to Ricky if his parents grounded him until then. He was dead set on it, and nothing was going to stop him.

Last October the grumpy old man had gotten a reprieve because Paul Clark had forgotten to extinguish the candle in his jack-o'-lantern the year before. Ricky shamed Paul at school the next day for screwing up his trick and sent him to eat lunch alone for the rest of the week. The next year he reminded Paul of his screw up and made him sit elsewhere for the entire month of October.

One day while Ricky was pulling a rusty nail out of an old 2 x 4 to hammer into one of Mr. Withers' car tires, the perfect trick just popped into his head. Actually, it was two tricks. While he enacted the prank at hand, he thought through the details of his ultimate Halloween trick. It involved a maneuver he'd learned about in history class called a feint.

Halloween was fast approaching, and he needed everyone on board if his plan was going to work, so he forgave Paul for his past mistake. The kid had been punished enough, and Ricky figured letting him out of the dog house would make him more amenable to a special task he had for him. There was no way Ricky was going to let Old Man Withers off the hook this year; no way in hell.

Tricking Little Ricky
Gerald would have bought a DIY surveillance system years ago if he had known they'd become so inexpensive. It paid for itself just two days after he installed it. The footage of Ricky sneaking into his home through the back door while he sat on the front porch set him to boiling. He could barely keep from rushing down the street and confronting the boy with the proof of his crime, but he held himself in check as he scrutinized every second of the eye-opening video.

Gerald watched the footage of the kid slinking through his kitchen, poking pinholes in various packages of food. He now knew why his bread always got stale so quickly and why freezer burn was so prevalent amongst his steaks and burger patties. Witnessing the kid shake what appeared to be an empty jar over his basket of fruits and vegetables suddenly solved the fruit fly mystery he'd been scratching his head about for so long. The old man paced back and forth in front of the monitor, growing angrier and angrier as every little inconvenience in his life was proven to be the work of a mischievous brat that was just entering the beginning stages of puberty.

He decided to wait until he caught him on camera enacting his plan. He figured the kid would strike on Halloween. Then he'd take the damning evidence over to the police station the next morning and put an end to the delinquent's tricks once and for all. He rushed out of the house to buy more cameras, so he could cover every room. Ricky had gotten sloppy a couple weeks back leaving a handprint on the back door window that Gerald noticed was too small to be his own and that's how easily you can lose the upper hand.

First, the Trick
Disney princesses, pirates, zombies, vampires, goblins, space aliens, and all sorts of other colorfully attired characters danced through the neighborhood. Ricky was the exception in his no-frills ghost costume. He had cut a slit in the back so he could easily slip the top down to show everyone that he was also on the hunt for candy. Once he had made his presence known and gathered enough candy to complete his alibi, he quietly slipped into the woods to meet up with Paul.

Just as Ricky had predicted, Paul was willing to skip the first hour or so of candy gathering if it redeemed him in the eyes of his friend. Being shunned last October had seriously injured his self-esteem to the point that he would have done just about anything to get back in the good graces of his group of friends. He didn't go trick-or-treating last year, because no one wanted him around, so he wouldn't be missed this year. He quickly donned Ricky's white sheet, repeated his instructions, and rushed off to trick-or-treat in his friend's stead.

Ricky, dressed all in black, rushed off to scope out the old man's house and wait for 'the signal'. It had taken a lot of painstaking effort to find the five well-hidden beauties that were going to do most of his work for him. Their globular, black, and red abdomens reflected in Ricky's eyes as he inspected them one by one in their glass prison. He made sure the lid was tightly closed and then slipped the jar back into his backpack.

He quietly came up from the backyard, snuck along the side of the house, and peeked around the corner. The old man was sitting on his porch in the dark like a trapdoor spider waiting for some unsuspecting prey to come near its entrance. The tip of his cigar came to life for one fiery second, illuminating the permanent scowl on his face, and then faded. He exhaled a cloud of smoke as he stared out at all the children going door to door while their parents followed along on the sidewalks at their own pace.

A flicker of movement in the corner of the old man's eye brought a wicked smile to his face as Ricky slipped out of sight and headed towards the back door. He tightly clenched his cane in both hands and considered going inside to catch him in the act, but decided to stick to his plan. As far as he was concerned, the 'movie' he was making exposed the whole neighborhood and made a great argument for doing away with all the new age idiocies in favor of a more traditional style of living. He figured it was worth missing out on cracking the kid's head open with the metal tip of his walking stick.

It actually pleased the old man to have just one target to focus all of his ire on. He could strike at everyone and everything he despised with a short trip to the police station. He was convinced that the kid was responsible for every little aggravation he'd endured the last few years. Actually, his feeble, bitter, and irrational old mind blamed Ricky for every bad thing that had ever happened to him. That really wasn't anything new, though. Mr. Kramer's view was that children had been there at every point in his life to frustrate, antagonize, and shame him. He now had what he hoped was a way to quell all the unquiet ghosts in his head.

A loud crack sounded off the side of his house. Gerald posted off his cane and rose to his feet as an egg exploded against the porch railing and scattered bits of yoke and shell all over his pants. The old man reached down deep into himself and pulled forth a strength none of the hoodlums expected. He rushed to the steps, shouting every nasty epithet he knew, and bounded down them much quicker than anyone expected, effectively crippling their assault and sending kids fleeing in every direction.

Ricky had told them they'd have nearly a minute for their strike from the sidewalk because it took a little over two minutes for the feeble old man to get to and from his mailbox. He hadn't taken into account what an adrenaline-fueled rage could accomplish even in a 'feeble' old man. The kid that was supposed to climb the side rail of the porch and lock the front door, chickened out and ran. Ricky's assault plan was floundering. He was so sure it would go off without a hitch that he hadn't accounted for a shorter amount of time to accomplish his secret task inside.

Looking ten times more frightening than Tammy Swanson had ever seen him look before, The enraged Mr. Withers was on her before she could do more than turn to run. His cane took her behind the knee and then quickly cracked her across the ass as she toppled to her knees. He raised his cane up as high as he could to bring it down on her ass again, but his left buckled underneath him. He managed to stay upright, but the chubby preteen had crawled to the sidewalk and gotten to her feet by the time he steadied himself.

She crouched there tangled in her mummy bandages looking as pathetic as a cow caught in a barbwire fence. Wiping tears from her eyes, she looked at the tip of his cane as he brought it down on one of her bandages that lay at his feet. He relinquished the bit of her costume just as she grabbed it and yanked as hard as she could. She went head over heels backward and toppled onto the tree lawn.

Mr. Withers covered the distance between them as she rose to her hands and knees and came to a stop before her. She began to ball her eyes out as his shadow completely engulfed her shivering form. Later she would convince herself it was just her imagination messing with her head, but at that moment his shadow cast over her seemed darker than her room at bedtime. She had given up all pretense of getting away. The old man snorted like a pig and delivered a line she would repeat to her shrink years later, "Back to your wallow, little piggy."

He continued to snort and squeal as he turned and hobbled back to his porch, leaning heavily on his cane. All the rage-fueled strength had drained out of him and he was just an old man again. By the time he flopped heavily into his chair, Tammy was nowhere to be seen and the streets were empty. He laughed aloud at the realization that it was him that had sent kids and adults alike scurrying off to some quieter part of the neighborhood. Only Mr. Withers could openly beat a child and get off without further altercation. He rested his head against the back of his chair and muttered, "It's good to be king."

He lit a cigar and gave it a few puffs to get it burning brightly. Just then a scream and the sound of shattering glass came from inside the house.

Then, the Treat
Ricky slipped out of his hiding place and headed for the back door as soon as he heard the first egg burst against the house. He was inside a few seconds later slowly creeping towards the hallway that led to the bedrooms. He had wondered before why the old man slept in the smaller of the two rooms, but right now all he had on his mind was the task at hand. He silently crept forward, guided only by the moonlight that shined from Mr. Withers bedroom on the far side of the house.

He stopped at the hall entrance to listen for the commotion outside, but the only noise he could hear confused him. "Squealing?" he muttered to himself. The hallway seemed much longer and narrower in the dark. The boy gulped involuntarily, clutched tightly at the shoulder straps on his backpack, and then slipped further into the darkness of the musty smelling old house.

The silvery light at the end of the hall beckoned him forward. He began to worry the assault on the front yard hadn't gone as planned, so he took a deep breath and quickened his pace. He reached the bedroom and rushed in, banging his knee on the dresser along the wall. Pain shot down his leg and stilled the panic rising in him. He took another deep breath and then tiptoed to the bed.

He pulled back the blankets, swung his backpack onto the floor, and pulled out a glass container. Shaking everything to the bottom of the jar, he unscrewed the lid, and carefully dumped the contents onto the bed. Four shiny black specks about the size of Tic Tacs crawled across the moonlight covered bed sheet. Ricky did a double take, stared into the empty jar, and then let out a loud yelp. He slapped the tiny biter away, dropping the jar in his panic, and clutched at his arm. It was only in his mind at this point, but he swore he could feel his arm throbbing and swelling.

Unbeknownst to the poisoned boy, the spider was on his finger, clinging tightly as her kind are wont to do. She sank her venomous fangs into his flesh once again. His voice cracked as he screamed out even louder than before. Ricky felt three more pinprick sensations on his hand and wrist as he danced spasmodically around the room before the spider dropped to the floor and disappeared beneath the dresser. The frightened boy instantly understood the parables he'd heard all his life that warned against seeking revenge.



The fear of the poison rushing through his bloodstream was instantly replaced by a dread he was reluctant to admit he'd felt every day of his life since he first climbed Mr. Withers' fence all those years ago. He slowly turned to the doorway and there stood his greatest enemy. Ricky burst into tears and began to blubber incoherently at the tired old man. He professed between sobs that he was sorry for everything that he'd ever done to him and promised to make it up to him if he'd only drive him to the hospital.

Mr. Withers just lifted his cane and poked Ricky hard in the chest. The boy stumbled backward a few feet and was met with another poke that pushed him back further. Suddenly he no longer had the moon to see by. Then the closet door slammed into him and he fell to the floor. He leaped to his feet and began to bang on the door when instead he should have reached for the doorknob. That realization came too late to do him any good. Mr. Withers slid a chair against the door and snugged it under the doorknob.

"I've got you now, you little turd. Every step you took in my home has been caught on camera. Be sure to put my name on the visitor's list, so I can visit you in juvie." Ricky backed away from the door and felt something small and thin bounce off his head. He heard the sound of glass crunching under Mr. Withers' feet and a few seconds later a long sliver of yellowish light showed under the door.

Instantly, he reached up and tugged on the string dangling from the ceiling. The light fixture clicked but brought forth no light. He frantically tugged on it a few more times with the same lack of results. He dropped down and pressed his face to the floor, but the door was too low to see under.

Mr. Withers saw his blankets were pulled back on his bed. That observation combined with the broken glass scattered all over the floor gave him an inkling of what he figured the boy was doing in his room. "You're quite the mischievous entomologist, aren't you? Slugs in my bed or..." He instantly recalled the flea infestation he had a couple of years ago. "Why, you little-"

Ricky heard a loud crack followed by shattering glass. "Ah, look what you made me do now! My wife loved that mirror. I guess they can add vandalism to the charges. That's it, I'm calling the police." He heard more glass crunching followed about twenty seconds later by a loud crash. He thought he felt the old hardwood floor underneath him shake slightly in concert with the loud noise.

He pressed his ear to the door and listened for any hints to what was going on in the room. He could very slightly hear what sounded like labored breathing interspersed with erratic gasps. The eerie and hope disabling sounds lasted for several minutes before the entire house went dead silent. Eventually, the silence became too much for the frightened boy. He began to drum his fingers on the floor in an effort to stave off the panic rising up in him.

Time passed yet Ricky heard not a single peep from the old man nor the sound of police sirens. He laid there on the floor and tried to ignore the awful, throbbing pain in his hand and arm. He couldn't judge how long he'd been trapped, but he figured at least two hours had passed. His shoulders and back were cramping up fiercely. He could hear his heart beating madly in his ears like when he used to see how long he could hold his breath underwater.

He woke up later to a horrible pain in his abdomen. He felt like the closet was spinning and the strong smell of cold vomit crippled his sense of smell. He weakly pulled himself to a sitting position and banged on the door. "Hello? Is there anybody out there? Is there anyone at home? Hello?" He yelled and banged on the door until both his throat and hands were sore. Eventually, he laid down to take a little nap.

The boy awoke from a dream in which a bodiless voice kept whispering in his ear, "You have to say trick or treat or else they won't give you any candy." He looked around, but the darkness surrounding him was all-encompassing. The thought of feeling his arm and hand to judge how bad the damage had gotten didn't interest him in the slightest. The incessant drumbeat echoing in his head had been replaced with a gnawing ache in his belly. He had no sense of time or whether it was day or night, but none of that really mattered to him anymore.

Call it delirium if you must, but his mind kept wandering back to Paul and the big heap of candy he must have collected.