Last Friday, October 25, at around 7 p.m., my wife Martha came down to
my basement office, where I rarely see her.
“Some people are knocking on
the front door,” she said. “Very hard.”
“Hard-knocking people cannot be
friendly,” I replied. “Relax and let them knock until they tire of it. My
brother in Belgium always rushes to his door when his bell rings (we removed
ours), and it always ends up costing him money somehow. We’re not expecting the Nobel
price and don’t play the lottery. And if by chance our neighbors think it’s
time for us to rake again the leaves on our lawn, let them come back tomorrow morning.”
Somewhat reassured, Martha
went back upstairs to her own computer. But she was down again five minutes
later.
“They keep knocking,” she said. “So it could
be important. What if it’s my cousin Juan Carlos driving by?”
“And what if they are
thieves?” I asked. “We know no one in town and the knockers can only be a
nuisance. As for Juan Carlos, he would not visit us without giving us a buzz
first. And he would call out your name. Look, there is no law forcing us to
open our door to strangers at night.”
Not quite convinced yet, Martha went back up.
But five minutes later she was down again.
“Now they’re knocking on the
back door,” she said. "And now I’m scared.”
Finally realizing Martha
did need my help, I pulled myself from my desk and went up to spy on the knockers. Hiding behind a curtain
I saw the back of a woman pulling away a little girl with a bow in her hair.
“Who in the world...? I
wondered, stunned.
And then I knew. Whatever the
reasons, our town’s Halloween was being celebrated nearly a week early,
something I might have known had I read the local newspaper. The repeated knocks had been from different groups passing by. And as we had not prepared early
for the event we had no candy to distribute. Embarrassed, we had to keep playing dead until 8 p.m.
