Peter E. Vogel, Jr.
We sat on a log beside the cold banks of the Delaware, with bags of candy at our feet, masks pushed up onto our foreheads. With flashlights we examined each confection piece by piece, like thieves picking through a big haul. Up the slopes of the hill and far above us, you could just make out the sound of the college kids boozing it up at various Halloween parties. We hated them, and tried to ignore the sounds. I mean really, how could beer ever compare with chocolate and sugar?
"An apple," said Tom.
He gazed down at the shiny red fruit with a deep disgust. He chucked the apple hard into the black waters of the river. In the absence of moonlight, I couldn't see it, but I heard the soft plop as it hit and vanished. The catfish would eat healthy at least.
"I would have taken it," I offered.
Tom looked at me as if I had offered to eat broken glass. Slade, dressed as skeleton and sitting on the end behind Tom, billowed up his cheeks and rubbed his belly. I laughed and Tom whirled around, but Slade had already wiped the expression off his face.
"I can't eat any more candy," said Slade, ignoring Tom's suspicious look. "We should do something."
Somewhere far above, glass broke – probably a bottle tossed down the steep steps that led from the college dorms to the riverside walk behind us. I glanced up, but couldn't make out anything. It occurred to me that some college kids might decide to stumble down to the river drunk, and if they found us they would surely start hassling us for being too old to go trick or treating.
Like I said, they didn't appreciate the finer points of free fucking candy. I shut off my flashlight, and the others did the same.
"Yeah, let's go." I said. "If your mom won't freak I mean."
"She won't notice," said Slade, following my gaze up the hill.
Tom gulped down some sort of low-grade marshmallow chocolate blob, and said through goopy teeth, "Where?"
I looked around. Downtown was off limits, up the hill meant a long walk back to Slade's neighborhood or across the college campus. But as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I spotted something downstream, an indistinct mass of impenetrable blackness against the slight reflection of the water.
"Let's go to Getter's Island," I ventured.
For the second time, Tom looked at me as if I was insane.
"It's Halloween," he said simply. "You want to go to Getter's on Halloween?"
"Yeah!" Slade stood up, and walked a few paces to the water's edge, looking toward the island. "Are there ghosts?"
"Hell yes," I explained. "John Getter's ghost. A traitor in the Revolution, the town hanged him on that island. Maybe we can find the place where they did it. There's a broken dam at the south tip, we can cross over there."
Tom looked down forlornly at his bag of candy. "Um, why would you want to do that?"
"Tom, come on, don't be a fucking puss."
Slade grabbed Tom by the lapels of his bulging Darth Vader costume, and dragged the round boy to his feet. Tom angrily shook him off, and bent over to carefully tie up his bag of candy while we waited. I switched on my flashlight and led the way along the weedy bank.
It only took a few minutes until the island came into better view, looming across the channel that separated it from the shore. It was low and completely covered in thick vegetation, old and dense and as far as I knew, never occupied. The mass of trees allowed no light to penetrate from the far side of the river. The water in the channel moved more slowly than the rest of the river, but downstream we could hear the sound of it pouring over the damn. I picked my way though the underbrush of the shore, happy that I had chosen to dress as mutant pig soldier this year, since it meant I was wearing my black combat boots.
Tom lagged behind, stumbling and cursing occasionally. Slade and I shushed him and pulled him along, whispering insults to his manhood. Finally he tired of it, and smacked Slade across the back of the neck. Slade yelped like a girl and apologized. After that, we didn't say anything, and Tom kept up.
Finally we reached a point where the underbrush gave way to a collection of stone and rubble that stretched out across the channel. I trained my flashlight toward the island, to show where it connected. A ragged gap in the concrete split the center, and through there the water rushed through.
"Some damn," said Slade. "It's a fucking pile of rocks."
He climbed up onto the top of the damn, flinging his candy bag over first. Tom and I took the long way, walking up the bank to the point where the earth swallowed the edge of the old stone. By the time we walked out onto the damn, Slade had already run ahead in the dark, his own flashlight giving him away. I saw him mid way across.
We caught up to him and trained our lights on the rushing water below. It wasn't particularly far, only a few feet, but in the dark it felt farther. The stone felt slick under my feet, and pointing the light downward, I could see it was covered in moss and slime.
"We should put the candy in one bag," I suggested. "The when one person jumps across, toss it over."
We consolidated our precious booty in Tom's bag, because it was the biggest. Slade elected go cross the water first.
"Point the flashlights at the other side for me, okay?"
We did as he asked, backing up and stepping to the side. Slade got a running start from several yards back, and crossed the gap easily.
Tom stepped to the edge and tossed the candy bag to Slade. He looked down at the water, turned to me and shrugged.
"You want to go next?" he asked, looking down.
I nodded, backing up. It took a few seconds for Tom to realize he had to get out of the way first. He stepped to the side and pointed his light at the gap, while Slade waved from the other side.
I ran forward. Just before leaping I felt one boot slip a little, and for a moment I envisioned my head cracking open on the stone surface. But it didn't make a difference, and I landed easily on the far side. Slade slapped me on the back.
We turned to see Tom looking down at the water once more.
"Come on, Darth!" Slade called to Tom. "Come over or we eat all the candy!"
I warned Tom about the slippery surface near the edge, and he spent the next few minutes rubbing the moss off with his shoes. I turned my flashlight back on and waited for him. When he was satisfied the damn was clean, he secured his Vader belt, backed up several yards, and barreled toward us, black cape trailing behind him. His rotund body sailed over the gap with surprising ease – and nearly plowed into Slade and me as he skidded to a halt on the other side.
"It was easy," Tom said unconvincingly. "Now give me the bag, please."
"Okay, okay, I was just kiddin'," snorted Slade.
We switched our lights back on and walked quickly the rest of the way across the damn. The island's tree lined shore didn't seem any less dense even up close – various bushes and grasses and dead branches from the fall floods crowded the shore. We walked around a bit until we found an area that looked vaguely like a path. I led the way into the trees.
Although I had professed myself the expert on Getter's Island, I really didn't know that much about it, beyond the basics I had already told Slade. I knew that John Getter had been a farmer, and that he had been accused of spying for the British, although the truth – according to my grandfather – was that he was just a loud mouthed sympathizer, all talk and no action. But after the revolution started, being a loud mouth was enough. A mob broke into his house, took him to the island across the damn, and hanged him from the tallest tree they could find.
I was fairly sure that we wouldn't find any sign of the site, of course – there were no memorials to commemorate hanged traitors, and the island was regularly flooded anyway. But I had read something about hangings and executions, and as I walked deeper into the pitch-black canopy, I found myself thinking that the groaning of the trees was not so different from the sound of a rope noose swinging under a dead man's weight. I looked up at the barely visible tangle of branches above, and wondered what it would feel like, to have the coarse hemp put around your neck, to feel the stump kicked out from beneath you, the sudden pressure that might break your neck, or might leave you dangling, pressing in on your arteries and windpipe, jerking in spasms. I remembered all the stories of men losing control of their bowels, their swollen tongues, and the flies come to feat after.
My foot knocked against a glass bottle in the dark.
"Hey, hey! Who the fuck?"
It was a man's voice, coming from somewhere ahead of me, somewhere in the dark. We all stopped, and stood still.
"Who fuck are you kids," the voice said, slurring. "Hey!"
I heard the direction of the man's voice, and turned my light on him. He lay on the ground, propping himself up on one elbow. His other hand was raised to shield his eyes. He wore jeans, sneakers, and a hooded sweatshirt, and I realized he was probably student from the college. His long dark hair hung in front of his face, but I could see red-rimmed eyes and unshaven cheeks beneath.
"Sorry," I said. "We just were looking around – "
" – so lower that fucking light!" he snarled.
I lowered the light away from his face, toward the ground in front of him. The beam glinted off two empty liquor bottles, and an open backpack.
"Sorry," Tom repeated.
"Just get the fuck out of here, you little shits."
"Okay, sorry, we just – "
"Get the fuck out of here! Hey! I'm gonna fucking kill you!"
He grabbed one of the empty bottles and moved to throw it at us. We turned and ran, through the trees and back toward the damn. Tom, having been at the back, led the way, and moved much quicker than I imagined he could. I saw his fat body break out of the trees onto the shore. He leaped on to the top of the damn and ran for the gap, Darth Vader cape now torn and dragging behind him, his flashlight bouncing. Slade and I followed close behind, running neck and neck.
I saw the light bounce as Tom jumped the gap, heard a loud clatter and a yelp. Slade and I ran faster to catch up, and caught sight of Tom's caped form lying on the far side of the gap. We jumped in unison, but when my feet touched ground I slipped again, and fell over into Tom. He grunted. Slade landed behind me and knelt down.
"Tom, are you okay?" I asked.
Tom's head was turned away from me, so all I could see was the top of his Darth Vader mask, staring up at me. Tom was looking downstream, past the damn. His flashlight lay broken on the stone a few feet away.
"The candy," he said, looking downward.
"You fucker," said Slade. He stood and turned back toward the island. "You fucker! Our candy!"
"Slade, shut the hell up!" I grabbed him by the sleeve with one hand, and got hold of Tom's cape with the other. "Let's just go."
And so we did.
* * *
We grumbled about that night for several weeks afterward, alternately blaming Tom, the drunken college kid, and the ghost of John Getter for the loss of our candy hoard. For a while we avoided the riverside and the college campus, thinking the vengeful drunk would appear one day and pummel us. But I didn't see his face again, until Christmas.
I woke up late on the 23rd, having started my holiday break two days before. Still in pajamas I staggered to the kitchen. My mother sat at the table reading the paper. She asked me if I wanted some eggs for breakfast, and I nodded through a yawn. She got up from the table and started to prepare the eggs, and I sat down.
I poured a glass of orange juice from the carton on the table, and then caught sight of a picture in the paper, a picture of the college student who chased us off the island. The story said he had been found hanged in a basement utility room, in his dorm on campus. His friends said he had been failing in school, and had been depressed for some time.
I quietly picked up a pair of scissors from the table, and cut out the story. I folded it neatly, and put it under my napkin.
I still have it.