Trick or treat?

In 1984 I was dressed as a gangster for Halloween. I had the pinstriped suit and the fedora, a magnum with a holster and a Tommy gun to boot. I also had the fake little mustache and for added affect I also had a scar. What can I say I liked bad guys and hell I grew up in Jersey we pretty much all liked gangsters.

So there we were a bunch of kids dressed as stormtroopers, football players and gangsters. When suddenly a neighbor of mine went running passed yelling how a certain kid (I figure I'll spare them the embarrassment of mentioning the name) was in trouble with his mom, and instead of giving out candy she was handing out his comic books as treats. The momentary glance we gave one another was fleeting as we all broke into a swift run towards his house. He had a hell of a collection and none of us wanted to be left out. At this point I learned to like gangsters less as I had on dress shoes and they are not good for running. Though my friend dressed as a football player fared worse as he wore cleats. He was left far behind in a pile of bushes as I remember.

When we made it to the house there was already a line and we jumped in all excitedly talking about what was happening. As we got up to the door and rang the bell we were giddy. His mom answered with him in tow and a large bin of comics. His face sank when he saw us cause he knew we all liked comics and would probably take his favorites. I felt bad for him but it didn't stop me from diving in and searching through the comics. She let us each take five. It was like Christmas Day, I found myself three rare X-Men and a Spider-Man and Fantastic Four I needed. My friends picked out there loot as well and we all smiled and waved as we walked away.

We saw nameless the next day and he refused to talk about the comics. We asked him what he'd done and he wouldn't say. I always wondered what could have been so bad as to loose your comic collection. I never did find out but as I was cleaning out some boxes I came across those very issues that I had taken that day. It reminded me if the whole sorted scene and made me laugh to think of my gangster days.