This

The town was gripped by a frenetic madness. Halloween in a university town. What could be wilder? Parties were planned, costumes arranged. Everyone talked about the outdoor concert on the library lawn, the Plaza of the Americas . "Last year," they said. . . and each person had a crazier story than the one before. Lewd costumes, pornographic behavior. Tens of thousands of people would be there. People would come from all over the state. It was well known that the Marijuana Growers Association would be handing out free dope. It promised to be legendary.

And I would miss it. I was going home to be with Sherri who was helping her two young brother's prepare for their own Halloween. There would be no madness at all. She would put the finishing touches on her brothers costumes and make them up and then pass out candy on her doorstep as the young children in the neighborhood charged up the sidewalk screaming "Trick or Treat! Trick or Treat!" in anticipatory voices laced with sugar and excitement and the desire for dark enchantments. Later, we would watch an old horror movie on TV, "Dracula" or Frakenstein" or "Creature from the Black Lagoon." Even later, we would snuggle together warmly in the dark feeling the wholesome thrill of it all, from our participation in this ritual, of taking our place as adults in the culture taught to us in the schools of our youths, reinforced in movies and magazines and store displays.

Leaving town, though, I had regrets, as if leaving a carnival before dark. I could hear it in the distance as I drove away mile after mile, barely there, imperceptible, that something on the periphery of your consciousness that you cannot quite identify, something harkening, something longed for.

Driving home was always like leaving the enchanted forest anyway, the rolling hills of ranches, farms and countryside flattening and becoming congested with cars and road signs and shopping centers and housing developments, big ideas giving way to small opinions, unfettered joy to routinized conformity.

And then the weekend was over having gone as planned, Sunday morning giving way to Sunday afternoon, me staying on to the last, then driving back, the late afternoon giving way to dusk, the highway beginning to rise and fall, the air to chill, everything beginning to smell sweet again and fresh, already missing Sherri who would be coming next weekend, thinking back and then ahead, back and forth, up and down, the first stars showing in the purple sky streaked red on the horizon, the feeling of freedom engulfing me. "This," I thought without thinking, "this."