The House On Dale Street

Chapter 7

When the pastor and his wife had left, and we'd stopped laughing, Hazel said, "Who believes in the Devil?"

I know I didn't. The idea of a malevolent spirit with a tail and a pitchfork. The very idea seemed absolutely ludicrous.

"Are they crazy?" said Hazel, walking to the living room window and peeking through the blinds. Outside leaves were falling; red and gold and green. It was turning fall, my favorite time of the year.

"Not crazy, just religious," I said, "although, kids dressed up in their Spiderman costumes being a bad thing, that's a new one for me, that's for sure."

"Do we have to go to that Trunk n' Treat thing?"

"Hell no, we're not going to that! Why in the world would we?"

"Well, they did bring us all this stuff..."

"You have to stop being so nice to people. We're not obligated to go to anything. I know I, for one, am not spending my Halloween at church of all places."

Hazel dropped to her knees on the floor and opened one of the bags they'd brought.

"Wanna see what's in these?" she said, looking up at me.

I shrugged. I didn't really. I didn't want any old clothes that had been donated by God-knows-who.

Hazel began to pull out clothing from the bag and lay them out on the floor.

"A Guess sweater, a pair of Dickie's, some Levi's..." she said as she pulled the items out of the bag.

She stood up and pulled the cream Guess sweater over her head. The word Guess was etched big across the front. It was big on her, but it looked alright.

"Not too terrible, right?" she said, holding out her arms and turning around. The sweater hung to the top of her thighs. It was big and boxy over her pajamas.

We didn't have a mirror, anywhere in the house, so she couldn't see what it looked like. I told her it was a nice sweater. She looked good in anything.

"So hot, though," she said pulling it over her head, "but I will wear it when it gets cold."

She dropped it on the floor and then went back to the bag and opened it up and began pulling things out. They were mostly women's clothing, with a few things that I guess were supposed to be for me. I didn't want any of it. I shook my head no to everything she held up and showed me.

After Hazel had gone through the two large bags of clothing, and picked the few name brand pieces she'd found inside, she packed up the rest and brought the bags into the second bedroom, the empty one that had the bathroom attached. We only went in that room on our way to the bathroom, we just passed through it, but we didn't use it for anything. It was always cold. Hazel opened the door to the closet. As soon as she did a blast of freezing cold air hit us. Old houses and their shoddy insulation. Hazel took the bags and stuffed them in the closet.

"What are you saving them for?" I said, "why don't we just throw them away?"

"We'll put them here for now," Hazel said, "there were some things I might want when it gets summer, I don't know, let's just store them for the time being."

As she pushed the two big bags into the tiny closet, I looked up at the attic access door. It was boarded up in a life or death manner. There were about five two-by-fours nailed haphazardly over the opening with about two hundred nails holding them in place.