Free Psycho Therapy by Alan Spencer Page B

the coast was clear. Mrs. Neilson opened the front door, her expression furrowed as if she’d been disturbed from a session of late-night reading or from working on one of her famous hard puzzles. The prudish woman stepped onto the broken eggs in her slippers, cursing, “Aw shit!”
    She clutched a broom in both hands, raising it in the air. “ Damn kids .” Watching both ends of the street, she gave up the witch hunt. “Forget it. I’ll clean this mess up in the morning.”
    Mrs. Neilson slammed the door, choosing to turn in rather than scour the neighborhood for the culprits.
    “Dumb bitch,” Craig laughed so hard his throat ached. “It’s all worth it. That’s the last time she’ll mess with me.”
    Alice chimed in, “I wish I had a teacher I detested with such a passion.”
    He was in the ninth grade, Alice in the eighth. They planned tonight’s festivities for months. They were too old to trick or trick, but not too old to trick, as Alice had stated on many occasions. She had bloomed this year. Breasts arrived in a generous package. They were as big as a twenty-year-old’s. But Craig was best friends with her. The breasts were something only his eyes enjoyed. The great part about having a girl best friend, he believed, was how she shared all the girl secrets. She told him about her first period: “It sucks because you have to buy all these feminine products. I’m already tired of it, and I won’t be done until menopause. My mom gave me the longest spiel about periods. ‘Always carry a tampon in your purse everywhere you go.’ ‘Menstrual cramps are different for everybody.’ My cramps are like somebody shoving a hand up my cooch and trying to rip out my stomach.”
    Knocked from thought, a darting pirate paused at the house two ahead of them. Craig vaguely recognized the person because of the costume. It was Dennis Brockman. He was the equivalent of a class clown from hell. Laugh at his lame jokes or else become barraged with mean pranks.
    “What the hell is he doing?” Alice studied the yard, opening her mouth and stifling it with her hand. “Don’t tell me he’s doing what I’m thinking?”
    Dennis bent down as if taking a seat on a pair of concrete steps. It was an extended walkway, so he wasn’t right up against the porch but instead closer to the street. He hiked down his pants.
    Alice pressed her hands to her face. “He’s pooping in a jack-o’-lantern.”
    Craig reiterated, “Dennis is pooping in a jack-o’-lantern.”
    Dennis caught them watching. He cackled, throwing his head back. After he lifted up his baggy pants, he ran toward them, proud of his excursion. “Man, I have to rush home. I need some toilet paper ASAP. A group of us are pooping in as many jack-o’-lanterns as possible. Bobbing for apples is too boring. This is cool, right? It was my idea. I’m putting a patent on it.”
    “Oh, I believe you,” Craig joked. “Now go wipe your ass.”
    He saluted them both. “Happy Halloween, boils and ghouls!”
    They walked by the defiled jack-o’-lantern, both of them pinching their noses. Alice turned to him. “It’s strange that we’ve been next-door neighbors since kindergarten, and we’ve barely started talking until two years ago. I mean really being friends.”
    “You didn’t talk much when you were a kid,” Craig defended himself. “You hung out with Neil and J.J. and you watched us do stuff.”
    “Life’s easier that way. You can’t mess up.” She thought about Neil. “And since when did Neil become such an asshole? He won’t talk to us anymore.”
    “Neil’s got a girlfriend, and he plays football. Hot shit, man. We don’t participate in extracurricular activities either. That makes us losers, remember?”
    “It’s just you and me,” Alice reiterated. “It’s too bad J.J. moved to Tennessee to live with his uncle.”
    Alice mulled over something as if concerned, and Craig pressed her to speak, “You’re thinking about something? Are you