bewitched

i grew up with a witch. not a regular, every day witch, but the kind that only appears on halloween. on that dark night, my friend shirley transformed from a kind, beautiful and generous woman into an ugly, screaming banshee who scared little children and terrorized her friends. hardly a day goes by that i don’t think of her – and i never let halloween pass without remembering her alter ego.

shirley and her husband were my parents best friends. i don’t remember a time when they weren’t in my life, or when stories of the antics they shared with my mom and dad (usually involving alcohol, gambling and dancing) weren’t tossed about at the dinner table. shirley had grown up a dirt poor nebraska farm girl, born of german immigrant parents who knew nothing but struggle and incredibly hard work. after high school, shirley made a break for it and headed to denver. before long she met and married her husband, an aspiring filmmaker who opened one of the most successful film developing labs in the midwest. they lived a much more sophisticated and moneyed lifestyle than my family, and i was never more thrilled than when we got to spend holidays – or any day – with them and their kids. they were all worldly and brilliant, hysterically funny and interesting.

in the early 70’s, when halloween rolled around, my mother would talk about shirley “going witching”. it took me a while to figure out how serious this was: on halloween, shirley donned a black a-line smock and pulled on a pair of black tights (and stuffed walnuts down her legs to give them an appropriate – and revolting – bumpy surface). she had a fright wig and pointy black hat as well as overdone, sloppy mascara. the piece de resistance: she sprayed herself with clorox so she smelled really, really foul. she set a big black iron pot filled with water and dry ice on the front steps. for the final touch, she raided her daughters closet for a couple of long-forgotten dolls (the large, 3 year old size) and pulled them apart. she dropped the arms and legs into the smoking cauldron, and after 2 or 3 stiff bourbons, sat down on the steps to wait for trick or treaters. needless to say, she terrified every child who approached. she would laugh and scream obscenities and pull child-parts out of the boiling water, waving them in the face of the little princesses and hobos who only wanted a piece of candy. i heard many stories about children who ran screaming and crying from that front porch. shirley had a heart of gold, but she loved scaring the shit out of those kids.

the evening didn’t end there. after a few years of witching, her reputation grew, and the numbers coming to the door dwindled in fear. so when the few brave trick or treaters had come and gone, shirley had a couple more drinks and hopped in her ‘65 mustang to cruise her very tony neighborhood. if a friend was having a halloween party, she would burst through the front door, screaming and cursing while throwing her trademark mixture of beans and candy corn (how she decided on this combination i’ll never know). she would roll on the floor, push people around and then run out of the house, cackling. she was “witching”, and i can promise you no one who was there will ever forget it.

its one of my big regrets that i could never convince my mother to take us to their house on halloween so i could see shirley in action. her witching went on for several years, until the time she snuck into a neighbors back yard and headed to the kitchen window, where the husband was standing at the sink. her plan was to leap up and scare the crap out of him. unfortunately, she neglected to notice the window-well directly in front of her, and took a rather serious tumble. i’m not sure her knees were ever the same. after that, her husband always managed to plan a trip to las vegas or new york that coincided with halloween. smart man – he knew the only way to stop the witching was to drag her out of town to one of her favorite places. so, shirleys witching faded into legend, and every halloween after, we heard stories about it.

a couple of years ago, one of my former employees was working in a pediatricians office in denver. a young father walked up to the desk with his paperwork. she looked at his information and noticed his address. “oh, you live in bow mar?” she asked. “yes, i grew up there and now that my parents are gone i’m raising my family in their house”. allison smiled and said “did you know the famous bow mar witch?”. the man looked momentarily stricken and stammered “uhh, do you mean shirley? that woman scared the HELL out of me when i was a kid!”. when i heard this story, i laughed out loud with joy – here was a grown man who had clearly been traumatized, with horrifying memories of his neighborhood at halloween. nothing would have made my favorite witch any happier.