"Too much candy will rot your teeth," Brandon Scott said.  It was a stupid thing to say--one of his mother's Halloween clichés.

     "I don't care," Jonathan said.  "I want to go trick-or-treating."

     Brandon turned to his wife.  "What do you think, Theresa, should I take him?"

     "You're asking me?  I thought you'd already decided."

     "What's that supposed to mean?" Brandon asked.  He knew it would start another argument and that bothered him.  "Goddamn it, Theresa.  You've been so ... so...."

     "Don't start in on me.  Not tonight."

     "You're still mad, aren't you?  That's why you've been acting like such a bitch lately."

     Theresa ripped open a bag of Snickers.  Her face was screwed up as if she were biting back on her natural responses.  When she finally spoke, her voice was restrained.  "Not in front of Jonathan."

     "It concerns him, too," Brandon said.  He waited a moment, then added, "I'm taking him."

     Theresa poured the candy bars into a bowl to be ready for the trick-or-treaters.  "Do what you want."

     Brandon could hardly hear her response.  He knew she'd wanted to take Jonathan to one of the schools to get his treats.  She didn't like the idea of letting strangers provide her son with candy that could be poisoned or loaded with razor blades.

     As usual, they had reached a compromise--they would take the bag of goodies down to be X-rayed, a service provided by one of the radio stations.  Compromise or no, Theresa still wouldn't totally accept it.

     Brandon wanted to go because he could be with his coworkers outside of work.  He'd been personnel director for the engineering firm for three months and he still didn't feel as if he fit in.  At times, he wasn't sure he wanted to; the employees all seemed to be cut from the same cloth.  He thought of them as "starch 'n' stuffs."

     His first week at the new job, he'd made some "read my lips" George Bush joke that fell flat and had everyone staring at him.  He thought maybe it was just a bad joke, but he was wrong.  Looking through the files, he found that he was the only non-Republican working there.

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