FRIDAY

My brother Timmy's Halloween party started with a parade of high school guys, six packs in hand, piling out of rusted pick-up trucks and climbing the stairs over the garage into a smoky room where loud music blasted through tall free-standing speakers.

     I don't know how he finagled the presence of Diane, cheerleader, since my brother floated with the vocational trade students and not that heady jock circle. But she was there, along with three of her not-quite-as-cute girlfriends, one of whom brought Juanita, a plain and plump foreign exchange student from Mexico.

     Timmy had purchased a keg and strung black-and-orange crepe paper and balloons, tacking them to his ceiling with great care. He'd also vacuumed, and he must have powdered the shag carpet with baking soda or talcum because the place didn't smell like the usual musty beer-soaked dish rag.

     After I'd settled into a bean-bag chair and hit the three-beer threshold, meaning once I'd reached three I couldn't stop, Jim arrived. Don, his sidekick, followed immediately behind him wearing, of all things, creased pants.