It's late and very dark now and things have quieted down some. The shear panic of the early evening has given way to a dark nagging sense of dread. I can live with that I think, I just need to get through this night. For now, I sit in the darkness of my living room clutching my tumbler of courage, a little concoction I made myself, 1/2 151 rum, 1/2 chocolate egg cream, a drink I call a "Flaming Idiot." Never far from my side is my new weapon of choice, a weapon of necessity, a paint ball gun stoked with half frozen gummy bears.

Some might say that I have had a breakdown, while others might bandy words about like Nuts, Insane, Mad, or possibly Whack, and/or Off the Hook. I'm not really up on these things but they all seem to fit like a slightly damp pair of underwear. Clearly, those handles and others like them were flying around following last Halloween's unpleasantness.

Though it is somewhat of blur to me now, apparently there was a bit of an "incident".

The police report seems to indicate that I "traumatized" some trick or treaters while under the influence of my then drink of choice, 1/2 Cough medicine, 1/2 Yoo-hoo, a concoction I like to call, the "Chocolate Coma." But I digress. Without going into the boring details, there was language in the report that suggests that I assaulted a large contingency of the costumed freeloaders when they foolishly rang my doorbell. Things happened quickly after that. There was something in the report about my discharging a starter pistol at them and calling them filth and, yes in retrospect, I should have put some pants on.

In a moment of clarity I clearly recall how impressed I was at how quickly the porch and general venue cleared out at the first hint of gunfire. Despite the obvious impediment of some ungainly costumes even the smallest of them cleared my fence in generally fine form, barely breaking stride, or stopping to help their small and less graceful comrades.

After that it all became a jumble of accusations and rash suggestions that I should be arrested or possibly be "put down like a mad dog." To be honest, it was only because I had done some community work in the past that kept me out of jail and/or time in a mental health facility or "bin," as some like to call it. That and there were many in the community that remembered my loss. As it is the local police took the prudent course of merely surrounding my yard with "Police Line, Do Not Cross" tape. I was then relegated to the recesses of my house, after giving up the starter pistol and of course my 1/2 thermos of "Chocolate Coma."

I wasn't always like this. I was just like many of you, though possibly shorter, that is providing you are also a man. I guess I mean like you, in the sense of being normal, or what passes for being normal. However, if you are a tall, normal woman, I guess I was really never just like you, except of the normal part, and all bets are off.

More to the point, I had once been a happily married man with a lovely wife and son. Their names are unimportant to me now. They are now simply names on a restraining order. They left me after the tragedy that befell us, consumed us and pulled us apart. It took some time of course, like a dying star the fuel ran out, we moved away from each other, only to collapse in on ourselves, ultimately exploding. Not literally of course, more of in a symbolic way and with far less hydrogen.

It all began a week or so before Halloween and ended before Thanksgiving, but it is the events of that Halloween night that have haunted me and have made me, even by my own admission, a tad quirky. And when I say "tad" I am of course referring to the metric "tad" recognized by the European Community as opposed to the somewhat smaller tad that we use here in the states. But again, I feel that I may be losing focus.

It all truly started in that wondrous time of rebirth, "spring" or "growing time" as it is called in the common vernacular. As is my practice, I planted a garden replete with section solely dedicated to the creation of pumpkin perfection. A process that would consume the summer months as I cultivated and nurtured the orangey plot of pumpkin plumpetude.

I watched as months passed, knowing that there could ultimately only be one "alpha pumpkin", only one for me to cultivate, only one for me to cherish. In the waning days of summer, I saw that Jack was no longer merely a big orange vegetable. He had leapt beyond being merely a hefty gourd. He, was the one. Once realized, I quickly forsook, Jack's lesser patch mates, destroying them so they might not rob valuable nutrients and resources from their superior sibling. I followed the old ways of my forefathers in this grisly necessity and dispatched them with business like efficiency, one blow each from a croquet mallet, in the dead of night.

With that unpleasantness behind me I turned my attentions to the lone survivor and focused my efforts in insuring that Jack was a fully actualized pumpkin. I nurtured and protected my prize. And yes, I took what some might call extreme measures, including cellulose injections and the plant equivalent of steroids, Maxi-Grow Plant Food, a plant growth formula so extreme that it was outlawed for import into this country from South America by the now famous World Produce Doping Accord of 1998.

I nonetheless located a defrocked horticulturalist that knew people who could score the infamous concoction and engaged in, what is known on the street as, pumping the produce. The effect on Jack was monumental and not a little bit unsettling. If it could be said of any mostly inanimate piece of vegetable matter that it was scary, Jack was indeed one scary squash. Soon it would be the time of change, of transition, of harvest and Jack was ready,

I might just note, that during these times, my wife and son became inexplicably skittish. They did so as if they knew that I was engaging in a great work that they were not ready to understand. I recall that they would remain respectfully quiet, often choosing to back out of the room I was in, all the while avoiding eye contact. Certainly they must have realized that I was not to be distracted and honored this need by locking themselves in the attic along with the croquet mallets.

When the time came Jack's transformation from prodigious pumpkin to Stud Jack-O-Lantern was an unsettling tale of violent metamorphous wrought by ritual disembowelment, disfigurement and the produce equivalent of liposuction followed by cosmetic surgery. The transformation culminated in the creation of one buff gourd and conversely one unseemly pile of pulpy viscera.

Then shortly before Halloween, Jack was revealed to the world in all of his orangey splendor. His visage aglow with the flickering luminance of a really nice candle. Soon, word of Jack spread through the town. Words like "neat" and "nice pumpkin" fueled his growing status as a giant among decorative vegetables. Folks would come from miles around to bask respectfully in Jack's eerie illuminated visage. Jack was at the top of his game, and then it was Halloween.

Trick-or-Treat were the by-words of that night, as we would open our front door and confront the costumed creatures abroad that evening. We would confront them unafraid with smiles and of course candy. It was sometime after 8:30 and I had just dispensed some of our dwindling supply of sweets to a vampire, a ghost and a werewolf when a dark sedan pulled up in front of our home. In a blur of movement two armed men leaped from the car ran to the porch and made off with Jack. I can still see the flickering of his backlit eyes receding into the car, and then he was gone.

I tried to console my wife as I read the simple note that I had found in our mailbox the next day. It was a jumble of letters carelessly ripped from various newspapers, not unlike the way Jack had been ripped from us, the note read:

We Have your Pumpkin! It is safe and will be returned when you pay us ten thousand dollars in tens and twenties. Be smart and don't contact the police or you will never see your orange friend again. We will contact you.

To prove that they meant business, included in the envelope was a chilling photo of a pumpkin, blindfolded in a dark room. The only clear thing was its bright orange smile and the faint hint of a menacing, disembodied arm holding a ball-peen hammer.

There could be no doubt they had Jack. That afternoon we received the phone call instructing us to in how to deliver the money. We were to drop the ransom in a dark blue garbage can near the fountain in Johnson Park. I did all that they had instructed with one exception, I had called the police.

The plan was simple and fool proof they assured me. Discretely surround the park, drop off the money and wait for the bad guys. I had been against the plan and had been willing to pay the ransom. All I ever wanted was the safe return of our Jack-O-Lantern. The police explained that the type of people who could do such a crime were capable of anything. They would just as likely grab the money and run. A week later, some poor slob would find a viciously smashed pumpkin lying on some back alley, an all too familiar story. That night was the longest night of my life as I waited for a pick-up that never came. The stakeout had failed and Jack's captors had not shown.

The following morning I found a small box sitting on the porch with my morning paper. Inside the box, to my horror, I found a small pulpy triangle. They had yanked a tooth out of Jack's mouth. In the evening, I received new instructions for the delivery of the money and this time there were no police. Shortly after, I received a call informing me that Jack was buried in a steel drum in the park and the air was running out. I rushed to the park and feverishly unearthed the metallic prison that held Jack, a prison that proved to be a tomb. I had been too late; the air had run out, Jack's candle had been extinguished.

It rained the day I buried our pumpkin in a simple "lawn and leaf" bag, in the back of our yard. I don't go back there very much these days, and the area is a little worse for the neglect. I'm okay for the most part, but my life is forever changed. It changes when the pies are orange in color and the season is fall, and I go just a little crazy.

Its 9:00, do you know where your pumpkin is?