Worse than a rainy Halloween night is a cold rainy Halloween night. But even worse than that, Alex has recently discovered, is a perfectly clear night where all you have as cold comfort are the lush memories of trick or treating from childhood. Alex stocks up on candy, keeps his pharmacy open late, trying to catch a bit of the Halloween juju. With every box of Junior Mints and Reese’s Pieces he deposits in the bag of a vampire, a witch or Michael Jackson, Alex feels the tug of the past. Sometimes the feelings come on so strongly that Alex, in between waves of kids riding surges of sugar, stands, stamps his foot to bring himself willfully forward, into the present, where he is husband, bread-winner, father, on the cusp of becoming a father-in-law. Maybe at some point a Grandfather, the kind that would happily take his grandchild trick or treating even on a cold, rainy Halloween.