DEAD MAN'S CHEST

Halloween July 1952

         I wore knickers and a white linen vest. My brother drew a ship on my chest. My mother lent me her eye patch, my father his rapier. I had no pirate hat but wore Keds on my feet.

         I strode five blocks to the theater. I growled at the lady in back of the glass, "Your money or your life." She handed her money through the slot.

         I walked into the diner, singing "Fifteen Men On A Deadman's Chest." The waitress shrieked; the police arrived. I was arrested. “Trick or Treating out of season, Matey, ten years in the hulks.”