Notorious
There was that macabre
moment in my life
when I achieved a certain notoriety,
and yet having attained such sordid status,
this denotes nothing so darkly heinous
as to state I was once deemed notorious.
Indeed, the term “notorious” rather infers
elements of deviance, mayhem, and yes,
a rather daft dalliance with death.
Oh, and I’d like to point out that my
infamy had nothing at all to do with that.
I mean, other than that minor point
where I produced the corpse.
Listen… Now listen to me.
This had more to do with an
ordained pagan holiday,
and you know, it being
Halloween and all,
boys will be boys and
thus given an automatic pass
when it came to deeds deemed dire.
So sally forth solo skulduggery,
I wouldst acquire a corpse.
What dour dead once acquired
is not deftly dread-dapper attired?
In truth, what cultivated cadaver
would dare be seen in public
if not fully clothed a la mode?
Hence here haute-hemmed a haberdash;
an au courant corpse therein enveloped.
Entrails here entail sutures sewn—
a cocoon cadaver contained.
With needle and thread,
I sew feet for said dead.
Less slash, nay more lash,
I attach a pair of cotton socks
there at the cuff of each leg,
and moving to waist, stitch
the hem of an old flannel shirt
into the trouser’s waist.
At the end of each sleeve,
I fasten worn leather gloves,
and there at shirt’s coller,
attach a tattered stocking cap.
Unbuttoning the shirt,
I go to the trash and fill this
caboodled corpse o’ cornucopia
with all the garbage therein.
Oh, but what a clever boy I am.
Later that evening,
my friends stop by to pick me up
and there find me standing
with curdled corpse in one hand;
a bottle of ketchup the other.
I should point out that growing up,
my home town was quite small.
That and violence free, so
there just wasn’t that many places
you could properly leave a dead body.
Honest. Would I lie?
Of course later this town
would in truth become a
blood-spattered abattoir,
but by then I mostly had
naught to do with it.
But as this one particular
less than sanguine Halloween
here now comes to wane,
I decide upon a certain gravel-strewn corner
there at the edge of town, and there
using the car as cover, am in
the process of arranging my corpse,
when I see another car
approaching from its far side.
Quickly blasting the dummy
and surrounding area with
all of the bottle’s crimson contents,
I leap back into the car and
with a screech of gravel, we
muster a bluster of dust.
Oh, and there I was somehow expecting
that car to promptly chase us, but no.
It just sat there in what?
Shall we say a clouded shroud
of death-draped depravity?
Yet another Halloween
has herewith come to pass
and all that’s gone bump in the night
is a hit and run bumper.
The following morning,
my family are all just sitting down for breakfast
when the phone comes to ring.
My father steps into the other room to answer it,
and when he returns,
I find he has eyes for no one but me.
There from his lips,
“Did you leave a dummy
down town last night?”
“Huh? Er... What?”
Remember when I told you
just how clever I was?
Rewind to that moment when I was
stuffing my cadaver full of trash.
Er… Trash being garbage but
also bills and correspondence with my
dad’s name right there on the label.
Whose dummy? No.
Who’s a dummy?
Rewind.
Rewind to that other car
coming down the street.
Rewind to Halloween night
and the town deputy cruising the streets
looking for troublemakers.
Oh, and what’s that up ahead?
A stalled car there on the corner?
No. Its lights just came on.
There, now, its tires are spinning—
it generating a plume of
smoke and powdered gravel as it
surges away down the receding street.
Here now,
the deputy slowly pulls forward,
then comes to a sudden stop,
for there in the settling dust
lies a mangled human body.
No. A child!
Some poor child with all its limbs
rended, snapped and contorted in the
most unnatural way.
And there’s blood!
Yes. Blood everywhere!
Oh, the horror!
Such horror that the deputy
cannot leave the seat of his car.
And he begins to weep, to sob, to bawl.
With time, he finally comes
to raise his radio’s handset,
there to cry forth through a distant speaker.
There a dispatch of dire desperation—
the sound of his breaking voice
reaching out to a now stunned sheriff.
“The horror! The horror!
Come fill your eyes with horror!”
And the sheriff soon arrives to find
his deputy has gone into shock.
Yet only a moment later,
he’s standing there over
just one of many dummies
to have been made that Halloween night.
Oh, and I?
I?
I become ever notorious.
Ó 2023 Jack David Hubbell
