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