Burt never bled.
Or that’s what
he said. Least
ways through
his best bub, Fred.
“Burt doesn’t bleed,”
says Fred through his
grinning, big-chinned
schnoz. “Okay, okay,”
think the rest of us
no goods. Then one day
late October, yeah,
by which I mean All
Hallow’s Evening, Burt
and Fred are all candysacks
in front of the Skeetz house—
the Skeetz bein’ the ones
who twine up their treed-
up yard all tight at dusk
on every single Halloween.
Dumb-ass Fred and coocoo
Burt don’t know this, though,
or leastways don’t remember,
and manage to coast down
the Skeetz driveway and ringading
the doorbell, adding “Tricker Treat!”
The scariest “BOO!” ever came
back at ’em and Fred and
Burt ran like hell right through
the (unknown to them) tight fisherlined
treed-up Skeetz yard. Or partways.
Next thing everybody in the neighborhood—
well, town—knows is Burt’s (Sshpp! Sshpp!
Sshpp!) been sliced into ten
maybe eleven pieces, clean as
a loaf a baloney—only each piece
sprouts a pair a legs until there’s
purtnear a dozen Burts
running like hell clean up to
the edge of town. As for
Fred, however? Well, he bled.
In fact, all they ever found
a him was a couple a cloudy
red splotches in amongst the auburn
leaves of the Skeetz place next morning.
