Hatchet Madness

<b>Hatchet Madness</b>


    [<i>WARNING: The people and events described in this morality tale are TRUE. Only the names, locations, and most of the actions have been changed. Although shocking, this tale must be told! Parents must be made aware of a new fad enjoyed by America’s youth, a fad more corrupting than rock-’n’-roll, marijuana, and Communism combined! That fad is…HATCHETISM! Yes, hatchetism, in which wild, unrestrained hooligans thrust hatchets into their skulls for the sheer, unbridled thrill of it all! Americans who wish to preserve our democratic way of life must step forward to erase this scourge of our youth—this dangerous, illegal, and only mildly entertaining activity that you must not try, no matter how tempting it is or how uncool you are for chickening out of it! Beware!</i>]


    Our story begins at a malt shoppe. It could be any malt shoppe in America, perhaps even the one that you know. But it isn’t. It’s a completely different malt shoppe. More specifically, it was Gordy’s Malts, where the annual hula-hoop contest was in full swing, if you’ll pardon the pun, and even if you don’t.
    Sitting in his father’s Edsel, Lemuel gazed over at his sultry date, the lovely Carmella: a tall, dark brunette with cat-like eyes. She arched her back, pushing her pert, pointed breasts outward until they threatened to pierce the cloth of her tight sweater. Lem knew his parents didn’t approve of Carmella, the neighborhood Bad Girl, but gosh darn it! He may just go ahead and kiss her! Never mind what that hygiene film in health class said, which, as he recalled, assured him and his fellow students that an unprotected kiss would cause his balls to drop off.
    “So which hula-hooper do you like best, Carm?” he asked her. “And isn’t that scary news about Sputnik? And don’t you think James Dean is swell? And would you like a bowl of Quisp cereal, as advertised on the brand new episode of Howdy Doody?”
    Carmella barely suppressed a yawn. “This is square, Daddy-o,” she groaned. “Let’s buh-low this pop stand.”
    “It’s a malt shoppe,” he corrected her, but he started up the Edsel anyway, still thinking about how Carmella had uttered the word “blow.” Did his reaction have anything to do with these “hormones” he was told about? He shrugged. He’d think about it later, when he didn’t have such a throbbing boner.
    They drove through the darkened streets for several minutes, Carmella resisting his attempts to get her to talk about things she’d do with her mouth, when she suddenly interrupted him. “Turn right at the stop sign.”
    “But Carmie! This neighborhood is for tough guys, punks, hoodlums, and Socialists!”
    She rolled her eyes. “Okay, I get it. You’re uptight. Just pull over here.”
    It was indeed a dark, ominous, foreboding part of town, and an apprehensive Lemuel found himself following his hot date into a large tenement located betwixt a lawyer firm and a VD clinic. The shades were closed, but light crept from the cracks, as did the sound of wet, thwacking noises.
    As the couple entered the room, Lemuel couldn’t help noticing that their host, a young, busty blonde with a ponytail and glasses, also apparently had a trickle of blood running down her face, perhaps as a direct result of the sharp hatchet that was firmly lodged in her face.
    “Hey, Carmellas!” said the blonde. “There are two of you, right? Or is that my double vision?”
    “It’s just me, Jacqueline,” said Carmella. Then she gestured to her escort. “This is Lemuel. He’s new to this bag.”
    Lemuel was still registering the hatchet lodged in Jacqueline’s face. Then he turned his gaze to the other occupants in the room, numbering about a dozen, each with blood on their faces and hatchets wedged into their foreheads.
    Lem spun to face Carmie. “You’re a regular here? But this is a hatchet den! I read about these! They say these places are addictive and lead squarely to immorality and vice!”
    Jacqueline frowned. “Carm, this cat is bringing me down.”
    “It’s all right, Jackie,” Carmella assured her. “Secretly, I think this cat’s a tiger! Isn’t that right, Lemuel?”
    “No, I’m definitely a pussy.”
    “That’s the spirit!” said Carmie, apparently hearing what she wanted to hear. “This place is the swinging-est!”
    “But I heard that hatchetism is dangerous!” Lemuel persisted.
    Jackie waved away his concerns. “Relax, Daddy-o! I’ve been hatcheting for weeks now, and all I’ve suffered is some massive blood loss, migraines, hallucinations, speech impediment, memory loss, and…” She stared into space for a moment. “…and memory loss!”
    Lemuel looked at the group of high school kids, faces smeared with blood, hatchets protruding from their skulls, and weird, unsettling smiles on their faces. “So, uh, what’s the appeal?”
    “The appeal?” Jackie repeated. “Daddy, you’re the most! Splitting the skull open is the ultimate rush! It lets air inside the brain cavity and empties out all your bad impulses! Why not give it a try?”
    Lemuel shivered. “Absolutely not! This is insane, I tell you! Insane! It’s almost as crazy as when Truman fired McArthur, even though the latter’s leadership was so clearly bold in time of war—”
    “Hold that thought,” said Jackie, who looked past Lemuel and Carmella to greet another couple who entered. “Smitty and Nettie! Come back for more skull-splitting, have you?”
    The young couple smiled dopishly. “Yeah, and it’s almost too bad,” said Smitty. “Nettie’s hideous facial scar was almost healed, making it slightly easier to look at her and less repulsive to kiss her without getting blood on my tongue. But we’ve got the bug!”
    “Hatchet madness!” said Nettie, with a wide-eyed fanaticism.
    “See?!” Lemuel cried, pointing at the scar-faced twosome. “Hatchetism is addictive! It’s dangerous! It’s unpopular with adults!”
    Carmella grabbed him by the arm. “Excuse us, Jackie,” she said to their host, before steering Lem into a corner of the room and whispering harshly, “Listen, killjoy, you’re starting to embarrass me! Are you really that square?”
    “Yes.”
    “So you don’t want to fondle my breasts?”
    “What do you want me to do?” he asked her bulging sweater.
    Carmella smiled. “That’s better. Here.” She looked around the room, finding a young man sitting on the floor, legs crossed, hatchet in his face, smiling at nothing as he stared at a lamp. Carmella grabbed a hold of the hatchet’s handle and yanked it free.
    “Ahhhh!” screamed the youth, before falling backward and passing out on the floor.
    Carmella handed the bloody hatchet to Lem. “Now thrust it right into your cerebral cortex. Not too hard; just enough to split the skull.”
    Lem weighed the hatchet in his hand. “Uhhhh…”
    Carmie pointed to the new couple. “Just watch how they do it.”
    Smitty and Nettie stood facing each other, each holding a hatchet in front of them. “You first, honey,” Smitty told his date.
    “Oh, no, you go first, dear.”
    “Tell you what,” said Smitty, “you do me, and I’ll do you.”
    “Great idea!” Nettie drew back her hatchet and plunged it straight into Smitty’s forehead.
    There was a brief silence as Smitty’s eyes went vacant. Then he shouted, “Abyss!” and his eyes rolled back in his head, his body fell backwards, and his skull struck the wooden floor. As he landed, his head shattered open and splattered his blood and brains across the room.
    “Jesus Christ Almighty!” Lemuel screamed, pointing at Smitty’s blood-gushing neck. “He’s dead! He’s totally pants-shitting dead!”
    Carmie put her fists on her hips. “Okay, let’s consider that a lesson in how not to drive a hatchet into one’s head.”
    “Oops,” muttered Nettie, covering her mouth with her hand. Then she looked over and saw Lemuel, who was still gaping at her newly deceased boyfriend. “Hey, mister!”
    “M-m-me?” Lem stuttered.
    “You look like you’ve got strong hands,” she said. “Could you stick this hatchet in me?”
    “Are you all nuts?!” Lemuel yelled, looking around the room at all the hatcheteers, most of whom barely raised an eyebrow at the carnage in front of them. “Your boyfriend is dead! You just split his head open with a hatchet!”
    “Uh, yeah, I know, Einstein,” Nettie sneered. “That’s why I need you to do this for me. Just drive it home, Dad!”
    Carmella nudged him on. “Go on, Lem. Consider this practice. Just drive it into her skull.”
    Nettie held the hatchet in front of him. Lem looked at Nettie, then at Carmie, then at Carmie’s breasts, then at Nettie’s breasts, then at Jackie, then at Jackie’s breasts, and then at the hatchet in Nettie’s hand. “I don’t know how to do this yet!”
    “It ain’t brain surgery,” said Nettie. “Well, it might help if you knew brain surgery, especially if you pierce too deeply. But look: All you gotta do is thrust it right here.” She pointed to a long vertical scar in the middle of her forehead.
    Carmie smiled at Lem. “Go on, cat. You’re not going to kill her.”
    Finally, Lem shrugged. “Well, okay, here goes.”
    He thrust the hatchet into Nettie’s face.
    “Abyss!” said Nettie, and she fell backward to the floor, where her skull burst open.
    “Oh Jesus Jesus Jesus Holy Saint Christopher!” Lem screamed.
    “Oh, yeah,” Carmella drawled. “You definitely killed her.”
    Lemuel waved his hands frantically, as if having just touched a hot stovetop. “Jesus H. Christ, we gotta call somebody!”
    Carmella grabbed his coat, spun him around to face her, and slapped him hard across the cheek. “Look, cat! You’re the one who did her in! So you’re in this as deep as the rest of us! Don’t you get it? You’re one of us now!”
    All around the room, the other hatcheteers began chanting, “One of us! One of us! One of us!”
    And then they shut up all at once.
    Lemuel frowned. “Did you guys rehearse that?”
    “Never mind,” said Carmie. “Now, are you going to try hatcheting yourself or not?”
    “I just watched two peoples’ heads split open!”
    “Right,” said Carmella. “Well, third time’s the charm.” She picked up the hatchet from Nettie’s bloodied remains. “Here, just do as I do.”
    Carmella made a few brief practice swings, apparently gauging the angle and weight of her swing. Then she plunged the hatchet into her skull.
    “Gggggg,” Lemuel muttered, his fists clenched, his skin beaded with sweat.
    A moment passed as Carmie’s eyes glazed over. “Hip trip, Daddy,” she moaned, and then pitched forward into Lem’s arms. She smiled up at him as the blood raced down both sides of her nose. “Oh, baby, that’s the magic!”
    Lemuel looked at the dreamy-eyed Carmella as if he didn’t know whether to drop her or feel her up. He felt her up.
    “Ooooh, yeah,” she breathed. “The colors! The colors! Lem, you gotta try it! Remember, you’re one of us, now!”
    “One of us! One of us! One—”
    “Oh, shut up, stoners!” Lemuel told the others impatiently. “That’s just plain creepy. You’re totally not helping here.”
    Jackie stepped forward, and offered a hatchet to Lem. “Here you go, square,” she said. “Now you can be one of the cool crowd!”
    Lemuel took the hatchet without thinking as he looked back at Carmella’s glazed, vacant stare. Then he looked at the hatchet in his hands, and Carmie slid down from his arms and clunked to the floor.
    He held the hatchet in front of his face for several seconds. The entire room was now focused on him, and dozens of bleary eyes watched in anticipation.
    He kicked it over again in his mind. He was a cool kid, dammit! And he was definitely going to feel some boob tonight.
    He swung the hatchet into his own skull, and the world exploded into color.
    “Hip trip, man,” he muttered, as star-shaped flowers bloomed in front of his eyes, surrounded by wavy lines of pastel colors, and unicorns and lollipops drifted just out of reach. His body lifted from the ground and floated gently into the air, the colors bending around him in a fruity rainbow of ecstasy. He floated higher and higher, passing innumerable pink clouds and happy singing birds. Then, in front of him, he saw the skeletal specter of Death.
    Death seemed to smile under his hood. His eyes glowed a happy blue, and his eyelids batted seductively at Lem. Then he reached out with a bony hand and offered Lem a deep red rose. Lem took the flower, looking down at it as it began to bloom larger and larger. Suddenly it exploded into a hoard of butterflies, which dispersed musically into the sea of color around him. Then Death waved merrily at him as Lem continued to float to the heavens. “Deep,” muttered Lem, looking up and seeing that the stars had faces, which were beaming happy, happy smiles down on him.
    “Lemuel!”
    “Huh?”
    Lem blinked. There, in the middle of the sky, looming large in front of him in living black and white, was a face he knew, a giant face easily the size of a small building.
    “Senator Estes Kefauver!”
    “Yes, Lem,” said the giant black and white head in the sky. “It is I, Senator Kefauver, 1952 Democratic presidential candidate and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency! You know why I’m here, don’t you Lem?”
    “You want to give me a flower that bursts into a hoard of butterflies?”
    “What? What the hell are you talking about? Hell, no, I’m not giving you any damn flower! Whom do I look like, Death? Or Vice-President Richard Nixon? No, Lemuel, I’m here to talk about your path to destruction! Your road to ruin! Your descent into…MADNESS!
    “—ess!
    “—ess!
    “—ess!”
    Lemuel looked around him, as if he could see the sound waves. “Cool echo, Mr. K!”
    “That’s Senator K. to you, Mister! I mean, Senator Kefauver! How long were you planning to engage in this unhealthful, unsavory, immoral activity, Lemuel? Until you get your ‘fix’?! Or until you get…dead?!”
    “I was going for the fix part,” Lem acknowledged.
    “You’ll destroy your brain, Lemuel!” Kefauver barked. “It will eat away at your mind, tear your psyche apart, turn you into something you’re not! Turn you into something evil! You must cast away all those temptations! Let your mother throw those evil comic books away!”
    “Comic books?”
    Kefauver stared back at him for a moment. “You’re not reading comic books?”
    “No, sir. I’m slamming hatchets into my skull.”
    “Oh, okay, then.” Kefauver sighed. “For a while there, I thought you were reading comic books. And as I proved in my committee with witness Dr. Frederic Wertham, author of Seduction of the Innocent, all juvenile delinquency can be traced back to comic books! But hatchets? That sounds like fun. Okay, son, as you were! I gotta split this joint before that sonovabitch Adlai Stevenson finds me. Enjoy your Hatchet Madness!
    “—ess!
    “—ess!
    “—ess!”
    And with that, Estes Kefauver faded away like an TV image, with only a dot remaining in the middle of the sky for several seconds, before that too disappeared.
    “Cooooool,” Lem exhaled.
    Suddenly, the giant, black-and-white head of Adlai Stevenson appeared in the sky before him. “Excuse me, youngster, did you happen to see Estes Kefauver?”
    “He just left.”
    “Typical.” And with that, Stevenson faded out, leaving just a white dot behind him.
    “Lemuel!”
    “Now what?” He looked around, trying to place who was calling him now.
    “Lemuel!”
    Suddenly, the colors disappeared, and Lem’s eyes shot open. He was lying on the floor, looking up at the square ceiling light fixture. Next he saw two shapely cliffsides on either side of him, which, after some moments of blinking, revealed themselves to be the breasts of Jackie and Carmie. And then there was the little issue of a hatchet handle sticking out in front of his face, with the blade presumably still stuck in forehead.
    Carmella leaned in closer, her pretty face showing a massive, bleeding split down the front. “Dad, you were tripping bad!”
    Lem sat up with the help of Jackie and Carmie, who each had to grab one of his arms to raise him to his shaky feet. “Yeah, I guess I was,” he admitted. “It was beautiful! I saw butterflies, and stars, and Death, and Estes Kefauver!”
    Jackie and Carmie exchanged glances. “Let’s get you to the couch,” said Carmie, and the two steered him to his seat.
    Lemuel sighed. “Carmie, that was a gas! My eyes are opened! I’ll never go back to not splitting my skull open with a hatchet ever again!”
    “So,” Carmella cooed, “you have Hatchet Madness!”
    “Yeah, but it’s cool,” he assured her. “Just as long as we don’t read comic books.”
    Carmie and Jackie looked at each other. “Okay,” they said in unison.
    “Yes, sir, things are going to be different now,” said Lemuel, chuckling to himself. “Things are going to be very, very different!”
    Weeks passed, and Lem and Carmie became more and more incorrigible. Lem began riding a motorbike that he bought with his paper route money, sporting a black leather jacket and a carrying a switchblade. He rode around town with Carmella, the local Bad Girl, doing all sorts of delinquent activities, like leaving the soda shoppe without paying for their sasparillas, or stuffing phone booths full of local frat boys, or even calling the operator and asking for “Dick Hertz.” Each night, their hooliganism would end the same way: a return to Jackie’s hatchet den, where the hatchets became increasingly sharp, the wounds ever deeper, the highs ever greater.
    Finally, things began to spiral out of control. Lem could see images of his vice, the switchblade, the phone booths, the sasparillas, all twirling around him, as if to illustrate the out-of-control-ness of his newfound libertine lifestyle. But he embraced it, embraced the Hatchet Madness, and he laughed. Laughed the laugh of the mad! Laughed the laugh of the hatchet mad!
    “What the hell is so damn funny?” Carmella asked.
    Lem looked up from the couch. “How did I get back here?”
    “You never left, remember?” said Carmie. “You’ve been sitting in that same spot for twenty minutes, cackling away like lunatic.”
    Lem whistled. “Whew. This is one potent hatchet.” He grabbed the handle of the hatchet and yanked it from his face. “Ow!” His hand reached up to feel the trickle of blood running down both sides of his nose.
    Bang! Bang! Bang!
    Every head turned, causing some eyes to be poked as hatchet handles were flung in inconvenient directions. The pounding at the door continued as a voice called out, “Police! Ar’right, lads and lassies, this is Officer O’Malley, and for shore I’m closing down this hatchet den! Open up! Open up, blame ye!”
    “Coppers!” Jackie called out.
    “Pigs!” said Carmie.
    “The bulls!”
    “The Man!”
    At once, the hatchet-faced crowd seemed to sober up, and they leapt from their lazy positions, scampering around as they plucked the bloodied hatchets from their faces and tried to find places to hide them. One couple raced to the bathroom, attempting to flush the incriminated hatchets down the loo, with little success.
    “I can’t be captured running a hatchet den!” screamed Jackie. “I just can’t!” She took her hatchet and thrust it solidly into her face. Her eyes crossed, a vacant smile crossed her face, and she uttered, “Abyss!” before falling dead to the floor, allowing her brains to spill out of her cleaved skull.
    “Oh heavenly god!” cried Lemuel, jumping to avoid getting his shoes wet with her blood. He clutched Carmella’s shoulders and shook her. “Carmie! What am I going to do? I don’t belong here! I’m an innocent victim! Innocent, I tell you! I only got swept into this den of iniquity because of that massive rack of yours! You can’t let me go up the river for you!”
    “There’s only one thing to do,” said Carmella, coldly but calmly.
    “You can’t mean—!”
    She thrust her hatchet into his hand. “Do it! Do it now!”
    “I can’t!”
    “Do it, you pussy!”
    His eyes blurred with blood and tears, Lemuel’s frantic thoughts drowned out the sounds of mad, panicked teenagers running around the room as the banging at the door continued.
    Bang! Bang! Bang! “Faith ‘n’ begorra, I said police!” screamed O’Malley at the other side of the door. “I’m warnin’ ye! Don’t make me force the door open!”
    Carmella looked over her shoulder at the door before turning back to Lem. “Hurry, Lem! You have to go through with it! Do it now!”
    Lem closed his eyes, winced, and plunged the hatchet down on Carmella.
    Missing her head by several inches, he cleaved off her left arm.
    “Son of a bitch!” Carmella screamed, as she watched her arm hit the floor. “You fucking son of a bitch! Are you crazy?! You cut my fucking arm off!”
    Lemuel opened up his eyes and screamed. “Oh, Jesus, Carmella! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I’ll try again!”
    “Like Hell!” She snatched the hatchet from him with her right hand. “I didn’t mean me anyway, you dumb sack of shit! I meant you! You need to kill yourself so I can tell my parents that you forced me to join this club!”
    “What? But I—!”
    “So long, cat!” said Carmella, drawing back the hatchet. “It’s been fun. Well, up until the time you cut my fucking arm off, you dumbass!”
    Carmella swung the hatchet at Lem’s face. But in a desperate move, he leapt to the side, causing Carmie to miss. He dove to the floor, snatched the hatchet from Jackie’s divided skull, and threw it, hoping to scare Camella away from him.
    Instead, the hatchet hit her dead in the face, landing squarely in the previous hatchet slot.
    Carmella froze. Then she said, “Abyss!” and collapsed dead to the floor.
    “Fuck fuck fuck fuck!” said Lemuel and jumped to his feet.
    Just outside the door, Officer O’Malley turned to his partner. “Great pots of gold, McGruff, it sounds like there’s pure carnage going on in there! Aw’right, I think we’ve waited long enough! Put your shoulder to the door and bust ‘er open!”
    McGruff turned the doorknob. “It’s unlocked, O’Malley.”
    O’Malley gave him an annoyed look as he pushed past him and entered the hatchet den.
    Their jaws dropped at all the blood and wide-eyed youths floundering around the room like chickens with their heads cleaved by hatchets. And then their attention focused squarely on Lemuel, who stood betwixt the bloodied corpses of Jackie and Carmella.
    “You there!” said O’Malley. “Murderer! Ye’ll get the chair for this, laddie! I promise ye!”
    “The chair?!” Lemuel repeated.
    “Aye, are you deaf, laddie? I said the chair, for shore!”
    Lemuel looked at the dead bodies and then at the hatchet in his hand.
    “Don’t do it, laddie!” said O’Malley. “I know what you be thinkin’! And if you do, I’ll put ye over my knee!”
    “Carmella’s gone,” said Lemuel to himself. “I’m facing the chair! They’ll never let me near a hatchet again! I’ve got no other choice!”
    “No, laddie! No!”
    “I’ll do it!” Lemuel cried to the four walls. “I’ll do it! Estes Kefauver, here I come!”
    And with that, he swung and plunged the hatchet into his face.
    He felt himself falling, falling, falling, as the world turned black and dark. Before him he again saw the face of Death, whose red eyes stared accusingly at him. “Schmuck!” said Death, before he flew off, leaving Lemuel to keep falling down a darkened crevice. He seemed to fall forever, with images of Carmella’s severed head, Jackie’s spilt brains, and Sputnik flying all around him.
    “Where am I?” asked Lemuel as he continued to fall.
    Just then, the oversized head of Estes Kefauver appeared before him. “Well, you sure messed this up good, didn’t you, punk? You had to take the fun too far, and now you’ve destroyed yourself!”
    “What are you talking about?” asked Lem. “I didn’t read comic books! I just rammed a hatchet into my face! You said that it sounded like fun!”
    “I did?” Kefauver bit his lip and looked sheepishly to each side of him. “You know what? Maybe I was the wrong guy to talk to about this. Let me get Adlai.”
    And with that, Kefauver disappeared, leaving behind only a white line with a round spot in the middle. Meanwhile, Lemuel kept falling, faster and faster, deep into the…
    “Abyss!” Lemuel cried out, and he fell dead to the floor, his hatchet wedged solidly into his skull.
    O’Malley and McGruff quickly rounded up the other youths, forcing them to line up against the wall and relinquish their hatchets. The kids seemed dazed, disoriented, and somewhat two-faced. O’Malley stepped up to the bodies of Camella, Jacqueline, and Lemuel, almost tripping over Smitty and Nettie, because he’d completely forgotten about them at this point.
    “You see, Officer McGruff?” O’Malley asked, gesturing to the deceased with his truncheon. “That’s the cost of Hatchet Madness! They all end up this way, at one point or another! Why, O why, do kids get drawn into this lunacy, McGruff? Don’t they know there are plenty of other ways to enjoy life? Why, there are drive-in movies! Malt shoppes! Hula-hoops! Popular music, like Glen Miller and Duke Ellington! There’s practicing good hygiene, like flossing every day! Don’t you agree, McGruff?”
    There was no answer. “McGruff?” O’Malley repeated, before turning around to see his partner with a hatchet in his face.
    “Abyss!” said McGruff, before falling to the floor with a dopey smile on his face.

         
    [<i>And so ends our cautionary tale, a tale of tragedy, pathos, and lots of cleaved faces. But beware! The next person who falls victim to Hatchet Madness may be…YOU! Or maybe Adlai Stevenson.</i>]