I was sitting at the tiled counter in my beach cottage on the Friday night after my birthday, drinking some beers with my best friend, Charlie and wondering when would be the perfect time to open the box that had been delivered by UPS earlier that day.

In the box was a late birthday present from a friend in Virginia named Rod Spain. Since old Rod runs a company called "Creative Corpses, Props by Rod", I figured he wasn't sending me a striped shirt that wouldn't fit. It would more likely be the sort of thing one Halloween fanatic would send to another, namely some hideous, disgusting, horrifying creation most people wouldn't allow inside their house. So I'd been biting at the bit all day to find out what it was. But I didn't want to open the box when it first arrived, since uncovering a treasure such as it was sure to contain seemed like it should be more of an event than simply opening the mail.

Besides, I knew my old college pal was coming over that night, so I figured it would liven the evening a bit. More often than not these days, every time Charlie and I get together I have to listen to him whine about some unattainable girl he's been pining over for the last five years which, as you can imagine, gets a little tedious after awhile. But he wasn't always like that. He used to be was as much of a Halloween fan as Rod and me once upon a time before a woman he married one Halloween night took a walk on him in '96. Now he says he hates Halloween as much as he hates her memory. But he puts up with my Halloween fascination, and sometimes I catch him digging the decorations and magical apparatus littering the place, so I know there's still an ember of interest left. But even though he's used to the weird stuff on the walls, I didn't guess that he wasn't ready for what was inside the box.

I waited through two rounds without bringing it up. But when the inevitable discussion about the girl came up, I figured the time was right. For one thing, by now I was literally itching to see what Rod had designed. For another, I thought that if I had to hear Charlie tell another story about how this girl used a little girl's voice to call him "silly rabbit" as a term of endearment a second or two before her head started spinning around, I'd start puking pea soup.

So I grabbed the box, pushed the Corona bottles aside and dropped it in middle the counter, telling Charlie the story of where it came from as I made a big deal out of opening it. Inside was a sea of foam popcorn, underneath which was a bowling-ball size object tied inside a plastic shopping bag. Charlie suddenly got fascinated, staring hard as I untied the bag. First thing we saw when I pulled it open was a mass and tangle of red hair.

"It's a head!" Charlie exclaimed.

It was a head, all right, but not just any head. It was what you would expect from a Halloween prop maker; a bizarre rotted black corpse's head with sharp fangs and wide staring eyes head surrounded by the swarm of a long red wig. And in a scroll contained in a separate plastic bag was the legend Rod had written.

So I pull the scroll open and read it out loud.

"The Tale of David's Ex-Wife," I read.

"This is the head of one of David's ex-wives
Who went to divorce court and told a lot of lies
David stood up and said, 'Go dream on!'
So the bitch could only do the next best thing and that
Was to turn into a Demon!
She snarled and shrieked as the courtroom gasped
But David was smart and had a hidden axe
He lunged on her with all of hi might
Knowing that he might be put away for murder
If the jury thought it right.
He swung and killed the lousy lying beast
He held her head as the body lay at his feet
The jury crowd cheered as the beast's body bled
David stood proudly and stated…'this was the first
Time she ever gave me some Head!"

Since the subject of ex wives and girlfriends has always been a common joke between Rod and me, I was in hysterics as I read the poem. Charlie laughed along too. But it was polite nervous laughter. He was far too busy staring at the head with a combination of warped fascination and pure dread to pay all that much attention to what I was reading. I didn't expect Charlie to freak when I pulled Rod's creation out of the bag. But when I'd finished reading Rod's poem, I could see that he was.

At first, he tried covering it up by being objective about the thing – asking what it was made of and where the eyes had come from and so forth. And even though he commented on how cool it was, I could tell that he didn't like it…or the way it was staring at him.

So I held it in my right hand like a puppeteer and remembering the earlier conversation said in my very best Freddy Krueger voice, "Oh don't be scared, silly rabbit. How 'bout a nice sloppy kiss, huh?"

Charlie actually started shaking and recoiled from Rod's object 'd arte, very nearly falling off the barstool, which, of course, prompted me to keep it up. Finally, I put it down on the counter and reached for the beer I'd more or less forgotten. But after a minute or two, unable to keep his eyes off it as if he expected it to jump up and bite him, Charlie said, "Could you put that thing someplace else? It's really freaking me out."

"It really bothers you?" I asked, amazed, since I'd been looking around the room wondering where I could display it full time.

"Yes, it really DOES," he said, shaking a little. "It's creepy and disgusting, and it's starting to bug me."

"Okay, okay," I said, choking with laughter. "I'll get rid of her if it'll make you happy."

"Good," he said, and he reached for a beer.

So I hoped off the barstool, took it in the other room and put it on a shelf beside the bathroom door. A few minutes later Charlie got up to use the bathroom. But he never made it. I heard a loud gasp, and a second later he was in the living room putting on his coat.

"Where you going?" I asked.

"I can put up with the weird stuff around here, but I can't take that!" he said, pointing in the vague direction of the bathroom with a shaking finger.

And with that, he was out the door.

I thought about chasing him outside holding the head by her red hair, but I figured the poor guy had had enough for one night.

So Rod should consider his creation as one big-time major hit. And for my part, I can't think of a way to thank him enough for it. I mean, there are birthday presents, and then there are birthday presents. While most are forgotten as soon as the wrapping's off the box, this one, I have no doubt will keep on giving.

And don't forget to visit our friend Rod Spain web site Creative Corpse.