Overheard In My Head

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Overheardinmyhead.com

Fortune Cookies

Those bits of paper, entombed in kaolin
polished crust shaped like hooves,
find their way into everything:
my wallet, journal, mind.
More pervasive than weeds,
their maxims tangle my life in ways
I have yet to fully discover.

the boy was so easily swayed
by shiny things
cake
singers
that he never took time
to cultivate
a sense of self

excerpt from "Spamsters"

My sister sat in the living room in front of the television. As always she was looking through her Tiger Beat and other pre-teen magazines.

“What’s on TV?”

“A 'Charlie Brown Christmas.' Why?”

“Because Piggy should watch it too!” I started to run off into my bedroom to get Piggy.

My sister called out after me, “Are you retarded or something?”

I stopped and turned around, “No.”

“I think you are. You’re totally an MR-MR running around with a can for a pet.”

“I AM NOT A MENTALLY RETARDED MONKEY RAPER!” I screamed. “And Piggy’s real, and mom said I can get another one tomorrow at the store!” I ran down the hall and picked Piggy up out of her cage. I walked back into the living room and took my perch on the couch above my sister who was now lying on the floor. I could tell Piggy enjoyed “A Charlie Brown Christmas” because she sat so contently while it was on.

In bed that evening I tossed and turned with anticipation about getting the new friend.

Trepanation

The red of the walls bled through the panes of translucent plastic sheeting she applied to the sides of the room. A placement tray, sterilized with hibiclens soap was equipped with a scalpel, drill and bits, gauze and potions of sodium chloride, Lidocaine and Epinephrine. He read the box of latex gloves, size medium, ready to be donned by his girlfriend. He remembered his mother’s hands that used to freely pat his head.

He had already prepped a portion of his head, three inches by three inches shaved, with a orange disposable razor. His scalp was smooth and clean. “Choke me,” he said “to map my veins with this blue pen.” There was no hesitation as a hand wrapped around the front of his throat and a diagram was drawn.

A hypodermic needle, filled with a 1cc mixture of Lidocaine and Epinephrine punctured the canvas of skin. The area went numb, the room quiet. She took a scalpel and made a half moon incision larger than a nickel but smaller than a quarter. “I want to have a sense of God” he muttered.

Forceps and fore fingers pulled at the skin. It was adhered stronger than she thought. The scalpel sawed the flesh from the skull. Sodium chloride irrigation helped wash away the blood. “Are you sure you want to go through with this?” she pressed.

“Yes.”

The Dremmel with ball and flame-shaped burrs were used at drill speed 4. The buzzing reverberated through his jaws, down his spine, to the tip of his toes. She drilled and irrigated. The bone turned to dust. Twenty minutes, thirty minutes, marrow. Drill speed 2. One hour— meninges. It opened.

His brain pulsated. A sign of success. “Let’s widen the hole.” The drill went on, slowly. Her hands moved with trepidation. “I can’t widen it anymore.”

She unfolded the skin. Using a needle, thread and a whipstitch she sutured the incision.

He sat up and looked at her for the first time. She patted his head ever so lightly. He knew all for the first time. He saw his mother sitting there, tears in her eyes with medium sized hands.

Porn

The gray concrete walls are patterned with trowel combed waves. I finger a chip, heart shaped, jagged with sand and bits of rock. Condensation collects in my hand.

Gill tapping on his keyboard makes the sound of popping corn. Moans on the editing monitors swell into the room. “That cock-shot could be better.”

On the desk chip grease seeps through the white paper bag, now translucent like fine skin. In a stretch I can see the skylight, metal wire meshed between pieces of glass, dividing the sky up above.

Someone’s burning toast. Smoke curls hang from the ceiling.

“Do we have another shot of his ass?”

·

Trapped beneath smoke curls

Five Day Observation

2/10/04

Coffee beans, roasting. Percolating conversations. Traffic. Shouting. Clanging homeless cups of change, spiritual hymns punctuated by coughing, the buzz of BART underneath the street.

Piles of shit. Smelly awful shit. 16th and Capp, the Mission’s toilet. Pigeons. Lots and lots of pigeons. People and pigeons, pigeon-people. Don’t feed the birds, don’t feed the birds.

Busted. Cop lights. Blue and red. Swipe employees smoking cigarettes in the garage. Smelly smoke curls hanging from the ceiling. Grecian goddess hair.

2/11/04

Fallen Angels. A concrete wall with a heart chipped out of the center. Shallow and cold, I can run my finger across it and feel the roughness of sand and stone. Trowel marks combed through the surface make waves, gentle undulating waves, the rush of the traffic outside is the water.

Watermarks drip down to the wooden floor. Damp walls, rusty bolts—looks like urination marks. I bet they’re urination marks.

2/12/04

Lights, camera, action! “Out of all new HIV cases world wide, 30% are white.” Should that be Caucasian? Sirens and busses fly by as I talk into the camera. “Four fluids transmit HIV: Seamen, Blood, Breast Milk and Vaginal Fluids.” I was the only person to get that right today. Ding-ding-ding! I wanted to snicker when I said “vaginal fluids.”

Passers by stop and gawk for seconds before moving to the corner to drink from brown paper bags and shoot craps.

“When’s this going to be on?” I ask.

“Tuesday. Tell us more. Tell us your story. Tell us a story about you.”

“Do we have that much time?”

2/13/04

Noisy bus crowded with people—body odor mixed with 100 proof cheap liquor. Burrito in hand, chip grease seeping out the white paper bag, now translucent like fine skin. I get off. A kit of pigeons whirl, swirl, twirl in the air as if caught by a tornado. A chill in shadowed air, uncomfortable, fleecing body heat. Homeless man wrapped up in newspaper—yesterday’s NY Times, I haven’t read it, the article I want is beneath his right torn shoe. I wonder if I can jimmy it without him knowing?

2/15/04

Pin teeth, little daggers, the puppy is chewing on me. Humping my leg, at 9 weeks-old, that seems too young.

Feed him sausage, freeze-dried lamb lung, I can see the bronchial branches. They’re beautiful, garnet red in tan cases; the puppy thinks they’re tasty.

Pee puddles on the floor. The carpet repels them. It sits on top like a liquid glacier, mercury from a broken thermometer.

It’s warm in the apartment. The gas heater is open fully. I could bake cookies. I could go down the street and show off Stewie. I could nap.

Napping sounds good.

Stewie’s breath smells like puppy chow. Puppy breath is stinky.