MisterDoctor Greenteeth's Pointless Forest of Music and Shit: The Box Shaped Head. And Delroy Wilson, Your Cool Operator.

Nothing new to say today so here's a story I wrote in New Orleans this past spring-

The Box Shaped Head

“My head is shaped like a box, Pandora...”, said the Monkey to the Flea. “Which reminds of something, though I can't say what.”

“What's eating you?”, said the Flea, “Hold still and quit your scratching! I think I'm on to something here.”

“You are eating me, and what it is that you're onto is also me”, said the Monkey, “and if you don't stop worrying that lock, we'll all be sorry.”

“Says you!”, says the Flea...

“And that's where babies come from. Now, go ask your Mother for a bowl of cream, a jelly roll, and a metal toothed comb. We're in for a long storm tonight.”

And there, under the Moon (it was a clear and windless night) and beneath the eaves, my Uncle told me a tale. And this is how it went.

“There once was a Man form Nantucket... No, that's not the one. How old are you again? Never mind. We'll save that one for another year, perhaps. In any case it's not a proper tale. More of an amusing anecdote...

Now where were we? Ah yes- There once was a Man.

There once was a Man who went to sleep. Now that might not seem strange to you. These days people go to sleep all the time, and many of them never wake up again. But back then (this is sort of a once upon a time thing too, though I don't think there are any princes and such) people rarely went to sleep at all. The occasional nap to be sure, but they had so many things to do and so many interesting things to talk about that going to sleep just didn't fit in. Even back then when time was much, much larger than it is now there just wasn't enough of it to spend laying on your back with your eyes closed dreaming about this or that. People then could dream with their eyes open, and then DO the things they dreamt... Am I rambling? You've got that look like I'm rambling. Well stories don't go in straight lines no matter what they tell you in school. Whatever...

There once was a Man who went to sleep. He went to sleep because one day while he was walking around town and talking to his friends he fell down and he broke his heart. Well, this didn't bother him too much at first, but as time went on it hurt him more and more until finally all he could do was lie in one spot, and that got so boring that he eventually closed his eyes and dosed off and slept for awhile. How long? Who knows? Do you know how long you've slept unless the clock tells you so? And even then, what do clocks know about time? And what moral code binds them to tell you the truth about anything anyway? Yes, I know- rambling. What a child!

Now when the Man woke up, he didn't see a single thing that he recognized. Even the bed he had laid down on had been transported from his house and been turned into the rim of a giant public fountain. (Why did he have a bed when people never slept back then? People do other things in beds besides sleep you know. Or maybe you don't. Never mind.) The bed had been turned to a fountain and his house had become a public square filled with busy people moving to and fro, and groups of women and men talking and laughing and arguing and such- but he did not know a one of them.

“Well, I'm not having a dream”, he told himself. “And if I am it's not one of mine. My dreams look nothing like this. Oh, well.”

He said oh well because the situation didn't bother him too much at all. He had been around a long time and knew that things liked to change, sometimes very suddenly. So a bed deciding to be a fountain and a house wanting to be a town square for a while didn't seem that odd at all. He himself had been many different things in his own life, and not all of them made a lot of sense.

“Well first things first”, he said, and swung his legs over, scratching himself and searching for a cigarette and a book of matches. Finding a cigarette but no matches he decided to strike up a conversation with one of the people he had seen when he opened his eyes.

“Say, Man, excuse me, but have you got a light?”, he said, and other things like that but no one seemed to hear him. Then he said a few things that were a bit rude and only got ruder, but still no one paid him any mind. “Hmm”', he said, “Now that's odd.” for he knew that as a rule when somebody started cursing somebody else would notice. (I've noticed that you've already figured that one out on your own. We'll have to have a talk about the etiquette of cursing someday. Sooner than later, I think.)

“Let's see”, he thought, and begin to dig in his pockets for something that would get the peoples attention. He found a lot of scraps of paper, some bent wire, a few Empty matchbooks with phone numbers and such written on them, a stub of on old pencil, and a wad of string that had wed itself to some old gum when he hadn't been paying attention- but nothing to gather a crowd with. He was beginning to get a bit irritated when he found in another pocket that he had forgotten about all together a collection of shiny things.

“Aha!”, he said, for nobody of any character at all can resist a nice piece of shiny thing. He began carefully arranging the things on and around himself in interesting patterns. Then he sat very still, the way you do when you want a particular bird to hop up on to your lap, and waited. But still, besides a few glimpses in his direction, he was getting no closer to getting a light, and now he was getting frantic. The morning cigarette is the most important one of the day, except for maybe the one you share with a love in the evening time. And his was now getting damp where it hung from his lip and producing absolutely no smoke at all.

Now, among the many things the Man had done in his years was work with a traveling carnival. (What did he do? You've obviously never been in the circus before or humped a carnival around the country on your back. He did everything. That's what one does in a traveling show. Everything that needs doing.) He began to juggle the shiny things and sing silly songs. He began turning somersaults around the fountain, and he began performing little prat falls and magic tricks like a clown does to keep the audience from leaving while the next bit of talent is getting they're act together. But as he had no audience to begin with, he had no audience to keep. Foiled again, he was.

He slumped back down on what had once been a rather comfortable bed and hung his head in his hands. “All I want is a damned light!”, he exclaimed, and then rather quickly added “And maybe some toast and coffee and someone to talk to while I dine.”

As he began to think of just giving up and going back to sleep until his house became a house again so he could just light his cigarette on the stove, he noticed three youngish men in shabby coats that they were trying to pretend were respectable sneaking their eyes at him and his obvious dejection.

He remembered a little trick by where a subtle symbol, a mark if you will, could be placed on the shoulder of some unsuspecting soul that would draw the attention of, if not the most desired company, company none the less. Dipping his hand to his vest pocket he carefully palmed a small piece of chalk that he always carried with him. (You should be paying attention to what's in his pockets, by the way. These are all things that you should never leave your house without- shiny things, string, paper, chalk. The list goes on. We'll talk about that more when you're Mother's not eavesdropping on us. Yes, Sister, just a quick bedtime story. I know.)

With the chalk secreted in his hand he reached up as if to scratch his shoulder and made a small X there, so faint it could barely be seen. Then he stood up, rubbed his head and turned so that the boys might see his back. He began to do an old act that he knew quite well. It was the half dumbstruck country boy in the city for the first time and half addled old man bit that made cops look the other way and their opposites prick up their ears as if pennies were falling from heaven. And sure enough a peek into the mirror on the brim of his hat told him that he had hooked some fishes. And the best kind of fishes, too. Fishes that think that they are sharks.

Patiently, patiently he waited, playing a game of “Red Light, Green Light” with the boys; turning towards them to watch them carefully freeze, then turning away to let them draw in again. Always let the fish catch itself, he knew, and played the line like a spring breeze- gentle and subtle, with just the hint of better days to come. Before long the sharks had formed a loose but inescapable circle around him, and putting a hand on his shoulder the littlest but sharpest looking one said, “Hey now Mister, are you alright? Are you lost? Need help getting back to your home? We'd be glad to help you home, Mister. Me and my brothers here were just now headed in that direction anywise to visit are dear old Mom. You'd like our Mom, you would. I can tell right away that the two of you would hit it off famously.”

And on he went, never letting up the patter while his companions inched in slowly as if they were being floated on a tide and had no say in which direction they were moving. The Man waited until he smelled a hand reach towards his pocket before he sprang.

“Doing beautifully”, he said, sharpening his eyes and straightening his back. “Just need a light for this soggy cigarette. And maybe some toast and coffee.” Before they could react the three realized that it was they who were surrounded somehow by this not so addled-after-all not so old Man. “Let's talk, shall we?”

Lit cigarette puffing now in his grin and arms around the three little fishes, the Man pulled them all down together on to edge of his bed. “So tell me gentlemen, what is it that you call this place? Or yourselves for that matter. And more importantly, where might we stumble upon a drink on this glorious morning. Or is it afternoon? Whichever. Shy now, are we? Don't be, little fishes, I don't bite much. Only what I can chew.”

“I'm Bob.”, said the one who could talk regaining his composure, “And these are John and John, Big and Little respectively. And this around you is Brooktown, where the three of us have been born in and raised. And you, good sir, are...?”

“A name is only what people call you and I've never called myself, so I suppose whatever name you give me will suit as well as any other. I've had a good few by now. I don't think another will tilt the cart.”

“I think I'll just call you Old Man then. A name of deepest respect, I'm sure you know.”

“Yes, I've known a couple of Old Men in my life and all of them golden. I reckon that will do just right. So, we were discussing drinks weren't we? At least we should be discussing drinks. If we're going to discuss anything at all it should be discussed over drinks. Yes, indeed. Wine, whiskey, or beer- something with some color to it. Where and how, young Man, will we get these?”

“I like you, Old Man. I think what we'll get from you might be much more worthwhile than the small change we were trying for. A story maybe? I'd trade a drink or two for the story of you got to this place, and where you learned to fish so well. Shall we? Come on Johns, to the Tavern!”

“It's not much of a story really, but given the proper provocation I could turn it in to one.” And off they flew.

The Tavern turned out to be a lovely place. It was dim and dusty. It stank of spilled beer and smoke, with an after thought of urinal cakes that had been on the job for far too long. The smoke stood around with no intention of leaving and the conversation was quiet though you could tell it would grow to fill this room and three more like it by time the night shift came on. The beer was warm but cheap, and the whiskey was really grain alcohol that some one had floated some wood chips in once. In short it was a perfect place for an afternoon of story telling.

“It all began, this part of it anyway, when I broke my heart.”, said the Old Man.

“ You broke your heart?”

“Of course I broke it. A heart's not like a nose. It's not like I got out of line at a social function and someone decided I had been conscious for too long. Nobody gets mad and punches you in the heart. No, I just fell down one day and broke my heart. Simple and plain. After that I found it harder and harder to stand, with or without drink, and finally I just laid down and went to sleep.”

“Went to sleep in the square?”

“Went to sleep in my own house, lying in my bed. It only became a fountain and a public square when I woke up. Seems perfectly natural to me, I don't know why you look so surprised. You've never gone to sleep in one place and woken up in another?”

“I suppose I have. But I always imagined it not so much a case of the one place deciding to just be someplace else so much as a case of being transported either by myself, unknowingly, or some sort of cop, usually rather rudely. Can't say my bed ever turned into a park bench or my house into a courtroom.”

“It happens. All the time. One thing get's bored or distracted and turns into something else entirely. I used to be a sober little boy and look at me now. I once knew a dream that turned into a little Man. Now there's a story.”

And this is how it went.

In the royal town of Bethlehem, strapped to the loving stone, a dream began to grow limbs. First arms with stubby little hands feeling at the air, wondering over the floor, reading things in the filth. Now little legs, shaky but strong, to bump it into the walls and trip it's fragile self over pails and benches. But the poor little dream with no head of it's own could not give birth to new dreams with which to feed itself. So it garnered what it could through it's cold, damp skin and began to make a map of all it knew. The world is a darkened box, soundless and wet. There is no other thing here besides me. I create all of this by the tips of my fingers and the soles of my feet, the skin of my knees on the rough hewn earth. It's mother now, with her dreams outside of her, had faded into mercy and been removed from the cell so no other flesh remained to give the little one an idea of others akin to him. Yes, him indeed for the little legs had met and parted, giving birth to a third- a lovely toy to whittle away the endless time of a poor blind dream. But, alas, with out a head to think of all the nasty and loving things that could be thought he had only the mechanical pleasure of friction to bless his little cell with. And so it went for quite some time.

Then one day (or was it night?) the little dream awoke with a pain in the place where it's neck should have been. Something was becoming. It scratched and rubbed the sore place, giving up it's game of stumbling about and jerking. And as will happen a sore that is not left alone will get larger and fester. And so it went with each scab pulled building up new tissue and new scars until it had grown into a proper neck. Now this was new. At first the young dream believed it had grown a new toy to match the one below. But when he rubbed it, though yes it would spasm and spew forth like it's smaller cousin in the south, it did not feel quite as good. Interesting at first, and worth exploring, but ultimately the tests were abandoned and the old games renewed.

In the midst of and afternoon crawl the little dream, with no head and therefor little capacity for retention, discovered (again) the length of flesh that had grown above it's shoulders and forgetting all it had learned began to squeeze and stroke it with fantastic vigor. And as it rubbed and pulled it began to feel a familiar sensation of impending spasm and release. It redoubled it's efforts sweating into like a mad painter on the verge of some new masterpiece. Almost there, it thought, and then suddenly with a force that knocked it on it's skinny ass it happened. It's neck had spit out a shiny new skull all wrapped in flesh and skin, with two little ears and a stubby little nose and pretty blue eyes all astare. And down below an angel's smile.

“My god!” it shouted, and the recoiled in terror. For it had never in all it's years uttered a word, having never had a mouth with which to do it. And more importantly had never had ears with which to hear them.

All at once the poor little thing was hit with the World. The stench of the cell and the screams of it's neighbors. And dear Lord the sights! Four dripping walls, all grey and spattered. And dark, dark, dark. Yes, dear ones, Bedlam indeed.

“So, this is where I have been all this time,” it thought, for it was too frightened to speak again. “How dreadful, how morbid, my tiny little world.”

But now some new dawn ran through the frightened beast. What were these things that that sprang from the new place above it's neck? These dreadful pictures, these... words. For it had never before had a thought and could not place it into the context of it's old self. So much new all at once. So much wonder. It stared and smelled and listened to the new world, thinking it's thoughts and trembling, sucking in more and more of the new world with each fresh breath of the stale and rotting air.

And in no time at all it became so full, dear friends, that it's lovely new head ripe with possibilities just exploded taking our sweet young dream with it into yet another world.

The End.

“That little dream ended up getting a job on a boat I worked on on one of those lakes near the place that this used to be. Good fellow, though not much of a conversationalist.”

“I think your pulling my leg Old Man. I think it's the one in the middle, too.”

“Whatever. Never let the facts ruin a good story. Let's have one or two more and you can tell me a story.”

And on and on it went, until they all got to drunk to tell a proper tale and started telling dirty jokes which just got worse and worse until they were justing making farting noises with their mouths, and other parts too. Eventually they all crawled off in different directions to sleep and in the morning none of them were where they had gone to sleep and none of them ever saw the others again. The Old Man went back to where he came from lugging his broken heart with him which never healed quite right and would always give him pains when the weather was just so, which as it turned out was pretty much every day. But he lived until he died, and that was the end of his story. The Johns went down to New Orleans where they started a horrible band that none the less made them a good deal of money down on Royal Street during the tourist season, and during the summer they biked around in foreign countries making everyone believe that this was what good American music sounded like and convincing young girls that they were really quite charming and talented besides. So it turned out well for them I suppose, after a fashion. Where they are now no one knows, but probably in a bar I would imagine.

Bob left town the next morning to see if he could find more good stories and good bars and funny Old Men who seemed a bit crazy but always had that little shine to them so that you could never really tell for sure. And he found lots and lots of them everywhere he went.

Then one day Bob looked up at the signs on the highway and saw the word Brooktown in big shiny letters with his own name underneath in chalk and realized he was at the place where he had started, or at least a similar place with the same name. So he got off the highway and made his way down to his Sister's house and found out that while he was gone she too had collected some stories, and a little child to boot. So he decided he'd stay a while so they could all trade the things they had dreamt since they had parted ways. And he did.

And the moral of that story is that is long since time for bed. So off you go and sleep well and dream of everything in the whole universe, good and bad, and tomorrow over breakfast you can tell me all about it. Good Night.

The End

Todays record has nothing to do with the story. It's just an awesome album for too hot summer days. Ladies and gentlemen, Mister Delroy Wilson!

Delroy Wilson- Cool Operator