Back when I was living in Philadelphia, there was this guy, his name was Jacks (yes, plural), he would walk around with his head cracked open. Each morning started out the same, he would wake about 6:30, feed the cats, make a pot of coffee, then sip it on the porch while reading the news, out loud to himself, from his phone. He usually did it after that, that is, he would trudge down into the basement with a hammer and bang it against his skull as hard as he could over the slop sink. Jacks lived off social security checks, was the kind of guy who knew everyone on the block, spent his days either walking up and down the street or tinkering out front with an ever evolving tree-like sculpture with branches made of blood stained PVC pipes which extended from his porch out over the sidewalk. The area was old fashioned like that, that is, people were still eccentric, sat outside, talked to each other. He was well liked, and no one seemed to mind the bleeding much, it was just the way things had always been—Jacks, the guy with the tree sculpture out front, the guy with his head cracked open. He was polite, too—kept rags in his pockets, always made sure to clean up the little pools of blood that were left after a visit to a friend's stoop. By about sundown each evening, after a day spent outdoors, the continental pieces of Jacks’ skull began floating closer together until merging again into a single Pangea, clean pillow, and the next morning would start the same.
clean pillow
clean pillow
clean pillow
Back when I was living in Philadelphia, there was this guy, his name was Jacks (yes, plural), he would walk around with his head cracked open. Each morning started out the same, he would wake about 6:30, feed the cats, make a pot of coffee, then sip it on the porch while reading the news, out loud to himself, from his phone. He usually did it after that, that is, he would trudge down into the basement with a hammer and bang it against his skull as hard as he could over the slop sink. Jacks lived off social security checks, was the kind of guy who knew everyone on the block, spent his days either walking up and down the street or tinkering out front with an ever evolving tree-like sculpture with branches made of blood stained PVC pipes which extended from his porch out over the sidewalk. The area was old fashioned like that, that is, people were still eccentric, sat outside, talked to each other. He was well liked, and no one seemed to mind the bleeding much, it was just the way things had always been—Jacks, the guy with the tree sculpture out front, the guy with his head cracked open. He was polite, too—kept rags in his pockets, always made sure to clean up the little pools of blood that were left after a visit to a friend's stoop. By about sundown each evening, after a day spent outdoors, the continental pieces of Jacks’ skull began floating closer together until merging again into a single Pangea, clean pillow, and the next morning would start the same.