I say why rent when I can live on and on at a perfectly tidy service station, without the oil and gas and all of that messiness, of course, but the windows are nice and boarded up and safe, since nobody but nobody knows I'm here or there or anywhere, and I don't take up much space anyway, and I'm a neat-nick, so I take good care of the insides. Nobody knows, I guess, or I guess I hope, and if nobody knows where I am that's fine and dandy since I'm a writer, and being a writer I need time and space and peace and quiet and law and order, all of which are fairly difficult to come by when you live in Dundalk and work at the tunnel, which is what I do and where I live, but not who I am since who I am is really and truly a metaphysical question, and like all or most metaphysical questions, it is unanswerable, or what have you. The important part is the space I have, and the time, and even at work I have time for me, and my ideas, which is really what got me into this whole situation of sorts in the first place.
I came from a place that will remain nameless and I did go to a university that will also remain nameless, but also I had certain difficulties, but the important part is that all the while I longed for something indefinable despite the certain difficulties. As far as childhood goes, my parents were fine parents and we spent many fine hours of my formative years together. However, once these longings began to seem more important, my parents (who were good parents) didn't know how to be good parents any more, all of which has nothing to do with the fact that we are no longer continuing to share fine hours of my formative years, since my formative years are over and done with, and we don't see each other anymore for several more and less compelling reasons--more being that I am now very devoted to my various hobbies and goings-on, and less being my parents don't exactly live close by, and don't live far away either, which makes becoming excited about the prospects of seeing them in the place that will remain nameless rather muted and difficult for me to process.
I am not really secretive, since if I could I would knock all the plywood off the windows of the service station--which (thank God) has little to no heat or electricity--or the like, but is still comfortable for me since Leonardo da Vinci didn't have heat or electricity either, and I have plumbing which he didn't have. I think about that when I sit on the service station toilet to urinate, and then when I'm urinating, which isn't always easy, I repeat the title of Franz Hall Gall's multi-volume work over and over until it comes: "Lehre Uber Die Verrichfungen Des Herns, Und Uber Die Moglichkeit, Die Anlagen Mehrerer Geistes-und Gemuthseigenschaften Aus Dem Bau Des Kopfes, Und Des Schedels Des Menschen und Der Thiere Zu Erkennen." And then I repeat it over and over again until it comes, and then I can be at peace again in the service station.
Some people say you have to love and cherish your parents and sisters and brothers forever and kiss the ground they walk on, and feed them stringed spinach and rice pudding when they are immobile with their broken hip and their spinal condition of varying degrees. Since I am a writer I can be more concerned with more important things like writing a sentence until I get it right because I can't seem to get it exactamundo, and until I get it exactamundo I can't exactly go onto the next sentence, not to mention paragraph. The sentence I'm stuck on is the first sentence on page seventy eight of book one of my trilogy, and right now the sentence reads "The hair, the wind, the wind in her hair--these sensations rippled through her like sonar."
Obviously, this is not exactamundo.
I have been writing and rewriting this sentence for going on three years, and every time I think I've finally got it exactamundo, I realize the sentence is not exactamundo because it's riddled with soft and squishy things, which I loathe, and then I have to stop writing because I get upset that my prose is filled with soft and squishy things, as opposed to hard and firm things, and then I get upset at my writing abilities, which are merely on hold, but also at my capacity to concoct a sentence that has the correct tone and function at this place in the story which is another thing since the story hinges on the primary female antagonist's decision to exile herself from society and become invisible, and be alone from society, which she hates though she never had the capacity to say so until she met another woman character, though I hope for God's sake that I can avoid any lesbian overtones, which are always difficult to avoid for various and sundry reasons. All of which is fine and dandy except for the fact that I don't want to write a story about a character who shares even the slightest resemblance to myself, though the similarities are superficial, and I found myself more and more hating my protagonist and her woman friend, and all women characters for some irrational reason, which was, I suppose, a sort of crisis point for me, and which lead me to my current and over-riding interest--phrenology--which is how this story started in the first place. Now my over-riding interest is preying on my former and waning interest.
Another consideration is this: here I am writing a story about writing a story (or not writing a story), which was always something I wanted to avoid, and now here I am doing it and loathing myself for doing it at the same time. Yet it continues. Suddenly my life itself seems down and dirty, and I don't mean just the abandoned service station, though I'm sure it doesn't help. It just seems unclean all of a sudden--being a writer and writing and writing about these sordid characters with their sordid fantasies, and fantasy is the key here--I want something larger than fiction, something like truth, which takes us back to Gall's multi-volume work and the over-riding interest, which is what I think about when I'm at work seventy-five to eighty-five percent of the time, and even when I'm not thinking about my over-riding interest (which doesn't include sticking my hand out like an orangutan and accepting folded and crumpled one dollar bills), I'm thinking about thinking about it, or just waiting to think about it like pressing the pause button until I can continue the movie--except when I continue the movie sometimes I'm right where I left off in that place that's not a place, a toll booth in the middle of the highway where I stand all day taking the folded and crumpled one dollar bills, and other bits of debris that drivers think I might be amused to collect according to my whims--Legos, old Christmas ornaments, Matchbox Cars, condoms, burning cigarettes, bits of stale cake and bagel crusts, old Kleenex and banana peels--all of which is groovy-two-shoes except unbeknownst to them, the moment they place their debris in my hand is the exact moment when the camera comes into play, taking a picture of their license, and earning them a none-too-pleasant fine.
What I've done to make this job bearable, a job I acquired precisely so I could hold a painless but brainless position to give me the mental energy for my craft and art--writing--is to etch a sign (without the consent of either the state or immediate supervisor) on my teeth that says "free phrenology." Since I never smile outside of the booth, nobody knows but the driver and myself, and this has, on a side-note, elicited some wild and wooly responses such as "Who's got phrenology locked up? And "Lady, you're not examining my phrenology for no amount of money." One lesson I've learned from working with the public is this: the public is off its rocker.
Sometimes though I'll get lucky. I'll get some wise guy who wants to try the free phrenology, and after I sort out the ones that get it confused with pornography, I run my hand over their face and hands to detect any elevations or protrusions, or protuberances, then I take their picture with my nifty-thrifty Polaroid from 1984 that still works fine, and then after it develops (which usually includes fifty five seconds of uncomfortable sighs and coughs, minus the beeping and honking from the line in back of Mr. Wiseguy--not that they matter) I take out my magnifying glass and examine their head for protrusions and protuberances one more time, and then I jot down some basic characteristics that I can deduce in the available time at hand on my index cards that I always carry with me, and then I hand the card to Mr. Wiseguy. I'll tell him, for instance, that his protrusions indicate that he has a high impulse or propagation or a sense of cunning and in this way perhaps he will try to find out more about the funny word that begins in P and H and perhaps he will even run across Gall, though I doubt it. More likely, he will stuff the card in his pocket and roll his weed into it, and smoke it while carousing with numerous ladies of leisure in some seedy Chinese massage parlor, or use the card to blot out some blot on his face the next morning after he cuts himself shaving from too much vodka and speed, or he'll use the back of it to write the phone number of some hit man in Philly who can waste his ex-wife whose pushing the child-support issue whether or not he's employed. Or maybe he'll cuss me out for telling him he has protrusions, though he probably won't. I rarely get a tip.
This is just the window-dressing. When I really and truly want to get down to business, I have to get more than a picture, which is why I spend an hour a day walking down by the industrial zone, where I've found a total of seven bodies to this date and taken the necessary specimens where I can perform further necessary operations and procedures, in a safe environment away from industrial waste and smog where often times my operations and procedures can get muddled in the smog and random debris. When I really and truly want to get down to business I have to dislocate a head and try to map the cartographic layout of the cranium, which involves what Gall calls organology, or what other less brilliant (not to mention professional) phrenologists called head-reading, and this involves all kinds of gore and skillful skinnings, and gruesome processes, but which despite the gore and gruesome processes are worth it because now I have six complete cartographic layouts, and I am completing the seventh, and this is important work since purchasing another phrenologist's cartographic layouts, if possible at all, would involve thousands and thousands of dollars, which I don't have what with my toll booth work and my service station and all, which sometimes, for a nanosecond, makes me wonder if all of this is worth it, until I think again in the nanosecond directly following the first nanosecond and realize that, yes, it is worth it, and that yes, I am a writer who likes to skin people's heads and draw on them, which is what all of this comes down to, and then the third nanosecond comes and I realize that this is what I am meant to do, in my life, as my calling, and then I go back to the skull and look up at my mapped craniums on my cranium shelf, which I stabilized with some cinder blocks and bricks, and I see how those heads, which were formally useless are now useful to the world, and when this realization comes I smile very, very widely.
I hardly ever dream of anything but my projects, but last night I did. I had a dream that York came to me, and when York comes to me usually this means that something unexpected is going to happen, and when something unexpected happens this usually means that I'm going to be unhappy because unexpected usually equals bad. The dream started as one of my ordinary dreams: my latest cranium was talking to me and telling me all of its interesting facets and capacities--valour, disposition for coloring, sense for sounds, comparative perspicuity, theosophy--but then York came out of one of the protuberances in the area of mechanical skill (which in itself is strange since I thought if anything like that happened, it would happen in metaphysical perspicuity), and he was in the nude which is often how I saw York, and his penis and testicles made an elephant's face that did all the talking, since York's own head seemed lifeless and devoid of thought or energy. The elephant lifted its trunk and began speaking about how I would receive a visit from my sister, and that she missed me terribly and has been trying to contact me, since I was in an unknown place to her, and she was used to at least seeing me at dinner time when we were younger, and now she's pregnant with her second child who I haven't met, much less the first.
I thanked York for this helpful information, and then York turned into a bundle of thread and yarn, and he unwound himself slowly with the elephant trunk still in place. Meanwhile the elephant kept talking and talking and talking, and I can't remember what he was saying but it seemed important and I nodded, and when I nodded I woke up and then realized that I should go back to sleep to see if York unwound himself all the way, since I wanted to see what would happen to the elephant within that big pile of yarn. But I couldn't go back to sleep. Then I thought about how York was my last man-friend, and the fact that there were many more before him, before I became a writer and phrenologist, and before I left my parent's house and moved off to college, where I became celibate and refused to touch or be touched, but I don't often think of those times, and I don't intend on starting now, for better or worse.
Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce is one of the more formidable and noteworthy examples in the world of phrenology as a result of the wideness of his skull at the ear level (showing the trait of destructiveness and strong perceptive faculties), and the general slope of his brow. The American Indians as a people were known for their excellent orientation and tracking skills, which is often reflected in a strong development of locality, and in addition to their strong development of locality they often have a high degree of spirituality--all of this was present in Chief Joseph--and benevolence as well as a profound respect for nature. If he had the chance to see the skull of the famous chief, I assume Gall would find other more impressive characteristics present (even inventing more on a need-to basis) such as faculty for words and disposition for colouring, or sense for arithmetic and time (though this isn't known to be a primary trait of these peoples as far as I know), and I'm sure Gall would compare Chief Joseph's skull to that of his wax moulds and other human samples that he collected in much of the same manner as I do (though in a dramatically more tolerant society if I may say so), and if he had the chance Gall would use that technique of his for dissecting the brain from below following the medulla oblongata into the brain, and tracing out the fanning fibers of the brain stem, but he didn't because Franz the Second banned his lectures in 1801, and by all accounts was the indirect cause of the man's death. If I could dig up Gall's corpse I would try his own technique on him, and I'm sure I would find every trait in the book right in those fibers. If I had a million dollars I would buy Chief Joseph's skull and place it in a airtight translucent box of some undetermined material that wouldn't allow the skull to be touched or damaged in the slightest manner, and then I'd set it next to my samples to remind me of how far I must go to achieve the level of analysis that Gall and his disciples brought to their science, and then I suppose I'd put Gall's skull in there with Chief Joseph and let them keep each other company. It's pretty lonely when you're just an old shriveled skull.
My sister looks like any sister looks whether she's pregnant or not, and she even walks (or waddles) like anyone else walks or waddles, and this isn't to say my sister is a bad sister--she's not a bad sister; she's a good sister--but my sister has her own peculiar ways and/or means and these peculiar ways and/or means are more in the personality category than in the looks category, since she's pretty sisterly and womanly-looking with sisterly and womanly body parts and facial expressions and sisterly feet. But despite York's helpful prophecy, when I saw my sister at the tunnel, it was still unexpected. What happened was this: she drove right into my lane and fished around for her one dollar like everyone else, and couldn't see me anyway as a result of my hood and the tinted glass of her car and my booth, however, as soon as she looked up she nearly dropped her money on the ground, which would have meant that either her or me (and she was pregnant, so it would have been me) would have to stoop down next to the car to pick up the quarters from the spit-stained asphalt, which neither one of us would have relished, especially her since I'm sure she doesn't work in a job as down-and-out as this one.
After the near coin drop, the next reaction my sister had was to step out of her car and waddle over to me, where she offered me a long embrace in front of an aggravated gaggle of honking cars and headlights. She may have said niceties and pleasantries and additional words of kindness, but I was focused--honed-in you might say--on her belly, not what was in it but merely the shape of the belly, the roundness, the protuberance, which made me wonder how exactly a head-reading of a infant cranium would work, or if it would work since infants are part fish and chicken, or at least this is what I heard through pure hearsay. Then I said it: "Your stomach looks like a basketball." This made my sister react very strangely as she was hugging me and patting my hand and doing whatever sweet sisterly things she must have been doing at the time. I don't remember exactly what she said, but her forehead crinkled, and her brow browed, and the skin on her face warmed as if the sun was under her skin and rising above the horizon, which was the point at which I believe we became sisters again--not as if we weren't sisters before, but that as sisters we were more like not-sisters--and also the point at which she said something about something or other concerning the basketball. I was focused on the basketball at this point, however, and imagining the little baby basketball dribbling out from its basketball home and bouncing up and down the hospital making squealing, squeaking basketball sounds of joy.
I was finishing preparing number eight, which was my second female sample, and I was cleaning my warf saw and laying the sample on the workshop table below the other already mapped samples, when I heard a clicking sound out and about the service station, which disturbed and bothered me since clicking sounds certainly didn't come from inside the service station, and doubtfully came from outside unless it was a daw, or a caw, or a raven, or a crow, or a what-have-you type of bird. Luckily I do have a little peep-hole which I carved out of the plywood using an awl. I peered out of the little awl peep-hole only to see a woman with five or six scarves wrapped around her neck flicking nuts or seeds around the service station, walking in circles and hopping all at once. Her scarves were red and orange mostly, but also yellow with a nice thick texture which must have made them warm and cuddly in the winter, but this was July, and it was ninety six degrees again for the fifth straight day, so I wondered. I almost wanted to peak my head out and ask her if I could buy one of her scarves, and then I did peak my head out and ask her if I could buy one of her scarves--"purchase" is how I worded it to be more formal and polite instead of rude and crude like my tunnel patrons. However, the scarf woman didn't answer, but instead continued to circle around the service station spraying seeds or nuts (seeds, I think) here, there, and everywhere. This would bring the daws and caws, I thought, which is not exactly the sort of thing I wanted around my samples. The woman's eyes appeared to be going in two different directions, and her ears were caked in mud or blood (or molasses maybe if she had some sort of kitchen accident), but I think it was mud or blood, probably blood. But the eyes were a bit on the disconcerting side since one was off at thirty degrees and the other was closer to one fifty. Then the woman started singing this beautiful swaying song which was about how the devil will come to capture his own and the stealers of the dead will be redeemed, and how places that house the dead will burn on the redemption day, but it all sounded quite pleasant and bluesy, which I liked, and I clapped when she was through and thanked her even if she didn't hock me one of her scarves. Oh well.
I followed the scarf woman over and over again, waiting for her to drop to the ground. One must always do the legwork, even if he or she doesn't turn out to be a sample. One never knows.
Why female samples? I believe Broca is right--that the female species (and I do believe we are a different species) is inferior--or at least ancillary--to the male for a variety of reasons, mostly having to do with the cerebrum. Gall once wrote to one of his disciples: "The heads of the women are difficult to unravel." This is where I pick up; phrenology is the gateway to truth about womanhood.
The next day my sister came through the tunnel again. I don't know how she found my particular lane from the road, but she did, and when she did she gave me a nice long hug again and a package and she said that she didn't want me to open the package until I got home, and I said this was fine and dandy, and even though I wanted to open the package the whole time I was accepting crumpled dollar bills and clumps of change, I didn't because I didn't want to cause any trouble for my karma. She also said something about rescuing me, or something of the sort but I was thinking about my new sample and how complex it was especially considering it was at least a week old. At any rate, I placed the little package, which had a bow on top and was covered with goldish paper next to my sample. After four or five hours of working on my sample, carefully performing my secret mapping procedures and processes, I did open the package. As soon as I opened the box I saw a small black instrument that began to beep and flash a little blue light. I wasn't exactly sure what it was, but since I didn't own a radio and since it did make a rather nice regular sound I placed it next to my samples and continued to work to the gentle rhythm of the beeping and flashing. My sister is very thoughtful.
When the first gentleman with a gun entered the service station with his friends who also had similar shiny guns, I noticed right away that his nose was rather aquiline in arrangement, which usually indicates an absence of refinement, firmness, energy, and decision, which is why I wasn't afraid of his gun or general bearing, however the individual behind him had what is normally referred to as a cognitive nose, which indicates strong patterns of thought, and an individual given to close and serious meditation, and this gave me pause seeing as this is the sort of nose I have. Charlotte Bronte had a celestial nose in my opinion.
I tried to tell the men about my samples but their posture and gestures indicated to me they weren't really interested, though once they had me in their car they seemed intrigued about King Baudouin of the Belgians, especially how the relative narrowness of the head compared to his height revealed him to be a man lacking of vital energy compared to the development of his mind. One of the men asked what a protuberance is, and I showed him directly on his head, and he seemed intrigued and interested, not necessarily in that order.
I suppose I should tell you all about the capture and my current living situation, but it is rather clichéd all around, and not nearly as interesting as the fact that in the past week I have finished the sentence, which reads as follows: "I caress the woman's large head, ignoring the body beneath." This was accomplished on the floor of the place where they are keeping me now, with my finger on the dust. I am busy rearranging the dust just so--I have much more to do here. Especially since I am now stuck on the next sentence.