Ken Poyner

Needing the Spare Head

 

 

My wife cannot find my replacement head.  We have lived so long in this house that she has lost track of what closet shelf she had stuffed it on, or what large box it had been placed forgetfully inside of.  She does not know in what clothes basket or nick-knack tub she has placed it and into what gloomy corner of what spare room it has been pushed.

 

Storage within storage within storage.  A spare item secured so deeply that it might never be found, though it waits certainly within earshot.

 

Then again, perhaps it has been completely lost.  Perhaps it went out with the last batch to the thrift shop, or was set in a non-descript container on the curb some ordinary trash cycle and claimed by one of those salvage people who come about early morning -- their pickup trucks held together by rust while spitting and shaking from their last owner-operator ham-handed tune-up -- and sift through richer people’s trash looking for what should never have been thrown away, but instead treasured and set aside just in case one day it could grow into some practical, non-feral use.

 

I can imagine my spare head being twisted and turned, the price being gauged at the thrift shop, or the amount of dust and wear being assessed at curbside.  A rare find for someone. Something they had to push through over-stretched spandex and spotted bras to find; or lift the lids off of buried containers within containers and push back socks split apart for rags, to gleefully uncover.

 

I am sure, when they discovered the mistakenly hidden head, they looked deeply into my alternative eyes, looking for connection, looking to see if the light still penetrated and the optic nerve still sputtered.  They pulled my hair, to make sure it was well affixed. They rattled my cheeks and tapped my teeth. They traced the edges of my ears - and I would have smiled, thinking, please, bend close to blow out the dust, or whisper obscenities to see if I can hear them and repeat.  My tongue would have become moist and wriggled itself diligently into the practice of directed activity, trying to come alive as though it were no longer just a spare, just my spare, but instead were a commodity now on its own.

 

But I still have my first head, so it would have been just a waiting spare.  No matter the thoughtfulness of the potential purchaser. No matter the oracle of discovery in the salver’s breath at his lucky find.  My head intact and connected, and the object at hand an uninitialized, un-sparked spare.

 

Nonetheless, it would have enjoyed the flint of excitement gagging in the air.  The spare head would have felt oddly nerved by the tilting and inspection and twisting.  My spare would be making choices. I would be making choices. It would have enjoyed, leaving with its new master, riding in the front seat, vice being ferried in the trunk.  I would have preferred the front seat. It would have preferred to sit in the young lady’s lap, snug in the meeting of abdomen and legs and the soft V of impertinent possibilities -- vice being rolled about in the lap of young boys, the latest popular song beat being tapped out on my forehead.

 

I would know nothing of this.  If its new owner took it to the Caribbean and paraded before it in the skimpiest of bikinis, or made love to a spouse or stranger on the beach beside the table where my spare head were left as a curio, or as inexact insurance, I would not know.  I would not be rapt at an honorable fellatio performed for the price of the drinks, or simply the joy of some feral uncommitted connection. I would not see with that set of my eyes: I have my current head to work with. I only need the spare in case this first one goes on the blink; if this primary one needs to be left at the surgeon’s; or finds itself unable to keep up with the daily duties the body asks of it and it dismally calls out for rest and replacement.

 

My spare head would pass its days entirely without my knowledge of the lovely, short-barreled adventures it was finding itself carted into.  It would run my tongue along my lips and I would know nothing of it; I would not appreciate what it felt or wanted or imagined, or the adventures that brushed against its nose.  Every day the experiences of my spare head would grow less to be my own and more its own, a separate knowledge: with the idea of my spare head being a spare, and not an entity unto itself, growing smaller and smaller, the thought that to be me it must be with me ever more a distant tautology chasing its own tail.  Its dis-connectivity would suddenly become apparent, its inability to act on its own self-will ever more apparent and frustrating, its likelihood of acting on my behalf receding like the smell of sex after the drinks have been paid for and the idea of dinner begins to loom in the belly. It would begin to wish for my arms and legs and the swallowing I can do; it would begin to wish drearily to be able to share its blood with an erection, to breathe with a purpose, to relieve itself and have the hot smell of its urine sting the air like the sashay of a private dancer under an envious public’s spotlight.

 

Poor head.  I will try to need you more often.  I will ask the wife to look again. There are closets that have not been inconvenienced enough.  I will look with her: turning over the throw rugs that do not fit in this house, but may in the next; humbling grandmother’s handmade afghan, the one far too fine and proper to throw across the furniture families like ours gather; pushing through the collection of camp tins and pots and utensils these years saved for their memories alone, some not yet out of their purchase packaging; unstack stacks and stacks of pants too small; call into boxes where the dark has gathered at the bottom thick and deserving and trashy with indentured light, hiding the next batch of items to be thrown away.

 

And if we cannot find you at home, we will retrace what might have happened, what store you might have been sent to, what weekend you may have been put out with all the other unfortunates caught in the sudden winds of spring cleaning.  We will get the license plates of the salvers who come through when the morning is just being cracked open and there is so much for them to believe worthwhile. We will trace and track and interview and describe and ask if they have seen a head just like the one before them now, but without a connection to shoulders, or anything existing below.

 

When we find you, no more of this waiting at the back of the closet.  No more of this being but a spare, a contingency, a replacement with no value other than to service exactly as others have serviced.  I will share, I promise. One week one head, one week the other. Spare will no longer be a term of dismal description. Spare will no longer mean:  wait.

 

Our wife will kiss us both first thing every morning.  There will be no difference. One week, this one will be with the body; next week the other.  No one will tell us apart. I am preparing a list of what has happened so far. You will know everything.  And, when we at last get you home, you will regale me with the long, lengthy, lurid tales of your recent short, untraced gallery of limitless freedom.  I will be amazed. I will rock back and forth like a child in hearing all you have imagined but could not, cherished spare, have done. I swear to you I will.